The press upheld the Ministry in its efforts to remedy the effects of an unwise and unreasoning parsimony, prepared the public mind for the subversion of an effete system, encouraged the nation in the moment of depression by recitals of the deeds of our countrymen, elevated the condition and self-respect of the soldiery, and whilst celebrating with myriad tongues the feats of the combatants in the ranks, with all the fire of Tyrtoeus, but with greater power and happier results, denounced the men responsible for huge disasters
— " told the truth and feared not" — carried the people to the battlefield— placed them beside their bleeding comrades — spoke of fame to the dying and of hope to those who lived — and by its magic power spanned great seas and continents, and bade England and her army in the Crimea endnre, fight, and conquer together.
The army saved, resuscitated, and raised to a place which it never occupied till recently in the estimation of the country, has much for which to thank the press. Had its deeds and sufferings never been known except through the medium of frigid dispatches, it would have stood in a very different position this day, not only abroad but at home. But gratitude is not a virtue of corporations. It is rare enough to find it in individuals; and, although the press has permission to exhaust laudation and flattery, its censure is resented as impertinence. From the departure of our first battalions till the close of the war, there were occasions on which the shortcomings of great departments and the inefficiency of extemporary arrangements were exposed beyond denial or explanation; and if the optimist is satisfied they were the inevitable consequences of all human organization, the mass of mankind will seek to provide against their recurrence and to obviate their results. With all their hopes, the people at the outset were little prepared for the costs and disasters of war. They fondly believed they were a military power, because they possessed invincible battalions of brave men, officered by gallant, high-spirited gentlemen, who, for the most part, regarded with dislike the calling, and disdained the knowledge, of the mere " professional " soldier. There were no reserves to take the place of those dauntless legions which melted in the crucible of battle, and left a void which time alone could fill. When the Guards * left London, on 22nd February, 1854, those who saw them march off to the railway station, unaccustomed to the sight of large bodies of men, and impressed by the bearing of those stalwart soldiers, might be pardoned if they supposed the household troops could encounter a world in arms. As they were the first British regiments which left England for the East, as they bore a grand part worthy of their name in the earlier, most trying, and most glorious pericd of our struggles, their voyage possesses a certain interest which entitles it to be retained in this revised history; and with some few alterations, it is presented to the reader.
Their cheers — re-echoed from Alma and Inkerman — bear now a glorious significance, the " morituri te salutant" of devoted soldiers addressed to their sorrowing country.
" They will never go farther than Malta! " — Such was the general feeling and expression at the time. It was supposed that the very news of their arrival in Malta would check the hordes of Russia, and shake the iron will which broke ere it would bend. To that march, in less than one year, there was a terrible antithesis. A handful of weary men — wasted and worn and ragged — crept slowly down from the plateau of Inkerman where their comrades lay thick
* The 3rd Battalion Grenadier Gfuards, and 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards. The 1st Battalion Scots Fusilier Guards embarked on February 28th.
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in frequent graves, and sought the cheerless shelter of the hills of Balaklava. They had fought and had sickened and died till that proud brigade had nearly ceased to exist.
The swarm of red-coats which after a day of marching, of excitement, of leave-taking, and cheering, buzzed over the Orinoco, JRipon, Manilla, in Southampton Docks, was hived at last in hammock or blanket, while the vessels rode quietly in the waters of the Solent. Fourteen inches is man-of-war allowance, but eighteen inches were allowed for the Guards. On the following morning, February 23rd, the steamers weighed and sailed. The Ripon was off by 7 o'clock a.m., followed by the Manilla and the Orinoco. They were soon bowling along with a fresh N.W. breeze in the channel.