* The ascent of the Bug or the Dnieper is only to he attempted hy vessels with shot-proof screens and proof decks, inasmuch as every man could be picked off the decks by Minie riflemen, unless the banks of the river were cleared by troops in numbers sufficient to beat back the enemy as they advanced. In spite of our operations in the Sea of Azoff, let it be remembered that we did not reduce Arabat or Genitchi, and that the Russians had free use of the Spit. The water of the sea is frozen in winter to the distance of several miles, so that no boat can approach to prevent the passage of troops or convoys. Had Arabat fallen, and an expedition landed at Kaffa or Theodosia, we should have been masters of the Peninsula of Kertch.
The want of wisdom and foresight of most of our military operations in burning, laying waste, and blowing up, was never better exemplified than at Kertch. There was a very fine barrack near the quarantine station, on the Bay of Kertch, recently built, provided with every comfort, and well supplied with water from a deep well, and with capacious tanks. In the ordinary exercise of reason these buildings should have been preserved, inasmuch as it had been determined to keep a British force at Kertch; but, before Sir George* Brown left, they were burnt and reduced to a heap of blackened ruins. During the following winter, with infinite labour and trouble, and at prodigious expense, we were obliged to send the materials for huts to Kertch, and drag them up close to the site of the barracks, where they formed a very poor pro* tection against the weather in comparison with the substantial buildings which we destroyed. As the tanks were ruined and the well spoiled, the men were compelled to drag water a distance of three miles to their new residence.
CRIMEA.
Three military and three naval French officers, who went out shooting on the Spit a few days after the sailing of the ships for Kamiesch, were picked up and made prisoners by these lynx-eyed gentry. They surrounded our gallant Allies under cover of a fog, and then lured them one after another into their snares, by shouting in French, and discharging their carbines. They literally used snares, for they had ropes all ready for each man as they caught him, and to bind him if he resisted or tried to give the alarm to his comrades.
CHAPTER V.
Promotions— Peaceful Toils — Improvements — Memorandum of October 15th — Expedition to Eupatoria countermanded — Intelligence by Telegraph — State of Affairs in Sebastopol — Want of Proper System and Organization — French Review — Extract from Divisional Orders.
During the progress of the Kinburn Expedition, General Orders announced the promotion of Colonel Windham to the rank of Major-General " for distinguished services in the field," and his appointment to the jommand of the Fourth Division, with which he served as Assistant- Quarter master- General until he was named to the command of that Brigade of the Second Division, at the head of which he fought on the 8th September.
Lord William Paulet assumed the command of the 2nd Brigade of the Fourth Division, and occupied General Bentinck's old quarters on Cathcart's Hill.
The camp before Sebastopol, into which Russian projectiles not unfrequently obtruded, was nevertheless tranquil and laborious, as some new settlement in Australian bush or America's backwoods. The Russians continued to pound away at intervals at the ruins of the town they had been forced to abandon. They did little harm to us, and might as well have saved the ammunition, which they often condescended to expend even on a single soldier, wandering among the broken walls or across the plain. Our old friend Bilboquet, long silent, now opened his mouth, and sent shot at the works by Traktir Bridge, or at anything he saw moving in the valley below his muzzles. The English army, convinced that it was to winter in camp, set seriously to work to guard against the effects of weather from which it suffered so grievously, and to make itself as comfortable as possible. Hutting and road-making were the occupations of the hour, and rapid progress was made in both. Strong wooden huts sprang up on every side, and here and there a solid stone dwelling was in course of construction.