" Cases somewhat similar are not wanting in other regiments. Right or wrong, had this war gone on, the purchase system was doomed. General Orders were crowded with notices that Captain So-and-So, having done the duty of field officer, that Lieutenant Such-a-One, having acted as Captain, and that Sergeant- Major Nobody, having acted as quartermaster of his regiment from such a date, would draw pay and allowances accordingly. War pushed our system horribly out of shape, and gave its delicate frame such squeezes, and deranged it so terribly, that its dearest friends scarcely knew it when we carried it home. Some of the young and intelligent officers on the Staff did not hesitate to express a hearty wish for the abolition of the system. To the French it was utterly incomprehensible, and it is a fixed idea in the mind of Private Jean Francois Marie that General Codrington paid enormous sums for the honour of commanding the army — otherwise he cannot understand it."
CHAPTER Vt
Proclamation of Peace — Preparations for the Evacuation — Review of the Struggle — What might have been done — Russian Song on the Incidents of the War — Excursions into the Interior of the Crimea — Defences on the North Side of Sebastopol — Resources of the Country — Tour in the Interior — Crimean Flora — A real Obstacle — Useful Public Works executed by the Party — Various Adventures — Return to Camp.
At two o'clock p.m. on Wednesday, the 2nd of April, proclamation of peace was made to the Allied armies by salutes of 101 guns, fired by the field batteries of the Light and Second Divisions, from the heights over the plain of Balaklava; by the French batteries at the Quartier Generale; by the Sardinian redoubts at Fedukhine; and by the men-of-war at Kamiesch and Kazatch; but an early General Order and a very widely- spead rumour had diffused the intelligence among officers and men long before the cannon exultingly announced it by their thundering voices.
The news was known at Balaklava by eight o'clock a.m., and the Leander, Captain Rice, bearing the flag of Admiral Fremantle, "dressed," and the merchant shipping followed her example, by order, so that the harbour presented a gayer scene than human eye ever witnessed since it was first discovered by some most investigating, shore-hugging, and fissure-pursuing navigator. It was a fine day — at least it appeared so by contrast with its recent predecessors,— and the effect of the firing from so many points, all of which were visible from the heights of the plateau near the Woronzoff Road, was very fine. The enemy saw the smoke and heard the
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roar of our guns, but they maintained a stern and gloomy silence. One would have thought that they, above all, would have shown some signs of satisfaction at the peace which they sought, and which they had made such sacrifices to obtain, while no one would have wondered if the batteries of the English and Sardinians expressed no opinion on the subject. However, there was not a Russian shot fired or flag hoisted from Fort Constantine to Mackenzie, nor, although we had ceased to be enemies, did any increase in our intimacy take place.
The preparations for the evacuation of the Crimea were now pressed on with rapidity and energy. Each division collected about 4,000 shot a-day from the iron-studded ravines and grounds in front of our camp, and they were carried to Balaklava as fast as the means at our disposal — railway and land transport — permitted. Our soldiers were about to leave the scene of their sufferings and of their glory. Alas! how many of those who landed lie there till the judgment-day! Who can tell how many lives were wasted which ought to have been saved to the country, to friends, to an honoured old age? These questions may never be answered, least of all were they answered at Chelsea Hospital. Heaven lets loose all its plagues on those who delight in war, and on those who shed men's blood, even in the holiest causes. The pestilence by day and night, deadly fever, cholera, dj^sentery, strategical errors, incompetence and apathy of chieftains, culpable inactivity, fatal audacity— all these follow in the train of armies, and kill more than bullet or sword. But war has its rules. The bloody profession by the skilful exercise of which liberty is achieved or crushed — by which States are saved or annihilated, has certain fixed principles for its guidance; and the homoeopathic practitioner in the art, the quack, the charlatan, or the noble amateur, will soon be detected and overwhelmed in the horrors of defeat and ruin. Perhaps on no occasion was the neglect of the course of regular practice so severely punished, even although in the end the object was gained, as in the siege of Sebastopol.