his object, he might easily have hurt us more by a more studied affectation of frankness. We do not believe that he had any intention of traducing the English. His book is merely the efflorescence of a foolish vanity, which closed his eyes to the achievements of all but his own countrymen, and made him believe, or at least easily persuade himself, that if he occupied himself about French affairs exclusively, he was occupied with all that any sensible man could care about, and might be considered to be virtually writing all that was important in the Crimean expedition.

His apologists say that he never professed to do anything more, that he went to write the history of the French portion of the expedition, and that he has confined himself to describing what alone he could be sure of, as he had no means, and did not pretend to have any, of making himself acquainted with what hap pened in the English camp. It is convenient to find out that such were his original intentions, and such the plan on which he acted. But how was any one to know that he did not propose to write the history of the whole expedition? He calls his work the history of the expedition, not of the French portion of the expedition, and he mentions the English as if he considered it his business to write about them. Let us put a parallel case. Suppose Sir George Grey had sent out Sir William Napier to write the history of the war; that it was known the Peninsular historian had passed five months in the Crimea, and had since had a year to arrange his materials; that he obtained permission from the Government to publish what he had written, and dedicated his book to Lord Panmure ;-suppose in this work, purporting in its title to be a history of the whole Crimean war, he made Lord Raglan the great man of the expedition, and represented St. Arnaud as a mere accessory to Lord Raglan's greatness; suppose that, in relating the battles of the Alma and Inkermann, he were to follow the course of every English regiment, and dismiss the French share in these actions, by saying that they displayed their accustomed impe

tuosity, but that it was very lucky for them that they had the English there to do all the real work; sup posing the whole space allotted to the achievements of the French between April and September of last year was two or three scanty pages, while a volume scarcely suf ficed for a narrative of the fortunes of the English,-would not this have seemed a most unworthy affront put upon France by our Government, and should we not have expected Frenchmen to be indignant?

It is perfectly evident that M. de Bazancourt has only been repu diated by his Government, and his original intentions have only been found to lie within a narrow compass by his apologists, because Englishmen have shown that they would not acquiesce in such a gross misrepresentation and caricature of history going forth to the world with the stamp of authoritative approval. And we think that it is still necessary to protest very strongly against the errors (to use a mild term) of M. de Bazancourt's book; for errors, unless they meet with an immediate and decisive exposure, soon pass into the rank of accepted facts, and when once received into popular belief are not easily dispelled. We waited until M. de Bazancourt's book was concluded before we noticed it, feeling that we could not judge it rightly until we had all before us. The second volume might have redeemed the first, and the inaccuracies of the account up to the death of St. Arnaud might have been attributed to the writer's honest but mistaken enthusiasm for that general. But now that we see before us what M. de Bazancourt conceives a satisfactory and full account of the whole expedition, we can have the satisfaction of saying how entirely we disagree with him.

Any one who wishes to judge M. de Bazancourt's History fairly, should read attentively his previous work, published under the title of Cing Mois au Camp devant Sebastopol, and consisting of a series of letters addressed by him, while residing in the Crimea, to the Minister of the Interior. M. de Bazancourt passed five months in the French camp at the beginning of last year, and thus

1856.]

acquired some knowledge of the topography of the siege, and of the nature of the operations. He also made acquaintance with many French officers, and picked up information from them with great assiduity. He lived with an officer commanding in the French trenches, allowed balls to whistle by or near him without flinching, and thus saw the great spectacle to some advantage-as he expresses it, J'etais aux premières loges.' In fact, he occupied as nearly as possible the position of the correspondent of a feading journal. He was in the French army what Mr. Russell and his companions were in the English. He picked up whatever he could in the course of conversation, and jotted it down for future use. J'écoute tout ce que l'on dit,' he says, frankly enough; j'écris tout ce que j'écoute.' He gossiped about the Alma and Inkermann; he talked military talk with his military friends. The great men knew he was to write the history of the war, and naturally wished to stand well in his opinion. J'espère,' said General Niel to him,- J'espère que vous écrivez de belles pages sur mes soldats.' He learnt to know and take interest in the doings of many French regiments, and had, we have no doubt, as agreeable and instructive a time as a civilian could expect to have in that dreary winter. But he knew no more of the English army than he might have done if he had stayed in Paris; not half so much, probably, for then he might have read the English papers. He seems to have mixed with, or rather looked at, the English on two occasions, once when he attended some races, and once when he was present at a review. In reference to the latter occasion he penned the following paragraph, showing great gallantry and love of the beautiful, but not indicating much anxiety to consider the English in a military point of view:

The picturesque and poetical side of the scene was the presence of Lord Raglan on the left of General Canrobert, and on his right Lord Radcliffe, the ambassador of Her Britannic Majesty at Constantinople. Next him was Lady Radcliffe, on horseback; and in a carriage and pair were Miss Radcliffe and the wife of an English cavalry officer,—

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a young lady with a pale complex CHIGAN and black eyes, smiling sweetly in midst of this warlike pageant, and seeming, as she lay back in easy repose, not even to hear the cannon which thundered so near her, A lady's face is like a sunbeam here.

These charming ladies, a few sporting officers, and a fixed notion that Lord Raglan was, generally speaking, in the way, and wanted putting down, make up the English part of M. de Bazancourt's book. How should he know any more? Did Mr. Russell know anything about the French camp? and how could the most ingenious French writer ascertain the circumstances of the English army, and catch the drift of Lord Raglan's military policy, by simply dining daily with a few French officers? He knew nothing about the English, and he cared nothing; they were as little to him as the Turks were,-as little as an inhabitant of London is to his next-door neighbour, or the occupant of an opera-box is to the occupant of an adjoining box. The way in which he lived while in the Crimea quite explains why the mention of the English is so slight in his History, and how his account of the actions fought by the Allies reads like a gossiping story told at the mess-table of a French regiment. But his ignorance, however natural, is no excuse for the injustice with which he treats the English in a work written with as much leisure as he chose to allow himself,-written in Europe, claiming to speak with. the voice of history, and to bear the prestige of official recognition.

Besides noticing how slight was M. de Bazancourt's acquaintance with the English portion of the expeditionary force, the reader of the Letters from the Camp may also study with advantage, as a guide to his estimate of the history, the style and general character of these epistles. M. de Bazancourt prides himself on his patriotic enthusiasm, and disavows anything like the coldness of a disinterested spectator. He writes in the grand style which the masters of modern French fiction have made familiar to us, and in many passages we might think we had fallen into the hands of Eugène Sue or Alexandre Dumas.

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He describes, for instance, his voyage to the Crimea, and mentions that he touched at Athens. He feels that he must rise to the occasion, and he excites our wonder and admiration by the following simple artifice of style:- A une heure,' he says, nous touchâmes au Pirée, -le Pirée, c'est Athenes,-Athenes, c'est le souvenir de notre enfance.' His fine language never fails him; he is always working off some ingenious explosion of sublime writing for the benefit of his friend the Minister of the Interior. 'Believe me,' he says, speaking of the siege, it is a work of giants, which can only be executed by hearts of brass; which must have seemed a very necessary and unostentatious assurance in what pur ports to be a private letter. gives us the most telling and interesting little touches, which heighten the effect of his description in a wonderful way. He wishes to describe the dreadful roar of artillery that preceded an attack, and he paints Lord Radcliffe (as he calls him) listening to it, seized with terror, and exclaiming 'Mon Dieu!' which is, it must be allowed, a considerable stroke of art. We are invited, throughout the book, to assist as at a theatrical entertainment, and are asked repeatedly to notice that the scene is worthy of the drama, and the drama of the scene. We, perhaps, in England should not consider this exactly the temper of a historian: but they do these things-shall we say better (?) -in France.

He

With the light gained from reading this preliminary work, we will now turn to the History itself. And in doing so, we must acknowledge the pleasure we have derived from reading the Campaign of Sebastopol, by Colonel Hamley, who writes unaffectedly, but with great clearness and life, such a story_of the expedition as the reader of M. de Bazancourt's book wants to have at hand. He puts the case of the English fairly, temperately, but without foolish reticence or mock modesty. The consequence of having a free press in England was that the worst that could be said of the army was said, and freely said, by those who had the ear of the public; and

their statements were circulated over the Continent. It would have been impossible in England that the defects of our military system and the sufferings of our army should have been hushed up. What we lose by such openness in prestige with foreign nations, is abundantly repaid by the healthy conflict of public opinion which is the lifeblood of free governments, and which cannot exist where a veil of mystery shelters the faults of ministers and the disasters of the nation. But we know nothing of the sufferings through which the French army passed; all its misfortunes were shrouded in a discreet secrecy; and we are therefore doubly anxious that French writers, who are not permitted to say anything to the dispraise of France, should be made to adhere to rigid truth when they speak to the dispraise of England.

We open the work and begin with the landing of the allies, and the anxious councils held to discuss the movements made necessary by the threatened fall of Silistria. There is an air of untruth about the whole narrative, and especially a constant depreciation of Lord Raglan. M. de Bazancourt determined, honestly probably, that it was his duty to make St. Arnaud a hero, and he writes as if St. Arnaud were a great conqueror and Lord Raglan a raw ensign. The Marshal plans, and the Marshal orders, and the Marshal explains everything to everybody. When Silistria was expected to fall daily, and Shumla was threatened, Lord Raglan and Marshal St. Arnaud made a hasty expedition to inspect personally the scene of the war and the position of the Turks. On returning, St. Arnaud communicated with the Sultan. In the grand language of M. de Bazancourt, The Marshal rendered an account of what he had seen at Varna and at Shumla. There were none of those vague observations-uncertain, irresolute, and timid-to which the Sultan had been so long accustomed. The language of the Marshal is rapid and trenchant.' The Sultan had received for years past visit upon visit from Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, and had never hinted that he found that amiable diplomatist's observations either vague or timid. Perhaps M.

de Bazancourt forgot the Lord Radcliffe who figured so strangely in his letters. St. Arnaud produced a great effect. It was, we are told, a sudden awakening from a traditional torpor an electric flash, which galvanised, for a moment, the Sultan and his ministers. The next sentence we believe to be merely a poetical fiction. 'Orders,' M. de Bazancourt says, 'were immediately given that the resources of the empire should thenceforward be always at the disposal of the Marshal.' If the Sultan had ever given such an absurd order, we feel sure that Lord Stratford would have dropped in for a morning call, within an hour's time.

It is necessary, however, to account for the indisputable fact that St. Arnaud did not do much to save Silistria. And his panegyrist frankly admits that there was one thing which the conqueror had forgotten; he had forgotten the difficulties of navigation. It had not occurred to him that to transport a large force in sailing vessels across the waters of the Euxine during the uncertain winds and weather of spring was a work of some trouble and time. 'Hope,' our author remarks, 'is often a bad logician.' We should have expected a great general to calculate, not to hope. M. de Bazancourt, however, soon sees an opening to restore the balance of praise to St. Arnaud. The Marshal sent eleven steamers to gather the numerous ships detained by the contrary winds and scattered apart from each other; and we have the following commendatory reflection appended to the statement of this incident. The Marshal had hit upon the most difficult point of the expedition-the inevitable scattering of the transports;' as if it was a work of unusual foresight, and required the quick perception of genius, to find out that when ships were scattered it was advisable to collect them together.

The pompous and unmeaning remarks which are put into the mouth of St. Arnaud, and the thoughts and wishes attributed to him, are hardly credible, they are so childish and weak. We are told that the Marshal' would have liked to enchain the waves, and restrain

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the fatal breath of contrary winds: he would have wished to see numer ous vessels throw at the same time upon the shore new divisions perfectly armed.' We might as well be told that the great man wished that regiments should spring out of bul locks' carcases. If St. Arnaud ever uttered such wishes, which we see no reason to believe, he was of a much more puerile character than was generally supposed. Even these wishes, however, would have been sensible in comparison with an opinion to which he is said to have given utterance, if he said it with the oracular solemnity with which it is introduced by M. de Bazancourt. 'France and England,' said St. Arnaud, will be driven by the mere course of events to the inevitable necessity of successively augmenting the army in the East." In all probability, all that M. de Bazancourt knew, and all that he really means to say, is that St. Arnaud thought the allied forces must be increased to produce any great results; a very obvious and very simple thought, but affording slender material for the melodramatic fictions of the historian. It is, therefore, dressed up, and though the instance is a trifling

one,

it yet shows what is the style of dressing employed by M. de Bazancourt.

The leading features of Marshal St. Arnaud's character are transparent on the face of every docu ment written by him. He was a brave enthusiastic general, excitable by nature, and with his excitability heightened by disease,—a man fond of speaking of himself,-vain and overbearing, but with fine and generous qualities that made him many friends. What we have to complain of in all that portion of M. de Bazancourt's history which relates to events previous to St. Arnaud's death is that he makes no attempt to rectify the impression which would probably be gained from reading only what St. Arnaud wrote and said. Perhaps in the despatches of a commander-in-chief to his own government we may expect to find that he speaks of him. self and his own troops as the only important part of an allied force; but a historian should not adopt this language, and should balance