WHEN ABANDONED BY TIIK ARMY. 163 had been scantily provided with skilled officers chap. in the higher grades ; * and when it happened on ^^' the day of the Alma that out of the number who Siuf were competent a large proportion was killed or ["r Pdnce disabled, and that of the officers of rank not thus K'conl stricken down some at least were in great measure ^^'^^' shorn of their due authority by the comments and the blame and the recriminations which too often follow defeat, it resulted that, for the time, the army was much out of gear f — nay, was hardly, I think, in a state to be manoeuvred in sight of the enemy, still less to be brought into action ; and although the full stress of tliis want of officers was perhaps so imperfectly felt by Prince Ment- schikoff, whilst still he remained in Sebastopol, that he thought he could safely promise to operate with effect upon the flank and rear of the Allies, yet what seems probable is, that the discovery of the weakness of his army in point of officers was afterwards so cogently forced upon the Prince by the incidents of the march (as, for instance, by the failure of the manoeuvre entrusted to Kiria- koff, no less than by the sudden encounter with the English at Mackenzie's Farm) as to make him think it a duty to withhold his army, for a time, from the sight of the enemy's outposts. At all events, there is no sound reason for believing that the spirit of the soldiery drooped ; and unless my
- Amongst the other wants of this kind there was that of a
sufficing Headquarters Stall". + It may be observed that up to this juiiiit in the sentence I spiak with certainty. 1 do so on good authority.
