Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/107

A RETROSPECTIVE ENQUIRY. 63 length, after nearly seventeen years of land- chap. service fighting, which, however magnificent, was 1_ too often a fighting in vain, there came on a mighty change. That wild, impetuous England which in 1793 had flown at the throat of the enemy with her then utmost hundreds of men, was now in 1809 a great military Power — a Power indeed still baffled by unskilfulness and defective institutions, but not by want of troops. From superbly ' improvident ' nuptials adven- tured in earlier years there had long been de- scending so rapid, so full a stream of recruits that, as always before in quality, so also at last in numbers, our army by this time was strong (^^) — was strong enough, some have beheved — if only it could be wielded with skill — to govern great issues in Europe, nay, to govern them in that very year — the year of the Wagram cam- paign.(i^) Moreover, after a while, England — guided in the way we shall see — found means to conduct war more ably than in earlier years ; and whoever condemns the old labyrinth of our Army administration as existing at the com- mencement of 1854 may receive some such challenge as the one already supposed, and be asked to say how it was that, with that same official machinery, ' or machinery apparently ' similar, she during more than two years stood ' single-handed in conflict with the mighty Na- ' poleon, maintained her ascendant against him, ' and at length, when the prostrate nations of ' the Continent had risen once more to their ' feet, took that signal part in delivering Europe