Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/507

APPENDIX. 463 constantly occupied, and though, as the sick increased, and the number of men in the ranks diminished, the force in the trenches was deci'eased, yet it was impossible, without abandoning the enterprise, and placing the army in extreme danger, to release the troops from the obligation of performing this harassing duty ; and, I believe, I incuri'ed some risk in allowing the working and covering parties to be so reduced. Whilst the divisions on the ridge were so engaged, the force left in the valley was busily employed in the throwing up works of defence, and furnishing fatigue parties for Balaclava ; and I can distmctly assert that there was no British soldier who had not as much as he could and more than he ought under ordinary circumstances to have been called upon to do. ' The bad weather commenced about the 10th November, and has continued ever since. A winter campaign is under no circumstances child's play ; but here, where the troops had no cantonments to take shelter in, where large bodies were col- lected in one spot, and where the want of sufficient fuel soon made itself felt, it told with the greatest severity upon the health, not of the British alone, but of the French and Turkish troops. ' I sent the Duke of Newcastle a paper upon this climate on the 23d of October, and in that document will be found the statement of a gentleman who had resided in the Crimea thirteen years, that the inhabitants, as well as the Russian troops, are obliged to take evei-y precaution for the preservation of their lives in the severe mouths of the winter ; and I, quoting his opinion in my letter of the 23d of October, state that "our " troops could not during that period remain under canvas, " even with great and constant fii-es ; and the country hardly " produces wood enough to cook men's food." ' To the severity of the winter the whole army can bear ample testimony. The troops have felt it in all its intensity ; and when it is considered that they have been under canvas from ten to twelve months — that they had no other shelter from the sun in summer, and no other protection from wet and snow, cold and tempestuous winds, such as have scarcely been known even in this climate, in winter — and that they passed from a life of total inactivity, already assailed by deadly disease, to one of the greatest possible exertion, — it cannot be a matter of sur- prise that a fearful sickness has prevailed throughout their ranks, and that the men still suffer from it, although I may venture to feel some confidence in a somewhat less degree. What I have above stated did not check the eagerness of her Majesty's Government for the expedition. So far from it, indeed some impatience was expressed that, when I wrote to the Muiister of War on the 14th August, I was not enabled to