Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/86

42 THE WINTER TROUBLES. CHAP, any husiness entrusted to it, each office exerted III. . . such powers as it happened to have of its own ; and for what remained of the task, addressed ' requisitions ' or less formal requests to some other department of State. Thus, for instance, if it were the will of the Government that their general commanding in the Held should under- take a hostile operation, the Secretary of State for War could himself give the needed instruc- tion by means of a simple despatch ; hut, wlien- ever the object was to do acts of war adminis- tration — such, for instance, as sending out troops with guns, cartridges, clothing, provisions — the War Minister (being armed with no machinery of his own that could be used for such purposes) had to shoot off a set of ' requisitions ; ' one to the Horse Guards for cavalry and infantry ; a double one to the Ordnance for not only ar- tillery and engineers, but also for equipments and munitions of war ; one, again, to the Admir- alty for shipping to carry our men over sea ; and, finally, one to the Treasury enjoining the execution of measures for ensuring all the needed supplies, and the requisite means of land- transport. And it was not by the one single shower of a War Minister's ' requisitions ' that the whole of the work required could always be j)Ut in train ; for the offices which received these appeals were, some of them, so circumstanced that they could not achieve the whole business committed to them by their own inherent power, and therefore (whilst performing themselves such