Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/219

PRECEDING THE INVASION. 189 passed out of the Embassy gate his enterprise was c f i a p. virtually abandoned. Some good perhaps resulted from the attempt ms^cheme to bring the Ottoman army under French com- mand. Of all the faults tending to impair the value of Lord Raglan's advice to the Home Government, there was none more grave than his want of power to appreciate warlike people be- lonwinjj to an earlier state of civilisation than that to which he had been accustomed in his later years; and although nothing could ever soften his antipathy towards Turkish Irregulars of all kinds, and especially to the Bashi-Bazouks, he was by this incident drawn more than ever towards the Turkish Generalissimo, and he al- ways thenceforth did his best to defeat any plan which tended to narrow the sphere of the Pasha's authority. So great was the elasticity of Marshal St niasc^iieme Arnaud's mind, that, far from remaining cast tiiecom- down under the discomfiture which he had under- English troops. gone, he very soon entered upon a scheme yet more ambitious than the first. It seems he had become possessed with the idea that great achieve- ments were within his reach, if only he could add to the powers which he already wielded the occasional command of English troops. He pro- posed that, when French and English troops were acting together, the senior offictir, whether he chanced to be French or English, should take the command of the joint force ; and although this proposal was so expressed that it might be re-