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Notes of Reference to be appended.

In Vol. I., append to the word 'Czar,' in p. 188, to the word 'Sinope' in p. 478, and to the word 'her,' in p. 480, a reference to the Note in the Appendix entitled 'Note respecting the "Te Deum" for Sinope.'

In the same volume, at p. 379, append to the statement of Lord Palmerston's resignation in the December of 1853 (for the accuracy of this statement has been questioned), a reference to the debates of the following session of Parliament (Hansard, vol. excvi., pp. 93-4), in which, after speaking of the resignation of Lord Palmerston, and calling it 'the resignation of my noble friend the Secretary of the Home Department,' Lord Aberdeen, the then Prime Minister, went on to say, 'I 'myself informed Her Majesty of the resignation at Osborne.'

In Vol. II., p. 215, append to the word 'Bulganak,' at the foot of the page, a reference to the Note No. III. contained in the Appendix, p. 522.

In the same volume, and at the page (p. 168) where there appears a statement of the placing of the buoy by the French in the night between the 13th and 14th of September (for this too has been questioned), append a reference to Lord Raglan's written narrative of the transaction, now given in the Appendix, p. 522.

Direction showing how the order of all the passages of the book as they stand in the 1st and 2d Editions may be placed in conformity with the order adopted in this one.

In the Second Volume of any copy forming part of the 1st or the 2d Edition,

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INVASION OF THE CRIMEA.

CHAPTER I.

I.

IN the middle of this century the peninsula which CHA P. divides the Euxine from the Sea of Azoff was an almost forgotten land, lying out of the chief paths of merchants and travellers, and far away from all the capital cities of Christendom. Rarely any one went thither from Paris, or Vienna, or Berlin: to reach it from London was a harder task than to cross the Atlantic; and a man of office receiving in this distant province his orders despatched from St Petersburg, was the servant of masters who governed him from a distance of a thousand miles.

Along the course of the little rivers which seamed the ground, there were villages and narrow belts of tilled land, with gardens, and fruitful vineyards; but for the most part the Chersonese was a wilderness of steppe or of mountain-range much clothed towards the west with tall stiff grasses, and the stems of a fragrant herb like southernwood. The bulk of the people were of Tartar descent, but they were no longer in

VOL. I.

B

I.

CHAP. the days when nations trembled at the coming of the Golden Horde; and though they were of the Moslem faith, their religion had lost its warlike fire. Blessed with a dispensation from military service, and far away from the accustomed battle-fields of Europe and Asia, they lived in quiet, knowing little of war except what tradition could faintly carry down from old times in low monotonous chants. In their husbandry they were more governed by the habits of their ancestors than by the nature of the land which had once fed the people of Athens, for they neglected tillage and clung to pastoral life. Watching flocks and herds, they used to remain on the knolls very still for long hours together, and when they moved, they strode over the hills in their slow-flowing robes with something of the forlorn majesty of peasants descended from warriors. They wished for no change, and they excused their content in their simple way by saying that for three generations their race had lived happy under the Czars.*

But afterwards, and for reasons unknown to the shepherds, the chief Powers of the earth began to break in upon these peaceful scenes. France, England, and Turkey were the invaders, and these at a later day were reinforced by Sardinia. With the whole might which she could put forth in a province far removed from her military centre, Russia stood her

* The villagers of Eskel (on the Katcha) declared this to me on the 23d of September 1854, and the date gives value to the acknowledgment, for these villagers had been witnessing the confusion and seeming ruin of the Czar's army.

ground. The strife lasted a year and a half, and for CHAP. twelve months it raged.

And with this invasion there came something more than what men saw upon the battle-fields of the contending armies. In one of the Allied States, the people, being free of speech and having power over the judgment of their rulers, were able to take upon themselves a great share of the business of the war. It was in vain that the whole breadth of Europe divided this people from the field of strife. By means unknown before, they gained fitful and vivid glimpses of the battle and the siege, of the sufferings of the camp and bivouac, and the last dismal scenes of the hospital tent; and being thus armed from day to day with fresh knowledge, and feeling conscious of a warlike strength exceeding by a thousandfold the strength expressed by the mere numbers of their army, they thronged in, and made their voice heard, and became partakers of the counsels of State. The scene of the conflict was mainly their choice. They enforced the invasion. They watched it hour by hour. Through good and evil days they sustained it, and when by the yielding of their adversary the strife was brought to an end, they seemed to pine for more fighting. Yet they had witnessed checkered scenes. They counted their army on the mainland. They watched it over the sea. They saw it land. They followed its march. They saw it in action. They tasted of the joy of victory. Then came the time when they had to bear to see their army dying upon a bleak hill from cold and want. In their

I.

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