The Crimean Commission and the Chelsea Board: being a review of the proceedings and report of the Board

Introduction

as n,HE circumstances which have led to the present publica- '. are almost too well known to require explanation, and ave rather to excuse myself for having delayed it so r, than to offer any apology for now entering on the subject.

Sir John McNeill and I, having, in February 1855, been sent out as Commissioners to inquire into the supplies of the Army in the Crimea, submitted, in J anuary following, two detailed Reports on that subject, to the Secretary of State for War, which, having been presented to Parliament, created considerable excitement against the officers supposed to be responsible for the due application of these supplies to the wants of the troops.

In consequence of the representations of these officers a Military Board was assembled at Chelsea on 3rd April last, with the view — not merely of hearing such explanation as they might have to offer, but with instructions so to direct its inquiries f that the truth should be made manifest, WarSntfp.'l " and that iustice should be done to all parties." Before °f Board's

J 1 Proceedings.

that Board I ultimately felt compelled to appear, under the circumstances hereafter detailed.

Severe illness, brought on by incessant labour for several weeks in a most unusual, harrassing, and painful duty,

? 2 iv INTRODUCTION.

unsupported by any legal assistance,* prevented my attendance at the Board after the 5th May, and till lately rendered me incapable of any prolonged mental exertion.

A Report of the Board, adverse to the conclusions of my colleague and myself, having, immediately before the prorogation, been presented to Parliament, I feel it my duty, before it re-assembles, to fulfil the obligation originally incurred in appearing at Chelsea, by submitting, through the medium of these pages, all that I should have stated, had my health permitted me to be present till the Board closed its proceedings.

Before doing so, however, I must be permitted to notice and comment upon some serious and radical defects in the constitution of the Board.

1. The want of all local experience on the part of its

members.

2. The manner in which they were chosen for the duty.

3. The objectionable selection of the witnesses,

4. The absence of proper intimation to the Commis-

sioners of the animadversions to be inquired into.

On each of these I propose offering a few observations by way of illustration.

The first and most important requisite for any inquiry of this kind, where so much depended on the circumstances in which the Army had been placed, was local knowledge. Owing to the want of it, the Sebastopol Committee had already felt its inadequacy to deal thoroughly with the subject, and my colleague and I were sent out to obtain, on the spot, that information which had been vainly sought at a distance. When, therefore, it was considered expedient to assemble a Board for the purpose of testing the accuracy of our Report, it was, certainly, not too much to expect, that it should have been composed of persons pos-

* The offer of legal assistance was not made to me till the 17th April. See letter of Mr. Peel, No. 9 of Appendix.

INTRODUCTION. V

sessing, at least, equal opportunities of information, and fully acquainted with all that had taken place during the eventful period to which it referred.

To review the labours of two Commissioners, who had spared neither time nor trouble to make themselves fully acquainted with all these matters on the spot, was, in itself, a most unusual proceeding ; but, to do so through the medium of officers not possessing even the first requisite for accurate conclusions, was to recognize the hitherto unheard-of principle, that want of experience in the Crimea was the most suitable qualification for the solution of all Crimean difficulties ; and absence of local information the fittest test for deciding questions mainly dependent on local circumstances.

Not one of the seven Members composing the Board had ever been in the Crimea ; and a reference to its proceedings will show that no General, nor any officers who had commanded corps in that country, during the period under review, were examined in regard to the events then passing, except a few belonging to the Cavalry, who were directly or indirectly interested in the result. I point this out in no spirit of disrespect to the Board, but as a possible means of accounting for the errors and omissions by which their .Report is characterized.

Most persons, civil or military, will admit that one of the greatest safeguards in the formation of every court is the precaution of choosing its members — not according to the arbitrary selection of any individual, but according to an established roster from which the required number is taken. In the Chelsea Board, however, this principle was completely violated. I do not suppose, far less allege, that this was done with any object hostile to the Commissioners; but, that seven General Officers and a Secretary should have been selected all of one political bias, was in itself a circumstance sufficiently remarkable to shake public confidence in the result. Even the Judge- Advocate-General felt himself si

INTKODUCTIOX.

compelled to allude to this peculiarity in the construction of the Court as follows :*

" The noble Lord complains that the inquiry was 6e political in its character, owing to the circumstance of the (t Judge-Advocate being a Minister and attending the Court. " Sir, so totally opposed is this to the fact that I solemnly " declare that I never, during the whole inquiry, asked or " heard what were the politics of the General Officers, of Ci which I knew nothing, with the exception of the three who ** were in Parliament ; but since the noble lord has made this (( assertion I have inquired, and upon credible information I ** have learnt that every one of the General Officers is of the ee same political party as himself. ('Hear/ and a laugh.) Cf And, besides that, there was a gentleman who acted as " private secretary to Sir Alexander Woodford who was in " the room the whole time when the doors were closed, who, ** as I believe, was a private friend, and, as I know, was a " strong political partisan of the noble lord, so that he had Ci everything in his favour ; and the noble lord's judges, they " who tried him, and who judged and acquitted him, were all tf his own political partisans. (Cheers.)

I am just as little disposed as the Judge- Advocate- General to infer that this selection was made with any ulterior views; but all who value the semblance even, of fairness, must admit, that it would have been better had the Court been otherwise constituted.

As the Board did not contain in itself the elements of proper information, it was obviously the more requisite that arrangements should have been made to bring home those witnesses from the Crimea on whose statements the Report of the Commissioners had been founded, or, such of them at least, as they considered essential to the establishment of any facts, the accuracy of which was questioned.

* Vide Speech of Judge Advocate General in the House of Commons on the 21st July last, in reply to Lord Lucan's statement in the House of Lords.

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vii

While, however, the officers, who complained of the alleged animadversions in their Report, were afforded every facility in this respect at the expence of the public, no steps were taken to ensure any similar advantage to the Commissioners, though, when a Board of Officers in London were to sit in judgment upon evidence taken in the Crimea, it was most essential they should have the parties who gave that evidence before them. The first official intimation, however, that the Commissioners received of the existence of the Board, was a notification, dated 4th April, 1856, from Mr. Peel, that the General Officers wished them to be informed that they would commence proceedings on the 7th of that month.

To the fairness of such an inquiry, it was further essential that the Commissioners should have been informed, in due time, of the animadversions complained of, that they might be prepared with evidence to establish their statements ; but in the cases of Sir Richard Airey and Colonel Gordon, all information of this kind was w ithheld : indeed, up to the very hour when these officers opened their cases, not the slightest hint had been conveyed to either of the Commissioners of the parts of the Report intended to be assailed, or whether objections were to be raised at all.

A Board thus constituted, and of which public rumour predicted the object and the verdict, even before the proceedings commenced, my colleague and I could scarcely have been expected to recognize ]; but events soon proved that we stood in very different positions as regarded our obligations in this respect, Sir John McNeill being unconnected with the military profession, the decision of seven General Officers, whether adverse or otherwise, could not have affected him ; but it might have had a very material influence upon my future career, for however slight the effect it might have produced elsewhere, any opinion coming from such a body could not be otherwise than deferred to, by the General Commanding-in-Chief who had appointed them. My colleague and I were consequently no longer on viii

INTRODUCTION.

the same footing, — to him the decision of the Board could be of no moment — to me, though no party to its constitution, it might be fraught with very serious consequences.

Even this risk, however, I might have encountered in order to retain the valued co-operation of my colleague ; but in the opening of the proceedings regarding the Cavalry, assertions were made before the Board by Lord Lucan seriously affecting my character as an Officer, as he expressly charged me with having made a Report " totally at variance u with the fact and truth," with ee having invidiously made " statements for the purpose of throwing discredit on the " Cavalry," and with having been actuated by motives of " malice and malignity" towards that body.

To have allowed such a charge to pass unnoticed, even if casually made, would be in direct opposition to the usual practice in the Army; but to sit tamely under it when deliberately uttered before a Board of General Officers, not one of whom made the slightest attempt to protect an absent man, would have indicated a want of spirit and feeling, ill becoming a member of my profession.

The course usual on such occasions in the army is for the Officer accused to take steps to clear his character^ by requesting a Court of Inquiry ; but the Board was already sitting in that capacity : I saw no alternative, therefore, but to appear before it, even at the risk of sacrificing the benefit I should have otherwise derived from the advice and cooperation of my colleague.

Lord Lucan subsequently expressed his regret for having attributed such motives to me ; but this came too late to prevent my being forced, in my own defence, before a Court, to the constitution and proceedings of which, I entertained objections quite as decided as Sir John McNeill.

Though this circumstance, much to my regret, rendered a separate course of action necessary, it never for a moment interrupted that unanimity of feeling with which my colleague and I had so long laboured to accomplish the great

INTRODUCTION.

ix object of our mission. In evidence of this I have much pleasure in annexing two letters from Sir John McNeill, the No. 1 and 2 of one addressed to the Secretary of State for War immediately Appeadlx after the presentation of our Report to Parliament, the other addressed to myself, on receiving the proofs of this volume, which I had forwarded for his perusal.

What took place after I appeared, up to the period when I was suddenly attacked by severe illness it is unnecessary for me to comment upon ; but surely I had a right to expect, that, though absent, my reputation would have been safe under the protection of the Board, and that no statement to my prejudice would have been admitted into their Report, except upon the clearest and most unquestionable evidence; that, above all, care would have been taken to sift that evidence thoroughly, considering that it was not given upon oath, and that almost every witness was directly, or indirectly, interested in discrediting the statements of the Commissioners.

In reviewing the Board's proceedings it will be observed that I have selected — not any particular part or parts of their Report, for I am well aware that there are few inquiries of an extensive nature, in which some mistakes may not be found ; but, even at the risk of being tedious, I have gone through the whole, taking every section seriatim, and I trust I have been able satisfactorily to show that it presents features of so extraordinary a character as to deserve the serious consideration of every one who wishes well to the profession of Arms, or is interested in the reputation of those who belong to it.

But, the injury such a Report might have done to me individually, sinks into insignificance when compared with its effect, present, and prospective upon the Service ; for what hope can reasonably be entertained that the same frightful calamities may not occur again, if a Board of General Officers gravely arrive at the conclusion that these were solely attributable to the want of pressed hay from

X

INTRODUCTION.

England ? Whether such a conclusion is warranted by the evidence, and whether hay would have supplied the men with fresh meat ; recovered the clothing lying useless in their squad-bags and knapsacks ; provided fresh bread, and supplied lime-juice and medicine for the sick; roasted greencoffee for the healthy; and secured shelter for the horses which perished, because, nothing was done, in one Brigade, at least, for their protection, the public will now be able to decide for themselves. I can only say that I would prefer such a conclusion being promulgated to the world under the authority of seven General Officers, rather than by any statement of my colleague and myself.

It requires no demonstration to show, that could we conscientiously have disposed of the question in this summary manner, it would have been our best interest to have done so. As regards myself in particular, many painful circumstances have resulted from arriving at conclusions of a different complexion.

For upwards of twenty years I had been constantly employed at the War Office, either as Military Superintendent of Pensioners, or in other duties connected with the administration of the Army. During that period I had always been on the best possible terms with the Staff at the Horse Guards, and from the late Commander-in-chief in particular, under whom, when Secretary at War, I had served for several years, I received, previous to leaving England, the strongest mark of confidence, in his suggestino; that I should have the local rank of a General Officer in the Crimea, to place me on the same footing as the British Commissioner with the French army, and in a position better corresponding to the heavy responsibilities likely to devolve upon me, than my present rank of Colonel.

It may, therefore, be supposed with what feelings of regret I found it my duty, to join with my colleague, in reporting that defective departmental arrangements in the Crimea had contributed, in no inconsiderable degree, to the

INTRODUCTION.

sufferings of the troops, and in pointing out that the system hitherto relied on as sufficient to provide for every emergency, had totally failed under the exigencies of the Crimean Campaign.

There was every inducement, too, of professional sympathy, in my case at least, to have prevented any allusion to the delay of the Cavalry in sheltering their horses; but fortunate was it for the Commissioners that, in the stern path of their duty, they allowed no such consideration to weigh with them ; otherwise, in how discreditable a position would they have been placed when the publication of the censures in Lord Lucan's Divisional Orders, hereafter referred to, revealed that important fact.

It has been maintained, however, both by Lord Lucan and Sir Richard Airey, that the Commissioners were under no obligation to report at all, except on Commissariat matters, and that in doing so they exceeded their instructions. In making such an assertion, these officers must have omitted to refer to the second letter of instructions received by the Commissioners the day previous to their leaving England, and which was as follows : —

" War Department, 22nd February ', 1855.

" Referring to your instructions of the 19th instant, I have further a to desire that you will make it your business to ascertain what may " have been the sources of supply of provisions, forage, and other articles " supplied to the troops in the Crimea.

" You will further make inquiry into the alleged delay in unshipping " and distributing the clothing and other stores supplied for the use of the " Troops, and, having obtained all the information in your power, you " will submit to me a full report on the subject.

PANMURE.

Xothing, surely, could have been more explicit than this ; and, accordingly, several months after forwarding a preliminary Report respecting the supplies more immediately under the charge of the Commissariat, the Commissioners xii

INTRODUCTION.

submitted a second Report, confined exclusively to the clothing and other stores referred to in their last letter of instructions.

The mere circumstance, however, of the former of these Reports being dated from Constantinople, and the latter from England, has been gravely commented upon as an objection, though they would, in the opinion of most persons, have been far more exceptionable, could it have been alleged that they were prepared, amid all the din and bustle of daily warfare in the Crimea, so opposed to that calm examination and careful consideration which the subject, as well as the extent and intricacy of the materials, required.

That the Commissioners spared no pains in collecting the information which was to form the basis of their Reports, will, I apprehend, be conceded even by those who have been foremost to question their accuracy ; but it is necessary to explain that, with regard to a most important part illustrative of the enormous mortality in some corps compared with others, they laboured under the very serious disadvantage that, while their conclusions and deductions were published, the facts on which they had been founded were only partially made known.

At a very early stage of their inquiry the Commissioners saw the necessity, before venturing on any report as to the sufferings of the troops from the non-distribution of the supplies, into which they were specially directed to inquire, that the extent of the sickness and mortality during the previous winter, and the diseases which occasioned it, should be carefully examined. It is true they had no authority for this extension of their inquiries ; but the verbal statements made to them on this subject were so overwhelming in some instances, and so conflicting in othv.rs, that it appeared absolutely requisite to test them by numerical evidence before allowing them to influence their conclusions. The medical officers of corps supplied the information readily, as affording one of the best evidences of their unparalleled exertions,

INTRODUCTION.

xiii and of the difficulties they had to contend with, at a time when the whole army was, in a manner, one vast hospital.

Information thus cheerfully given, the Commissioners felt assured they could not be wrong in receiving, and arranging in such a manner as to exhibit the results in a comprehensive form ; but, appreciating an objection which was made to publishing such facts while the war continued, and every exertion was still requisite to recruit the Army to its full establishment, they at considerable disadvantage restricted themselves on that occasion to a mere statement of the total loss. The necessity for withholding such information having now, however, happily passed away, I am permitted in justification of the conclusions at which my colleague and I arrived, to submit it to the public, as well as some details relative to the amount of duty performed by the force in front during; the winter.

From this information, the particulars of which are given in the latter part of this volume, it will be found that after dividing, according to the several arms of the service in which it occurred, the aggregate loss from sickness alone, during the winter of 1854-55, in the Crimean army, including what took place at Scutari, and on the passage, the following results are obtained : —

The average loss of Infantry, as roughly estimated in the

Commissioner's Keport, was 39 per cent.

But in the Naval Brigade, which took a very prominent part in the operations

during the whole siege, it was under 4 per cent.

The loss of Cavalry was 15 per cent.

Of Artillery 18 per cent.

While the loss of Officers, of all arms, was

about 6 per cent.

But dividing the Infantry into groups, according to the periods of their arrival in the Crimea and the localities they occupied, the following are the results : — xiv

INTRODUCTON.

The average loss of four regiments which arrived in and about January, and did not for nearly a month take any part of the duties in the front was only .... 7 per cent.

The average of four other regiments, which arrived in December, and were sent immediately to the front, was .... .... 27 per cent.

In the Highland Brigade, stationed at Bala-

klava, the average was .... .... 24 per cent.

While in the regiments employed in front, on which the duties of the siege chiefly devolved, the average was .... .... 45 per cent.

And in eight of these corps which suffered

most, it was 73 per cent.

This loss, be it observed, occurred within the short period of seven months, and was exclusive of men killed in action, or who died of their wounds. How far it may have been caused by the privations of the troops hereafter referred to — how far attributable to the excessive amount of duty they had to perform, the details of which are fully given at the end of this volume, must remain matter of conjecture ; but that it could not have been in any important degree the result of climate, must be inferred from the circumstance of this loss having occurred in a country which, by the concurrent testimony of nearly all the Medical Officers, as well as the experience of the following year, appears to have been almost as healthy as Great Britain, except perhaps as regards Cholera.

Out of about 10,000° men who died during these seven months, belonging to the Crimean Army, only 1,200 were cut off by that epidemic, the remainder perished by no foeman's hand — no blast of pestilence, but from the slow, though sure, operation of disease, produced by causes, most of which appeared capable at least of mitigation.

Compared with this, the mortality in our Army on all previous occasions sinks into comparative insignificance ; even

INTRODUCTION.

XV that of Walcherenj which threw the nation into mourning, and for years convulsed our Senate, did not exceed a fourth part of the average here recorded. Armies have perished by the sword — they have been overwhelmed by the elements, but never, perhaps, since the hand of the Lord smote the Host of the Assyrians, and they perished in a night, has such a loss from disease been recorded as on this occasion.

With the graves of ten thousand of their countrymen before their eyes, with the mouldering remains of Britain^ choicest Cavalry beneath their feet, and with an overwhelming mass of evidence in their possession, to show how much of this loss might have been averted by a proper application of the supplies, could the Commissioners be expected to arrive at the conclusion of the Board of General Officers, that for all this no one in the Crimea was to blame.

I have only to request those who are interested in the solution of this important question to peruse the following remarks on the Proceedings and Report of the Board and to judge for themselves.

ALEX. M. TULLOCH, Colonel,

Late Commissioner in the Crimea,

63, Eaton Square, London,

24th January, 1857.

REMARKS

ON

THE PEOCEEDINGS AND EEPOET

OF THE

BOARD OF GENERAL OFFICERS

APPOINTED TO TN QUIRE INTO THE STATEMENTS OF

SIR JOHN McNEILL and colonel tulloch,

ANIMADVERTING UPON THE CONDUCT OF CERTAIN OFFICERS ON THE GENERAL STAFF, AND OTHERS, IN THE ARMY OF THE CRIMEA.

Following out the coarse indicated in the preceding Introduction, I now' propose adverting to the case of each complainant in the succession adopted by the Board. First in order comes that of

LIEUTENANT-GENERAL THE EARL OF LUCAN.

The first point to which Lord Lucan directed the attention of the Board of General Officers, was the alleged inaccuracy of "the Calculations of the Commissioners with respect to the Deaths of the Cavalry Horses." The paragraph objected to by him is in the following terms : —

" With reference to the effect of the deficiency of forage, and Page 20 of the other privations to which the horses of the army were exposed, Commissionwe have ascertained the loss among them, from various causes, in ers RePort' the Cavalry and Artillery. A summary of the Returns obtained on that head will be found at page 193 of Appendix, which shows

B the loss attributable to sickness to be as follows, for the six months from October to March inclusive : —

Strength DIed b^ Rates per Cent b ' Sickness. of Deaths.

5048 2122 42

On this head the Board reported as follows : —

Page IV. of " We are Qf opinion that the mode in which the percentage of

^ovt^'8 deaths nas been stated by the Commissioners is calculated to convey

p01 ' an erroneous impression, inasmuch as, though the figures are

perfectly accurate, neither the rate percentage of deaths, contained in the table given at pnge 21 of the Report, nor the percentage of deaths according to the average strength given in the summary subsequently furnished by Colonel Tulloch, give the actual percentage of mortality."

I regret that Lord Lucan had nothing of more general interest with which to commence his objection s, than so intricate a matter as the best mode of calculating percentages of mortal ity . If, from the want of acquaintance with such subjects, the Board were unable to come to any decision as to what the proper rate should be, it appears rather an unusual course to find fault with the Commissioners for giving their view according to the best information they could obtain. That information, though based upon the numbers originally landed in the Crimea, had, at least, the advantage of being divested of all the complication consequent on the daily changes in the force which decreased so rapidly by death, that it was manifestly beyond the power of figures to present any result which would not have been liable to some exception.

Whenever the Board are prepared to olfer a better solution of the question than that given by the Commissioners I shall be ready to join issue with them on the subject, but till they do so I must rest satisfied with the admission that the figures of the Commissioners " are perfectly accurate.''

The Board do not seem to have been aware that percentages of mortality are, at best, only approximative results, and that on precisely the same principle, though in a minor degree, objections might be taken by them to all the calculations which form the basis of the Vital Statistics of this country. To remove every difficulty on a question which, unfortunately, the Board did not appear to understand, I offered to refer the calculations to Dr. Fan* of the Statistical branch in the Registrar-General's Department, as being probably the best qualified person in the kingdom to offer an opinion ; but I regret that they neither availed themselves of that source of information, nor inserted in their Report a letter from that gentleman, confirmatory of the calculations objected to by them.

The second objection refers to the loss of Cavalry horses as compared with that of the Commissariat baggage animals, in regard to which the Commissioners had reported that —

" On referring to the loss sustained by the Commissariat animals Co^aJ^s'2* n * during the same period, it will be found rather less than in the ers» Report " Cavalry or Artillery, the deaths among them having, according to a Return furnished by Deputy Commissary-General Adams, amounted to 889 out of 2,329 orginally imported into the Crimea, or in the proportion of 38 per cent, a result which could scarcely have been expected, considering the advantages which cavalry horses might be supposed to have over hard-worked baggage animals, to whom little attention could be paid at such a period."

On this the Board of General Officers came to the following conclusion : —

" We are not enabled to offer an opinion thereon, as, on Page IV. examining the Returns which were furnished to us by the Audit °f Board s Office relative to the matter in question, we found that the difficul- ei>01 ' ties of ascertaining the periods at which the Commissariat animals arrived in the Crimea, and of distinguishing between those lost or stolen, and those that died, were so great, as to render any comparison of deaths between them and the Cavalry impossible.1'

The circumstance of the Board not being able, in this matter either, to offer any opinion, is not, I presume, to invalidate that expressed by the Commissioners, who. had better opportunity for research, and perhaps a greater disposition to exercise it. Many