The Crimean War

Russell was the most important and widely read reporter from the Crimea. Born in 1820 into an Anglo-Irish family near Dublin, Russell began working for The Times in 1841, during the general election in Ireland. He had covered only one small border war between Prussian and Danish troops in 1850, when he was sent by John Delane, the paper’s editor, with the Guards Brigade to Malta in February 1854. Delane promised the army’s commander-in-chief that Russell would return before Easter, but the journalist spent the next two years with the British army, reporting on an almost daily basis on the latest news from the Crimea, and exposing many of the failures of the military authorities. Russell’s Anglo-Irish background gave his writing a critical detachment from the English military establishment, whose incompetence he never hesitated to condemn. His sympathies were clearly with the ordinary troops, some one-third of them Irish, with whom he had a relaxed manner that encouraged them to talk. Henry Clifford described him as

a vulgar low Irishman, an Apostate Catholic … but he has the gift of the gab and uses his pen as well as his tongue, sings a good song, drinks anyone’s brandy and water, and smokes as many cigars as foolish young officers will let him, and he is looked upon by most in Camp as a ‘Jolly Good Fellow.’ He is just the sort of chap to get information, particularly out of youngsters.³³

The military establishment despised Russell. Raglan advised his officers not to speak to the reporter, claiming that he was a danger to security. He was particularly angered by the publication of letters in The Times by officers and soldiers highlighting the deplorable conditions of the troops. It was rumoured that the press was paying for such letters, some of which had not been meant for publication but had been passed on to the newspapers by relatives. The military authorities, who put more store on loyalty and obedience than on the welfare of the troops, were outraged by letter-writers who had broken ranks. ‘Officers write more absurd and rascally letters than ever or else The Times concocts them for them, anyhow it is very bad and unsoldier-like of them,’ fumed Major Kingscote of the Scots Guards and headquarters staff. ‘I still maintain that the soldier is very cheerful and they always seem in good spirit. The officers I do not see much, but I observe one thing, and that is that the more aristocratic blood there is in the veins the less they grumble, in spite of the assertions of The Times.’

Raglan went on the attack. On 13 November he wrote to the Duke of Newcastle, Secretary of State for War, claiming that The Times had published information that could be useful to the enemy. There were certainly reports that the Russians had received a morale boost from Russell’s articles about supply shortages and the poor condition of the troops (the Tsar himself had read them in St Petersburg). In response to Raglan’s letter, the Deputy Judge Advocate William Romaine issued a warning to British reporters in the Crimea, while Newcastle wrote to their newspaper editors. But Delane resisted these attempts to curb the freedom of the press. Believing Raglan to be incompetent, he saw it as a matter of national interest to expose the poor administration of the army, and would not listen to the arguments about national security. On 23 December an editorial in The Times accused the high command of incompetence, official lethargy and, perhaps most damaging of all in a conflict that was fast becoming embroiled in a broader political struggle between the professional ideal of meritocracy and the old world of aristocratic privilege, obvious nepotism in the appointment of Raglan’s personal staff (no less than five of his ADCs were his nephews).

Raglan’s patience at last broke, and on 4 January he wrote again to Newcastle, effectively accusing Russell of treason:

I pass over the fault the writer finds with every thing and every body, however calculated his strictures may be to excite discontent and encourage indiscipline, but I ask you to consider whether the paid agent of the Emperor of Russia could better serve his Master than does the correspondent of the paper that has the largest circulation in Europe … I am very doubtful, now that Communications are so rapid, whether a British Army can long be maintained in the presence of a powerful Enemy, that Enemy having at his command thro’ the English press, and from London to his Head Quarters by telegraph, every detail that can be required of the numbers, condition, and equipment of his opponent’s force.³⁴

Newcastle was not impressed. By this time, he was already feeling the political pressure created by the Times campaign. The scandal surrounding the condition of the army was threatening the government. Adding his own voice to the mounting criticisms of the military administration, Newcastle urged Raglan to dimiss generals Airey and Estcourt, the Quartermaster and Adjutant Generals of the army respectively, hoping this would satisfy the public demand for heads to roll. Raglan would not give them up – he did not seem to think that anybody in the high command was to blame for the army’s difficulties – though he happily accepted the recall of Lord Lucan, whom he blamed (most unjustly) for the sacrifice of the Light Brigade.

By the time Lucan received his recall on 12 February, the power of the press and public criticism had brought down the government. On 29 January two-thirds of the House of Commons had voted for a motion by the Radical MP John Roebuck calling for the appointment of a select committee to investigate the condition of the army and the conduct of the government departments responsible for it – in effect, a vote of no-confidence in the government’s leadership of the war campaign. Roebuck had not wanted to bring down the government – his main aim had been to make a stand for parliamentary accountability – but the pressures working on the government were no longer contained inside Parliament: they were coming from the public and the press. The next day Aberdeen resigned, and a week later, on 6 February, the Queen called on Palmerston, her least favourite politician, now aged 70, to form his first government. Palmerston was the popular choice of the patriotic middle classes – through his cultivation of the press he had captured the imagination of the British public with his aggressive foreign policy which they had come to see as the embodiment of their own national character and popular ideals – and they now looked to him to save the war campaign from the incompetent generals.

‘At the stage of civilization in which we are,’ the French Emperor announced in 1855, ‘the success of armies, however brilliant they may be, is only transitory. In reality it is public opinion that wins the last victory.’ Louis- Napoleon was well aware of the power of the press and public opinion – his rise to power had relied on them – and for that reason the French press was censored and controlled by his government during the Crimean War. Editorials were usually ‘paid for’ by supporters of the government and politically were often to the right of the viewpoint held by most readers of the newspaper. Napoleon saw the war as a way of winning popular support for his regime, and he pursued it with one eye on the public reaction. He instructed Canrobert (renowned for his indecision) not to order an assault ‘unless perfectly certain of the result being in our favour, but also not to attempt it if the sacrifice of life should be great’.³⁵

Sensitive to public criticism, Napoleon ordered his police to collect information on what people were saying about the war. Informers listened to private conversations, priests’ sermons and speeches by orators, and what they heard was recorded in reports by local procurators and prefects. According to these reports, the French had never been in favour of the war, and, with the army’s failure to achieve an early victory, they were becoming increasingly impatient and critical about its continuation. Much of their frustration was focused on the leadership of Canrobert and the ‘cowardice’ of Prince Napoleon, who had left the Crimea after Inkerman and returned to France in January, where (courting opposition views against the war) he then made well known his view that Sevastopol was ‘impregnable’ and that the siege should be raised. By this time, the prefects were reporting on the possibility of war-weariness becoming opposition to the government. Henri Loizillon, an engineer in the French trenches before Sevastopol, heard the soldiers talking of a revolution being planned, with strikes and demonstrations against the mobilization of further troops in France. ‘The most alarming rumours circulate,’ he wrote to his family. ‘All the talk is of revolution: Paris, Lyon, all the major cities will be in a state of siege; in Marseille the people will rise up against the embarkation of the troops; everybody wants peace, and it seems they are ready to pay almost any price for it.’ In Paris an impatient Emperor of the French was justly terrified of revolutionary violence – it was only six and a half years since crowds had taken to the barricades to bring down the July Monarchy – and made detailed plans to deal with any more disturbances in the capital. Buildings were constructed in the centre of Paris ‘with the view of being capable of holding a number of troops in case of any rising’, he informed Queen Victoria, and macadam was ‘laid down in almost all the streets to prevent the populace from taking up the paving stones as hitherto, “pour en faire des barricades”’. To stop public criticism of the war he concluded that the time had come to take a firmer control of the high command and go to the Crimea himself to accelerate the capture of Sevastopol and restore glory to the name of Napoleon.³⁶