The Letters of Queen Victoria Volume Iii Part 15

_Queen Victoria to the Duke of Newcastle._

WINDSOR CASTLE, _12th January 1855._

The Queen returns the enclosed despatch to the Duke of Newcastle, which she has read with much pleasure, as bringing before Lord Raglan in an official manner--which will require official enquiry and _answer_--the various points so urgently requiring his attention and remedial effort. It is at the same time so delicately worded that it ought not to offend, although it cannot help, from its matter, being painful to Lord Raglan. The Queen has only one remark to make, viz.

the entire omission of her name throughout the doc.u.ment. It speaks simply in the name of the _People_ of England, and of _their_ sympathy, whilst the Queen feels it to be one of her highest prerogatives and dearest duties to care for the welfare and success of _her_ Army. Had the despatch not gone before it was submitted to the Queen, in a few words the Duke of Newcastle would have rectified this omission.

The Duke of Newcastle might with truth have added that, making every allowance for the difficulties before Sebastopol, it is difficult to imagine how the Army could ever be _moved_ in the field, if the impossibility of keeping it alive is felt in a _stationary camp_ only seven miles from its harbour, with the whole British Navy and hundreds of transports at its command.

_Queen Victoria to the Earl of Aberdeen._

WINDSOR CASTLE, _13th January 1855._

The Queen has received Lord Aberdeen's letter of the 11th, and has since seen Lord John Russell's letter. It shows that the practice of the Queen's different Cabinet Ministers going to Paris, to have personal explanations with the Emperor, besides being hardly a const.i.tutional practice, must lead to much misunderstanding. How is the Emperor to distinguish between the views of the Queen's Government and the private opinions of the different members of the Cabinet, all more or less varying, particularly in a Coalition Government?

The Queen hopes therefore that this will be the last such visit. The Amba.s.sador is the official organ of communication, and the Foreign Secretary is responsible for his doing his duty, and has the means of controlling him by his instructions and the despatches he receives, all of which are placed on record.[3]

[Footnote 3: The cause of Lord John's visit to Paris had been the illness there of his sister-in-law, Lady Harriet Elliot; but he took the opportunity of conferring both with the Emperor and his Ministers on the conduct of the war.--Walpole's _Life of Lord John Russell_, chap. XXV.]

[Pageheading: LETTER FROM LORD RAGLAN]

[Pageheading: THE COMMISSARIAT]

_Lord Raglan to Queen Victoria._

BEFORE SEBASTOPOL, _20th January 1855._

Lord Raglan presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and has the honour to acknowledge with every sentiment of devotion and grat.i.tude your Majesty's most gracious letter of 1st January, and the kind wishes which your Majesty and the Prince are pleased to unite in offering to the Army and your Majesty's most humble servant on the occasion of the New Year.

The deep concern and anxiety felt by your Majesty and the Prince for the privations of the troops, their unceasing labours, their exposure to bad weather, and the extensive sickness which prevails among them, are invaluable proofs of the lively interest which your Majesty and His Royal Highness take in the welfare of an Army which, under no circ.u.mstances, will cease to revere the name, and apply all its best energies to the service of your Majesty.

Lord Raglan can with truth a.s.sure your Majesty that his whole time and all his thoughts are occupied in endeavouring to provide for the various wants of your Majesty's troops. It has not been in his power to lighten the burthen of their duties. Those exacted from them before Sebastopol are for the preservation of the trenches and batteries; and there are many other calls upon the men, more especially when, as at present, the roads are so bad that wheeled carriages can no longer be used, and that the horse transport is diminished by sickness and death, and that the Commissariat, having no longer any sufficient means of conveyance at its command, cannot bring up the daily supplies without their a.s.sistance, thereby adding, however inevitably, to their labour and fatigue.

Lord Raglan begs leave to submit, for your Majesty's information, that the Allied Armies have no intercourse with the country, and can derive no resources from it; and consequently all the requirements for the conveyance of stores and provisions, as well as the stores and provisions themselves, must be imported. Such a necessity forms in itself a difficulty of vast magnitude, which has been greatly felt by him, and has been productive of the most serious consequences to the comfort and welfare of the Army.

The coffee sent from Constantinople has been received and issued to the troops green, the Commissariat having no means whatever of roasting it. Very recently, however, an able officer of the Navy, Captain Heath of the _Sanspareil_, undertook to have machines made by the engineers on board his s.h.i.+p for roasting coffee; and in this he has succeeded, but they have not yet produced as much as is required for the daily consumption.

The Commissary-General applied to the Treasury for roasted coffee three months ago. None has as yet arrived. A very large amount of warm clothing has been distributed, and your Majesty's soldiers, habited in the cloaks of various countries, might be taken for the troops of any nation as well as those of England.

Huts have arrived in great abundance, and as much progress is made in getting them up as could be hoped for, considering that there has been a very heavy fall of snow, and that a thaw has followed it, and the extremely limited means of conveyance at command.

Much having been said, as Lord Raglan has been given to understand, in private letters, of the inefficiency of the officers of the Staff, he considers it to be due to your Majesty, and a simple act of justice to those individuals, to a.s.sure your Majesty that he has every reason to be satisfied with their exertions, their indefatigable zeal, and undeviating, close attention to their duties, and he may be permitted to add that the horse and mule transport for the carriage of provisions and stores are under the charge of the Commissariat, not of the Staff, and that the Department in question engages the men who are hired to take care of it, and has exclusive authority over them.

Lord Raglan transmitted to the Duke of Newcastle, in the month of December, the report of a Medical Board, which he caused to a.s.semble at Constantinople for the purpose of ascertaining the state of health of the Duke of Cambridge. The report evidently showed the necessity of His Royal Highness's return to England for its re-establishment.

This, Lord Raglan knows, was the opinion of the Honourable Lieutenant-Colonel Macdonald,[4] whose attention and devotion to His Royal Highness could not be surpa.s.sed, and who was himself very anxious to remain with the Army.

The Duke, however, has not gone further than Malta, where, it is said, his health has not improved.

[Footnote 4: The Hon. James Bosville Macdonald [1810-1882], son of the third Baron Macdonald, A.D.C., Equerry and Private Secretary to the Duke of Cambridge.]

[Pageheading: THE ARMY BOARD]

_Queen Victoria to the Earl of Aberdeen._

WINDSOR CASTLE, _22nd January 1855._

The Queen has received Lord Aberdeen's letter of yesterday, giving an account of the proceedings of the last Cabinet....

The Queen is quite prepared to sanction the proposal of const.i.tuting the Secretary of State for War, the Commander-in-Chief, the Master-General of the Ordnance, and the Secretary at War, a Board on the affairs of the Army, which promises more unity of action in these Departments, and takes notice of the fact that the powers and functions of the Commander-in-Chief are not to be changed. As these, however, rest entirely on tradition, and are in most cases ambiguous and undefined, the Queen would wish that they should be clearly defined, and this the more so as she transacts certain business directly with him, and ought to be secured against getting into any collision with the Secretary of State, who also takes her pleasure, and gives orders to the Commander-in-Chief. She would further ask to be regularly furnished with the Minutes of the proceedings of the new Board, in order to remain acquainted with what is going on.

Unless, however, the Militia be made over to the direction of the Secretary of State for _War_, our Army system will still remain very incomplete. The last experience has shown that the Militia will have to be looked upon as the chief source for recruiting the Army, and this will never be done harmoniously and well, unless they both be brought under the same control.

With reference to the Invest.i.ture of the Garter, the Queen need not a.s.sure Lord Aberdeen that there are few, if any, on whom she will confer the Blue Ribbon with greater pleasure than on so kind and valued a friend as he is to us both.

_Lord John Russell to Queen Victoria._

CHESHAM PLACE, _24th January 1855._

Lord John Russell presents his humble duty to your Majesty; he has had the honour of receiving your Majesty's gracious invitation to Windsor Castle. He would have waited upon your Majesty this day had he not been constrained by a sense of duty to write to Lord Aberdeen last night a letter of which he submits a copy.

Lord John Russell trusts your Majesty will be graciously pleased to comply at once with his request. But he feels it would be right to attend your Majesty's farther commands before he has the honour of waiting upon your Majesty.

[Pageheading: MR. ROEBUCK'S MOTION]

[_Enclosure in previous Letter._]

_Lord John Russell to the Earl of Aberdeen._

CHESHAM PLACE, _23rd January 1855._

MY DEAR LORD ABERDEEN,--Mr Roebuck has given notice of a Motion to enquire into the conduct of the war. I do not see how this Motion is to be resisted. But as it involves a censure of the War Departments with which some of my colleagues are connected, my only course is to tender my resignation.