Page:English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the nineteenth century.djvu/400

 is wholly beyond his means. Fortunately for us (for events proved that in trusting to French assistance we were leaning on a broken reed indeed!) the Russian rank and file, besides being badly led, were as inferior to our own in endurance and pluck as they were superior to us in the mere matter of numbers. Justly wondering why forty thousand men, supported by twenty thousand reserves, had failed to hold their own against a mere handful of British infantry, Nicholas nevertheless treated the result apparently in a philosophical spirit, and calmly asked his people to wait for "Generals Janvier and Fevrier." But the brave man's heart was broken, and when February came it found the Imperial prophet a corpse. The death of this great and disappointed man is forcibly commemorated by Leech's memorable cartoon of General Fevrier Turned Traitor. Lord John Russell, true to his character of "Lord Meddle and Muddle," had done nothing for us at the Congress, and in The Return from Vienna, Her Majesty catches the frightened little statesman by the collar and angrily asks him, " Now, sir, what a time you have been! What's the answer?" To her Lord John "Please 'M—— there is—is—is—is—isn't any answer."

An English general in those days was so scarce a commodity that in Lord Raglan we seemed absolutely to have exhausted the supply: one old incapable was replaced by another, until the dearth of English military ability became at length nothing less than an absolute scandal. In What we must Come to, reference is made to this lamentable state of things, wherein an old woman in bonnet and shawl, with a capacious umbrella, applies for a post to Lord Panmure (the Minister of War), "Oh, if you please, sir, did you want a sperity old woman to see after things in the Crimea? No objection to being made a Field Marshal, and glory not so much an object as a good salary"; in another (A Grand Military Spectacle) we find the heroes of the campaign engaged in inspecting the Field Marshals, a pair of decrepid, purblind, old men seated in arm chairs; in the third we recognise the amiable Prince Consort,