Page:Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria (IA lifeofhermajesty01fawc).pdf/191

 Is it captious to wonder what they had expected her to be, and if they were surprised to find that she was not a Madame Sans-Gêne?

The letters of Dr. W. H. Russell in The Times first revealed to the nation the frightful breakdown in our military organization. The special correspondent became, from the date of the Crimean War, a force to be reckoned with. Instead of the cut-and-dried official despatches, concealing often more than revealing the truth, and intended to lay before the public only just so much of the facts as the military authorities thought it good for them to know, the special correspondent publishes for all the world to read, a vivid daily narrative of facts in which blunders and incompetence, when they exist, are given quite as much prominence as good generalship and victory. If England was disappointed at the evidence given of her want of efficient military organization, Russia had much more cause to be so. Russia had put her whole strength into her armaments; she was nothing if not a great military power; but she was everywhere unsuccessful. One of the most dramatic incidents during the war was the death of the Czar, on March 2, 1855. It was said that his disease was influenza, followed by congestion of the lungs; but some people thought he might have been said to have died of a broken heart. Punch ' s cartoon, "General Février turned traitor," showing Death, in a general's uniform, laying his icy hand on his victim will long be remembered.

The war fever which had fired the whole of England at the beginning of the campaign perhaps led people to expect more than was possible from the army. There was a bitter cry of anger and disappointment that our military successes in the field were not quickly followed up and taken advantage of by our generals,