Page:The Development of Navies During the Last Half-Century.djvu/52

 military skill.' But he might have added that the chief evidence of our strength was to be found in our maritime supremacy, which made such an expedition possible. History has not adequately recorded the part played by the navy on this occasion, because there were no fleets to overcome, and it did not repeat the success at Acre; but in other ways the assistance it rendered was of the utmost importance.

In command of the Mediterranean Squadron at that time was Admiral Deans Dundas. He was an officer who had seen much service, but had now reached the age of sixty-eight, and owing to a former wound could not sustain great exertion. When he was appointed to this command, it was not anticipated that we should shortly be involved in war. As second in command of the squadron we had in Sir Edmund Lyons a man of great ability and energy. His early career had been a distinguished one, but in 1835 he was appointed Minister at Athens, a post he filled for several years, so that in 1854 his capacity for naval affairs was not well known in the fleet. Detailed by Admiral Dundas to organise arrangements for transporting the army from Varna to the Crimea, he at once gave proof of his capability. All difficulties disappeared before his energy and gift for organisation. Yet it was no easy task to shift the base of operations from Turkey to Russia. To forward 60,000 troops from England and France had taxed the resources of those countries, but to tranship them on the barren shores of the Black Sea entailed a greater call on those entrusted with the