Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 3.djvu/406

 380 COUNSELS ENDING IN THE CHAP, ijeen necessary for them to make wide allowance V. '' , — for the changes which the hand of man might have wrought in a period of twenty years, the great features of the ground must needs be the same, and the plan of the defences which (accord- ing to the showing of General Macintosh) the Russian engineers had traced out on paper was one so cogently dictated by the nature of the ground, that it might well be regarded as a useful indication of what the defences would be even after a lapse of years. It was natural, however, that, being impatient of their strange want of knowledge concerning the actual state of the land defences, and yearning after fresher information, the Allies should have given too little care to the result of old surveys and in- quiries. Our army is not constituted upon a plan which entices its officers to the pursuit of warlike studies or warlike inquiries having only a contingent usefulness ; and the power which England may be able to exert in appealing to arms depends a good deal upon the readiness with which she may be able to break down mere professional barriers, and bring to bear upon the great business of war the abounding zeal, energy, and skill of her whole people. i.yMr It was from the book of a young Scottish traveller that the Allies derived what knowledge they had of the state of the land defences at Sebastopol. Mr Oliphant had been gifted with an almost Dliiiliant