Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/194

 172 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. chap, struction upon orders given in war, and especially L in battle, is often an anxious and difficult one, yet so enormously important that the honour, nay, the fate of a nation, may depend upon the way in which it is discharged. Now, it would seem that there is one kind of experience which, if long continued, has a peculiar tendency to disqualify an officer for the duty of putting sensible con- structions upon orders concerning the business of war. The experience I speak of is that which is possessed by an officer who has served many years in a standing army without having had the fortune to go through a campaign. Such a man, during his whole military life, has been per- petually dealing with fixed conditions and petty occurrences which are mostly of a kind that can be, in a measure, provided for beforehand by even that limited forecast which the rules of an office imply ; and as soon as his training has taken its effect to the utmost, he may be said to represent the true opposite of what a commander should be who has to encounter emergencies. So long as soldierly duties are confined to mere preparation and rehearsal, they can be effectively performed by the industrious formalist; but in war all is changed. There, the enemy interposes, and inter- poses so roughly that the military clock-work of peace-time is ruthlessly shattered. As a guide for construing momentous orders delivered in the hour of battle to a general of the peace-service training, the experience of the barrack-yard be- comes a snare. His new theatre of action is so