Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/195

 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 173 strange, so vast, and so dim — for he now has to meet the unknown — that unless he can rise with the occasion, throwing open his mind and changing his old stock of ideas, he becomes dangerous to his country — becomes dangerous, of course, in proportion to the extent of the command with which he has been entrusted. Supposing the natural capacity equal, there is no stirring mis- sionary, no good electioneerer, no revered master of hounds, who might not be more likely to prove himself equal to the unforeseen emergencies of a campaign than the general officer who is a veteran in the military profession, and, at the same time, a novice in war. If indeed a general who has hith- erto had no experience of war is still in so early a period of his life as to have unimpaired the natural flexibility of youth, he may quickly adapt his mind to the new exigency ; but when a State gives high command to an officer who is not only encased with military experience all acquired in peace-time, but is also advanced in years, it fulfils at least two of the conditions which are the most likely to bring about misconstructions of even the plainest orders : and if to these precautions the Government adds that of taking care that the selected General shall be a man of a narrow dis- position and a narrow mind — a man cleaving to technicalities and regulations with a morbid love of uniformity — then, indeed, it exhausts a large proportion of the expedients which can be used for insuring miscarriage. England, ruling as she does over various and