Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/43

 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 21 'an understanding as that there should be no oh a p. 1 suspicion of the contempt of authority on the ' ' one side, and no apprehension of undue inter- 1 ference on the other.' (Signed) ' Raglan.' It must not be supposed, however, that the re- lations between these two officers involved them in unseemly personal altercations. Lord Lucan with great wisdom and tact took care that the more unwelcome communications which he from time to time made to his brigadier should be either in writing, or else conveyed by the mouth of another ; and Lord Cardigan on the other hand had a sense of propriety in such matters, and was not without power of self-restraint. But now, why did it happen that England, what made having under her eyes a brilliant list of cavalry for the . . . ., Governmen; officers from whom she might make her choice, to do as it determined to exclude all those who had served in the field, and to place in the respective com- mands of which we have been speaking two peers between fifty and sixty years old who had neither of them rendered war-service ? One answer is this : There was a divided responsibility. We know what confusions may follow when the War Office and the Horse Guards — the clerk and the counter-clerk — differ ; but this selection of cavalry officers was the result of agreement, or rather, one may say, of a process which goes by the name of ' compounding.' From ancient treaties of peace between the two sides of White- hall it resulted that the Commander-in-Chief at