Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/309

 RECALL OF THE KERTCH EXPEDITION. 277 message — the hysterical message — from Paris chap. that, taking effect on an enterprise already. begun, had raised the growth of scorn in their rear.( 3 ) The fleets on the coast, and the armies en- on the fleet camped before Sebastopol, shared the rage of the troops, forces brought back, and this angry feeling ex- tended with even augmented savageness to the Emperor's corps of Reserve assembled on the west of the Bosphorus; for these regiments lay so near Constantinople as to be reached, one may say, by the howl of the Imperial city ; and, though guiltless themselves of all fault, they seem to have felt gravely wounded by what other Frenchmen had done. 'All the world,' wrote General Larchey, the commander of the French Eeserve force at Constantinople, 'ac- ' cuses the electric telegraph of having caused ' the failure of the Expedition to Kertch from ' which the best results were expected.*. . . ' Rightly or wrongly, there is a general outburst ' of indignation at the counter-order of the Ex- ' pedition to Kertch. Sailors and soldiers alike ' have been tearing themselves with rage.' t The indignation of the fleets and the armies, whether English or French, extended to our people at home, and was fiercely expressed by our Government. Lord Panmure wrote: — 'If ' he [General Canrobert] had refused his con- t'Se sont ronge les poings.' To the Minister of War Quoted Rousset, vol. ii. pp. 164, 165.
 * How just this instinctive suspicion was we have seen.