Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/182

 138 THE WINTER TROUB[;ES. CHAP, very large numbers of sick and wounded men VI might be long and grievously baffled. Undue One of the causes which grievously augmented wltrk'.H^t the suffering:! and consequent sickness endured Kii-iish by our troops was the excessive — the almost "^'^' cruelly excessive — work which this miserable siege cast upon them. When first the Allies sat down before Sebastopol, there was not so Qvoat a difference between the numbers of the French and the numbers of the English as to suggest any very unequal partition of the toil ; and weeks later, when great reinforcements had brought up Canrobert's army to a strength far exceeding Lord Raglan's, our allies proved un- willing to accept a proportionate readjustment of the toil endured by the soldiery. The French commander indeed showed a generous readiness to aid the transport of our sick and wounded men with the resources of his Ambuhmce Corps ; and Lord Raglan's appeals to him for a fairer distribution of the siege labours between the troops of the two Allied armies did not cer- tainly encounter a complete and final rejection, but they were invariably met by General Can- robert with reasons for postponing the desired relief, and afterwards by delays still more lengtli- cne<l than the reasons first suggested could war- rant.(24) Thus it happened that the complication of hardships endured by our soldiery included an