Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/324

 280 TJ11-; WLXTEK TItOL'JiJ.KS. C H A P. IX. and throw- ing blame on Lord Raglan himself ; yet not meditating his recall. Their reason for not re- calling him. QuestioTi why this ■was not a reason for giving him a loyal sup- port. chief refused to sacrifice his Staff officers, he himself, as the responsible head, should be made to bear the blame. But this was a resolve less important than it sounds ; for having long been guilty of failing to support their general against the storm of public anger, our Ministers had already exhausted no small part of such power as they had to turn opinion against him ; (^^) and the course they now took in blaming liim (because he would not abet them when casting blame upon others) was robbed of more than half its significance by the fact that they neither recalled him, nor thought of taking any such step. Their reason for not recalling Lord Eaglan was one of the most simple kind : They knew of no other human being who, in fitness for the command of our army at that conjuncture, could be for a moment compared to him ; and the wonder is that, under such conditions, they did not see their true line of duty — did not see that, engaged as he was in mortal strife against numbers, the general who, so far as they knew, was the best that the whole world could furnish, ought to have from them a loyal support. They need not have been deaf to complaints, and, on the contrary, might have made complaints useful as vehicles of wholesome suggestion, instead of so far adopting them as to constitute themselves the accusers of their general, thus interposing a gulf — a baneful, perilous gulf — between the executive and the head of our army, and op- pressing a devoted commander in the midst of