Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/51

 WAR ADMINISTKATION OF FRANCE. 7 war; so that, if it should be suddenly called upon CHAP. to take measures against an enemy no longer ima- 1_ giuary but real, there need not on that account follow any mischievous dislocation or change of governmental machinery ; and — with only some moderate increase of official activity, or, perhaps, by degrees, some expansion of a few sub-depart- ments — the appliances of an existing routine mit^ht be made to bear the new strain. Indeed, the exigencies that arose when France declared against Eussia, were hardly so new in kind as to demand new kinds of exertion ; for she did not really pass into war from a state of abso- lute peace. Long accustomed to the piactice of maintaining great armies, she had also been devoting her energies for the last twenty-foui years to the task of either conquering or main- taining dominions in the north of Africa ; and, although it perhaps may be true that the habit of contending with Kabyles and Barbary Arabs did not constitute a good preparation for the hour of battle in Europe, it is certain that the conduct of administrative war-business in Algeria was a schooling very useful to men who might afterwards have to feed war in other parts of the world, but especially so, if their task should be such as the one now in hand where an army despatched by sea to a distant shore must be there maintained in strength by measures deriv- ing from Paris. If a French soldier reached the Crimea, if he found there bread, coffee, and cartridges ; if, when wounded or sick, he was carried in the invalid's pannier, or the ready