Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/518

 474 APPENDIX. NoTK 112. — The Talavera campaign was a victory followed at once by a retreat, by the abandonment of Spain, and by the loss, from privation and misery, of huge numbers of our troops, and besides, of horses and mules. Wellesley's transport-power broke down so utterly from Avant of forage that he had to leave his wounded in the hands of the enemy, and to give away (to the Spaniards) not only a main part of his reserve ammunition, but the guns he had taken from the enemy. During a period of thirty-one days, our troops had only ten full rations, and that ' full ration ' consisted mainly of wheat in the grain. The troops in great numbers fell sick, went into hospital, and died from ' want ' of necessary succoui's. ' From dysentery alone there died 5000 men. When our army regained the Portuguese frontier, it was ' almost bereft of baggage and ammunition. ' — Napier, vol. ii. p. 421 et scq. A more complete administrative collapse could hardly be conceived, and yet the man who had personally organised the preparations for that campaign was no other than the English commander. If the ' Times ' of that day had been manned as it was in the January and February of 1855, and connected with our Peninsular army by swift and regular means of communica- tion, how triumphantly it would have proved the imbecility of — Sir Arthur Wellesley ! Note 113. — To make the fulfilment of this condition advan- tageous, the well-ordered War Department presupposed to exist would be one taking care to have ample machinery ready for welcoming, for sorting and weighing the many statements ad- dressed to it. Superimposed upon an Office unprepared for the task, such a toil would of course be intolerably worrying, but might be easily mastered, if entrusted to a sub-department well organised, and well manned for the purpose. Of course, such a sub-department would have to be equipped with a good many waste-^iaper baskets ; but the tone of its Staff should be that of men thinking more of the grain they might find and preserve than of the chaff to be winnowed away. Amongst the many advan- tages resulting from a sub-department conducted in this spirit, one would be the establishment of a better understanding than now exists between the transactor.s of public business, and the people at large. NOTES TO CHAPTER X. Note 1. — The rapidity with which troops could be despatched from France or Algeria depended, of course, upon means of sea- transport, and they necessarily arrived by degrees ; but in the early stage of the conflict, General Canrobert was able to state