Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/55

 ENGLISH WAli ADMINISTIiATION. U CHAPTER III. THE WAR ADMINISTRATION OF ENGLAND. T. It mioht be imacrined that Enoland, long accus- chap. ^ CO jjj tomed to the business of shipping off troops to all the quarters of the globe, and from time to ^j^g^e^n of^*" time carrying on wars against distant nations, Slnl^^tTatioD must have had smoothly working in her capital beforeihe^ every wheel of the official machinery required Rjfs"f ^'^'^ for a seabord campaign ; but the actual truth is that, since the peace of 1815, all the armies she engaged in hostilities had been made to depend upon centres of administrative power established in India and the colonies ; Q-) so that hence it was possible for her to be a fighting and conquering State during a period of nearly forty years without having at home in London or Westminster that mainspring of military operations which men call a War Department. Before her quariel with Russia, she indeed had the Horse Guards — a Eoyal, not ' Government ' Office, of which we shall have to hear more, and