Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/287

 FOR THE INVASION. 257 momentous affairs, seemed to wield great author^ chap ity. At Constantinople and at Varna, no less ^^^- than in Paris, the Marshal had been made the vic- tim of unsparing tongues. Indeed at this time two of his divisional generals openly indulged in merciless invectives against their chief: and soldiers all know that a general officer thus setting himself against the commander-in-chief is never without a great following. Perhaps, as had been at first supposed, it may have been true that boldness and craving for adventure were the true lines of the Marshal's character ; but if that were so, his native ideas had been overlaid by much counsel, and bent into unwonted shapes. After a while, as will be seen, his mind, fatigued by advice, and now and then broken down by bodily illness, began to lapse into a state which rendered him almost passive in very critical moments. ISTaturally, he had been cowed by the result of his endeavours to have his own way against Lord Stratford and Lord Eaglan. He was without ascendancy in the camp of the Allies. Colonel Troclm was a student of the principles applicable to formal inland warfare, and it miglit well be expected that, the more the obstacles to the proposed undertaking were canvassed, the more he would throw the weight of his scientific advice into the negative scale. Upon the whole, it resulted, from the composi- tion of the various forces acting upon the mind of M. St Arnaud, that, whatever opinion he might lean to, he was not strong enough to be able to VOL. u. a