[1] The letter which appeared in the Times giving an account of the Battle of the Alma was written at a plank which Captain Montagu's sappers put on two barrels to form a table.

[2] The districts which were the scenes of such brutal excesses in the suppression of a conspiracy are not in Bulgaria.

[3] The 3rd Battalion Grenadier Guards, and 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards. The 1st Battalion Scots Fusilier Guards embarked on February 28th.

[4] This was a timely warning—almost a prophetic warning—sounded long ere a British soldier set foot in the East.

[5] It is a fact that at one time the Turks were busily engaged strengthening the batteries at the entrance of the Dardanelles, in order to prevent the entrance of the Allied fleets without their consent.

[6] It did happen that a Russian man-of-war very nearly captured one of our screw transports off the mouth of the Bosphorus as she was running up to Varna with the commissariat chest full of gold on board.

[7] The French aver that it was our tardiness.

[8] Now Lord Strathnairn.

[9] It seems to have been a sort of passion with the French to be "the first" to do everything—or was it a passion with our generals to be second? Our allies were the first at Gallipoli, first at Varna, first in the Crimea—all our attacks depended on them. They attacked first at the Alma, and when they turned the Russian right our attack was to take place. They also attacked first in the two great assaults, and our assaults were made to depend on the success of their demonstrations.

[10] No. 1 company of the 22nd Royal Welsh Fusileers now claim the honour, and Colonel Lysons, who was in the boat along with Lieutenant Drew, asserts that he was the first man to spring on shore.

[11] Lord Raglan and staff, and several officers of rank, remained on board ship that night. His lordship did not take up his quarters on shore till the next day.

[12] They were thrown out of the commissariat araba, in which they had been placed by order of the Commissariat-General, and were abandoned to the Cossacks, so I never saw them again. It was found necessary to make room for some of the reserve ammunition which had been stowed in arabas that broke down on the march.

[13] He must mean a few sotnias of Cossacks. The cavalry were on the right flank.

[14] As an instance of the difficulty of obtaining accurate information respecting the incidents of a general action, I may state that Captain Henry, an officer promoted from the ranks for his distinguished bravery, and who has received the Order of Victoria, told me that the guns were taken over a bridge, and not over a ford—that he was with the first gun, that no wheeler was killed, and that he fired only on Russian infantry, and never directed a round against the Russian guns. In most of these statements it is probable the gallant officer was mistaken, although actually present.

[15] Since this was written, it appears that the Crimea is to be blessed with a Russian railroad to Theodosia; but it is doubtful whether it will be used for other and better objects than that for which the rail was first laid down on its soil.

[16] This was written on the 22nd of February, 1855. On the 9th of September the enemy retired to the north side, where they remained when we left the Crimea.

[17] Mr. Gould, the ornithologist, informs me that the Crimea is not, to his knowledge, among the habitats of the "summer duck."

[18] This suggestion was acted on, and sanitary commissioners were sent out later in the year.

[19] Mr. Beatty, the able, kind, and deserving gentleman who was in charge of the line, received injuries which laid the foundation of a disease that afterwards proved fatal.

[20] Sir Stephen Lushington, in his Report, seems to have been under the impression that the ladders were properly placed. He laboured under a grave delusion.

[21] The creation of an Order of Merit and Valour, which I took every occasion of recommending, and for which I suggested the name "Victoria" in one of my letters, as the most expressive and appropriate, has since been carried out.

[22] It was, as I have since heard, caused by a barrel of tar at the top of the shears, which was placed there in order to light up the dockyards, where the Russians were embarking their wounded and stores for the north side.

[23] On the 18th June, Lord Raglan and Staff were stationed in the parallel of the Right Attack, close behind the Quarries, where they were exposed to heavy fire, but were close to the scene of the assault. The position in which General Simpson was placed by the Engineers was far from the Redan, and was separated from the trenches by the Woronzoff Ravine.

[24] A private named O'Brien led them, or at least was the first to leap out of the trench, and was shot through the back as he was crossing the ditch by a Russian above him.

[25] Very unfavourable comments have been made upon Major-General (then Colonel and acting Brigadier) Windham's conduct in leaving the Redan at such a moment, and some French officers did not hesitate to speak of his "desertion" of his men, as they called it, in the severest terms. I have therefore thought it advisable to give the lengthened statement, which was furnished to me on the best authority the very day after the assault, of the motives which led General Windham to quit the Redan, and of the circumstances which preceded and followed that proceeding. I offer no opinion on the merits of the controversy. I merely state what were presented to me—I believe correctly—as facts by one who ought to have been conversant with them.—W. H. Russell.

[26] Sir W. Codrington, who acted with great gallantry at the Alma, and who proved himself a most careful and excellent Brigadier and a zealous General of Division, denied at the time, in a letter which came under my notice, that he was at all discomposed by the untoward events of the 8th of September. But a man, under such circumstances, is not the best judge of his own acts; and though I have the highest admiration for General Codrington's bravery, honesty, simplicity of mind, and character, and soldierly qualities, I think it right to retain the statement which I made on the faith of officers who had opportunities of observing him on that day, when he was indeed charged with enormous responsibility, and subjected to the severest test by which a general can be tried.

[27] Joined the squadron at Odessa.

[28] "Je suis radicalement opposé."

[29] "Do not attack Odessa unless you are certain of succeeding."

[30] The ascent of the Bug or the Dnieper is only to be attempted by vessels with shot-proof screens and proof decks, inasmuch as every man could be picked off the decks by Minié riflemen, unless the banks of the river were cleared by troops in numbers sufficient to beat back the enemy as they advanced. In spite of our operations in the Sea of Azoff, let it be remembered that we did not reduce Arabat or Genitchi, and that the Russians had free use of the Spit. The water of the sea is frozen in winter to the distance of several miles, so that no boat can approach to prevent the passage of troops or convoys. Had Arabat fallen, and an expedition landed at Kaffa or Theodosia, we should have been masters of the Peninsula of Kertch.

The want of wisdom and foresight of most of our military operations in burning, laying waste, and blowing up, was never better exemplified than at Kertch. There was a very fine barrack near the quarantine station, on the Bay of Kertch, recently built, provided with every comfort, and well supplied with water from a deep well, and with capacious tanks. In the ordinary exercise of reason these buildings should have been preserved, inasmuch as it had been determined to keep a British force at Kertch; but, before Sir George Brown left, they were burnt and reduced to a heap of blackened ruins. During the following winter, with infinite labour and trouble, and at prodigious expense, we were obliged to send the materials for huts to Kertch, and drag them up close to the site of the barracks, where they formed a very poor protection against the weather in comparison with the substantial buildings which we destroyed. As the tanks were ruined and the well spoiled, the men were compelled to drag water a distance of three miles to their new residence.

[31] I do not allude to the advice given by Sir de Lacy Evans, who was so strongly impressed with the falseness and insecurity of our position in a military sense, that he recommended Lord Raglan to retire from it, as much as to the opinions of those generals who maintained that we had no business in the Crimea at all.

[32] Notwithstanding a reckless assertion in Major Calthorpe's letters, I have the best authority for reiterating the statement that Lord Lyons looked with disfavour on the flank march.

[33] The Russians, it will be said, were on the north side, and yet they could not drive us out of the south side. But the Russians had no fleet. Even as it was, we never were in strong military force on the south side, and our boats never ventured on the waters of the harbour.

[34] Every officer of the Crimean army will readily concur with me in saying that a kindlier, more zealous, or more able public servant than Mr. Beatty never existed. We all deeply regretted his death.

[35] Major-General Barnard.

[36] A very accurate and interesting memorial has been written by Captain Brine, R.E., illustrated with admirable sketches by Major the Hon. E. Colborne, and published by Ackerman, Regent Street.