LOUD RAGLAN.

Lyttelton Times, Volume V, Issue 315, 7 November 1855, Page 7

LOUD RAGLAN.

Lord Raglan has followed his French colleague, and the great Emperor against whom he fought, to the grave—before a year is out, but before Sebastopol has fallen. Of the threeCoin-tnanders-iii-chief who began the war in the Crimea, and whose high station .seemed, in a manner, to place them above the common chances of a campaign, each has in turn given way under its trials; two of them, an English Field-Marshal and a Marshal of Fiance, have been its victims. We may measure the intensity of the struggle, the unwonted greatness of its hazards, the price we must payJpr that which we have undertaken, by this alone. When, in a campaign of barely twelve months, were three mighty hosts deprived each of them of their supreme chiefs, chosen leaders and men famous in their times, by disease or death—its direct and visible consequence? For many accidents we were more or less prepared ; but for this, least of all. No one had thought of lhatstout and hardy old man—though he might have been, perhaps too easily, reached by a stray bullet in battle—sharing the fate of those, alas ! so many, who have found their work above their strength, and have worked till their strength collapsed in a few hours under fever or pestilence. And it is impossible not to feel that it must have been for him, one of the very noblest and gentlest, as well as bravest of modern soldiers, a dreary finish to a life of so much success, so much usefulness, so much honour. The last event on the spot was that fatal 18th of June, with its baffled hopes and cruel—losses—hopes, possibly, set as high as the final winning of the prize, and losses which would have been a heavy sacrifice, for that prize itself even. The last intelligence of the state of public opinion in England—that public opinion to which officers are so keenly sensitive—was of increasing disappointment and suspicion, showing itself in various shapes, from the buter and reckless invective of the newspapers, to the cautious yet not vague generalities, and the observable and expressive silence of Parliamentary speakers. A srreat effort had failed, and Sebastopol was uulaken. And this had to. be sent home to countrymen, whose confidence in his powers of serving them adequately was visibly shaken. Such was the gloom under which, in addition to the responsibilities of every hour, the unknown cares of a divided command, and with friends and comrades cut off and sickening to death around him, Lord Raglan had to endure the invasion of mortal disease. Such was the dark cloud which descended on the last days of the blameless and bright career of him who could scarcely even then forget that he had been, in da%Ts gone by, the chosen friend, the associate in danger ;md triumph, the sharer in the counsels, the acknowledged and helpful co-operator in the deeds, of the great Captain of tiie Peninsula and Waterloo. i We can haidlv hope but that that kindhearted and noble-minded soldier mist have passed away with a heart '.owed down and depressed, by disappointment and dreary thoughts ; that the scene closed upon him in a humbling and dark conjuncture, full of the mollifications of the past, and disclosing but little how the future might end successfully. Such a close must be a bitter pan;*" to a soldier. Such has not been wont to be th" cml of one of our great Captains, at the head of a powerful and unbroken army. Ami yet compare this -ml with that of the other chief actors, who stand an the same line wiih Lord R;igl;in ; compare the circumstances of his death with that of Marshal St. Ainaud, and the Emperor Nicholas ; and that of the English chief, even measured merely by the thoughts and feelings which belong" to tlii- world, i> the lot in which a true-hearted man would find least to quarrel with, and which leaves behind it most consolation for his friends. Marshal St. Aniaud died, indee-!, on the morrow o f' victory, and sure, us K \m belir-ved, of one still greater close at hand; he knew nothing of public disappointment—lie died before failure bud begun. B.U his was the end of a soldier of f.nttine. for whom tho oppnriunitiesof his career, in its noblest iilvuracter, were only just beginning, when lifey were snatched on!}: of h\< grasp ; he did nut li^e long enough—though it may be that for his fame he did not die too early—to add his name to the great names of the Krei.eh army, and to merge

the questionable reputation won in Algerian forays and in the streets of Paris, in the genuine glory of governing and directing worthily a }>:reat army in great operations. The Russian Emperor died, like the English General, in the tnidst-of projects frustrated, and with the smart of disappointment and failure still fresh ; died, like him, because a powerful frame had been overtasked by the accumulation of cares and. trials; died, like him, at a moment when .the present was full of stinging vexations, and the future cheerless and threatening. But the disasters and mortifications amidst which the Emperor departed were of his own raising up. His own fierce \vilfulness, and the ambition which is the heirloom of his house, had sown the seeds of those over-mastering troubles and grief's which had unnerved even his giant strength. It could hardly be hidden from him, in that hour of self-knowledge, that it had been his will which had given the signal for war; his choice which had convulsed Europe when she was clinging' to her loug-familiar peace ; his hand which had signed those fatal orders and traced those irrevocable determinations which had recoiled in havoc and shame on his own land. But the Englishman, if he did not die with the thoughts and h~pes of victory, had fulfilled a long and worthy term of life, in which he had faithfully, and to their great benefit, served his country and his fellow-soldiers ; he left a memory which every soldier venerates and loves; he had accomplished a career which every soldier might envy, and this was the least. It had been his lot at last to be an unsuccessful General. He died at the moment when a severe reverse impressed thi.* on his own mind and on that of the army. He had taken responsibility with all its chances, without shrinking when it came to him. He had wrought out all his duty, unselfishly, and with a single heart, though this was but tlie present and visible fruit of bis efforts. And when doing his duty failed, he did not shrink a bit the more. Thers he remained, still doing it as best he could—still enduring, though things turned out against him, till Death came and took him. Amid clamour and criticism, in part, possibly, not groundless, but most of it ungenerous and ignorant, he bore all with that noble meekness which is so touching a feature in mostof those high-spirited men who have commanded English armies. He continues and exemplifies the lesson which his great master was felt to have taught us all so strikingly in our various callings, of that unswerving spirit of duty, which neither good report nor evil, neither good success nor bad, can seduce or overpower. Doing his duty without sparing himself—doing his duty, though unsuccessful—doing his duty after he had disappointed his countrymen, and' amidst their censures—doing bis duty to the end, as he did it when be was cheered on by the hope and fruits of victory—Lord Raglan lias died ac his post, and has left an example of noble and modest virtue which will not the less strike deep into the memory both of his comrades and his countrymen, because it was not given him to accomplish all that had been hoped from so great experience and such unwearied industry, or because the moment of his death happened at a time of gloom and disappointment.— Guardian.