Plan of the Crimean Campaign.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 173, 9 October 1886, Page 4

Plan of the Crimean Campaign.

Me Lawrbnce Omphant, writing In " Blackwood's Magazine," says :— ln the early part of the year 1854 I was startled one morning by the clattering of a mounted orderly, who reined up at the door of my modest lodging' In Half-Moon Street, and impressed my worthy landlady with a notion of importance which ehe had not hitherto entertained, by handing her a letter which required 'an immediate answer. I founi it to contain a request from Lord Raglan's chief of the staff, that I phould repair at once to the Horse .Guards. The English army was on the point of embarking for the Crimea, and, as may be imagined, I lost no time in obeying the summons. I was ushered into a room containing a long table covered with maps, and round which were standing several officers of rank, among whom (the only two that I remember), were Lord de Ros and Sir John Burgoyne. The Commander-in-Chief himself was present. The Crimea was at that time almost a terra incognita, in England, and travellers who had ever been actually inside the forbidden precincts of Sebastopol itself were rare. Now it so happened that about sixteen months before I bad travelled through Russia, and spent a few hours within the | walls of that celebrated fortress, and I was | now summoned to te!l the chiefß of the expedition all I knew about it. Sir John Burgoyne told me that he had jußt been examining a Pole, who had given him an account of the serious character of the fortifications on the land side which did not altogether tally with the other information he had received, and he begged me to give him the result of my observations. I assured him that if any such fortifications|on the land side existed they must have been erected since my visit. I had entered the town from Balaclava, and I must certainly have rotnembered passing through thorn. I was therefore prepared most positively to assert that, in October, J852, there was no more impediment to an army which should effect a landing at Balaclava, from marching into Sebastopol, than there would be for an army to march into Brighton from the downs behind it ; and I felt <mrt \ mfc my travelling companion, Mr Oswald Smith, would, if further evidence were required, confirm this statement. At the same time, I had, without any pretension to a knowledge of military tactics, amused myeelf, as soon as a hostile invasion of Russia was determined upon, in forming quite another plan of campaign, which consisted in a combined attack upon the Isthtnuts of Perekop, by way of the Gulf of Perekog on the West and fcbe Soa of Azof on the East. The capture ot the Binall fort here would have cut off the whole of the Crimea, to which very few troops had yet been transported. It would have been impossible for Russia to reinforce Se, bafitopol either by sea or land, and the fall of that fortress, provided that the allies could have maintained their position at Perekop, would simply have been a question of time. We should have stood upon the defensive against Russia at a position of great natural strength, instead of on the offensive against her, at the point where, as it afterwards turned out, the genius of Todleben made her impregnable for a year. The rapture of Kertch and Theodosia would have given us command of the resources of the Crimea; and the defeat of the garrison of Sebastopol, had it ventured to attack us, would not only have sealed the fate of that fortress, but would have given up the whole Tauric peninsula, which wecouldhavehelda9apermanont£ruavantee, and than, if Russia ttill refused t) come to terms, v^e should, by leaving a sufficiently strong force to defend Perekop, have been free to transfer the scone of operations to the Caucasus and the province beyond it. I ventured after giving Sir John Burgoyne all the information in my power as to the dofences of Sobastopol, the apparent strongth of its garrison, and so forfch, to point to Perekop as a weak spot, but of courso could only do this with tho greatest diffidence. So far ns I can remomber, he listened without making any remark ; at all events, I soon felt bo much impressed with a sense of my own presumption in volunteering a r)lan of campaign that I confined myself to a mere hint of it ; but I have often wondered if tha whole thing had to be done over again whether it would be at I tempted in the fame way ac it was before.