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The Home Front

© John Barham

By the turn of the year, public opinion in Britain was demanding that heads roll for the appalling mess in the Crimea. Feeling vulnerable as a result, the government exceptionally recalled Parliament in December to seek the reassurance of all-party endorsement in both Houses for their conduct of the War. On December 15th, the Secretary for War the Duke of Newcastle in the Lords, and Lord John Russell in the Commons, proposed a vote of thanks for the British and French Army and Navy - this went down particularly well in France and was diplomatically sound, as Britain was going to have to ask the French to bear an ever increasing share of the conduct of operations in the Crimea.

Less diplomatic was the unbridled praise heaped on Lord Raglan and his staff in the Duke's speech in particular. This was scorned in the newspapers as proof positive that the government was totally out of touch with reality. It was coupled with charges of incompetence - in a move which had been meant to be disarming but which had backfired, Newcastle had earlier admitted that the government had made mistakes in conducting the War.

A combination of Russell's graphic articles in the Times and individual letters home and to the newspapers from the front kept the civilian public remarkably well informed with an accurate and up-to-date picture of life in the war zone. Never before had the families back home been so attuned to the privations suffered by their loved ones in the field; not would they ever be again, with the introduction of censorship later in the century.

The government's efforts to dismiss Russell's reports as sensationalist and exaggerated received a nasty jolt when the Himalaya deposited a cargo of wounded on the dockside at Portsmouth - neither military nor civil authorities took a blind bit of notice of them and it was left to the stouthearted burghers of Portsmouth to rustle up some omnibuses to convey them to local hospitals. The Times had a field day. 'Everybody knows that Portsmouth swarms with officials, naval and military, and that if the Queen had been landing from Osborne, instead of our helpless and crippled soldiers from the Crimea, there would not have been wanting one of the tail to swell the unmeaning pomp and idle ceremony.' Strong words, but the newspaper was only echoing the public outcry at the incident. A week later the Candia docked at Portsmouth and landed 200 more wounded. This time the thoroughly rattled authorities had laid on impeccably smooth and swift reception arrangements - so much for blaming the system, muttered Joe Public.

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