Requiem for the Chiefs


a country house beside the River Belbec, where he was to spend many painful weeks as the inflammation stubbornly refused to clear. Eventually it would, but he was unable to take any further part in the campaign, an inestimable loss to the Russian cause.

The fighting got the headlines, but the biggest story of all in June was never prominently featured - the massive number of sickness casualties. The French kept detailed statistical records. Out of a total strength of 121, 887, there were 21, 449 out sick. Of these, 6,062 were battle casualties, 4,756 were cholera victims, 630 had scurvy, 10,001 other diseases. These figures do not included killed in action, or those treated only in regimental ambulances. From the sick, 3,806 died in the Crimea, 10,453 were evacuated to Constantinople, from who only 2,959 were cured. Sickness figures in the Turkish, Sardinian and British armies were proportionately similar to the French. The British Sanitary Commission reported that in the week ending 23rd June the local death rate hit 35% of the whole force. The weather was not helping - a strong wind blew for three or four days creating perpetual duststorms reducing visibility to 15-20 yards. The whole plateau was a desert several inches deep in dust - it reflected the sun creating intense heat. One surgeon observed that the men were falling out of the ranks as they were marched up to the trenches and were dying where they lay at the roadside.

Lord Raglan seemed still dazed with the shock of defeat, his depression deepened by the reproaches that reached his ears from the British press, his own officers and also from the French. Accusations were flying from unexpected and bizarre quarters. 'The British were unwilling to leave their trenches and their officers had to drive them out' opined Colonel Desaint, Pelissier's chief mapmaker. 'The entente cordiale' wrote Sir Colin Campbell 'is not at all improved by this disaster.'

All that Raglan held dear seemed to have crumbled to dust. A Coldstream Guards officer who visited him on the 20th came away shocked. 'Do you not see the change in Lord Raglan?' he asked a group of staff officers as he was leaving, 'Good God, he is a dying man!'

But the first to go was the Adjutant-General Major General James Estcourt. What Palmerston and Panmore had been unable to wrest from Raglan, cholera succeeded in achieving on 24rd June. Raglan,

The copyright of the article Requiem for the Chiefs in Crimean War is owned by John Barham. Permission to republish Requiem for the Chiefs in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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