I. The “Times” Account.

Scutari, January 4.

During the past week 1,900 sick have been brought down from the Crimea. A few cases of wounded men occur among them, but the vast majority are dysenteric. There are hundreds more at Balaclava waiting to be brought down.... One reason of the amount of sickness is the wet weather, which has interrupted the transport, even of commissariat supplies, between Balaclava and the camp, and which finds its way, not only through the men’s worn-out greatcoats in the trenches, but (what is harder still to bear) through the rotten canvas of their tents. The consequence is that for weeks, whether in bed or out of it, they have hardly ever been dry. Their shoes, too, have been completely worn out, and they have had, thus wretchedly provided, to bear the exposure of the trenches for twelve hours out of the twenty-four, and wherever they went to paddle knee-deep in mud.

January 8.

Those who have been recently in the Crimea, and know the actual state of the army with respect to health, when you ask them the number of perfectly sound men left, reduce the already diminished strength of our battalions in a most startling manner. Diarrhoea and dysentery do not diminish either in the frequency or the intensity of their attacks. Since the last mail left we have had a snowstorm, and we know that the tents are still lying in Balaclava harbour without the means of transit. Mortification of the feet from exposure has for some time been an increasing feature of the cases brought down here. The army ought to have warm clothing by this time; it is humiliating to contrast the threadbare, tattered greatcoats, ragged trousers, and worn shoes of these poor sufferers with the serviceable, excellent uniforms of the Turkish army. What the army has had to endure in this way may no doubt in some degree be traced to the disgraceful manner in which for some years the clothing of regiments has been jobbed, but the more immediate cause of it will be found in a fatal mistake committed at the very outset of the Crimean invasion. When the troops landed, their kits were left behind to secure greater expedition on the march. On arriving at Balaclava, an order was issued to restore them, but no one had been appointed to take charge, and the consequence was that everybody in and about Balaclava was allowed to help himself.

II. Extracts from Officers’ Letters.

Camp near Sebastopol, December 28, 1854.

The British army has suffered more from sickness than from the sword. Our men drag on in the trenches when they can scarcely stand. It is very wearisome trying to walk about for twelve hours in slush; the young hands cannot stand it. They sit down, get cramps, are carried to hospital, and die. The old soldiers know their only chance is to keep moving about.... Some arrangements must be made about firewood; there is none within two miles of us. We have no animals of any sort, or we might lay in a supply.

January 2.

A hundred or a thousand men, as the case may be, wet through and through, and up to the tips of their shakos in mud, sometimes without blankets, often without tents, take up their ground at a late hour, and there they lie. If they have something to eat, they are lucky. If they have not, they go without. Their frightful exposure brings on certain disease, and in a few days the dying and sick are the exclamation of every one. Lord Raglan (if Lord Raglan be really here, and not in London) is never seen.

January 4.

The contrast between the French organisation and the working of our own system is painful in the extreme. The French regiments all have their huts, instead of our decaying tents, and can at least keep dry when off duty. The streets of their camp are cleanly kept, and free of the intolerable mire of ours. Their transport was so well supplied from home that they have been able to bring up plenty of forage, with the result that they have kept alive a great number of horses, while we are reduced to a mere handful of beasts, which are stabled near Lord Raglan’s quarters. We have hardly any animals to bring up supplies from the harbour, and none to fetch us firewood. The army has simply been deposited here by the people in London, and left to shift for itself. Have we any War Department at all?

January 12.

You will be surprised to hear me talk of hunger, but it is true. Our Commissariat is so badly organised that the men often have had no meat for twenty-four hours, often short supply even of biscuit and coffee. We are very badly off for fuel, the men having to go a long way for the most miserable twigs. Often we have had to march fatigue parties to port (Balaclava), some miles through mud, to bring up their rations in their haversacks—cruel work for men overworked in the trenches. Their boots are sucked off their feet in mud, they have no change of clothes, and how any man can stand it I know not.

III. From “The Morning Herald.”

Balaclava, December 18.

Along a flat, dirty causeway, rather below the level of the harbour, are boats and barges of all kinds, laden with biscuits, barrels of beef, pork, rum, bales of winter clothing, siege guns, boxes of MiniÉ ammunition, piles of shell, trusses of hay, and sacks of barley and potatoes. These are landed in the wet, and stacked in the mud, until all the provisions that will spoil are sufficiently impregnated with both to be fit for issuing to the men. The motley crowd that is perpetually wading about among these piles of uneatable eatables is something beyond description. The very ragged, gaunt, hungry-looking men with matted beards and moustachios, features grimed with dirt, and torn great-coats stiff with layers of mud—these men are picked soldiers from our different regiments, strong men selected to carry up provisions for the rest of the camp. The rough, heavy-looking men in tarpaulin coats, sou’-wester caps, and high boots, are generally officers in the Guards. The very seedy-looking men in dilapidated garments, with bread-bags tied round their legs, are officers from the naval brigade; and so on.