Biographical Study of A.W. Kinglake by William Tuckwell
page 46 of 105 (43%)
page 46 of 105 (43%)
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sudden alarms, flagrant breaches of faith, were inexplicable until
long afterwards, when the fall of the Empire disclosed the secret instructions--disloyal to his allies and ruinous to the campaign-- by which Louis Napoleon shackled his unhappy General. In Canrobert's successor, Pelissier, he met his match. For the first time a strong man headed the French army. Short of stature, bull- necked and massive in build, with grey hair, long dark moustache, keen fiery eyes, his coarse rough speech masking tested brain power and high intellectual culture, he brought new life to the benumbed French army, new hope to Lord Raglan. The duel between the resolute general and the enraged Emperor is narrated with a touch comedy. All that Lord Raglan desired, all that the Emperor forbade, Pelissier was stubbornly determined to accomplish; the siege should be pressed at once, the city taken at any cost, the expedition to Kertch resumed. Once only, under torment of the Emperor's reproaches and the Minister at War's remonstrances, his resolution and his nerve gave way; eight days of failing judgment issued in the Karabelnaya defeat, the severest repulse which the two armies had sustained; but the paralysis passed away, he showed himself once more eager to act in concert with the English general;--when the long-borne strain of disappointment and anxiety sapped at last Lord Raglan's vital forces, and the hard fierce Frenchman stood for upwards of an hour beside his dead colleague's bedside, "crying like a child." The lieutenants of Lord Raglan in the Crimea have long since passed away, but in artistic epical presentment they retain their place around him. Airey, his right hand from the first disembarkation at Kalamita Bay, strong-willed, decisive, ardent, thrusting away suspense and doubt, untying every knot, is vindicated by his Chief |
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