A War Culture in Action: A Study of the Literature of the Crimean War Period

A War Culture in Action: A Study of the Literature of the Crimean War Period C. Dereli PETER LANG A War Culture in A...

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A War Culture in Action: A Study of the Literature of the Crimean War Period

C. Dereli

PETER LANG

A War Culture in Action

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C. Dereli

A War Culture in Action A Study of the Literature of the Crimean War Period

PETER LANG Oxford • Bern • Berlin • Bruxelles • Frankfurt am Main • New York • Wien

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at ‹http://dnb.ddb.de›. British Library and Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data: A catalogue record for this book is available from The British Library, Great Britain, and from The Library of Congress, USA

Cover design: Thomas Jaberg, Peter Lang AG

ISBN 3-03910-079-3 US-ISBN 0-8204-6895-9

© Peter Lang AG, European Academic Publishers, Bern 2003 Hochfeldstrasse 32, Postfach 746, CH-3000 Bern 9, Switzerland [email protected], www.peterlang.com, www.peterlang.net All rights reserved. All parts of this publication are protected by copyright. Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution. This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems. Printed in Germany

Contents

Acknowledgements

7

Introduction

9

Chapter 1

England as Context of War: War as Context of Literature (Part I) Chapter 2 Charles Dickens and Elizabeth Gaskell: War versus Domestic Issues Chapter 3 Tennyson’s ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’: The Poetry of Heroes and Patriots Chapter 4 War as Context of Literature (Part II) – January to September 1855: The Press and the Country in Waiting Chapter 5 Poetry of the War: A Shared Discourse? Chapter 6 Tennyson’s ‘Maud’: Ambiguity and the War Chapter 7 Westward Ho!: A Historical Setting for the War Chapter 8 The Warden and Little Dorrit: Novels, Readers, and War Issues Chapter 9 Gender Issues and the Crimean War: Creating Roles for Women? Chapter 10 Conclusions: War Culture in Action

17 51 73

97 107 129 143 155 173 191

Notes

197

Appendix

237

Bibliography

249


Acknowledgements

For the loan of nineteenth-century editions of texts I have to thank Dr Alan Bird, Professor Brian Maidment and Professor Michael Wheeler. To the latter I am indebted for guidance, advice and encouragement throughout the preparation of the PhD thesis on which this book is based. But I am especially indebted to him for the generous suggestion of a topic which he had identified as an interesting and little-studied area, and which has provided me with many enjoyable and, I hope, fruitful hours of research. The difficulty of studying war, a phenomenon which is a source of pain to so many people, was compensated by the deeper understanding that came from my investigation into the literature of the Crimean War period. But during the rewriting of the material for publication, the threat of an unending war against terrorism has provided a grim backdrop for my study. Material used in Chapter 6 was previously published in the Tennysonian Research Bulletin, 7 (1997), 1–6. A version of Chapter 9 appeared in Chris Parker’s Gender Roles and Sexuality in Victorian Literature (Aldershot, 1995). Finally, but by no means least, I have to thank David Edmonds from Peter Lang AG for his patient advice during the preparation of the text for publication.


Introduction

This study is about literature; but it is also about a war, and, more specifically, a one-year period during that war, from September 1854 to September 1855. This was the period of the most intensive military activity in the Crimea, during the war between the allies – Britain, France and Turkey – and the Russian enemy. The period was also marked by crisis at home, resulting from the revelations of mismanagement of the war effort. The chronological restriction on this study provides an appropriate framework, because it encompasses the climax both of the war abroad and of its impact at home. During this period a number of works, which have since become accepted as canonical, were written or published. There was also a vast amount of now forgotten writing, particularly poetry, produced in response to the war. It is the study of this literature within the context of the war which will be the central concern here. To this end, I begin with a brief look at the situation in British politics when war was declared. Then, relying on newspaper sources, the interpretation of events conveyed to the public at that time is explored to provide the context for a reading of the literature of the war period. This study, therefore, aims to merit the label ‘interdisciplinary’, as it weaves together history and literature within a conceptual framework that is biased towards sociological approaches to culture. These approaches are combined to provide at least a partial account of a cultural moment. In this introduction, I want to identify those areas of theory relating to literature, culture and war which have helped to shape my thinking through the course of my research. One theorist whose work has provided a model for many in interdisciplinary fields through his studies of institutions and behaviour within social and historical contexts is Michel Foucault. Foucault said that he was not in the business of producing theories about society, and did not wish his work to be ransacked for evidence

to formulate either a theory of society,1 a general theory of history,2 or a fixed methodology.3 Even so, Foucault’s discourse approach has been described as offering ‘a theoretical framework for a nonsubjective discourse-oriented reading of texts’.4 It is through the examination of ‘discourse’, which means, for Foucault, ‘not only particular discussions, but the entire organisational and ideological technology associated with the implementation of ideas’,5 that he studies relationships of power. He feels that this has been a neglected area of the study of the human subject, because we have ‘had recourse only to ways of thinking about power based on legal models’.6 His work focuses, therefore, not on power directly,7 but on the institutions and language through which power is exercised; that is, power relations, which he describes as ‘a mode of action upon actions’.8 As a result of this approach, he is able to distance himself from the concept of ‘ideology’, although it could be argued that his use of the term ‘state’ to designate the collective source of the operation of power is then in danger of presenting it as a black box from which somehow control emanates.9 But Foucault’s concern has been to shift our attention on to these relationships of power which he sees as fundamental to society: ‘A society without power relations can only be an abstraction.’10 In my study of individual literary works of the Crimean War period, I have found myself challenged to consider whether issues of power and power relations were present, implicitly or explicitly, in the various discourses around the subject of war. My first recourse in conceptualising the language processes at work in this war context was to the thinking of Roland Barthes on ‘mythologies’.11 In the aftermath of a world war which had witnessed the power of language to control and shape lives, his work provided a model of how meanings are constructed and changed. Barthes refers to ‘myth’ as ‘depoliticized speech’, which has ‘the task of giving an historical intention a natural justification’.12 He argues that ‘there is no fixity in mythical concepts: they can come into being, alter, disintegrate, disappear completely. And it is precisely because they are historical that history can very easily suppress them.’13 Within my own work on war literature here, Barthes has informed my perception of the specificity of meanings in this context. However, as illustrations of 10

‘myth’ building have proliferated, it has seemed appropriate to look beyond the individual ‘myths’ being adapted or created for the war, and to speak of ‘a culture of war’, as something more pervasive and accumulatively more powerful. The concept of culture has been a meeting ground of literary and sociological studies for some time now14 and, as the understanding of its complexity has increased, so have the number of other disciplines contributing to the analysis of ‘the institutions and formations of cultural production’.15 However, in suggesting that a specifically warrelated culture is in operation during 1854–5 I am, to some extent, sidestepping some of the more contentious aspects of the creation of a culture, such as ideological content.16 This is where, initially at least, I have found myself closer to Foucault in focusing on the language usage that is building a cultural experience for general public consumption: a process through which a powerful reshaping of the ‘world view’ is taking place within a country at war. At the same time, it does not seem possible to study war without some consideration of the moral dilemmas it creates. However, the distance of more than 150 years leads to problems of interpretation. Where moral issues are visible or implicit in texts, it would be a lengthy and perhaps unsatisfactory task within a study chiefly focused on literature and the war, to try to position them within a framework of nineteenth-century institutionalised religious views. Looking at such a range of authors, some now well known, others unidentified, it would be impossible in all cases or with the same depth to reconstruct their individual beliefs and moral positions. Furthermore, moral views are particularly vulnerable to being reconstructed by later readers from their own perspective, as indeed we now accept that each generation retells history in its own image. But as a number of overtly moral discourses of that time centre around the concept of responsibility, I have taken a benchmark from the work of the twentieth-century philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. Where it seems necessary to consider the moral dimension, I have taken Levinas’s views of othercentredness and responsibility as a guide. Levinas speaks of the responsibility of the ‘I’ for the ‘other’: ‘Responsibility is not an attribute of the self, but the self itself [...] To be oneself is to be for the other.’17 In his essay ‘Meaning and Sense’ he located language as 11

post-dating human contact and response of individual to individual. The face, he maintains, ‘speaks’ to the individual confronting it: The Nudity of a face is a bareness without any cultural ornament, an absolution, a detachment from its form in the midst of the production of its form [...] a face imposes itself upon me without my being able to be deaf to its call or to forget it, that is, without my being able to stop holding myself responsible for its distress. Consciousness loses its first place [...] To be an I means then not to be able to escape responsibility, as though the whole edifice of creation rested on my shoulders.18

In locating moral responsibility before the formation or acquisition of language, Levinas provides a yardstick against which language itself and changes in meanings can be assessed. The antithesis to power is then activity or direction that is unpowerful or other-centred: ‘I do not grasp the other in order to dominate; I respond, instead, to the face’s epiphany.’19 Levinas’s conception of responsibility as prior to the formulation of language suggests an alternative polarity to ‘power’. Unearthing the mechanisms of control and perpetuation of power exercised through language, Foucault postulated ‘freedom’ as, to some extent, its antithesis, but, at the same time, he conceived of power as ‘exercised only over free subjects’, so that ‘there is no confrontation of power and freedom which is mutually exclusive’.20 Furthermore, this concept now suffers from much overuse and abuse. For my study of writing in the mid-nineteenth century, where individual writers are adopting a moral stance, guided by Levinas’s concept of ‘responsibility’ I have considered the relative positions of discourses on a continuum, as it were, from total other-centredness and responsibility. This has provided a standpoint from which to interpret moral positions taken by writers that is both nondenominational and, I hope, as transparent as possible. It is also appropriate to locate this study in relation to the theoretical work on war, if only briefly. Though in the twenty-first century war is an everpresent phenomenon, the body of theoretical work on the subject remains somewhat esoteric. For twentieth-century theorists on war the early nineteenth century has been an important reference point. The first decade of the nineteenth century saw Napoleon leading a huge army across Europe. The phenomenon itself 12

and the success of those campaigns were factors that could hardly be ignored. Antoine Henri de Jomini (1779–1869) and Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831) were two outstanding generals who responded to these events with theoretical writing on war. Michael Howard credits Jomini’s writings on logistics and strategy with a lasting relevance,21 though, since the mid-nineteenth century, his reputation in Europe has been increasingly overshadowed by that of his contemporary Clausewitz.22 The writing of both of these nineteenth-century generals was wide ranging, covering organisation, strategy and the justification of war. One aspect of Clausewitz’s writing which has attracted much attention through the twentieth century and up to the present is his discussion of the relationship between war and politics. Clausewitz’s ambiguity on the question of whether political or strategic aims should be paramount in the operation of war perhaps itself needs to be understood in its original context, in the wake of the French Revolution, when shifts of power from monarch to state were taking place. It would seem that the relationship between the operation of the war and political policy was newly problematised in the early decades of the nineteenth century. Gat has suggested that in the last years of the writing of On War Clausewitz was influenced by Hegel.23 Hegel took a positive view about how a state, in the period after the French Revolution, could reconcile the old monarchical and new democratic forces. He foresaw the emergence of the ‘State’ as a ‘moral Whole and the Reality of Freedom’ and ‘the Divine Idea as it exists on Earth’.24 While essentially monarchical,25 such a state would embody the idea of freedom, and could demand absolute obedience to its laws, because they are the will of the people. Clausewitz’s exploration of the relation between the conduct of the battle and political decisions about the war wrestles with these tensions, but remains ambiguous, and the potential for disruption, when a state enters upon a war, reverberates through his discussion. It is the idea of a ‘just war’, which can be traced back to classical sources, which remains central to explanations and justifications of war.26 Within an earlier monarchical age, this is exemplified in the work of Shakespeare. In Henry V it is argued that tensions about the justification of war are resolved when the sole responsibility rests on the divinely appointed king, and thereby 13

ultimately on God. This establishes at a stroke the justice of the nation’s cause, from which a unity of purpose at home and abroad must flow. On the other hand, Clausewitz’s insistence on the need to motivate the troops, ‘his emphasis on the decisive role of the moral forces that animate armies’,27 and the need to create a unity of purpose draw attention to what by inference must have been newly problematic areas in the new political climate, as power shifted from monarch to state. Some of these tensions surfaced in Britain, when the newly selfconscious democracy went to war in 1854. It would seem that the British did not, for the most part, have the benefit of Clausewitz’s theoretical analysis, since his book does not seem to have been widely known here at that time.28 The popular conception of the just war in Britain seemed little changed from Shakespeare’s day, though the authority on the just war quoted in 1854 was the writer on international law, Emerich de Vattel.29 The problem of how to reconcile democracy and war became visible in 1854, when things began to go wrong with the war effort. An editorial in the Illustrated London News in February 1855 put the problem bluntly to its readers: ‘The question of questions which Lord Palmerston and the country have to decide resolves itself into this – can a reformed Parliament act in war as vigorously as in peace?’30 In studying the dynamic interplay of forces to which war gave rise in 1854, there is no intention to single out the year 1854–5 as a dramatic turning-point in the history of British culture. It is, however, an interesting moment, for a number of reasons. Firstly, it was the first experience of war for Britain since the 1832 Reform Act created a wider franchise and a new awareness of the issues of ‘democracy’. Secondly, it was the first war in which technological advances speeded up the process of reporting of events to the public at home, which in turn placed the role of the national newspapers under scrutiny. The literary works which will be considered in this context of war include novels and poems by several well-known writers of the nineteenth century, as well as ‘minor’ or amateur poetry, which appeared in print at that time. While the concept of a literary tradition serves to formalise our thought about what is ‘good’ writing, this study of the varied discourses of the war attempts to set that aside, to 14

begin with the readers’ experiences and viewpoints. In considering some ‘canonical’ works and other works by ‘minor’ poets side-byside, and giving priority to the influence of the historical context on their conception and reception, major and minor works are treated with a degree of equity, which believers in the tradition may dispute. However, for readers of these studies who are familiar with the later reputations of the writers considered, it is hoped that the conclusions drawn here will, by comparison, offer further insights into the creation of literary reputations, even as they contribute to the formation of that elusive concept of ‘culture’. The point of view on the events of the Crimean War which I am primarily concerned to examine, therefore, is neither that of the objective historian, nor of the participants in the central action. It is that of the distant observer. Mrs Seacole, a Creole woman who found a role for herself in the Crimea during the war, commented that one’s view of the battle being fought depended on where you were standing at the time. She suggested to her readers that: through the valuable aid of the cleverest man in the whole camp [William Howard Russell], [you] read in The Times’s columns the details of that great campaign, while we, the actors in it, had enough to do to discharge our own duties well, and rarely concerned ourselves in what seemed of such importance to you.31

Consequently, Chapters 1 and 4 will provide an overview, or snapshot of opinion on the war, as it was presented in the press. Chapter 1 will also briefly look back to the topical political issues in the weeks and months leading up to the declaration of war. Chapter 2 considers works by the established writers Charles Dickens and Elizabeth Gaskell which appeared in print in 1854 as war fever was building up, and assesses their relationship, if any, to the war context. Chapter 3 considers a poem that is obviously a response to the war, Tennyson’s ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’, locating it in relation to his readers’ experiences of the war culture at that time. Chapter 5 surveys the voluminous output of war poetry, considering how it was helping to build or to challenge the discourse of the war that was being established in the press. The novels and poems covered in Chapters 6, 7 and 8 are found to vary in the degree to which they engage with this 15

discourse. In Chapter 9 the roles for women during the war are examined from a number of perspectives, including poetry by or about women. In particular, the media images of Florence Nightingale are considered. Finally, Chapter 10 teases out some of the implications of this study of literature in its historical context for an understanding of the operation of a culture of war.

16

Chapter 1 England as Context of War: War as Context of Literature (Part I)

England as Context of War The period of the war on which this study will focus, from September 1854 to September 1855, encompassed the major events of the Crimean War. The war with Russia, of which these events are a major part, lasted from April 1854 to February 1856 and also involved naval encounters in the Baltic Sea. So when British troops landed in the Crimea, north of Sebastopol, in September 1854, the country had already been at war with Russia for some six months. The first destination of the allied army of British, French and Turkish troops had been Varna, on the Black sea. While the British public had been exposed to ‘war fever’ in the press throughout these months, the landing in the Crimea marked a change in the tempo of the war reporting. How this news was received was, in turn, dependent on the mood of the country at that moment. In order to develop an understanding of the impact of the landing in the Crimea on the country in general, this chapter will examine the issues which had held the attention of the public in the earlier months of 1854, that is, the issues which the press were concerned to draw to public attention. The political manoeuvring, of which there was a great deal at this time, and the complexities of why Britain entered the war are not themselves the concern of this chapter,1 though some attempt will be made to establish the diversity of views expressed, as a context for the more detailed analysis of the literary productions of the later months of 1854. On 31 January 1854 the Queen opened parliament. The government of the day was a coalition, headed by the Tory, Lord Aberdeen, with Gladstone as his Chancellor, and another Whig, Lord John Russell, as Foreign Secretary. The first theme in the Queen’s

Speech on this occasion was a reference to the Eastern Question, expressing regret at the state of warfare between Russia and Turkey and a determination ‘in cordial co-operation with the Emperor of the French’ to strive for peace. The Queen, however, appended the caution that: as the continuance of the war may deeply affect the interests of this country, and of Europe, I think it requisite to make further supplementation of my naval and military forces with the view of supporting my representations and of more effectually contributing to the restoration of peace.

Looking back over 1853 she referred, on the one hand, to the ‘blessing of an abundant harvest’ not having been ‘vouchsafed to us’, and on the other, to her satisfaction ‘that the commerce of the country is still prosperous’. Other measures announced in the Queen’s Speech included a bill for the further opening up of coastal trade, that is, a further move towards free trade; reforms for the universities and the Civil Service; an amendment to ‘the law of settlement’ which ‘impedes the freedom of labour’ and finally ‘Measures [...] for the amendment of laws relating to the representation of the Commons in Parliament’.2 This proposed Reform Bill had aroused much interest. The idea had been floated some years earlier by Lord John Russell and a debate initiated. Queen Victoria, having seen a copy of the proposed bill, wrote to Lord John Russell on 21 January of her hope that it might ‘meet the wishes of the Country and pass into law’.3 Punch, in its New Year entertainments, summed up the party divisions on the question of reform. Readers were offered ‘A Round of Political Stories by the Christmas Fireside’ which included in its nine suggested titles ‘A Pretty Little Story about Reform by Lord John Russell’ and ‘A Terrible Story upon the same subject’ by Benjamin Disraeli. While The Times’s editorials in the New Year were somewhat muted on this issue, other newspapers such as the Liverpool Chronicle spoke out clearly on the prospects of dissension over the bill: ‘If things go on peaceably, we shall doubtless have a new Reform Bill, which will substitute a bloodless for a sanguinary struggle, and throw the nation into a paroxysm of excitement, without the taking of life.’4

18

The parliamentary debate on the Queen’s Speech set the tone for the discussions on this issue in the majority of the papers during the next month. At that juncture, the debate was about the principle rather than detail of a bill. The debate was, therefore, essentially about a balancing of the importance of the bill versus the possibility of war. The one aspect of reform to which speakers found it convenient to refer at this time was the question of ending bribery and corrupt practices at elections. This had been much in the news and investigations were about to get under way into specific publicised incidents. It was, therefore, a glaring example of the need for reform, but also neutral ground compared to the problems of redrawing electoral boundaries. The Liverpool Chronicle highlighted this position in the leader of 4 February on the Queen’s Speech debate. It suggested that no one would have minded if the bill for parliamentary reform had been omitted, adding, so as not to appear to ignore the bribery question, that ‘the extraordinary disclosures of the last session respecting the bribery and corruption which everywhere prevailed during the general election’ could only be explained by reference to ‘the universal prosperity of the nation’. Rather than campaigning openly against the Reform Bill, by far the safest approach was to continue to link the bill and the war.5 The leader in The Times of 11 February, for instance, summing up a parliamentary debate on the bill which was reported elsewhere in the paper, asserted that: ‘We should with difficulty admit the supposition that, in the presence of the enemy, Englishmen will consent to divide themselves into two camps upon any other question than that of the prosecution of the war.’ Two days later, as publication of the bill seemed inevitable, The Times attacked the motives of some politicians, notably Disraeli and Lord Derby, who, it argued, were looking for excuses to ditch the Reform Bill they had once inadvertently promised. The paper maintained its original tone of caution, adding that although the date was fixed for the second reading of the bill, ‘Should war actually break out [...] we trust that the measure will not be pressed.’ Unity in time of war was assumed to be paramount: ‘A Reform Bill must necessarily be followed by a dissolution, and an election in the midst of war, and just at the time when its pecuniary burdens are beginning to be felt.’ Throughout February, this was generally the view taken of the Reform Bill.6 19

The introduction of the bill went ahead. On 14 February The Times carried a summary of the measures proposed. From Lord John Russell’s speech in introducing the bill the sensitive areas are clear. In outlining his proposals for the redistribution of seats, for instance, he tactfully acknowledged the importance of the landed interest: I think it would be impossible in the present social state of this country, with our law of primogeniture and with the great proprietors who are found in this country, to attempt to prevent the influence of those great proprietors affecting the returns for counties.7

Inevitably, as details were now discussed, some partisan views were aired. Blackwood’s Magazine, in its March issue, carried an article on the Reform Bill, which filled out some of the details of the proposals in order to take issue with them. The proposed qualifications for entitlement to enrolment on the electoral register were listed, and the alarmist conclusion drawn that ‘there is an end of property and occupancy as the basis of the electoral franchise’.8 More consideration of the practical implications of these measures led the writer W.E. Aytoun to exclaim in horror: ‘Every common carrier who pays for his van £2.6s.8d yearly [...] every horse-dealer, dog-breaker, and tavern keeper [...] are to be entitled to vote either in town or county.’9 Aytoun outspokenly asserted that the bill was a sham and that Lord John Russell had no intention of pushing such a measure through at this time, thereby adding a note of cynicism on the matter of prioritising of the bill or the war. Any entry by Mr Cobden into the debate sparked general alarm, which was usually expressed through invective. The outburst in The Times’s editorial of 26 January was unusually outspoken and revealed the intensity of feeling on the issues raised by the Reform Bill: The danger is not that Communistic theories will gain an inch of ground in the British Parliament, but that political charlatans may ride into Parliament on the back of these theories, and once there, make their own use of their position.10

On 1 March Queen Victoria wrote to Lord John Russell acknowledging her satisfaction at his decision to postpone the second reading of the bill. She stressed the need for unity in her government at this 20

time: ‘The Queen seizes this opportunity of expressing her sense of the imperative importance of the Cabinet being united and of one mind at this moment, and not to let it appear that there are differences of opinion within it.’11 By 11 March many papers were carrying reports of the shelving of the bill. Although a decision to postpone the second reading until after the Easter recess did not end the public debate, a sigh of relief could generally be detected in the media response. When, after the declaration of war, the bill was finally put aside the Illustrated London News, for one, cried crocodile tears over the bill which it had spoken of as folly in time of war only weeks before, but only as a ploy to emphasise the strength of the country’s commitment to the war effort: ‘But even those who regret the sacrifice will concur in the necessity which rendered it imperative, and approve of the determination of the Government [...] The heart of the people is in the War.’12 Punch lamented the demise of the bill in verse: [...] since the Reform Bill meets slight acceptation From those I see here, or indeed, from the nation, (Which can’t take its eyes from the war in the East), Why, we’ll put off Reform ‘for the present at least’.13

Returning to the Queen’s Speech, it was noted in Punch that the harvest of the previous year had been particularly poor. A heading which appeared with increasing frequency in the newspapers in early 1854 was ‘Bread Riot’. This was a new phenomenon, or at least a new label, such that The Times’s editorial on 11 January felt it expedient to ask, ‘What is a bread riot?’ The answer, however, was dismissive – ‘a few people got up to make a riot’ – and the purpose of the leader article was rather to caution against any quick response to the situation such as ‘a hasty bill re-enacting the Corn Laws’. Further reports in The Times on bread riots varied from the briefly factual to the disparagingly dismissive in their references to the rioters themselves, and the local press followed their lead. When war was declared, Punch noted the advantage to the farmer in a poem entitled ‘The Farmer and his Friend’.14 Later in the year when good harvests were reported another Punch cartoon summed up the situation, juxtaposing images of the distressed farm worker and the

21

farmer. The latter is saying: ‘Well! Here’s a pretty business! I’ve got so much corn, that I don’t know where to put it.’15 Though bread riots represented the extreme desperation of the poor, they were not the first emanation of the anxieties caused by the bad harvests, to which the Queen’s Speech made reference. During the summer of 1853 The Times carried reports of strikes by workers in many different trades and in different parts of the country. By the end of that year and into 1854 attention had focused on one particular strike, that in Preston, and reports in The Times were now headed ‘The Wages Movement’. The frequent reports on ‘The Wages Movement’ in the early months of 1854 were chiefly concerned with facts about the level of donations to support the strikers and the distribution of these funds. The workers were reputed to be well-supplied with money.16 Beyond the statement of basic facts the tone of the coverage was, on the whole, derisive or condemnatory. An exception is to be found in a letter published in The Times on 4 January and signed ‘S.G.O.’ The Rev. Sydney Godolphin Osborne was not without sympathy for the working man, as the concluding paragraph of his letter showed: ‘I believe there is much in their [the working men’s] lot which does demand redress, but I think their present course one deeply to be deplored.’ The first section of his letter, however, represents a clear statement of belief in the marketforces philosophy according to which ‘the wages of labour, like the price of food, must be dependent on the demand for it, and the amount of supply from which it is possible to meet that demand’. The strike leaders were described as ‘mistaken men’ or ‘designing rogues’, while ‘the real mischief-makers were the men of higher station’ who had filled the workers with ‘theories and assertions as flattering to the hopes of these poor men as the writers know them to be false’. To Osborne, the idea of working men being elected to parliament was preposterous.17 From 1853 and into the early months of 1854, questions about the health and housing of the working population were frequently referred to in the press, in reports of Boards of Health and of the Commission for Sewers. Moves to clean up the cities had gained momentum as a result of the cholera outbreaks of recent years.18 During the summer months of 1853 reports of cholera in Europe and at home fuelled debates about the nature of the disease and the relevance of sanitary conditions to its spread. The subject provoked widespread concern and interest, and a 22

number of reports were published, looking not only at the incidence of cholera but also offering hypotheses about the origin and spread of the disease.19 From October onwards there were almost daily reports of cholera deaths in the cities, but particularly in London, such that The Times devoted not one but two leading articles to the subject. During the winter months the deaths from cholera decreased as the severe cold topped the list of the causes of death. The interest in the sanitary question faltered, only to be awakened later in the year by reports of cholera outbreaks in many cities at home and abroad. A report from the commission sent in January 1854 to investigate the outbreak of cholera in Newcastle added fuel to the debate as they ascribed ‘the virulence of the outbreak of Cholera to the neglect of proper sanitary measures by the Town Council’.20 By August the situation was so severe that the Queen received a request from Lord Aberdeen for a special prayer to be said for the cholera epidemic. She replied that the prayer in the liturgy should be adequate and asked how one was to judge an epidemic worthy of a special prayer.21 Punch had captured the rather hopeless tone of the debate on this issue in its New Year edition for 1854, in a ‘Chronology of Remarkable Events, prospectively calculated by our own Clairvoyant’, where in a list of predictions for the years 1854 to 2000 are references to the health problem: 1854 City improvement begins. 1880 Something useful done by the Sanitary Commission. 1900 A clean street seen in the City.22

On a more positive note frequent assertions of the prosperity of the country’s trade were made in the press.23 As war loomed, one recurring question was whether it would be good or bad for trade. This debate was fuelled by John Bright’s assertions, speaking in opposition to the war, that Britain’s largest volume of trade was with Russia and that, therefore, war would be most detrimental to trade.24 This debate, like many of those mentioned above, was to rumble on throughout 1854. A final issue from the Queen’s Speech relevant to later developments was the proposal to introduce examinations for entry into the Civil Service. Queen Victoria must have echoed the views of an

23

important section of the population when, in a letter to Gladstone, she expressed strong reservations on the subject: A check, for instance, would be necessary upon the admission of candidates to compete for employment, securing that they should be otherwise eligible, besides the display of knowledge which they may exhibit under examination. Without this a young man might be very ineligible, and still having been proclaimed to the world as first in ability, it would require very strong evidence of misconduct to justify his exclusion by the Government.25

In an editorial in The Times on 9 February this issue was discussed alongside that of promotions in the navy. The parallels between the two questions were obvious but it was the question of the pay and promotion for navy and army officers which soon commanded most attention, as it was clear that the country could shortly be depending for its safety on the effective command of the forces.26 The practice of buying commissions in the British army began to be questioned as some of its detrimental effects such as lack of training for officers surfaced after war was declared.27 The forces against change were strong and were epitomised in the figure of the Duke of Wellington, a popular leader who had fought to maintain spending on the army since 1816, when cutbacks on military spending began. He was reported to have commented: ‘The excellence of our own Army mainly derives from the circumstances that its officers were gentlemen in the true sense of the word.’28 He was, therefore, vigorously opposed to all aspects of army reform.29 The Times’s comment on the proposals for Civil Service reform, therefore, that ‘A measure is never in such danger as when all men speak well of it’,30 might be seen as a warning of likely reactions when the performance of the army officers and particularly the administration came under scrutiny in later months. One other public cause for concern needs to be mentioned here, although it received only a passing reference in early 1854. The Roman Catholic question may not have been the main issue of the day at that time, but it was certainly fresh in the minds of the British public, as was demonstrated in an article in the Liverpool Chronicle on 14 January on the subject of the census returns. This had included a question about religion, and the editor expressed surprise at the low number of Catholics in Lancashire. This seemed to suggest ‘that the fears which appear to 24

have been entertained in certain quarters, that England was about once more to acknowledge spiritual fealty to Rome, were very premature.’ Even so, a deep-seated fear is evident here, though it is worth noting that the fire of prejudice had only recently been refuelled, when in 1850 the Pope issued a Rescript creating a Catholic hierarchy in England. In the ensuing crisis, politicians had spoken out against Papal aggression and all the old fears of Catholicism as superstitious idolatry, morally corrupt and inherently subversive of the Protestant faith had surfaced once more.31 Added to this there was a suspicion of a growing tide of conversion to Catholicism in England, especially in the universities. The Rambler had been established in 1848 to support Catholics, especially converts, by providing a platform for discussion to bolster their spirits. If the Catholics in England still felt they must be on the defensive, the prejudice which they feared remained only just below the surface of Protestant society, even as it became embroiled in a conflict that raised other questions of religious loyalties. The country was moving towards war. Throughout January The Times in its editorials continued to chart the progress of negotiations. The leader in the ILN of 7 January spoke of ‘the unanimity of feeling with which the English people demands a war with Russia’. By February there seemed to be an assumption of the inevitability of war and reports headed ‘Preparations for War’ began to appear. The Times’s editorial on 20 February considered Lord John Russell’s latest speech in the House to be equivalent to a declaration of war. To what extent the country was indeed unanimous in its views is hard to judge. A hint of discord surfaced in The Times’s ‘Parliamentary Report’ of 21 February where the MP for Colchester commented that the country considered the negotiations had been mismanaged. In the next few months the papers weighed the pros and cons endlessly, but they were, of course, considering the opinions of the upper classes.32 No one interviewed and recorded the thoughts of the men who would have to go to fight. Perhaps they would have said that anything was better than the decrepit housing, non-existent drainage, expensive and poor food, disease and unemployment which were their lot at home. A number of other aspects of the press coverage of the moves towards war are worthy of comment here. As early as 22 February The Times began to appeal on behalf of the wives and children of sailors and, 25

later, soldiers sent abroad. The relevant paragraph in the editorial began: ‘The fate of their wives and children must give many an anxious thought to about 1,000 of the 10,000 troops who are just starting for the seat of war.’ An emotional note quickly entered: Freely and heartily – come life, come death – are the men prepared to follow their colours but it is from their very zeal in the public service, and their total forgetfulness of other interests, that we draw the strongest argument in favour of their wives and children.

There followed scenes from the lives of the poor, emotive in their detail, though any intention of playing on the reader’s emotions was denied vehemently by the editor. ‘We trust we are chary, as men should be, of giving way to sentimental expression’, he added, and then proceeded to describe the soldier’s heart as suffering ‘a shrewd twinge’ as his thoughts turned to those back home. All this was in sharp contrast to the detached language of the reports on cholera, bread riots, and especially strikes. In the newspaper updates on negotiations and later reporting on the campaign in the East, the new international alliances were assumed and never questioned. Reading these reports, it is easy to forget that the present ally had quite recently been Britain’s greatest enemy, and that the present ‘enemy’ was then our ally against Napoleon I. Turkey, on whose behalf war was engaged, had for centuries been disparaged by the British for one reason or another. While The Times’s reports were driving home the new line-up of ‘friends’ and ‘enemies’ by their constant reiteration of the same, other papers were using more emotional means to establish the new images of Turk and Russian. ILN editorials and Punch articles alike played on negative images of the Russian Czar as a tyrant and barbarian. The ILN leading article on 11 February, for instance, carried the heading ‘The War against the Barbarians’, while Punch employed poems and cartoons many of which simply portrayed the Czar as ridiculous.33 The task of reinstating the new ally in public opinion was taken up by the journals as well as by the daily and weekly papers. From late 1853 new articles and reviews of new or reissued travel accounts of the East began to appear and these proliferated as the tension mounted in 1854.34 They could be seen, on the one hand, as exploiting a new interest

26

in all things Turkish. But the forces of communication at work within society are never quite so simple. These informative articles covering Turkish history and customs were building up a new public image of the Turks as reasonable, civilised, hospitable, and generally acceptable allies, deserving of protection. Blackwood’s Magazine actually tackled the religious dimension of the problem, by showing that the Bible had more to say against the Russians than against the Turks.35 Comparisons of Russians and Turks were also used in illustrations. The ILN, for instance, on 21 January carried two consecutive full-page illustrations showing ‘The Sultan Proceeding to Mosque at Constantinople’ and ‘The Emperor Nicholas, the Grand Duke Alexander and staff at St. Petersburg’. In the former the sultan was portrayed wearing a plain cloak and with correspondingly unassuming manner, with eyes cast down. The Czar, by contrast, was elaborately attired with an eagle decorating the top of his helmet and his followers were equally militaristic in their dress and arrogant in their manner. Considering the age-old prejudices which had to be overcome these methods must have been very effective if the papers are to be believed at all in their statements of universal support for the war. It was a brave man who would leave himself open to attack from these warmongering journalists by speaking out against the war, but there were a few. Foremost in the opposition to the war were the MPs Cobden and Bright, the Quaker Friends and the London Peace Society.36 The press seem to have waited avidly for another speech by Cobden in parliament, or a meeting in Manchester addressed by Bright as affording them an opportunity to deride the supporters of peace and bang the patriotic drum all the louder. An astonishing degree of enmity does appear to have been stirred up against them. The Liverpool Chronicle in early 1854 threw up its hands in horror at the extent of vituperation against Bright in a recently published pamphlet. It referred to the 104 pages of Mr Sommerville’s tract as: ‘a shilling’s worth of the most offensive egotism, malignity and spleen which has ever probably been given to the world’. The paper had, however, chosen to review it rather than ignore it.37 Not surprisingly, therefore, the press had a field day when, in February 1854 a leading peace campaigner Joseph Sturge and two of his colleagues from the peace movement arrived in Russia and obtained an 27

interview with the Czar to put the case for peace. Their mission, begun on 20 January, was not without precedent. In 1849 Sturge, and other supporters of the ‘Peace Party’, had intervened with the SchleswigHolstein authorities to put the case for a peaceful solution to their current dispute, and almost succeeded.38 In 1854 a meeting of the Quakers, ‘deeply impressed with the enormous amount of evil that invariably attends the prosecution of war’, resolved to send a delegation to ‘present an address’ to the Czar.39 Their efforts met with the usual derision in the British press. The ILN on 4 March carried the text of Sturge’s address to the Czar and his reply. But the label now applied to the peace campaigners was the ‘peace at all price’ party and two months later, war having been formally declared, the ILN leader under the heading ‘Friends of Russia’ berated Sturge, Bright, Cobden and all the Society of Friends, as ‘the chief allies of the Czar’ in England. They were said to be ‘prejudiced’, ‘erroneous’ and ‘mischievous’.40 Punch continued to attack the advocates of peace in satirical articles and cartoons. The depiction of Sturge in the stocks being pelted for providing wet hay for the army,41 or as a sturgeon, a very uncomfortable fish out of water,42 were typical of the campaign against him. A cartoon showing Mr Bright offering chains to the English lion, which was thumbing its nose at him, summed up the essence of the attacks on the Peace Party.43 The apparent unanimity of views at the prospect of war temporarily hid but did not remove the rivalries between the newspapers. When they could not vie to be first with the news, they strove to outdo each other in speculations. The Times held a revered place among the nation’s press and was held by many to be the maker of public opinion.44 In the early months of 1854 the paper advised caution, particularly on the issue that was to concern the nation for many months: the destination of the troops.45 Punch declared that the freedom of the press was in danger,46 and set about satirising The Times’s new style of reports ‘From our Own Correspondent’, as ‘Letters from the East by our Own Bashi-Bazouk’.47 When war was finally declared on 1 April 1854, the editorials briefly laid out a rationale for war and then got on with the parading of patriotism. The reporting of patriotic speeches in the House, the departure of troops,48 a day of prayers for the war,49 speeches by Kossuth, campaigning for Polish independence,50 were all excuses for rabble-rousing language in the press. The ILN did their bit with 28

illustrations of dashing soldiers, patriotic poems, and occasionally song scores.51 The ILN’s illustrations also came to the aid of the army’s recruitment campaign, with flag-waving pictures of enthusiastic young men rushing to join up.52 Through the summer of 1854 such material increasingly dominated the press, and presumably, therefore, the minds of the general public. The Liverpool Chronicle used its supplement from June onwards as the current story finished to carry reports from the East. The ILN stepped up its illustrations of the war and its background articles. To those other pressing issues at home, war was at first a rival, then a backdrop and finally a curtain shutting them out. Beside the war, other problems paled into insignificance.

War as Context of Literature On 14 September 1854 the allied troops landed in the Crimea, south of Eupatoria. They began the march towards Sebastopol and met the Russians at the river Alma where, after a fierce battle, the Russian army retreated or fled. The allied army proceeded towards Sebastopol, marching round the town to take up positions to the south and east, the French using the Bay of Kamiesh to bring in their supplies, the British using Balaklava Bay. Two battles were fought while these positions were being established, the battle of Balaklava on 25 October and the battle of Inkerman on 5 November. Thereafter the winter weather set in and the armies settled down for a protracted siege. Beyond these basic undisputed facts, histories of the war have debated the political and diplomatic forces at work, the questionable competence of the leadership of the army and the responsibility for the suffering of the soldiers in the camps before Sebastopol. However, in presenting the story of the war as the context for literature, I will not enter directly into this controversial historical arena, but will rather attempt to build up a picture of the experience of the war for the people back home, through a consideration of the information they received from the newspapers and journals. The limitation on this 29

approach to the story of a war now 150 years in the past is obvious: the impossibility of accessing the story as told by word of mouth – the gossip, rumours and personal experiences of anxiety or grief which are now all lost to us. In reading the newspapers of the time one is exposed to a multitude of accounts and perspectives on the war. The most well-known narrator of the story was undoubtedly W.H. Russell, the correspondent of The Times. His letters from the East were reproduced again and again in other papers. As Russell recognised, however, he could give only one man’s perspective on the scenes and experiences. He commented: Not even the General who directs the operations can describe a battle. It is proverbially impossible to do so. Who can hope to satisfy every officer engaged, when each colonel in the smoke and tumult and excitement of the conflict sees only what is done by his own men, and scarcely knows even where the next regiment is?53

Not surprisingly, therefore, we find that the public were offered accounts of events from many different viewpoints from which to construct their own perception of the war. These same readers, being exposed to this multifarious experience of war, were at the same time the audience to whom new literary works of the period were addressed. For most of September the public at home had no confirmation of the movement of the troops to the Crimea although speculation was rife. It was not until 22 September that the news was given to the public that ‘The long expected blow has at last been struck, and the allied armies have entered the Crimea.’54 Meanwhile, the newspapers filled in time with as many items related to the war as possible. Journals continued to supply information about the Turks and Russians, maintaining the images of friend and enemy, and this was supported by still more travel accounts and memoirs.55 The Athenaeum in October noted how old books were being reissued with new titles to cash in on the fever of interest in the East.56 The format of the ILN was ideal to capitalise on this interest and contribute to the creation of a war fever. It carried innumerable articles and illustrations of Turkish scenes, or of camp life, individual portraits or details of soldiers’ uniforms, and was able to keep up the flow of illustrations when other papers were in danger of flagging for lack of something new to say. 30

Like the Reform Bill earlier in the year, other home issues slipped almost silently out of sight. On 2 September The Times announced the shelving of the bill to reorganise the Civil Service. Barely-disguised sighs of relief from the ruling class can be detected in the reports of this move, though it was only a reprieve on one front. The question of Civil Service organisation was fundamentally linked with the organisation of the army, although the issues had rarely been overtly coupled in public discussions. While the question of Civil Service reform could now be avoided, questions about the army system of promotions and pay were more obstinate in this period of war, and would not go away. The effects of the lack of education for army officers were tackled head-on by Blackwood’s Magazine in articles in its November and December issues. A similar piece in the Edinburgh Review in October, taking its evidence from the ‘Report of the Commissioners on Promotion in the Army’ and speeches of Sidney Herbert, Secretary-at-War, in moving the Army Estimates, stressed the need for better training, proposing examinations for civil and military posts. In passing, the writer noted that the Sandhurst exams were ‘worse than useless’.57 These problems were implicitly present in the rather hysterical debate about mismanagement of the campaign which closed the year. Before that December crisis, other questions about the army were brought into the open by the very nature of the tragedy unfolding before Sebastopol. Officers were being killed as well as men, and replacements were not so easy to come by. The problem arose not only because fewer gentlemen were volunteering. As the boredom of the siege replaced the excitement of the battle, many officers resigned or found ways to leave the Crimea while retaining their commissions.58 The Times on 21 November noted that young men were coming forward but there were no commissions for them. The seriousness of any proposition to allow the middle classes into the ranks of the army officers aroused editors and letter-writers alike. The editorial in The Times on 18 December commented on the present state of affairs: ‘Everything is done [...] to confine the middle classes to their shop-keeping. “Once in the ranks always in the ranks” has hitherto been the maxim of our army.’59 The idea had been floated that, for the war period, promotion from the ranks should be allowed. Punch summed up the case against this with a cartoon showing a yokel and an officer. ‘My good fellow, I think I 31

shall sell out’, says the officer. The yokel refuses the offered post with the words: ‘I’ve been ’customed to the society of gen’l’men.’60 In a letter to The Times of 29 December a correspondent signing himself ‘A Practical Man’ expressed the dilemma facing the establishment, on the one hand wishing to protect the army officer ranks from the intrusion of lower classes, and on the other needing to address the problem of the shortage of officers in the Crimea: The subject of the admission of the middle classes into the army having been once fairly brought before the public, it is of the utmost importance that it should be pressed upon the Government till something practical is done [...] The fact that classes constituting, probably, one third of the population, are almost entirely refused the privilege of fighting for their country, seems till now never to have occurred to people’s minds [...] I do not for a moment wish the army to be other than an honorable field for the aspiration of our aristocracy; all I advocate is the admission in larger proportion of another element.61

Other questions which surfaced in the first months of combat in the Crimea included the issue of pay for officers and whether this should be tax free,62 the often destitute condition of the widows of officers,63 the limitations of the system of promotions64 and alternative rewards for bravery in battle.65 The latter problem was touched on in a satiric piece entitled ‘The Missing Despatch’ in Punch. Here the General is imagined to have the audacity to propose men for rewards for bravery who are not aristocrats: I am aware that, in venturing to bring under your grace’s favourable consideration the names of merely Regimental Officers, possessing no claim of hereditary rank or social distinction, and still more in descending to the ranks for conspicuous examples of heroism and self devotion, I am departing from precedent in a way many may think inexpedient and even hazardous.66

In the late autumn of 1854 these complaints remained only disconnected rumblings, before W.H. Russell’s revelations of maladministration had focused public attention on the structure and ineffectiveness of the army’s operations. In early September reassuring reports of the abatement of a cholera epidemic among the troops at Varna were prominent news items.67 Typically The Times in September described the epidemic as a ‘curse’ 32

which ‘fell upon our men in a manner which no foresight could avoid, and no skill prevent’.68 These reports were probably all the more welcome as the home news on the cholera question was increasingly bleak. During September newspapers were littered with small reports of cholera outbreaks throughout the country and of persistently high death rates from cholera in London. In national and local papers alike these reports were controlled in tone, usually brief factual notes. The question of sanitary reform, by then recognised as a related factor, was also prominent. Readers’ letters made reference to many societies springing up to campaign for sanitary reform measures. The Times carried regular reports from the Sewers Commission and letters from individuals expressing concern on the need for the provision of a clean water supply and proper sewers. It also, from time to time, included more general articles on cholera such as advice to the working people on how to help themselves by whitewashing their homes,69 suggested treatments for cholera70 or theories of its origin.71 There seems to have been widespread public concern on this issue, and some acknowledgement that at home at least some action to fight cholera was possible and necessary. Meanwhile, the main focus of interest when there was still no more news was speculation about the destination of the troops in the East. What the reading public might have been thinking at the time as they browsed through their papers or gossiped on the way to work is harder to assess. Were the newspapers reflecting the priorities of the population in general by subordinating the cholera epidemic to the war, or hoping to persuade them to follow these priorities? An article in Punch, which probably appeared to readers then as now somewhat ambivalent in tone, reflected these questions. Under the heading ‘A Word to Alarmists’, it began by forcefully decrying what it called ‘exaggerated rumours’ about cholera. The Boards of Health, on the other hand, were sarcastically commended for reassuring everyone. The piece concluded: Who is not ashamed of giving way to fright, that thinks of our soldiers and sailors who are braving wounds and death! At the same time they do all they can to defend themselves. We should imitate their courage and their caution.72

Even so, for a time, the target for Punch’s satire seems to have been most consistently those who were opposed to or wanted to delay the 33

cleaning up of the City of London.73 When by October the worst of the epidemic seemed to be over, letter writers and Punch contributors alike continued to urge action on sanitary reform, but their comments were confined to small reports tucked away almost out of sight, while the headline news was of victories in the Crimea. One individual who continued the fight for better homes for the poor was Lord Shaftesbury, whose campaign was given detailed coverage and copious praise in the Manchester Examiner on 11 November. This article suggested that in Manchester, at least, this reforming movement was not in danger of being excluded by the war, as it began: ‘It is matter for congratulation that we are in little danger of having to class the sanitary movement among those useful schemes which will be retarded or extinguished by the present war.’ At the end of the year, when the newspapers offered a round-up of the year’s events, the cholera epidemic figured prominently, and the death-toll was well documented, though the tone of the writing was still cool and factual, in contrast to the emotive language in which the story of the war was told and retold.74 On 18 September The Times noted that prayers were to be said for the superabundant harvest. The editorial of 24 October returned to this topic. The reporting of this and related issues now has an ambiguity, which may or may not have been evident at the time. To judge from the leader articles, everyone in the country must have been rejoicing in the comfort and security which a good harvest provides. Yet during September and into October there was a steady stream of newspaper reports of ‘Bread Riots’. These remained short reports, factual or condemnatory in tone, gaining a little more prominence perhaps in some local papers but not in any way vying for attention with the war even in this quiet period for news. It was reported that rioters were attacking bakers, because they believed them to be responsible for the high price of bread.75 It seems that somehow the advantages of a good harvest had not filtered down to the working classes. Punch, under the heading ‘The Abundant Harvest’, commented: The thanksgiving for the abundant harvest was solemnised with peculiar fitness in the parish church of Alum-cum-Potato. There a miller and a baker [...] were compelled to stand in the middle aisle during the service, dressed in a white

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sheet, in penitence for the high price of bread, seeing that wheat has been so abundant.76

The reports of riots disappeared in early October, the period of frenetic writing up of the events in the Crimea. It is impossible to know from the evidence of the newspapers alone whether the riots and discontent ceased, whether the war reporting left no space for other items, or whether the reports of riots were judged to be inappropriate at that time. The reading public were given no further evidence of unrest over bread prices, but the debate about the causes of the high prices evinced a strange tenacity. Many of the arguments on this issue were basically a justification of the doctrine of market forces. The Times’s editorial on 14 September, for instance, explained that while farmers may have kept back supplies ‘in anticipation of some improvement’ in the price, the good harvests at home and in America would ensure that prices would not continue high, and that the farmers would have to take their wheat to market.77 Even this conciliatory article mentioned, in passing, the question of trade and foreign sources of wheat, and an editorial from the previous week (9 September) had commented that: Corn Laws are now a matter of history, free trade brings the produce of the whole world to our markets, the price of wheat is not increased by the addition of a single gratuitous farthing; and so well do the people understand all this, that a season of scarcity, entailing very considerable privations, and accompanied by extensive ‘strikes’ among the working classes, has just passed over without the smallest disturbance.

The ‘people’ referred to here must clearly be the upper- or middle-class readers. The lower classes are not included in the experience of British people, but are one of the trials the ‘people’ have had to bear. Such comments underline the limitations, which must be acknowledged here, of attempting to reconstruct something as diverse and insubstantial as public opinion in a study of this kind. Neither of these editorials in The Times referred directly to the trade in wheat with Russia. Yet here the question of the price of bread linked to two other issues: the debate around the fairly recent repeal of the Corn Laws and the present war itself. On both of these issues John Bright was outspoken, so it is not surprising that northern papers, which gave his 35

views more tolerant coverage, also made clearer connections between these issues. The Manchester Guardian, for instance, in an editorial of 25 October, under the head ‘The Advance in the Price of Grain’, explained: ‘People forget that the price of grain must eventually be determined, not by the quantity produced by the harvest, but by the entire stock existing in the country.’ This was the crux of the argument, which had raged in the 1840s over the repeal of the Corn Laws, a movement in which Bright had been prominent. Joseph Sturge, the antiwar campaigner, was attacked for his connection with the wheat trade, through placards put up in the streets of Birmingham. He replied to these in a letter to The Times on 6 December, where he spelled out clearly the loss in wheat to Britain from the war in the Black Sea: No one conversant with the foreign trade of this country would venture to assert that, could we be supplied from the shores of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azoff, the present rate of prices could be maintained. From five ports in these seas alone upwards of 30,000,000 of bushels of wheat were shipped in 1853 to the united kingdom and other parts of Europe.78

The detrimental effects of the war on trade was one of the planks of the Peace Party argument, but when this issue was covered in the press it was rarely linked in any way with the bread riots at home. For their readers, The Times and other leading newspapers effectively kept the issues of bread prices, discontent, and the war apart. In the dull interlude between the arrival of news of the landing of the troops in the Crimea and news of the battle of the Alma a book was published which was reviewed widely, caused some controversy, and provided the press with a useful subject on which to hang more jingoistic outbursts. Alfred Royer was a Lieutenant on HMS Tiger when, in May 1854, it ran aground in fog near Odessa and many of the crew were taken prisoner. His account of his adventures as a prisoner of war in Russia, published on 30 September, claimed in the preface to be written simply to record the facts and with ‘no political object’. His frank descriptions of his reception in Russia and of his interview with the Czar were pounced upon by the reviewers as indicating a position at odds with the predominant wartime allegiances. Even though at the time when the reviews were ready for the press the news of Alma had just broken, space was still found to devote to virulent attacks on Royer and his book. 36

The conclusion of the review in Fraser’s Magazine is typical of the tone adopted: As, therefore it is obvious that Great Britain and France will be deprived of the co-operation of the Lieutenant of the Tiger, we should advise that distinguished officer to turn his dignity and leisure to some account. We would suggest to him to give a course of lectures on the ‘moderation and magnanimity’ of ‘His Imperial Majesty’, on the iniquity of the present war, on the superiority of our ‘civilised enemies’ to our ‘barbarous allies’.79

The detail picked out by the reviewers as typifying Royer’s unpatriotic stance in the book was his description of the Czar as having eyes ‘expressive of mildness’. Punch, for instance, after the battle of Alma, in a satiric piece, headed ‘The Man with Mild Eyes’ commented: ‘Fancy the eyes of NICHOLAS – those eyes, which LIEUTENANT ROYER tells us are “expressive of mildness” – beholding the scene of slaughter on the Heights of Alma, lambent, in gazing thereon, with a mildness getting gradually ecstatic.’80 The label stuck and was frequently used as an ironic shorthand for the British anger against the Czar. The attacks on Royer’s book epitomised the process by which hatred of the enemy was being built up through reiterated images in the news reporting of the period.81 Having waited so long for news from the Crimea, the gentlemen of the press might be forgiven for their unrestrained enthusiasm when some news was received. On this occasion the first reports were to prove embarrassingly erroneous. On 1 October the Sunday Times and the Observer both carried reports of ‘Great Victory on the Alma’ and ‘Rumoured Taking of Sebastopol by the Allied Armies’. This was an instance where it was not an advantage to be the first newspaper on the streets after the news broke. In the middle of the week the Manchester Guardian was still following the same line, but by Friday 7 October the banner headlines of the victory at the Alma were replaced by ‘Official Refutation’82 or ‘Official Contradiction’83 of the reported fall of Sebastopol. The Manchester Examiner complained of the ‘slovenly transmission of the news of the war’, while the editorial in the Liverpool Chronicle of the same day began: ‘The publication of the London Gazette Extraordinary has put to flight the fond delusion so generally believed and accepted as authentic, which prevailed from Monday until 37

the evening of Thursday last, respecting the fall of Sebastopol.’ The Times followed with details taken from the London Gazette Extraordinary on 9 October. The basis of the news reports and editorial comments was now the official dispatches from the Crimea, which within a few days also carried long lists of killed and wounded. These were followed shortly by reports from ‘Our Own Correspondent’, their own or copied from other papers. The Times set the tone in its editorial on 9 October with jingoistic phrases and a great deal about the soldier’s duty and patriotic spirit, summed up in the declaration ‘English blood has been drawn. Jacta est alea’. Other papers added more colourful language. The Sunday Times, putting its first ill-informed efforts behind it, under the heading ‘Latest Intelligence. The Russian Monster Crushed – Scotched, if not killed’, continued its rabble-rousing undaunted: There is an end to all accusations of shams, to vile suspicions, to injurious doubts. We are engaged, deep as the most martial can desire, in a war, grand, terrible and gory. We are steeped to the lips in blood, and sworn to exact a signal retribution from the causer of the calamities which afflict Europe.84

Within a few days such commentaries were being supplemented by letters received from the Crimea, which regularly filled columns, even pages, in all of the papers. On 21 October the Manchester Courier, presenting yet more letters for its readers, explained that ‘Numbers of most interesting letters continue to be forwarded from officers and soldiers engaged in the campaign in the Crimea’. By this time not all of these were on the subject of the battle at the Alma, but many still were. Some were letters written to the editor, but many more were personal letters, not intended for publication but written to friends or family back home, and forwarded by them to the newspapers. The high-profile coverage of the battle was kept up for ten to fourteen days85 and beyond this in the case of weekly and monthly journals, which had to have their word on the subject. The New Monthly Magazine in November and Blackwood’s Magazine in December, for instance, ran accounts of the landing and the battle.86 The nature of the coverage varied according to the resources available, from banner headlines to double-page illustrations in the ILN. After the first flurries

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of factual reporting almost all the papers at some point offered their readers a poem or two on the war. Several papers produced supplements on the battle and, though the amount of space devoted to the war only slowly increased in some papers, by the beginning of November when the next major news story broke the press were truly ‘geared up’ for the reporting of the war and sustaining of jingoistic fervour. On 30 September Thomas Chenery, a correspondent of The Times in the East, wrote from Constantinople the now famous revelation about the treatment of the sick and wounded at Scutari: ‘It is with feelings of surprise and anger that the public will learn that no sufficient preparations have been made for the proper care of the wounded.’87 The report appeared in The Times on 12 October, along with an editorial comment which exploited to the full the emotional potential of the situation, drawing together the images of war so far created, and focusing all the sympathy aroused on the situation at Scutari: Every man of common modesty must feel not exactly ashamed of himself, but somehow rather smaller than usual, when he reads the strange and terrible news of the war. Here we are sitting by our firesides, devouring the morning paper in luxurious solitude [...] we indulge in all the sentiment of the affair [...] What are we doing for the cause we have so much at heart?

There followed a brief account of how the sick and wounded were transported to Scutari and left to wait hours or even days before receiving the attention of a surgeon. This was not the only deficiency: There are no nurses at Scutari; at least none for the English, though the French are attended by some Sisters of Mercy from a neighbouring convent. But what is almost incredible, but nevertheless true, there is not even linen to bind the wounds. It certainly reflects great disgrace somewhere or other.

The Turkish government, he noted, had provided the hospital, the British government ‘has omitted nurses and bandages from the requirements of the wounded’. He went on, however, not to attack the government, but rather to turn the affair to good account in offering the British people an outlet for their sympathy, a chance to participate in the war effort: ‘We now have the opportunity, not of eating and drinking ourselves in honour of our noble but suffering soldiers, but of sending them a few creature comforts.’ This proposal for charitable 39

giving was quickly institutionalised as The Times’s fund for the sick and wounded. In this way The Times not only helped the sick and wounded but was also able to help keep the patriotic fervour alive and maintain its own position as the leader of public opinion through its regular updates on the fund. On 18 October the editorial announced that in order to have first-hand information about conditions at Scutari, and to be sure that the money was reaching its intended destination, the paper was sending out ‘one of their most trusted staff to Constantinople’. The Reverend Sydney Godolphin Osborne, as Almoner to The Times’s Fund, arrived in Constantinople on 8 November and sent back regular reports for the paper’s readership, giving shocking details of the state of the hospital there and the ravages of cholera, and incidentally comparing Scutari none too favourably with the French hospital at Pera.88 On the same day that The Times announced the setting up of the Sick and Wounded Fund, it also commented with approval on the establishment of ‘The Patriotic Fund’, which was established ‘exclusively for the widows and orphans of all the soldiers, sailors, and marines who die in the war’. The language of the editorial was at its most vivid and jingoistic. The article began with reference to the Alma and victory and moved quickly on to picture the soldier on the battlefield: As he lies, for nights and days possibly, on the bloody field, racked with pain and tormented with thirst, ever and anon his memory will return to those he has left at home, and his last prayer will be that HEAVEN may raise them a friend. That friend is his country.89

Through the remainder of the year 1854 reports on the progress of these funds provided ample opportunities for banging the patriotic drum, whenever the newspapers felt the need. Dissenting voices from among the journalists themselves were few.90 Letters on the subject poured in to the press, chiefly messages of support, though for a while there was a flourishing debate on the relative merits of the two funds, mainly fuelled by rivalries between the daily papers.91 There was also a brief but well-documented controversy sparked by the refusal of the Commissioners for the Patriotic Fund to give help to one particular

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individual, because she could not prove her married state.92 Finally, however, the merits of both and their popular support were established beyond all doubt. By the end of the year the national and local press were carrying reports of fund-raising ventures throughout the country, such as meetings to open subscriptions, balls, concerts,93 and even sermons.94 There were even appeals to the working classes to give money for the support of the wives and children of the soldiers.95 All of these efforts at fund-raising probably also served to give the public a sense of involvement in the distant events in the Crimea. Certainly there did seem to be plenty of enthusiasm at home to join in the war effort, not always sensibly directed. The Liverpool Chronicle, for instance, on 2 December reported that ‘An Englishwoman of rank’ but of limited means had sold a ring for £25 in order to send blankets out to the soldiers, while the Mayor of Manchester was reported to have sent out a number of bales of old linen. On the other hand, however, journals and letters of officers published after the war bear witness to the fact that officers were able to write home for supplies to be sent out, and clearly several large stores and shipping companies were doing a thriving trade catering for the needs of the officer class in the Crimea.96 Letters also appeared in the newspapers complaining about the inefficiency of the postal service to the Crimea and suggesting that the passage of letters conveying news and good wishes was vital to keep up the morale of the troops. Reports from correspondents in the East had alerted the British public to the renewed ravages of cholera among the troops there, and also to the mismanagement of the medical provisions. The latter was not an issue that could be solved by the setting up of a fund alone. The politicians had to bear some responsibility, and in the last three months of 1854 the coalition government was busily engaged in showing its concern. One element in that public demonstration was the call for nurses for the East, for an English equivalent to the French Sisters of Mercy. The speed of Florence Nightingale’s response to the call was impressive. She reached Scutari in time to care for the casualties from the battle of Balaklava. Her story and its contribution to the building of the central images of the war will be examined in more detail later, but here it must be noted that her work provided a reassuring image for the

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people at home, as more letters began to arrive from wounded soldiers in the East.97 By 13–14 November the newspapers could give official confirmation that another battle had been fought in the Crimea. As had happened after the battle of the Alma the official dispatches were quickly followed by letters from soldiers and officers taking up the story where the official accounts left off. What might have been considered England’s lowest hour to date, the hopeless charge of the Light Brigade directly into the Russian guns, was seized upon as evidence of the great patriotic spirit of the British soldiers and the story was told again and again. There was also frequent reference to the incident which had preceded the battle and set the scene for this charge – the Turkish inability to defend the redoubts. Here was another problem resulting from the flow of individual views and opinions into the national press. While the press in general had striven to establish Turkey as a respectable ally, it is clear from reading letters and journals of soldiers and officers published later that the army had no such tolerant view of the Turks. They were spoken of with almost consistent contempt, and the few dissenting voices also confirmed the predominant view, commenting with sympathy that the Turkish soldiers were treated by their British allies like dogs. Not surprisingly, therefore, the version of the battle of Balaklava which was current in the Crimea and which found its way into print in letters, was one in which the loss of the redoubts was painted in blackest terms as a desertion of their post by the Turks. This was also a convenient image to counterbalance that of the Light Brigade uselessly, but most valiantly, charging towards the Russian guns.98 While further reports of the battle of Balaklava, followed by news of the battle of Inkerman, kept the attention of the press and presumably the population as a whole riveted on the battlefields themselves, other issues arose out of the war experience which held the public attention briefly without taking it away from the general war situation. Such, for instance, was the debate about whether more chaplains should be sent to the East,99 or the need for reinforcements to be sent out and hence for a recruitment campaign. Reports from the Crimea of the freak gale on 14 November also filled the letters columns for a time.100 Speeches by the

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Hungarian political exile Kossuth also provided the leader writers with yet another new angle on the war.101 The space devoted to the arguments of the peace spokesman John Bright should perhaps be seen in this light. Early in November there was an exchange of letters between Bright and Absolom Watkin, which was printed in The Times and many other papers in full. The origins of the exchange were explained by Watkin: ‘In the few words which I exchanged with you in the street a short time ago, you declared the present war to be one of the wickedest things that this country had ever engaged in.’ Watkin validated his patriotic stance with references to Emerich de Vattel’s work The Law of Nations. Bright’s reply dismissed the idea that the law of nations should have ‘its foundation on custom’, determined by the will of the strongest, rather than on a higher morality. Bright was pressed for his response to the Patriotic Fund appeals and in the process his arguments against the war were once more rehearsed. Can we assume that the pro-war editors, in printing Bright’s comments, thought these arguments now impotent? Watkin’s reply to Bright, on the other hand, and much of the correspondence which this generated, offered the public more spirited patriotic flourishes.102 Such, for instance, was the climax of Watkin’s letter: We have taken up arms in defence of the weak against a mighty oppressor – for the security of our own country, and for the preservation of those things which are, in our just estimation, to be ‘prized above all price’ – for liberty and its attendant blessings, for civilisation and progress, for justice and truth. Our battle is for the welfare of the whole human race: and our trust is in the righteousness of our cause, and in His aid who has called us to this glorious work.

Bright did receive a more tolerant coverage in some of the Manchester press and the topic remained alive throughout December,103 though Punch in particular continued its merciless attacks on the anti-war voice as the ally of our enemy. By mid-December the newspapers were turning their attention to the recall of parliament and the government’s proposals for a Foreign Enlistment Bill. Responses were varied, some papers laying emphasis on the need for reinforcements for the East, while others questioned the 43

need for the bill. The Manchester Guardian tried to establish a historical precedent for the use of mercenary soldiers,104 while one correspondent to The Times suggested paying the British soldiers more instead105 and another asked whether any of these foreigners would benefit from their fund.106 The suggestion was also put forward that the government might particularly have in mind the exiled compatriots of Kossuth and other Russian exiles who might wish to participate in the Crimean campaign seeing it as a fight for their own country’s independence.107 The Liverpool Mercury, which like many of the local papers also gleaned its material from European papers from time to time, reproduced a letter from a German newspaper reporting that the British were already recruiting in Europe.108 The soldiers would perhaps have been more in sympathy with the sentiments expressed in verse by Punch – an attack both on the bill and on the coalition government that introduced it: Come, tender your service, your consciences tough. KING MAMMON’s drum beats, and all scruples are stuff; To expedite things in our grand Expedition We'll send my LORD RAGLAN an armed Coalition.109

It was during these last months of 1854 that W. H. Russell’s reports from the Crimea attracted increasing attention, with his exposure of the renewed ravages of cholera110 and details of the conditions in which the troops lived in the camp before Sebastopol. Russell was on the spot, and the immediacy of the scene was felt in every line of his writing. He described the spectacle of battle, the horrors of cholera deaths and the wearying monotony of the siege: ‘We are all getting tired of this continual “pound-pounding”, which makes a great deal of noise, wastes much powder, and does very little damage.’111 After the battle of Inkerman, as the worsening weather made further large-scale action impossible, he reported on the conditions before Sebastopol, the rain, the mud and the lack of supplies: It is now pouring rain – the skies are black as ink –the wind is howling over the staggering tents – the trenches are turned into dykes – in the tents the water is sometimes a foot deep – our men have not either warm or waterproof clothing – they are out for twelve hours at a time in the trenches – they are plunged into the inevitable miseries of a winter campaign – and not a soul seems to care for their

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comfort, or even for their lives. These are hard truths, but the people of England must hear them.112

Politicians were soon complaining that information helpful to the enemy was being published.113 Russell, in a report which appeared on 14 December, attempted to answer these charges, maintaining that the information he had given was already available to the Russians114 and he countered with his own attack on those officers who, ‘full of mortal hate’ for the press, had no sympathy with the job they were doing for their country. Similar complaints were made about the letters from the East: ‘Strong objections have been expressed in quarters that claim our highest respect to the free publication of letters from the East containing news likely to be serviceable to the enemy.’115 The letters continued to flow in and to be published. They were reproduced from one newspaper to another and local papers carried many more personal letters sent by soldiers to families and friends locally. The result of this influx of correspondence was that the tone of the accounts of the war made available to the public varied dramatically, from the restrained or persuasive prose of Russell, to the simple earnestness of the soldier telling his tale for the public or airing his grievances through the press, to the comforting reassuring tone of the soldier trying to console those at home, or the simple eloquence of the horrifying details of personal experience confided to a friend back home. The Manchester Guardian commented on this new phenomenon of the publishing of personal letters: One of the most interesting ‘Curiosities of Literature’ in the present day, is this epistolary communication from the camp in the Crimea – letters written on all sorts of bad paper, with as bad ink and very often the ground being the only table – yet exhibiting the quiet self-possession of true courage and heroism, with a devotional feeling, and a reliance on the merciful Providence.116

In the same edition the paper provided a batch that were more personal and less informative than usual. Perhaps the editorial commentary was by way of apology for the letters. It is, nevertheless, interesting as indicating the function of this writing, not only as a source of information for the public, but also as stimulating an 45

emotional involvement in the war, through a sense of contact with those at the front. The variety of points of view on the fighting which were introduced into the public debate and perception of the war by the printing of letters can be illustrated by looking at just one example of the letters page in The Times. On 26 December page 9 of The Times was entirely devoted to letters. Of the six columns, one carried letters from readers at home on issues related to the war. The other five columns contained letters from soldiers and sailors involved in the war. A doctor wrote home telling the story of the battles as one involved in the treatment of the wounded. He also referred to the conditions before Sebastopol, to deaths from cholera and from exposure and to the state of the men ‘dreadfully hardworked in the trenches’. His view of the present state of the war was ‘gloomy’, in that he foresaw great difficulty in bringing to fruition proposals ‘to hut the army’ if they were to stay in the Crimea all winter. The next letter, writer unidentified, was more optimistic. The writer entertained his family with the lighter moments of the effects of the gale of 14 November, though he also mentioned looking over the cliffs to see the devastation wrought among the shipping in the bay. Of the conditions of the army he simply stated his own position (which must have been that of an officer): ‘We are all beginning to hut, and in a short time will be burrowing in the ground like so many rabbits; it is impossible now to live in a tent.’ He referred to cholera as being rife in Sebastopol, though nothing was said of cholera in the British army. The next letter, from the chief officer of a Royal Mail ship, gave a blow-byblow account of the effects of the gale on the shipping, in a matter-offact tone. A letter home from Lord Farnham’s brother, writing from Malta on his way home, gave an account of how he was wounded. He had received such a deep wound to the head from ‘a large round shot’ that the doctors were amazed that he had survived. In his simple account of the incident and his subsequent experience is felt all the horror of war. He concluded: ‘I cannot now enter upon any account of our campaign, as I am informed the mail will leave shortly. Indeed, I cannot bear to dwell upon all the past horrors and miseries &c of the war.’ A Sergeant of Artillery wrote to his brother from Scutari, describing the incident in which he was wounded, with simple but graphic detail of his wounds, and concluded with the news that he was 46

likely to be mentioned in dispatches for bravery: ‘This alone gave me great consolation, to think I had given so much satisfaction in the performance of my duty.’ An Indian Officer wrote to reveal the slow progress of the war and the difficult conditions before Sebastopol. It was the officers, he said, and not the men who were doing the complaining, and many were resigning. In a letter that was short and to the point, he complained also of the condition of the horses, making difficulties for transporting supplies, as well as for the cavalry. An Officer of the 79th Highlanders wrote home giving details of the conditions before Sebastopol, for which he felt the government must be to blame: ‘Our army has been really very hardly used; our troops at Sebastopol are in a dreadful state; 370 died in five days.’ A Corporal wrote to his brother and sister: ‘I cannot boast any longer of buoyant hopes and cheerful prospects for the future.’ The troops, he complained, ‘are neither clothed, nor housed, nor fed’. He wrote of his feelings of pity for the new arrivals who succumbed so quickly to the terrible conditions. A letter from Petropaulovski gave a midshipman’s account of his voyages since he last wrote, which included an encounter with the Russians, considered in simple matter-of-fact tone. Finally a father sent a covering letter with his son’s last letter received from Scutari, both of which spoke with pride of fighting for one’s country. Even so, the young man mentioned that though four months’ pay was due to him he could not get a penny and added: ‘in fact I should be glad to get a loaf of bread.’ While reassuring his father that his wound was healing and that he enjoyed excellent health, he noted that ‘cholera and war have made sad devastation in our ranks’. Though the details in these letters give a fairly consistent picture of the conditions in the Crimea, the tone of the writing varies considerably. This was the mixed fare on which the British public was being fed daily by all the newspapers in the final months of 1854. As well as a variety of points of view on the activity in the Crimea, these letters also contain implicitly or explicitly the opinions of the writers on the war. These were unmediated and decontextualised. The newspaper reader knew nothing of the life of the writer or his qualifications as a commentator. The danger of ambiguity which such anonymity might produce, can again be illustrated from almost any letters page from any newspaper during this period. The Manchester Examiner, for instance, on 4 November carried a letter from an officer to 47

a Manchester friend, in which he commented: ‘As usual the whole brunt of the affair rests upon the English.’ With what authority he wrote this, on what experience it was based, by what desire to please or impress it was motivated, the reader could not know. Since the public could not question any of the letter writers who offered them accounts of the war, it must be assumed that their responses would have been essentially emotional rather than critical, or that they would read into the letters their own preconceived ideas.117 While the tone of the letters varied from jingoistic to emotional and personal, the role of controlling reader responses to the war was more directly assumed by the editorials. The Times maintained throughout these months a vocabulary of patriotism in which our soldiers were always ‘heroes’ and the enemy ‘barbarians’. Typical of the tone of The Times were the editorial references to the battle of Alma on 10 October. The article referred to ‘the ardent courage of the troops’ and ‘this heroic courage (which) animated all ranks alike’. Other papers used more vivid language, which more openly played on the reader’s emotions.118 All were jingoistic and intent on continuing their task of building the images of friend and enemy. Punch’s satires, cartoons and poems were exploited to the full as vehicles for jingoism, and were especially suitable, as language which might be deemed excessive in prose is more readily accepted in verse, as in this piece on the Alma: ’Tis no time for looking palely, ’tis no time for gloomy fancies, While the Alma’s shouts of Victory are ringing in our ears; Solemn brows, but stern as solemn, hopeful hearts and high proud glances More beseem a British freeman than white cheeks and words of fear.119

The politicians too, of course, had their part to play in the glorification of the war. The Times often carried extensive transcripts of the parliamentary debates, but many other newspapers also devoted space to reports from parliament, or took their lead from the tone of parliamentary debates, where whatever the political differences between the speakers, the soldiers were consistently the glorious heroes of the nation. Here as elsewhere, whether the references were

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to the sacrifices made by the soldiers or to the nation’s jubilation and celebration of victory, the appeal was again an emotional one. Perhaps most difficult to illustrate here is the pervasiveness of this patriotic, heroic or jingoistic language. No newspaper was ever free from it. Every day for one reason or another, such language would confront the public from the pages of their newspapers. As I have tried to indicate above, all issues were seen in the light of the war and, therefore, all eyes were constantly turned towards the Crimea. Attitudes to the war had shifted slightly, however, from September to December of 1854. In September, when the nation waited for news and speculated on a possible landing in the Crimea, questions about the reasons for the war were somewhat muted. The Times’s matter-of-fact editorials gave full coverage to the pragmatic business of negotiations until news of the landing and then of the first battle arrived. Once English blood had been shed the general consensus of politicians and press was that the Russians were to blame: they had caused the war.120 Dissident voices such as that of Bright were given space only to be put down. A leading article in the ILN, referring to the recall of parliament, anticipated continuing unanimity in support of the war, asserting: ‘The debates of Tuesday night will demonstrate to all the world that in this respect the British people and its Parliament are in unison.’121 Certainly the country seemed to be entirely engrossed by the business of war, even to the point of having a Crimean flavour added to the traditional Christmas pantomimes and other entertainments.122 England had responded to the war situation with an attempt to draw the whole of society together, setting aside previously contentious issues.123 The Times too must have had a similar aim in mind when, in the editorial of 18 December, it used the phrase ‘the people’s war’. Any item which ran counter to this view was generally tucked away in the corner of a page somewhere out of sight.124 But by December this stance, the possibility of unanimity on the war, was mere bluster or wishful thinking. The heroes of September had been shown to be ‘the suffering heroes’. The questions being asked about the war at the end of 1854 were not primarily about why it was being fought but about how the war was being conducted. Accusations of mismanagement had been made. Evidence from correspondents at the scene and from soldiers themselves writing to the newspapers had 49

confirmed this beyond doubt. The Times on 13 December carried the text of the parliamentary debate in which the minister Sidney Herbert sought to explain away or disown any responsibility for the situation in the Crimea. As the papers indulged in their end-of-year stocktaking, significantly some looked back to beat the jingoistic drum,125 while others, looking forward, ventured to ask for explanations for the state of affairs in the East. At the season of good will, the thoughts of many readers must have turned to the soldiers, their friends or relatives, camped before the walls of Sebastopol. But it was now almost impossible to gloss over the picture, or to avoid asking why the soldiers were suffering there. Someone must be to blame. The awkward question of responsibility could not so easily be avoided with regard to the question of mismanagement. It was, as it were, a rather ominous bell tolling in the New Year: ‘We are not saying what we think alone. We say on the evidence of every letter that has been received in this country [...] that the noblest army of England ever sent from these shores has been sacrificed to the grossest mismanagement.’126

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Chapter 2 Charles Dickens and Elizabeth Gaskell: War versus Domestic Issues

In the final months of 1854 two novelists, Charles Dickens and Elizabeth Gaskell, were both hard at work on literary projects. The former was writing for and editing his journal Household Words, while Elizabeth Gaskell was finishing work on her new novel and seeing it into print in Dickens’s journal. This chapter will consider their work in the context of the general public preoccupation with the war in the East during those months. No clear statements of Dickens’s personal views on the war are now available to us; they must be sifted from his letters and speeches. This point was made by T.W. Hill writing in 1914 and, while he assembled a number of comments from Dickens on the war, Hill’s concern was to position them against the backdrop of the crisis of 1914 rather than 1854, and his starting point was an assertion that ‘Dickens was a patriotic Englishman’.1 It is hard to dispute this statement, yet ‘patriotism’ is a shifting concept. It will be more appropriate here to consider Dickens’s comments on the war without subjecting them to a test of their patriotic content. In the spring of 1854 Dickens had escaped to France to finish writing Hard Times, and then to relax after his efforts. From the Villa du Camp de Droite, Boulogne he wrote letters to friends on business or to invite them to stay. On this occasion the house had the novelty of being within sight of the allied army camp. He wrote to Mrs Gaskell in July: We have an immense camp here, with I don't know how many thousand men in it. The best of the business is, that although it is within a mile of this house, we know nothing about it except from reading the Times. For the glory of England I have hoisted the Union Jack on a haystack. If you happen to come into these parts, and see the flag of our country floating on the top of an exceedingly high

hill, you will know the spot where your countryman will be proud to receive you.2

In the same month he wrote to Wilkie Collins: The camp is about a mile off. Voluptuous English authors reposing from their literary fatigues (on their laurels) are expected, when all other things fail, to lie on straw in the midst of it when the days are sunny, and stare at the blue sea until they fall asleep. (About one hundred and fifty soldiers have been at various times billeted on Beaucourt since we have been here, and he has clinked glasses with them every one, and read a MS book of his father’s, on soldiers in general, to them all.)3

In a letter to another friend, Thomas Beard, dated 23 September, Dickens noted that one of the disadvantages of living so close to the army camp was the habit of the trumpeters of practising while walking up and down the road. The fact that they continued this routine even in the intense heat he described as ‘the most ridiculous thing I know’.4 Clearly Dickens was not immune to the interest in the war and, in fact, was particularly exposed to ‘the war fever’ that summer, living so near the army camp. His comments in his letters generally take a light-hearted view of these circumstances. In the autumn of 1854 he wrote to W.H. Wills, his sub-editor at Household Words, mentioning the announcement (which was to prove false) that had been made on the occasion of the Emperor’s reviewing the troops, that Sebastopol had been taken. He added: It is extraordinary to know through the evidence of one’s own senses, however, that the personal enthusiasm and devotion of the Troops is enormously exaggerated in the London papers. Their coldness was, to me, astonishing – so much so as to be, under all the circumstances, almost irritating.5

Back in England on 30 December Dickens chaired the anniversary dinner of the Commercial Travellers’ Schools. In proposing a toast to the Queen and to the allied armies of England and France, his words were rousing and were greeted with applause. He asserted the justice of the cause, ‘the cause of human advancement and freedom’, and the bravery of the troops, but he also referred to the ‘dire evils of war’ for trade and the ‘most dreadful and deplorable calamity’ which war brought on society at any time.6 52

A letter of 1 November to the Honourable Mrs Watson provides further evidence of the ambivalence of Dickens’s feelings about the war and particularly his concern about the resulting neglect of issues at home: I am full of mixed feeling about the war – admiration of our valiant men [...] and something like despair to see how the old cannon-smoke and blood mists obscure the wrongs and sufferings of the people at home. When I consider the Patriotic Fund on the one hand, and on the other the poverty and wretchedness engendered by cholera, of which in London alone, an infinitely larger number of English people than are likely to be slain in the whole Russian war have miserably and needlessly died – I feel as if the world had been pushed back five hundred years.7

There is a similar lack of clear statements about the war from Mrs Gaskell. The autumn of 1854 found her staying at Lea Hurst, the home of Mr and Mrs Nightingale, where she could have quiet to finish writing North and South. In her correspondence with Florence Nightingale’s sister Parthenope her interest in the war is evident. On 20 October, for instance, she wrote of her great admiration for Florence’s involvement: ‘All I can say is that the light is shining bright on the Cross this morning that I receive your letter, and that God, whose angel has led her hitherto, will have her in His holy keeping.’8 This admiration was expressed at more length in a letter of 27 October to Emily Shaen, a family friend. Mrs Gaskell referred to Florence as one intent on doing God’s work: ‘She has no friend – and she wants none. She stands perfectly alone, half-way between God and His creatures [...] The mother speaks of F.N. – did to me only yesterday – as of a heavenly angel.’9 Her keen interest in the work of Florence led her to write to Parthenope asking for more information about her sister’s early life beyond what she could pick up from the newspapers.10 Elizabeth Haldane quotes from Parthenope’s correspondence with Mrs Gaskell where she speaks of her concern for the war and her sister’s work, a concern which filled her mind night and day.11 Thus Mrs Gaskell does seem to have been better informed about the war than most people, who had to rely on the newspapers for information. At the end of December she again referred to the war in a letter to Elizabeth Fox. It is clear that she was most concerned at the 53

reported suffering of the men in the Crimea. She commented: ‘The war accounts make one’s blood run cold at the rotting away of those noble glorious men.’12 Such humanitarian concern is not surprising from one whose work is full of concern for those in need, but her letters provide no evidence of any political engagement with the war issues. In 1854 one of Dickens’s major preoccupations was the running of his weekly journal Household Words. For the first number on 30 March 1850 a clear editorial statement of direction for the magazine had been provided in an article headed ‘A preliminary word’. This revealed the extent to which Dickens felt himself in control as editor, after the frustrations of the agreement under which he had worked for Richard Bentley at the Daily News.13 This is a point stressed by Harry Stone in his commentary on the magazine: Household Words [...] was to achieve its cohesiveness not through an external framework, but through assimilation to a Dickensian vision of life [...] While employing a diversity of writers, while ranging over a multitude of subjects, Household Words would seem to speak with a single voice.14

‘A preliminary word’ set out Dickens’s view of fiction and of writing, firstly in emphasising his desire to reach the widest possible audience and ‘to be the comrade and friend of many thousands of people, of both sexes, and of all ages and conditions’. He declared one major aim of Household Words to be to bring ‘the greater and the lesser in degree, together, upon that wide field, [literature] and mutually dispose them to a better acquaintance and a kinder understanding’.15 Dickens stressed the importance of ‘Fancy’ rather than a purely utilitarian spirit as the guiding light of the magazine. At the same time, the journal’s scope was to include wide-ranging and informative material, both fiction and non-fiction. As Britain moved towards war at the beginning of 1854, Household Words remained true to these aims. Informative articles about the East had begun to appear in the journal in the autumn of 1853. These included an intermittent series about Turkey by Grenville Murray under the heading ‘The roving Englishman’, as well as some pieces by Bayle St John on the Balkans.16 The tone of Grenville

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Murray’s writing on Turkey was consistently factual, unbiased and informative. The policy was clearly to tackle popular prejudices against the Turks by providing sound information. This purpose was more explicitly revealed in an article by William Blanchard Jerrold on 4 March 1854 entitled ‘The Turk at Home’. Here Jerrold tackled the prejudices head on: The Turk, as he is presented to the popular mind, is a gentleman with a ferocious beard; wearing a curved sword; having more wives than he can count; smoking all day long; and disdaining the convenience of a chair. Blue Beard is supposed to have been a Turk; and, in fact, all the horrible monsters of our children’s story-books are represented to be Turks.17

Jerrold then provided evidence to refute these prejudices one by one, showing how most Turks had only one wife and lived in quite a civilised style and providing information about recent reforms in Turkey, particularly of education. Grenville Murray’s articles similarly set out to overcome prejudice. In an article the following week under the heading ‘Education in Turkey’ he gave a detailed first-hand account of the Greek Commercial School at Halki and even ventured to suggest that enlightened Englishmen, looking for some object of their charity, might consider helping the school. The article thus offered the readers an opportunity for positive action. There was no banging of the patriotic drum here, no fervent demands that readers accept the Turks as ‘good’ because they were England’s allies, but a rational appeal for understanding. On 27 May 1854 the article from ‘The roving Englishman’ was headed ‘Regular Turks’. Here again reference was made to the stereotypical views of Turks and some of the English prejudices were again tackled, this time through a comparison between English and Turkish ways of doing things. The article offered information on Turkish habits and customs, viewed sympathetically as the formalities which facilitate a well-ordered society. The task of Grenville Murray’s reports was epitomised in the final paragraph of this article, where the view of the ‘Regular Turk’ was summed up, not as some idealistic representation of the new ally, but as a realistic, down-to-earth

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appraisal given by one not just on the spot, but looking at Turkish society from within: I do not know that I have anything more to say about the Regular Turk this evening. He is a strange weary, broken-down, cranky, rickety, crotchety old person whose beginning, end, and whole history may be summed up in two words – pipes and peace.18

While the press in general were busy explaining the ‘inevitability’ of war, direct references to the war in Household Words were few and restrained. On 25 February in an article headed ‘Jack and the Union Jack’ began with a reference to the coming war situation, sounding an optimistic note with regard to the provision now made for sailors in the navy compared to the recent days of the press-gang. However, after this brief reference to the war by way of introduction, the article went on to provide detailed information about the new conditions of employment in the navy, and to link this to the question of working conditions more generally. Henry Morley’s intention was clearly to advocate better working conditions at home through reference to this model in the navy. The interest in the approach of war was merely a means to attract the attention of the readers.19 A similar use of references to the war was made in a number of articles during 1854. ‘Troops and jobs in Malta’ on 6 May opened with a stirring description of the harbour where troops were disembarking, but slipped quickly into the style of a travelogue, giving an account of the writer’s arrival in Malta and of different facets of life on the island, from the coffee house that is like England to the priests bustling about the streets ‘indignant at the tokens which surrounded them of a crusade in favour of the infidels’. The references to the troops, therefore, served rather as an introduction to a detailed account of life in Valetta, and though the tone of the opening paragraph was somewhat rousing, the remainder of the article was straightforward and informative once again.20 The two pieces which most directly referred to the war in this period were both by George A. Sala. On 1 April, the day on which war was declared, ‘The girl I left behind me’ came closest to entering into the popular debates on the war. Its title came from a popular song,

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the line of which provided a link between scenes as Sala described troops embarking and crowds cheering, or sorrowing individuals left behind.21 Within this scene Sala focused on the dress and equipment of the troops and asked: ‘If one of them were to fall down would he ever be able to get up again?’ Here was an entertaining view of an issue on which there had been a heated debate in the national press: the appropriateness of British uniforms for service in the East.22 However, this subject was not pursued as the next paragraph returned to the dominant approach of the article with an exploration of the varied backgrounds from which the officers came, maintaining overall a positive rather than an argumentative tone. Sala’s article on 15 July headed ‘Some amenities of war’ gave a direct but unusual view of the war experience. Though troops had now been in the Black Sea area for some months, the British and French armies had not actually confronted the Russian enemy. The light, optimistic note on which the piece opens, therefore, is not exactly inappropriate, though it is certainly out of tune with the jingoistic tone employed by most newspapers. Sala quickly turned aside from the conflict itself to draw attention to the increase in knowledge about the East, which had accrued from the war situation. This was, in effect, a vindication of the policy pursued by Household Words in not entering into the popular debates or jingoistic mood. For the most part, through the first nine months of 1854 the pursuit of the policy of Household Words of cherishing the ‘light of Fancy’ in its readers through the presentation of fiction, satire and informative material involved a primary focus, not on the war, but on home issues. Henry Morley wrote a series of articles on the problems of poor housing, disease and factory conditions. His article on 24 June on the ineffectiveness of the Common Lodging-houses Act was entitled ‘The war with fever’. The reference to ‘war’ was used to catch the reader’s attention, and the opening paragraph parodied the war reporting as it announced: ‘We receive encouraging news from one of the chief seats of the war against Fever.’ However, the subject matter itself remained very close to home. From September to the end of the year, as the tension mounted in the country, Dickens’s editorial policy at Household Words remained unchanged. Three more articles headed ‘The roving Englishman’ 57

appeared during that period and there were a number of pieces on military topics, some purely informative, others with a sting in the tail. Grenville Murray’s article on ‘Army interpreters’ fell into the latter category. Murray pointed out the lack of qualification of those filling the posts of interpreter, but also the fact that those who were qualified had been ignored. This comment became a springboard for a criticism of the method of promotion in British institutions generally, which he called ‘cousinocracy’, where genuine qualifications were actually a hindrance. The subject had thus been turned towards one of the many reforms which had been shelved as war approached, the reform of the Civil Service. This topic had not completely disappeared from public view, as the related issue of preferment in the army had been raised in commentaries on the war. This article, which attracted its readers’ attention through reference to the topical issue of war, actually foregrounded problems at home. Dickens himself wrote a number of articles for Household Words in the last months of 1854, entertaining pieces of political or social satire. One such, the article ‘Mr Bull’s somnambulist’, was also a rare example of an attack on an individual politician in the journal. The speaker identifies himself as a medical advisor to Mr Bull’s household who has been called in to deal with the case of the head servant, an old woman named Mrs Abigail Dean, who shows symptoms of somnambulism. The object of the satire is quickly identified when the writer stresses the familiar form of the servant’s name which is usually used – Abby Dean. Through this character, Aberdeen is attacked as being generally only half awake and ‘mooning’ about, and more specifically as having failed to deliver the promised reforms: She [Abby Dean] will frequently cram into her pockets a large accumulation of Mr Bull’s bills, plans for the improvement of his estate, and other documents of importance, and will drop the same without any reason, and refuse to take them up again when they are offered to her.

Dickens proceeds to heap the blame for the ineffectiveness of the government on Aberdeen’s shoulders rather than the cabinet collectively. Indeed, he blames Aberdeen for having infected the whole cabinet with his sloth. Mr Bull’s great enemy ‘one Nick’, a

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relative of the devil, then enters the story, and here too Aberdeen is loaded with blame for having failed to speak forcibly enough to the enemy in the first place and hence allowing the war to occur. Finally, there is praise for Mr Bull’s children, who are now fighting his enemy. Dickens manages to be both critical and patriotic in his handling of the war scenario. More than a month on from the establishment of the Patriotic Fund and with indignation at the reports of mismanagement from the Crimea gaining momentum, Dickens good-humouredly, but most effectively and poignantly, circumvents the detail of debates about who is to blame for different facets of the problems in the East, and lays the responsibility for the overall control of events firmly on the leader of the government. It is to the reform measures that have been shelved because of the war that Dickens returns as the climax of his satiric portrait of Abby Dean. Mr Bull, he tells us, while proud of the efforts of his children who are fighting abroad, also has a care for those at home, though his motives may be suspect: ‘But, he has a real tenderness for his children’s lives in time of war – unhappily he is less sensible of the value of life in time of peace.’ In this emphatic parenthesis Dickens is demanding that the logical connection be made between the concern for the lives of men as soldiers and for the working men and their wives at home. In choosing the family relationship of parent and child as his satiric framework, he is appealing also to every reader’s experience of the responsibility conferred by parenthood and possibly also the pain of parental concern in time of war. In concluding his statement of ‘the patient’s case’, the narrator stresses the urgency of the situation.23 His standpoint as a medical man is one of care and concern, and this is not only most appropriate to the satirical framework of the story, but is essentially in line with Dickens’s editorial policy overall. That policy was visible in these months of war on the one hand in the restraint shown in the inclusion of war-related material, and on the other in the continuing persistence of the magazine’s campaigns on behalf of the poor. It was in this magazine that, from September 1854, Mrs Gaskell’s novel North and South began to appear in weekly parts. She had already written several stories for Household Words since its inception in 1850, indeed, her story Lizzie Leigh followed Dickens’s 59

‘Preliminary word’ in the first number, and they seem to have had a good working relationship thereafter.24 In May 1853 Dickens wrote encouraging her ideas for a new contribution to Household Words, which were to develop into the novel North and South: ‘The subject is certainly not too serious, so sensibly treated. I have no doubt you may do a great deal of good by pursuing it in Household Words.’25 Mrs Gaskell’s progress in writing North and South can be traced in outline from her letters to friends. Generally her comments were about the dilemmas she was facing over the development of her plot. On 23 April 1854, for instance, she wrote to John Forster that she was considering whether another character might be needed for the novel, which she still called Margaret, a girl who would be ‘in love with Mr Thornton in a kind of passionate despairing way’.26 She wrote to Catherine Winkworth in October of possible additions of incident to the later sections of the novel,27 and on 27 October in a letter to Emily Shaen she reported her progress on the writing: ‘I’ve got to [...] when they’ve quarrelled, silently, after the lie and she knows she loves him.’28 These months of development for Mrs Gaskell’s new novel were also the period in which war in the East had progressed from a possibility to a reality. The importance of the serial mode of publication and, indeed, of the hand of Dickens as editor in shaping the novel, have been discussed by commentators on Gaskell’s work.29 The exchanges of letters from this period reveal Dickens making helpful suggestions for possible changes, as well as offering praise and encouragement. On 17 December, sending more of the manuscript to Dickens, she admitted she had tried to shorten and compress the text, ‘but, if you will keep the MS for me, and shorten it as you think best for HW I shall be very glad. Shortened I see it must be.’30 Her sense of the restrictions under which she had laboured was made clear in her preface to the first edition, where she spoke of being ‘obliged to conform to the conditions imposed by the requirements of a weekly publication’.31 On 27 January 1855 Dickens wrote congratulating her on the completion of ‘a task to which you had conceived a dislike’.32 He offered sympathy on that point and praise for the completed novel. The question of the cutting of North and South to suit the serial publication has been examined in detail by A.B. Hopkins. She has 60

concluded from the letters of this period that a rift developed between Mrs Gaskell and Dickens over this issue.33 Reading their letters now there is of course an element of ambiguity. They were both inclined to let their sense of fun and wit have free rein in their letters and to curtail references to incidents or issues of common interest where possible. But the discussion of this question can distract attention away from the real convergence of their interests in their writing at this time. The recognition that in this period of war they both chose to write, not about the war directly, but about domestic issues, sets them apart, certainly from the world of journalism during those months, but also from many other writers. This convergence can be seen by referring again to the content of Household Words during the period when Mrs Gaskell’s novel was appearing in its weekly parts. Through the months of political tension, as all eyes were directed towards the Crimea, Mrs Gaskell’s North and South appeared week by week in Household Words, flanked quite consistently by other items on the problems facing the poor. On 7 October, as chapters 10 and 11 of North and South recounted Margaret’s first contact with the urban poor, Dickens’s article ‘To working men’ also appeared.34 This was a direct appeal for action on the question of sanitary reform. To ignore the problem was, in his view, to be guilty of ‘wholesale murder’. The call to action was directed surprisingly to the working class, who would seem to be the most powerless. But Dickens was not offering the middle classes an excuse for doing nothing. Rather, he called on the workers to take action in order to show the middle classes the way. The article made an appeal for joint action; for a ‘system which should bind us all together’, echoing Mrs Gaskell’s proffered solution to the problems of industrial relations. On 4 November a poem, ‘The Moral of this Year’, immediately preceded chapters 18 and 19 of North and South. The author, Edwin C. Smales, moved in the first four verses from a description of the harvest fields at home, ‘bringing good store to rich and poor of England’s merrie isle’, to the grim harvest of war on the fields of the East, and finally to the equally dreadful harvest of disease in the towns at home. In eight further verses Smales presented images of the dirt and squalor in which the poor were forced to live, stressing especially 61

the disease ‘man-bred in drain and sewer’. He noted that disease did not know boundaries but would also ‘creep up many a marble stair’. A reference to the war in the East had once again, and even more obviously, been used as a hook with which to draw the reader’s attention back to the problems and responsibilities at home, which were also the focus of Mrs Gaskell’s story.35 Other articles in Household Words continued this supporting or allied role. On 14 October Henry Morley’s article ‘Piping days’, about London’s sewage and drainage problems, appeared as the episodes Mrs Gaskell’s novel described Margaret’s visit to the Higgins household.36 On 21 October Henry Morley was writing on the limitations of ‘Medical practice among the poor’ as chapters 14 and 15 of North and South appeared, in which Thornton mentions to Hale and Margaret the likelihood of a strike, and they discuss some of the issues involved.37 Dickens’s article ‘Mr Bull’s somnambulist’ which, it was noted above, had been intent on drawing attention back to questions of poverty, opened the issue on 25 November at the end of a week in which accounts of the battle of Inkerman had begun to fill the newspapers. That number of Household Words also contained chapters 24, 25 and 26 of North and South, dealing with Mrs Hale’s illness and the writing of the letter to recall Frederick to England. This pattern continued intermittently up to the last instalment on 27 January 1855. This was preceded by a poem from Adelaide Anne Proctor, ‘The Cradle Song of the Poor’, a moving song of the sorrow of a poor mother unable to provide for her baby.38 Thus Household Words supplied North and South with a supportive context, reinforcing the importance of the issues raised in the novel, even though the press generally were engrossed in reports of battles in the East from the first week in October. Mrs Gaskell had chosen her subject for her novel and she stuck to it. Few later readers of North and South will ever have considered that, while Mrs Gaskell was writing and the public reading her novel, a war was brewing and then exploding into siege and suffering in the Crimea. Yet neither Mrs Gaskell nor her readers could be indifferent to these circumstances at the time. No major changes were made to the plot as concessions to the war. That two of her minor characters have military connections may have seemed appropriate in the climate 62

of 1853 when she first plotted the novel, though neither of these elements is exploited for its connections with the current war, indeed quite the reverse. The life of a captain is sketched in idyllic terms by Edith both before her marriage and after, when she writes to Margaret from Corfu. Later Captain Lennox is brought back to England, conveniently for the plotting of Margaret’s story, and ignoring completely the historical development of the present war. In Chapter 2 Margaret reveals her regrets about her brother’s choice of profession: ‘Oh, if Frederick had but been a clergyman, instead of going into the navy’.39 When the reasons for Frederick’s exile from England are finally explained, the case offers parallels with a number of accounts of the abuse of power by officers, relying on their aristocratic connections to uphold their authority over a noncommissioned officer. Such behaviour had earned Lord Cardigan a degree of notoriety in the late 1840s and was a feature of the case of Lieutenant Perry, which the newspapers had followed closely in 1854.40 As in the Perry case, Frederick’s problem is shown to arise from a question of prejudice: ‘This Mr Reid, as he was then, seemed to take a dislike to Frederick from the beginning’ (p.152). From Frederick’s own account of the trial it is clearly a question of tyranny on the one hand and loyalty to a common cause on the other: In the next place, allow me to tell you, you don’t know what a court-martial is, and consider it as an assembly where justice is administered, instead of what it really is – a court where authority weighs nine-tenths in the balance, and evidence forms only the other tenth. (p.326)

Margaret tells her mother: ‘I am prouder of Frederick standing up against injustice, than if he had been simply a good officer’ (p.154). Here again, however, the military connections are given only a limited role in the novel. Frederick’s attempt to clear his name remains a minor thread in the plot. Fundamentally, North and South is about a clash of cultures exemplified especially in the central event of the strike. Where the newspapers at the time were curt in their references to the action of the workers, Mrs Gaskell wished to be informative and to reveal the unseen conditions of the poor of the city. In her earlier novel Mary

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Barton Mrs Gaskell had used the voice of the narrator to comment on the action. In North and South, however, this role is given to the character Margaret Hale. As a newcomer to the northern city, she functions as a naive commentator, whose questions and views undermine the commonly propagated assumptions about the working classes. Through this character Mrs Gaskell tackles directly some of the prejudices perpetuated by the press. The newspaper reports of the strikes, for instance, had concentrated on the surprising collection of money to support the strike and the apparently bountiful distribution of assistance to the strikers. While Mr Hale speaks in these terms at one point, doubting the utter distress of Boucher since ‘there is always a mysterious supply of money from these Unions’ (p.220), the story itself illustrates the scarcity of money among the strikers and the need for solidarity. Higgins explains to Margaret that with only the money from the Union to rely on during the strike, the families of the workers are effectively starving (p.206). When, therefore, after the collapse of the strike and the death of Boucher, Higgins refuses even to try to return to work at Hamper’s where they ‘makes their men pledge ’emselves they’ll not give a penny to help th’ Union or keep turn-outs fro’ clemming’, the reader’s sympathy must surely be on his side (p.365). Mrs Gaskell’s central aim for her novel is to challenge the reader’s views of the workers and to achieve this she has to circumvent the limited and constricting definitions and concepts which have been established by the press. The recognition of the importance of semantics is articulated by Margaret in a discussion with her father after a visit to the Thorntons. Asked by her father for her thoughts about the new people they have met, she criticises the language used especially by the wives: It reminded me of our old game of having each so many nouns to introduce into a sentence [...] Why, they took nouns that were signs of things which gave evidence of wealth, – housekeepers, under-gardeners, extent of glass, valuable lace, diamonds, and all such things; and each one formed her speech so as to bring them all in, in the prettiest accidental manner possible. (p.221)

That Mrs Gaskell was conscious of the importance of the discourses presented in the newspapers as a means of controlling 64

public perceptions is particularly clear if we allow the war context into the discussion. If we consider three areas of news coverage in 1854 – the strikes, the bread riots and the war – it can be seen that with very few exceptions, these news items were ring-fenced by newspaper editors and correspondents. Each topic had its own separate vocabulary, in which the good and the bad, the acceptable and the unacceptable were clearly defined through use. Under the ‘strike’ heading, for instance, words like ‘hands’ and ‘unions’ were opposed to ‘factory owner’ and ‘trade’. In reporting the bread riots, ‘mob’ and ‘riot’ were opposed to ‘tradesmen’, ‘farmers’, ‘corn dealers’ and ‘market forces’, while in reports of the war ‘soldiers’, ‘civilisation’ and ‘heroes’ were on the good side, and ‘barbarians’ and ‘despots’ on the other. The basis of Mrs Gaskell’s efforts to awaken a new awareness in her readers was to break down the barriers between these discourses and to ground her analysis in a shared sense of humanity, expressed through the single word ‘men’. In bridging those artificial boundaries maintained by the establishment press she insists on the common cause of all downtrodden groups and their shared humanity with the readers.41 In two central debates in particular (in chapters 15 and 17) Mrs Gaskell attempts to challenge her readers’ prejudices by taking them across some of these boundaries. Since the issue of war and the image of ‘the soldier’ have been the focus of great public sympathy, like many other contributors to Household Words she attempts to transfer some of this sympathy to the home issues by utilising the vocabulary of the war reports. In Chapter 15, as Margaret and her father discuss the strike with Mr Thornton, a number of familiar patterns of language from the discourse of war are interwoven: references to ‘despotism’, the parental role42 and the protection of civilisation. Mr Thornton sees the workers as mere children, who cannot, therefore, be given full responsibility. He argues: ‘In our infancy we require a wise despotism to govern us [...] I maintain that despotism is the best kind of government for them’ (p.167). To a country at war with despotism this was a blunt statement to make. Were readers, regaled daily by the press with cries of opposition to despotism abroad, being accused of countenancing or, as Mr Thornton’s comments seem to suggest, even supporting it at home? Margaret is absent from the room during this 65

exchange. As she returns, Mr Hale is arguing that the ‘masses’ are ‘already passing rapidly into the troublesome stage which intervenes between childhood and manhood’, and that a wise parent ‘humours the desire for independent action’, allowing his growing children to begin to take responsibilities. Mr Thornton continues to argue forcibly for the importance of the role of the industrialist, denigrating Margaret’s views as those of an outsider, who does not know the full facts of the case. ‘We have’, he explains, ‘a wide commercial character to maintain, which makes us into great pioneers of civilization’. Again the reader has been brought back with a jolt to the language of war, to one of the frequently aired arguments for Britain’s involvement in the war, the defence of civilisation itself.43 But here Mr Thornton, as a factory owner, sets himself up as a defender of civilisation against the working men of England, suggesting a division within the society that is akin to war. Mr Hale’s reply reinforces the parallels: ‘“It strikes me”, said Mr Hale, smiling, “that you might pioneer a little at home”’ (p.171). Mrs Gaskell allows Margaret to have the final word to expose the contradictions and hypocrisy in Mr Thornton’s position, as she returns to the concept of ‘despotism’, which had initially linked this debate with the discourse of war. Margaret tells Mr Thornton: ‘I am trying to reconcile your admiration of despotism with your respect for other men’s independence of character.’ Mr Thornton is said to have ‘reddened’ under this attack (p.171). For the readers, too, this must have been a stiff blow. The arguments by which their support for the war was constantly being elicited were now transposed to the arena of industrial relations in order to challenge the conceptualisation of the relations between owners and employees in terms of division and power. In Chapter 17, as Margaret and Higgins discuss the strike, Mrs Gaskell again draws on the language of war and the strong emotions with which it is associated as a means to challenge her readers. Higgins explains that a number of the masters have come together and are refusing to maintain the rates of pay they have given for the last two years. The workers intend to resist. ‘We’ll just clem to death first’, he says. To Margaret this seems nothing more than a futile gesture. To explain his case to this naive southerner Higgins compares their stance to the role of a soldier. Here the role of Margaret as naive 66

onlooker is exploited to justify Higgins’s step-by-step explanation of the situation and the development of a comparison between the worker and the soldier. As the nation joins in concern for the lives of its soldiers and commends their bravery, Mrs Gaskell asks her readers to consider that the workers, in striking, are also taking a stand on behalf of others. When Margaret argues that a soldier fighting for the nation dies ‘in the cause of others’, Higgins asserts that such altruism is also shown by the workers: Dun yo’ think it’s for mysel’ I’m striking work at this time? It’s just as much in the cause of others as yon soldier – only, m’appen, the cause he dies for it’s just that of somebody he never clapt eyes on, nor heerd on all his born days. (p.183)

The actions of both soldier and striker arise from their acceptance of responsibility for the lives of their fellow men. A final twist is given to this conflation of discourses as Higgins draws on a traditional patriotic self-image of the British as ‘John Bull’. He compares Thornton’s behaviour to that of a bulldog in respect of his tenacity in sticking to an idea once he has taken hold of it. This reference reinforces the link with the vocabulary of war, though it confuses the comparison that had been developed of the soldier-worker fighting against the despotic enemy-master. What is clear is that, like other contributors to Household Words, Mrs Gaskell wants to draw on the emotions associated with the coverage of the war and the creation of a war culture to demand similar sympathy for the conditions of the working class at home. Other passing allusions to the war in North and South remain ambiguous without a statement of Mrs Gaskell’s own views on the war as a guide. Such is a remark in Edith’s letter to Margaret before the death of Mrs Hale, expressing concern about Mr Hale’s possible attitude to her husband’s profession, because many Dissenters were members of the Peace Society. While this remark might not attract serious consideration now, any reference to the Peace Society at the time must have resonated for the reader as an echo of the discourses of the war. More striking then might have been a remark from Mr Bell, later in the novel, teasing Margaret for her outspoken views: ‘Hear

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this daughter of yours, Hale! Her residence in Milton has quite corrupted her. She’s a democrat, a red republican, a member of the Peace Society, a socialist’ (p.409). Margaret says that she had earned the label simply by defending ‘the progress of commerce’. The association of the Peace Party with commerce had become part of the rhetoric of patriotism, established in the public mind by frequent repetition in the newspapers, which portrayed the Peace Party as businessmen motivated by self-interest. Perhaps, in including this reference, Mrs Gaskell might have been thinking especially of her Manchester audience, who as Bright’s constituents and as businessmen had been willing at least to give a hearing to his views. Letters did, indeed, appear in Manchester papers offering him support. Whether this brief reference in North and South constituted an expression of support for the Bright camp is unclear. Here an awareness of the Crimean War context reinforces the ambiguities rather than providing answers on the question of Mrs Gaskell’s own attitudes to the war. On the other hand, juxtaposing the novel’s central themes with the prevalent discourse of war must sharpen awareness of her single-mindedness in urging responsibility for the lives of the poor as a prelude to reform. Household Words ended the year with another collection of Christmas stories. In 1852, explaining his idea for the Christmas stories to a contributor, Dickens had commented that they were intended to contain ‘suitable Christmas interest’ and to ‘strike the chord of the season’.44 The 1854 Christmas stories established a pattern for his Christmas offerings for a number of years to come, as D.A. Thomas has pointed out: ‘In 1854 Dickens inaugurated his scheme, followed in most of the subsequent Christmas numbers, for enclosing the contributions by other authors within a narrative generally written by himself.’45 The fictional setting for the storytelling on this occasion was a house for poor travellers, which a certain Richard Watts, Esq. had ordained in his will should be maintained for the reception of six poor travellers who are to ‘receive gratis for one night, lodging, entertainment and four-pence each’. The seventh storyteller, who is also our narrator, is one whose curiosity rather than need leads him to enquire about the charity, and on this Christmas Eve he decides to 68

supplement the provisions of Watt’s will with a feast of his own purchasing for the poor travellers. The narrator’s charitable act, therefore, is the frame for the telling of the tales. Following the tone set by Dickens, the stories have in common an appeal to the reader for sympathy with the underdog and with individual human need. They do not make development of character a priority, and might, therefore, be seen as sentimentalising the situations. However, in each case the problematic position of the characters is convincingly portrayed as a social phenomenon as well as an individual tragedy. Dickens’s contribution to the Christmas stories of 1854 is the only one of the collection which has a link with the topic of war. Mrs Gaskell wrote to him in praise of the story, which she described as ‘war-musical’.46 The story begins in 1799, and follows the military career of Richard Doubledick through the period of the Napoleonic wars. Many details in this war story are essentially ones which would have been familiar to readers from the newspaper accounts of the present war. We are told, for instance, that ‘many a dreadful night, in searching with men and lanterns for his wounded, had he relieved French officers lying disabled’. Such was the reported behaviour of the British soldiers in the Crimea, which had set them apart from their barbarian enemies who were said on, occasions, to have repaid such kindness with a shot in the back. Similarly the descriptions of the battlefields on which Doubledick fought drew on the reports of the Crimea in late 1854: ‘pits of mire and pools of rain’ and roads which were almost impassable. The story is told by a relative of Doubledick’s and this narrative structure establishes a tone of personal sympathy. The details of how Doubledick’s dissipated lifestyle led his fiancée Mary Marshall to reject him are not provided. Dickens rather devotes the space available to a number of events which change Doubledick’s life, and which represent insights into human responsibility. The first of these is his meeting Captain Taunton. Doubledick is troubled just by the way in which the captain looks at him and in a further interview is challenged by the captain’s expression of concern at his behaviour. Taunton describes Doubledick as ‘a man [...] of education and superior advantages’ in need of a guide. From that moment Doubledick is a 69

changed man: ‘I have heard from Private Richard Doubledick’s own lips, that he dropped down upon his knee, kissed that officer’s hand, arose and went out of the light of the dark bright eyes, an altered man.’ By the side of Taunton Doubledick prospers, fighting heroically for his country and showing compassion on the battlefield. In the midst of one battle, Doubledick sees his friend killed by a French officer. His glimpse of the Frenchman’s face is to remain etched on Doubledick’s memory. Doubledick continues to do his duty in the war and when it is over, now a hero in the eyes of his country, he visits Taunton’s mother, to acknowledge his debt to her son. On the field of Waterloo Doubledick is wounded and lies unconscious for many days. When he regains consciousness it is to see the face of Mrs Taunton bending over him. Again, a look, not a wordy analysis, carries the message of responsibility. Dickens moves events on rapidly, showing the development of a new mother–son relationship. Doubledick’s former fiancée reappears and they are married. Mrs Taunton’s visit to the south of France to see a new and much-respected friend, whom she had met after Doubledick’s illness, provides the final scene of the action. Doubledick and his wife also pay them a visit, and Doubledick recognises the son of the family as the French officer who had killed his friend Taunton. As Doubledick is agonising over what he should do, Mrs Taunton comments on the worth of the French officer in terms which remind the hero of the ‘Spirit of my departed friend’. She tells Doubledick: ‘He is so truehearted and so generous, Richard, that you can hardly fail to esteem one another.’ Doubledick’s dilemma is resolved and in the final words of the story. Dickens, through him, explains war in terms of duty, arising from brotherly love: ‘Is it from thee the whisper comes, that this man did his duty as thou didst – and as I did, through thy guidance, which has wholly saved me, here on earth – and that he did no more!’ A direct link is made between this story and the present war in Dickens’s afterword, which refers to the French and English now fighting side by side ‘like long-divided brothers’. He indicates here that his story is intended to allay any residual anxieties about English soldiers fighting as allies with their erstwhile enemies the French. However, his story has never adopted the popular language of

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patriotism and heroes. Rather, it has been used to explore conflicts of duty and responsibility in a war situation. Dickens’s afterword for the Christmas stories directs readers to a Christian interpretation of their message. The narrator, starting out on his journey, finds in every aspect of the scene around him reflections of the life of Christ, pointing the readers to a similar frame of reference for their understanding of the stories they have just read. Dickens may have been able to assume that this was sufficient to direct his contemporary readers to a commonly held set of values. But for the twenty-first-century reader the semantic changes and ideological shifts which divide us from the readers of the 1850s create some ambiguities. In their work from 1854 considered here, both Dickens and Mrs Gaskell provide an overtly Christian interpretation of ethical issues at some point in their narratives, but if we attempt to consider their relative ethical positions or the degree of engagement with Christianity in their own lives the ambiguities created by distance multiply. Analyses of their Christian views relative to the orthodoxies of the time would reveal essential differences but may not explicate the similarities which are felt in the reading of their work within the context of Household Words and the war culture at work in society at large. In this respect a reading of their work from 1854 from the perspective of Levinas’s writing may be useful. Dickens’s story of Doubledick, with its emphasis on a look rather than words to acknowledge responsibility, is very close to the later vocabulary of Levinas. Equally Mrs Gaskell’s use of the war context to tap into a basic sense of responsibility of one human being for another takes her appeal to her readers beyond the confines of Christian beliefs and dogmas, and can be understood in terms of Levinas’s conceptualisation of other-centredness. Both Dickens and Mrs Gaskell were working to situate debate and conceptualise issues as far as possible away from the polarity of selfishness and greed and as near as possible to an ideal of responsibility for the other. The tone of Dickens’s narrative of war is in sharp contrast to most of the newspaper reporting in his stress on responsibility of one human being for another. This is, however, in tune with the central direction of much of the writing in Household Words, including Mrs Gaskell’s 71

North and South, which suggests a solution to the problems of industrial relations in these terms. Critical analysis of the individual stylistic strengths of these two writers has tended to set them apart in the narrative of novel history. If, however, rather than beginning by passing the works through the analytical sorting-office of ‘tradition’ we consider the aims of their writing in 1854, the differences become much less important. The creation of a comical fantasy household of Mr Bull, the swift-moving account of the career of Richard Doubledick, the creation of a convincing heroine as naive commentator, all at some point drawing on the sympathy which has been aroused in readers for the war, are all means to the same end, whether the message is brought home by hearty laughter or a whisper.47 As they witnessed the swelling tide of sympathy for the soldiers in the East, both Dickens and Mrs Gaskell took up their pens to declare ‘And what about responsibility? What about the poor at home?’. While not denying the obvious differences between these two writers, a study of their work in these months of war serves to identity and foreground the similarities of purpose in their writing.

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Chapter 3 Tennyson’s ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’: The Poetry of Heroes and Patriots

Legend has it, or rather Tennyson’s son affirms, that on 2 December 1854 the laureate picked up a newspaper, read about the charge of the Light Brigade and promptly wrote the poem, which has since been for many all they know of the Crimean War, although in fact the charge was a small incident in one of several battles fought in the Crimea, which itself was only one of three war zones in the conflict with Russia.1 The fact that such a tidy explanation of the creation of this famous poem exists has perhaps led to its context being largely taken for granted. How the final version of the poem was arrived at has been meticulously documented by Edgar Shannon and Christopher Ricks:2 the changes from the December version to the version which was printed with his new poem ‘Maud’ in July 1855, and the final one which was sent out to the Crimea in August of that year. They have also pointed out that it is from the detailed account of the charge in The Times of 13 November that much of the language of the poem is drawn. In this chapter Tennyson’s poem will be positioned in relation to the story of the famous charge as it was told by the press and refashioned in poetic images for the British public in the latter months of 1854. When the copious output of poetic writing on the war and the several hymns to the heroes of the Light Brigade are considered, one is left with the question of why Tennyson’s is the record of the war that has survived. In the last months of 1854, after the landing of allied troops in the Crimea, a general pattern for news coverage emerged. From the point of view of the country, and of the press, the news of the battle of the Alma, limited ‘victory’ that it was, was much needed. England had been at war since March. The press were desperate for good news to write about, a flag to fly. Still, after the news of ‘victory’, the long lists of deaths and

casualties appeared. This was followed, not by news of a final blow against the enemy, but of the establishment of a siege. For the British public the story of the battle of the Alma was told in official despatches, reports of war correspondents, and soldiers’ letters. Editors praised, commented, questioned, and the poets also joined in quite quickly to immortalise in verse, as they said, the exploits of the allied soldiers. The medium of the reports from ‘our own correspondent’, as they were presented at this time, deserves attention here. Firstly it must be noted that they were a new phenomenon, and as such attracted much attention. Secondly, it is important to distinguish these pieces from their twenty-first-century counterparts in several respects. Modern newspaper reporting is supplemented by evidence from other sources, namely photography and film. It is the camera which now informs the public about geographical locations of events. The burden on the written word is reduced. During the Crimean War illustrations were carried by more and more papers as the war went on, and in 1855 for the first time some photographs were available, but it was on the prose of W.H. Russell, The Times’s correspondent, that readers relied for their first impressions of the location of the battle on the Alma. His first account of that battle appeared in The Times on 10 October 1854. Whereas the photograph can supply an overview of the whole scene or identify a particular location, Russell had to confine himself to describing only salient features of the landscape. The river across which the allied troops had struggled to fight the Russians, is one such topographical detail to which he drew attention: The Alma is a tortuous little stream, which has worked its way down through a red clay soil, deepening its course as it proceeds seawards, and which drains the steppe-like lands on its right bank, making at times pools and eddies too deep to be forded, though it can generally be crossed by waders who do not fear to wet their knees. It need not be said that the high banks formed by the action of the stream in cutting through the soil are sometimes at one side, sometimes at another according to the sweep of the stream.3

To visualise the scene from this prose account demanded an effort of the imagination. The readers, whose concern for the soldiers, whether as individuals known to them or as the army of the nation, led them to try to imagine the scene at the Alma, had thereby participated in the creation of 74

the scene, and for them, for a while at least, ‘rivers’ would be associated with the Alma, and Britain’s hour of glory. In Russell’s letter an atmospheric account of the fighting was followed by reports of the casualty figures, and urgent appeals for funds to aid the sick and wounded. Within a matter of a few days the British public had had their emotions whipped up into a frenzy of patriotic fervour at the prospect of victory, with pride and honour the order of the day, only to have these hopes dashed, and find that their sympathy was now demanded for the wounded heroes. These emotional extremes seemed indeed to persist side by side. At one moment the emphasis was on the victory and a patriotic chord was struck, at the next the cost of that victory was considered and sympathy demanded. Editorials were one established guide for the public in interpreting events and at this time editorial space was used consistently not only to provide a factual guide, but also as a means to direct the readers' emotional responses to events. However, poetry was also accepted as a means to this latter end, and poems on the battle flowed quickly from the pens of several writers. Among the first poems to appear in print were Charles Mackay’s ‘Heroes of the Alma’, in the ILN on 14 October, and Mrs Hervey’s ‘Alma’ a week later in the same paper. Mackay’s poem appeared with the sub-heading ‘For Music’, and a musical score for a revised version of the poem was printed in ILN on 16 December. Its poetic tone and musical quality are established in the opening line with the exclamation ‘Ring the joy-bells’. The poem encompasses varying moods, but overall the positive tone predominates. It is a continuation of the mood which the premature news of the fall of Sebastopol had created. It aims to capture or create a mood of breathless euphoric patriotism: ‘And let the people’s voice / O’er all the land rejoice.’ This is the tone with which the poem begins and to which it returns. The language is hyperbolic – Alma’s heights are ‘sublime’, the fight ‘immortal’ – language which, reflects the scale of the impact of the victory, rather than the military achievement itself. The parameters of an unquestionable patriotism are established, by linking the war to England’s glorious past and to the cause of ‘Freedom’ and ‘Justice’: ‘The glorious living and the dead, / For Freedom armed, for Justice bled.’ The brief personifications here would doubtless have brought to the minds of readers images, like those used in 75

many illustrations and cartoons at the time, of a Britannia-like figure leading the troops into battle. However, the central verse of the poem strikes a different chord, though still highly rhetorical in style. It is now the vocabulary of the reporting of casualty figures that is being used: ‘mourning’, ‘grief’, ‘sorrow’, ‘sympathy’, ‘sincerity’. The emotion is perceived as not personal but national. It is ‘England’ who weeps, the ‘nation’ which grieves, and the heroes are her ‘children’ and ‘babes’. In the last three lines of the second verse, recognising the difficulty of the task for the public of reconciling cause and cost, the poet refers to the channel for relief of concern or guilt already established for them, namely the Patriotic Fund. Grief has been assimilated into the justice of the cause. For individual readers, belief in the justice of the nation’s cause has been offered as consolation for the death of loved ones in battle. The poet can return in the final verse to unashamed rejoicing in the victory of the Alma. In this war in which there were so many firsts – the first war of the post-1832 era, with new democratic expectations hardly assimilated into the nation’s self-image, the first war correspondent at the front reporting back to the nation, the first occasion of a readily available postal service for the soldiers, the first photographic records of war, the first use of telegraph, speeding up the reporting – those in power found themselves sailing in largely uncharted waters.4 Personal views and prejudices abounded, but they were often, as it were, tossed naked into the public arena and were only there transmuted into a national consensus, through parliamentary debates, editorial comments, and poems such as Mackay’s. As editor of the ILN, Mackay called in poetry to his aid regularly after the battle of the Alma, as did many other newspapers and journals. In the coming weeks and months, as other news from the Crimea superseded the accounts of the battle of the Alma, this first battle of the campaign was not forgotten, but rather became mythologised through innumerable poetic renderings of these events. The battle was thus transformed from a fluid expandable experience, to a fact; an event now positioned and defined for posterity, as Archbishop Trench’s poem ‘Alma’ predicted:

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Thou [Alma] on England’s banners blazoned with the famous fields of old, Shalt, where other fields are winning, wave above the brave and bold.5

‘Alma’, through the work of the poets, quickly became an image of national glory, suitable even for young would-be poets to cut their teeth on. The Liverpool Chronicle of 18 November, for instance, carried a poem entitled ‘The Battle of the Alma’ with the note: ‘The following very creditable verses were written by a boy of fifteen, a pupil of the Rev. W.C. Williams, of the Collegiate School, Camdentown, London.’ The ‘very creditable verses’ abound with patriotic fervour and pride, bravery, blood and daring: ‘Charge! British brave!’ again it is spoken, Again by the grape are our valiant ranks broken. ‘Onward! still onward!’ the generals cry, ‘Onward! still onward! to conquer or die!’ The heights are gained!

Another amateur production, presented by the editor as a ‘genuine effusion’, appeared in Blackwood’s Magazine for December 1854: ‘Verses written by a corporal of the Grenadier Guards, and intended to be sung to the tune of the regiment’s air, “The British Grenadier”.’ The editor adds that it was ‘written and sung [...] when the Men got some Drink for the first time at Balaclava, September 28, 1854’.6 The verses are, in effect, a toast to the army. The metrical irregularities can be overlooked, considering the enthusiasm of the speaker. There is space here only for patriotism and honouring of the heroes. So while the tone of the poem arises from the circumstances of its conception, when it appeared in print it was echoing another stage of development in the public perception of the Alma, an attempt to preserve the record of this victory as a symbol of national pride and valour. ‘Alma’ remained a powerful image of British achievement throughout the war months, and a steady flow of poems on the victory at the Alma was produced. Through such poetic images deaths at the Alma could possibly be more comfortably assimilated, as a sad but necessary cost in defence of the nation’s and God’s just cause. Such was the role assumed by poetry in the creation of public images of this first battle of the war.7

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On 25 October the battle of Balaklava was fought. After a surprise attack in which Turkish troops were driven from their newly acquired positions, the allies fought back. It was at the end of a hard-fought battle that the Light Brigade made its famous charge. An order from Lord Raglan was delivered to Lord Lucan, and thence to Cardigan at the head of the Light Brigade by Captain Nolan. As a result, the Light Brigade charged at the enemy’s guns at the head of a valley, flanked with riflemen. Nolan was killed. Cardigan returned from the charge, but lost two-thirds of his men. The news of the battle appeared in the newspapers on 11 November. On the previous day, just one month after the news of the victory at the Alma broke, The Times’s editorial bemoaned the lack of news from the Crimea, but reiterated what it felt was now the established view of the war as a ‘duty’: ‘It is not our war, it is a Russian war.’ On Saturday 11 November the news of a battle at Balaklava was sketchy, but the Sunday papers took up the story and by Monday 13 November The Times declared: ‘We now have details of the attack on Balaclava on 25th’, and the paper carried the official reports and dispatches from Raglan, Campbell and De Lacy Evans. The following day Russell’s account of the battle appeared together with a lengthy editorial comment on the same. These were the two main sources of first-hand information on which most other accounts and comments were based. As such they deserve more detailed attention. In his dispatches Lord Raglan’s comment on the charge of the Light Brigade was very brief. He hinted at a problem ‘from some misconception of the instruction to advance’, noted the charge was made, the enemy engaged, and that being outnumbered, the brigade were forced to return, ‘having committed much havoc on the enemy’. He took as much space again to express his sorrow at the heavy losses incurred. Lord Lucan’s account, again brief, added no further detail, but laid stress on the brilliancy and daring of the attack. Colin Campbell’s dispatch defended the role of the Turks in action at least on the first attack: The Turkish troops in No.1 redoubt persisted as long as they could, and then retired, and they suffered considerable loss in their retreat. This attack was

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followed by the successive abandonment of Nos. 2, 3, and 4 redoubts by the Turks, as well as the other posts held by them in our front.

The dispatches also praised the action of the Heavy Brigade and gave some details of their charge. Russell’s account which appeared on 14 November, described the incident as ‘a melancholy catastrophe which fills us all with sorrow’. He dwelt at length on the circumstances in which the order to charge was delivered, and the role of Captain Nolan. He assessed the regiment to total 607 men. The editorial on the same day praised the power of Russell’s descriptions, commenting that their readers could seldom have read ‘an incident of war described by so graphic a pen’. Russell gave the readers the exclamatory comments of one looking on, breathless at the sight, and his description of the charge itself was given in a ‘graphic’ present tense, as the cavalry, ‘in two lines’, advanced on the guns, a ‘fearful’ and ‘heroic spectacle’ disappearing into the clouds of smoke, through which ‘we could see their sabres flashing’. As this story was retold in the press in the coming weeks a number of lines of debate were established in the public consciousness around the charge. On 11 November The Times’s editorial established a causeand-effect sequence in its brief summary of the news that was to persist for some time, declaring: ‘According to this account the surprise of the Turkish position had to be redeemed by the loss of 600 cavalry and 400 light infantry.’ Nevertheless, the patriotic position, built up since the Alma, was reasserted: ‘The blood which has been shed has not flowed in vain.’ The next week the editorials on Monday 13 November and Tuesday 14 November expanded on some of these points. More detail was added of how the Turks deserted the redoubts at the beginning of the Russian offensive, ignoring Campbell’s explanatory comments on the behaviour of the Turks, and following rather the line and tone taken by Russell: ‘To our inexpressible disgust we saw the Turks in redoubt No. 2 fly at their approach.’8 New casualty figures were given: on the Monday only 191 men were said to have returned out of the 700 who took part in the charge; on Tuesday the figures were 400 men lost out of 600. Such losses, the editor maintained, were not extraordinary in battles, but the dreadful factor was that it was all ‘a mistake’, ‘some inextricable error’, 79

a ‘blunder’, a sad ‘spectacle of a shipwrecked regiment, settling down into the waves’. He asked dramatically: ‘What is the meaning of a spectacle so strange, so terrific, so disastrous, and yet so grand?’ In describing the advance the editor elaborated on the material in the dispatches, concluding: ‘The brigade was simply pounded by the shot, shell, and Minie bullets from the hills.’ The much-repeated comment of a French general on the spectacle of the charging British cavalry, ‘C’est très magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre’, was quoted and paraphrased by the editor: ‘Causeless as the sacrifice was, it was most glorious.’ This became the basic premise upon which the account of the charge was then constructed, with admiration for the ‘heroic deeds’ and ‘splendid event’ balanced against the shock that the whole was ‘some hideous blunder’. The commentary linked the concern and anxiety about the charge with the general unease about the organisation of the war which was already growing before the news of this battle became known: ‘We are forced to the conclusion that there was some error to be corrected, some folly to be chastised, – not the misapprehension of this or that officer’s mind, but fatal errors of long standing and general prevalence.’ The editorial went on to ask how such a blunder could be tolerated and added: ‘it becomes necessary at once to ascertain the cause.’ Such an appeal could already be seen to have far-reaching implications. It was to lead to investigations into the army’s conduct which would threaten the unity of purpose which the press had been building up under the banner of patriotism. Although the charge of the Heavy Brigade earlier in the battle of Balaklava was praised in the dispatches, and reported and illustrated widely, it was nevertheless the charge of the Light Brigade which received the greatest coverage as the days passed. This was in part a result of the inclusion of letters from the front in the newspapers. The loss of 400 men clearly moved many of the correspondents deeply, whether they had witnessed the event or only heard the report or seen the after-effects. Different newspapers took different approaches. Overall, the question of blame and responsibility was well aired over the next week. In the Liverpool Courier supplement (15 November), which, drawing on items from the Daily News, carried headings ‘Who is to Blame?’ and ‘Mistake at Balaklava’, Captain Nolan’s role in the affair, for instance, was discussed at some length. Still, the prevailing approach 80

was a glorification of the bravery of the Light Cavalry, as in the Manchester Courier (18 November), which referred to ‘the prodigies of valour displayed by the English troops [...] that of the Light Cavalry Brigade being more brilliant and daring than any that can be matched in the pages of History’.9 The difficult questions about who was to blame could be marginalised while the details remained a matter of speculation. In the New Year, as criticism of the government’s handling of the war overall became a major issue, answers were demanded on the thorny question of what had happened at Balaklava, and the public attitude to ‘the charge’ became more complex. The arrival of news of an outstanding victory in which casualties had been light might have silenced these questions and the charge of the Light Brigade might have become one of the forgotten mishaps of war. But the news which did arrive from the Crimea in mid-November was, in fact, of another battle in which there were heavy casualties and no clear victory. Even after the news of the battle of Inkerman arrived on 18 November, a steady flow of letters from the East continued to include accounts of the charge of the Light Brigade.10 To take one example, The Times’s letters page on 20 November carried four letters which referred to the charge. Three, from the front, all spoke out against the behaviour of the Turks as at least in part the cause of the later disaster, while the letter which offered a reasonable defence of the Turkish troops was from a correspondent in Brighton who claimed: ‘the Turks maintained their posts until 170 of them were killed, which does not look much like premature abandonment or cowardice.’ One correspondent also stepped in to defend Lord Cardigan, who he said ‘only obeyed orders’. The adjectives ‘noble’ and ‘brave’ appeared frequently in these letters. There was certainly also more bloody detail in one of the letters than usually graced the pages of The Times. Letters addressed to relatives, and redirected by them to the press, tended to be more outspoken and emotive. One such letter, which appeared in the Manchester Courier of 2 December, and in the Morning Chronicle of that date, reprinted from the Dorset Chronicle, is a remarkable piece of swashbuckling from a Captain in the Enniskillen Dragoons who took part in the charge of the Light Brigade. He speaks of the ‘sublime sensation’ of the moment of the charge which he describes in most poetic if blood-curdling language: 81

Forward – dash – bang – clank and there we were in the midst of such smoke, cheer, and clatter, as never before stunned mortal ear. It was glorious! Down, one by one, ay, and two by two, fell the thick-skulled and over-numerous Cossacks and other lads of the tribe of old Nick. Down, too, alas, fell many a hero with a warm Celtic heart, and more than one fell screaming loud for victory. I could not pause. It was all push, wheel, phrenzy, strike, and down, down, down, they went. Twice I was unhorsed, and more than once I had to grip my sword tighter, the blood of foes streaming down over the hilt, and running up my very sleeve.

This correspondent, with much talk of the ‘desperate’ but ‘glorious’ affair, went on to add, ‘Lord Raglan is blamed’. It is worth considering that Tennyson might well have read this or similar letters in his local paper around 2 December. The end of November saw editors continuing the struggle to wave the flag in spite of the reports of heavy casualties in the Crimea. The Times editorial on 20 November asserted: ‘It is no mere figure of speech, but a plain matter of fact, that at this moment the honour, the credit, and the actual power of this country depend, to an immeasurable extent, on the issue of the contest in the Crimea.’ Other newspapers used more emotive or colourful language in their editorial commentaries on the war,11 though they were unanimous in working to keep the subject and their assessment of the issues before the public. The editorial in The Times on 28 November illustrated the ambiguities in the discussions which were taking place as, while acknowledging that the paper had itself been critical of the handling of the war, it upbraided politicians for trying to make political capital out of the situation when unanimity was needed, ‘when the spirit of the country is fairly roused and the necessity of vigorous and immediate action is felt and acknowledged’.12 On 2 December, the key date for Tennyson’s writing of his poem, the need to establish a consensus view can be felt again in the editorials. On that particular day the leader heading in ILN referred to ‘The Meeting of Parliament’ which was to take place on the 12 December, earlier than usual, and the paper gave its own assertion of the country’s view of the war, which by this point in time was clearly not going to be the short war that everyone had hoped for:

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If the country ever imagined that the war would be a small one, the delusion has passed away. It has become a life and death struggle for the Czar; but, being so, it is also a life and death struggle for his opponents. Neither can yield an inch without peril and disgrace. The Autocrat knows all this, and takes his measures accordingly. It is for the Allies to imitate his example, and to gird up their loins to the work required of them, whatever may be its cost in men, in money, in tears, or in blood.

On the same day the editor in The Times remonstrated with the writer of a letter which had appeared in another paper expressing the utmost cynicism about the war. It also praised one great virtue of the war, a cause indeed worth dying for, the creation of ‘an auspicious union between England and France’. It is quite conceivable that Tennyson, who had spoken out so strongly against the French only two years before, might have been stung into action in defence of his British heroes by such a comment.13 To summarise, then, there were two lines of approach to the telling of the story of Balaklava by this time: the line deriving from Russell’s original account which bridged the central action of the battle to link the cowardice of the Turks and the brave sacrifice of the Light Brigade as cause and effect, with all the inherent dangers of undermining the credibility of the Turks as allies; and the consideration of the charge in isolation from the rest of the battles, but linked to the general criticism of the handling of the war, as an incident for which an explanation was needed. By the end of November, the time was clearly ripe for the poets to add their contribution, sifting, editing, shaping: an image-building process. In looking at the battle of Balaklava, they provided some variety of approach in what they selected from the story as told by Russell or other letter writers. However, the charge of the Light Brigade was always prominent. Among the earliest poetic offerings were two poems printed in the Morning Post on 21 and 28 November: the first ‘The Light Cavalry Charge’, with the sub-heading, ‘From One of the Survivors’ and signed ‘J.T.B.’; the second signed ‘J.G.S.’, entitled ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ and dated from Tedstone, Delamere, November 1854. The Punch contributor Tom Taylor added ‘The Battle of Balaklava’, which appeared on 2 December.14 Westland Marston’s poem The Deathride: A Tale of the Light Brigade was reviewed in the Athenaeum on 16 83

December, which suggests that it must have appeared on or around the same day as Tennyson’s ‘Charge’. Marston was said to be ‘the first who in a separate publication, addresses the public in words which approach the grandeur of the argument’, but the reviewer also noted that at that date ‘Many have celebrated [...] the deeds of our departed heroes of the Light Brigade’.15 And then, of course, there was Tennyson’s poem, written on 2 December, and published on 9 December 1854.16 The question of the laureate’s contribution to the writing of the war was one which must have been prominent, at least in the minds of the eager critics of the time. Acknowledging receipt of Tennyson’s first version of the ‘Charge’ on 6 December,17 John Forster noted that he had certainly been wondering about this: I hear little of you, but again and again I think of you, and never have I done it so often as of late – never, with throbbing heart, have read of those fights of heroes at Alma, Balaklava, and Inkermann, that I have not been eager for you to celebrate them – the only man that can do it up to their own pitch – the only ‘muse of fire’ now left to us that can of right ascend to the level of such deeds.18

Back in September, these expectations had been presented in poetic form by Robert Story, who addressed his ode ‘The Third Napoleon’, to ‘Alfred Tennyson, Esq.’, informing the laureate that there were now plenty of heroic subjects to hand, without resort to the imagination: Poet! deal no more in fiction; Trick no hero of the brain; Measured verse, and gorgeous diction, Spent on Myths, are spent in vain. Look around. Behold the Real Far transcends thy loved Ideal.19

Commenting in its library column on ‘books preparing’ on 25 November, Chambers’s Journal included a premature reference to ‘a new poem by the Laureate, upon the subject of the Battle of the Alma’.20 Blackwood’s Magazine for December 1854, introducing a poem on the battle of the Alma by a Grenadier Guard, informed its readers: ‘It has been rumoured that the Poet Laureate as well as several other bards of

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renown, are presently engaged in the task of commemorating the great campaign.’21 Tennyson himself, busily engaged in writing Maud, was not unaware of the demands a war makes on a Poet Laureate, or indeed any poet who wants to remain popular. Back in March he had written to Elizabeth Russell on the subject of his financial worries and the insecurity of his position: A new name, and such must arise sooner or later, may throw me out of the market: even a Russian war (for books are nearly as sensitive as the funds) may go far to knock my profits on the head.22

According to accounts given by his son and grandson, Tennyson rushed off the poem at great speed; and while this may be quite credible, the uninhibited spontaneity of the creation which their accounts imply must surely be deceptive. Everyone was thinking of nothing but the war, as Tennyson himself acknowledged, and writing about little else.23 There had, therefore, been a great pressure on him as laureate to make a contribution. In fact, when he sent the poem to Forster for publication, he added that if his friend could not publish it that week would he please let him know, ‘as I may alter it for the next’. He added as a postscript: ‘If you think that Stanza crossed out “Half a league, half a league” would begin the poem better than the present beginning will you put it [in] please?’24 There was certainly here a strong feeling of an urgency to publish overriding a need for revision. Was Forster right in his assessment of Tennyson’s ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ as the poem that had got it exactly right?25 Though many poems were written about the charge, and many more about the war, only Tennyson’s poem survived to be reprinted in the twentieth century. There are some obvious reasons for this. Tennyson’s reputation and status as laureate have meant that his poems are still easily available, and his ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ has been seen as an effective poem of action, compared with the now almost forgotten ‘Charge of the Heavy Brigade’. But it is more particularly the reasons for the poem’s reputation at the time which I would like to consider here, through a comparison with other productions on the same subject.

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The copious output of poetry already produced on the battle of the Alma must have established to some extent a pattern for the poetry of the war in the mind of the public, as doubtless it was intended to do.26 It offered heroic images of the war as a national concern, of death in battle as a sacrifice in the cause of justice and freedom, of soldiers as heroic figures deserving admiration and sympathy. The role of poetry was also addressed in the reviews of the time and by the poets themselves. The reviewer in the Athenaeum on 16 December, commenting on Marston’s The Death-Ride, gave a clear, if somewhat hyperbolic, appraisal of the role of poetry: We, who remain at home, to read the doings of our countrymen in that distant peninsula of an almost unknown sea, with throbbing brains and flushing cheeks – we may admit the Muses to our aid, and dwell with pride and gratitude on lines which chronicle the common emotion in a terse, beautiful, and dramatic form. The founts of Song were never yet unsealed for nobler aims; for a moral as well as national interest dwells in the poet’s theme; and the names of Alma, Inkermann and Balaklava will remain for ages as inspiring words.27

A note by Marston, printed at the end of The Death-Ride, addressed the question of the relation between poetry and the accounts of the war being presented daily by the newspapers. Marston stressed the continuity of function between the two, recognising the influence of the war reporting and the importance and power of its language, such that poetry could only be a continuation of the same: The masterly Records of the War which now appear in our crowded journals – records which are at once histories and poems – leave to formal poetry only this task – to adopt their descriptions and to develop their suggestions; to comment, as it were, upon their glorious texts.28

The early poems on the charge of the Light Brigade listed above all drew on both the newspaper accounts of the battle and the poetry produced for the war so far, chiefly on the Alma. With the exception of Taylor’s poem, they all indicated in their title that, following the lead of the press, the last incident of the battle of Balaklava was their chief concern.29 The differences between these poems were chiefly a matter of what detail, tone, and point of view selected from the newspaper accounts were emphasised. Chronologically the first of these poems, ‘The Light 86

Cavalry Charge’ published in the Morning Post on 21 November, speculated on the likely reactions of the people in England to the news from the Crimea. It was concerned with the reputation of the soldiers, and their place in the annals of their country’s history. It emphasised ‘duty’, and kept detail of the events to a minimum, to concentrate on the creation of a patriotic, confident tone. The poem ‘The Charge of the Light Cavalry’ printed in the Morning Post a week later again treated the subject in a most positive tone, beginning and ending with the rhetoric of heroes and heroism. The long fifteen-syllable lines with a trochaic metre and almost all broken by a caesura, produced strongly rhythmical verse. This, together with the proliferation of exclamations and rhetorical questions, reproduced the breathless urgency of a first-hand account from an onlooker, an effect which was comparable to the immediacy achieved by Russell through the use of the historic present tense. At the centre of the poem the few lines devoted to the actual description of the charge, took their detail from the press reports: the ‘measured’ advance of the cavalry, the canon ‘on either side’ of the advance, the fallen soldiers and horses strewing the ground as they returned. However, the poet’s dominant concern was not to give detail, but a positive mood. His priorities were summed up in the line: ‘For they died the death of heroes – died at duty’s stern command.’ Taylor’s fourteen-verse poem printed in Punch gave the whole story of the battle of Balaklava, working into poetry the descriptions which had appeared in the press during the previous month. For instance, the third verse described the Turkish positions in the redoubts, the sudden attack of the Russians, and the flight of the Turks. The cowardice of the Turks was juxtaposed to the bravery of the ‘British hearts’, who would step in to save the day: ‘Curse the slaves, and never mind them; there are British hearts behind them.’ Of the fifteen verses, only the last five dealt with the story of Light Brigade and again Russell was clearly a major source. The comment of a French General, which had been quoted by The Times’s editor on 13 November became here: ‘“’Twas sublime, but ’twas not warfare”, that charge of woe and wrack.’ The figure of six hundred soldiers involved came from the same source. The poem covered, as Marston said later any poetry of the war should, the essential details of the prose accounts: the order to charge, the simple, sure 87

response of the men, the advance through the glen ‘while shot and shell and rifle-ball played on them’ with the guns in front also pounding them, the men, ‘unfaltering, unquestioning’, and finally the brave return of only one third of the force. The emphasis was on detail, rather than purely emotive language. The last verse passed quickly over the question of blame, to end with the patriotic concepts of ‘heroes’ and ‘duty’. Marston’s longer poem was written from the point of view of a soldier on the battlefield. There was space for details of the action as well as the emotions of the soldiers. The details from Russell’s accounts were embellished along the lines of the personal accounts on the letters pages of the press. Recounting how Nolan delivered the order to charge, Marston gave prominence to the emotions of the soldiers. Recognising that they are going to almost certain death, they only cheer all the louder as they begin the charge. From the comment on ‘the spectacle of a shipwrecked regiment’ in The Times, he developed an extended metaphor, representing the battlefield as a sea upon which the soldiers sail in rather creaky vessels or bravely plough through the mounting waves. He kept his reader close to the action through the introduction of direct speech at the climax: ‘“Charge! we break them!”’ The last four verses of the eighteen-verse poem were a verbose elaboration on the themes of the newspaper coverage: country, duty, glory, and the willing self-sacrifice of the soldiers. To this Marston added a final comparison with the heroes of Thermopylae30 and reference to Britain as a ‘mother bereft’, both images which had appeared in the heroic poetry on the Alma. Tennyson’s ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ was essentially similar to these earlier poems.31 It created a stirring rhythm to convey the immediacy of the battlefield. It incorporated details from Russell’s accounts, and touched on the question of blame, but the poet finally emphasised concepts of duty, honour and glory – the language of the heroic poetry of the Alma. From the brief summaries of the earlier poems on ‘the charge’ it is clear that Tennyson’s poem has much in common with them. In the climate of late 1854, what did readers want from their poets? Perhaps many were somewhat confused as the newspaper reports swung daily from criticism of the government to drum-beating for the war. Meanwhile, they were aware that soldiers were dying in the East, and not 88

only on the battlefield but also of cholera. The poets who chose to write about the charge of the Light Brigade seem to have agreed that this had to be presented as a heroic event. But neither potentially painful emotion nor potentially embarrassing questions about blame were eliminated entirely from any of these poems. ‘J.G.S.’ in the Morning Post exhorted his readers: ‘Weep, oh weep not for the fallen!’ By comparison, Tennyson’s poem offered a more effective snapshot of the event, covering the same ground more compactly and without these emotional interjections.32 In Taylor’s poem the details taken from The Times’s account were concentrated in three verses in the last third of the poem which dealt with the charge. One point that was elaborated on was the condition of the men as they returned from the hand-to-hand fighting with the Russians. They were described as ‘a spent and bleeding few’, ‘like wounded lions’, ‘all bruised and soiled and worn’. The poet asked: ‘Is this the wreck of all that rode so bravely out this morn?’ and lamented: ‘Oh, woe’s me for such officers! – Oh, woe’s me for such men!’ These details of the suffering of the soldiers, however, while they may have enhanced some aspects of the heroic image of the soldiers which was presented overall in the poem, allowed an emotional response in the reader in which admiration could be mellowed by sympathy, pity or even anger, rather than producing a simple heroic euphoria for the cause. This is, however, an ambivalence that must have been the reality for the British public at the end of 1854. Marston’s poem finds space for description of the site on which the charge takes place, and the arrangement of the enemy forces. This enhances the tension as the brigade are then called on to charge the Russian defences. However, the delivery of the order to charge is also given some attention. The captain’s name is given, as he delivers the order to charge – ‘At our side gallant Nolan drew’ – and stress is laid on the text of his controversial message. Because Marston has shown the controversial moment, all later detail of the fighting, suffering and glory, are likely to be related by the reader to the questions raised in the newspaper reporting of this incident. The reader’s attention is drawn back to the fourth verse where Nolan’s message is delivered, looking for an explanation for the charge, though none is, of course, available. Controversy and heroism remain perhaps uncomfortable bedfellows, 89

though their coexistence is only a reflection of the state of public opinion at the time. What has been admired in Tennyson’s poem over the last century and a half, the unity of vision which the poem achieves as a eulogy on the action of the Light Brigade, was not so clear in the first version of the poem. Compared to these other poems on the ‘charge’, it offered a simpler, less cluttered action, though this could conversely be described as a lack of emotional appeal to the readers. Tennyson’s poem did touch on the difficult question of blame, as reference was made to the bearer of the orders from Lord Raglan and to a mistake having been made. It allowed controversy to raise its head, though briefly: For up came an order which Someone had blunder’d, ‘Forward, the Light Brigade! ‘Take the guns,’ Nolan said.33

Thus Tennyson’s first version of ‘The Charge’, like all the other poems on that subject, while utilising an established heroic vocabulary, also entered into areas of the controversy surrounding the events. The revisions to the poem for the 1855 edition made it more appropriate to that particular historical moment on several counts. Tennyson can be seen to be working towards achieving a cleaner, more untrammelled patriotism in his poem. Shannon and Ricks have traced the transition in the poem from ‘“Charge,” was the Captain’s cry’ in the Maud version, to the now famous lines from the August 1855 edition: ‘“Forward the Light Brigade! / Charge for the guns!” he said.’ The name of Nolan was removed, and then any reference to an agency to which blame might need to be attached for the catastrophe. This is helped by the limiting and finally the removal of all first-person pronouns, so that an objectivity in the telling is achieved such that the action stands alone as a heroic moment.34 These revisions were appropriate to the changing mood of the nation in 1855, as questions about mismanagement in the Crimea and responsibility were being asked with greater insistence by then.35 The question of responsibility for the charge of the Light Brigade also persistently forced itself into view, as Lord Lucan was recalled from the Crimea, and calls for a court martial were heard.

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The third version can also be seen as moulded especially with its particular audience in mind. For the soldiers at the front a total commitment to the war and belief in their cause were vital. The final verse of Tennyson's poem in the first version, which was itself a tighter, more controlled version of the concluding sentiments found in the poems of Taylor and Marston, was curtailed in the second version to a brief four lines which introduced another personal phrase, ‘when our babes are old’. The third edition restored the first version of this verse, which serves to foreground the intrinsic honour and glory of the incident. Finally, the revised versions of Tennyson’s poem produced in 1855 can be seen as a response to the mood of the nation, which saw no more victories until September 1855. Through the spring the stories of the misery of life at the front proliferated, while action was postponed because of the weather. Tennyson’s poem filled the gap: it provided a much-needed heroic self-image for the nation. To glorify a victory was appropriate, to create a glorious image out of a defeat was sublime. It carried the readers beyond concerns of rights and wrongs and responsibilities to higher realms of dedication and devotion to duty. In 1855 other poems on the battle of Balaklava appeared in print.36 A comparison of Tennyson’s ‘Charge’ with some of these poems serves to highlight the strengths of the laureate’s work as a public image of, and statement on, the war. In Archbishop Trench’s collection of poems of 1855 there are two poems on this subject, ‘What though yet the spirit slumbers’ and ‘Balaklava’. They developed ideas he had used in his poem on the ‘Alma’, where he attempted to rationalise the death of a young man in battle as a sacrifice in a worthy cause, securing him a place in his country’s heroic history.37 Trench’s poems on the battle of Balaklava are both reflective in tone, not shunning the fact of death but seeking to soften the blow for those mourning and needing recognition for their sacrifice.38 In tone and function they are similar to many other poems he wrote on bereavement, the strengths of which were summed up by a critic some years later: ‘Poetry can meet our sorrows face to face, can show us that she also knows them, and can transform them into “something rich and strange” by the suggestive magic of her song.’39 The first of his poems on the charge of the light brigade, ‘What though yet’, develops a comparison with the heroes of Thermopylae to show how the whole country mourns, but also pays tribute to its heroes. In the 91

last verse, which echoes the sentiments of Tennyson’s ‘Charge’, Trench claims for the poet the role of contributing to this task: This slight tribute of his bringing Thou wilt not in scorn put by; And wilt pardon one for singing, While so many do and die.

In the second poem, ‘Balaklava’, the long lines contribute to the reflective tone of the poem. It attempts to stand at a little distance from the event to view it in the context of the country’s history. Nowhere does Trench tell his reader this poem is specifically about the charge of the Light Brigade, though allusion is made to the captain’s order. This lack of direct reference must in itself be evidence of the importance the event had assumed in the public consciousness, since he could assume his readers would recognise his subject at once. Trench interprets the charge as a sacrifice in the cause of duty, and offers this incident as a model for a good Christian life: Not for nought; to more than warriors armed as you for mortal fray, Unto each that in life’s battle waits his Captain’s word ye say– ‘What by duty’s voice is bidden, there where duty’s star may guide, Thither follow, that accomplish, whatsoever else betide.’

Trench, therefore, attempts to eliminate or sidestep difficult political questions about the handling of events by foregrounding a Christian interpretation and concentrating on offering ‘consolation’ to his readers. However, in 1855 even the word ‘sacrifice’ was likely to be heard as the counterbalance to ‘mismanagement’ in the controversies which these poems could barely serve to hide. Sir Francis Hastings Doyle’s poem ‘Balaclava’ is also in fact only about the charge of the Light Brigade, taking up the story as the soldiers, having heard the orders, wait for the final order to charge. Like Tennyson, Doyle quickly dismisses the possibility of their questioning their instructions: ‘“But not with us the question lies.”’ This leads Doyle to lay emphasis on their blind obedience to the call of duty: ‘“That, where the Light Brigade is sent, / The Light Brigade will go.”’ He then produces an atmospheric description of the battlefield, filling sixty lines

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with details of the hand-to-hand fighting, with both British and Russian blood flowing. At the same time the details of the location, the position of the enemy’s guns, the charge and the return of the depleted force all follow Russell’s account of the battle. Where the vocabulary parallels that of Tennyson’s poem, as in ‘cannon shot’, ‘shell’, ‘wild’, ‘shattered’ and so on, it comes from that common source. The concept of duty is given prominence, and the last verse returns to this theme. Compared with Trench’s reflections or Tennyson’s condensed commentary on the charge, the central section of Doyle’s poem offers graphic detail of the action. This must have been at least potentially disturbing for the anxious public at home, or even for the less bloodthirsty soldier at the front waiting for the campaign to resume. A comparison of Doyle’s last verse with Tennyson’s illustrates the strengths of the laureate’s simplified version of the story, with its picture of charging cavalry firmly in the saddle, flashing sabres, not yet stained with blood, and a brigade returning, if under strength, to cries of ‘Honour the Light Brigade!’ Doyle’s final verse reads: And though, beneath yon fatal hill, Their dead the valley strew, Grimly, with cold hands, clutching still The broken swords they drew, We will not call their lives ill spent, If, to all time, they show, That where the Light Brigade was sent, The Light Brigade would go.

Sydney Dobell’s sonnet ‘The Cavalry Charge’, which appeared early in 1855, drew together the responses of grief and pride through a reconstruction of the horror of the soldiers’ ordeal: ‘The terror and the splendour of the charge.’40 The poem thus has a convincing poetic unity, yet it was not singled out for preservation for posterity. However, its subject was the physical ordeal of bravery in battle. As such it potentially exposed the dreadful results of the ‘blunder’. While Doyle, Trench and Dobell, like Tennyson, in their different ways, effectively eulogised the performance of duty, only Tennyson had skilfully managed to avoid the sensitive question of 93

what the charge achieved. As Poet Laureate he had a special public role, which he fulfilled effectively through control of language and point of view in his poem. His public role overrode any remaining concerns he might air privately about such issues as the alleged mismanagement of the campaign in the East.41 The writing and revisions of the poem were then an exercise in trimming down the story to create a particular image of the war for public consumption. Tennyson’s achievement in 1855 was to isolate the acceptable view of events for that moment. This purpose was implicit in the note to the soldiers printed with the poem on the broadsheet for the Crimea: No writing of mine can add to the glory they have acquired in the Crimea; but if what I have heard be true, they will not be displeased to receive these copies of the Ballad from me, and to know that those who sit at home love and honour them.42

If the preoccupation of the poem had been simply a glorification of great deeds on the battlefield, the charge of the Heavy Brigade at Balaklava might have been a more inspirational source of material at that time.43 The fact that questions were being asked about the charge of the Light Brigade, and were linking in to the mood of apprehension about the effectiveness of the commanders in the East, made a poem about this charge all the more effective as propaganda. In more reflective mood in the epilogue to ‘The Charge of the Heavy Brigade’ Tennyson later argued the case for commemorating the deeds of soldiers in poetry in such a way as to dissociate their achievements from the rights and wrongs of the war itself: But let the patriot-soldier take His meed of fame in verse; Nay– tho’ that realm were in the wrong For which her warriors bleed, It still were right to crown with song The warrior’s noble deed

Taking this to have been Tennyson’s aim in 1854, it would certainly seem he achieved a degree of success on the first attempt which, by the time he sent out the poem to the Crimea, he had improved on. Comparisons with other poems of the time highlight Tennyson’s skill 94

and judgement in the production of an image for public consumption during the difficult days of the war from December 1854 to the summer of 1855. Tennyson’s ‘Charge’ was not singled out for especial praise by critics in December 1854, but by August of the following year it would seem that in the different political climate Tennyson’s poem was just what the public needed: a simple glorification of duty which could exclude other difficult questions, an image to help build up national pride.44 For later readers, especially in other periods of war, the poem remained unequivocally an encapsulation of the heroic spirit of the nation and a reminder of its glorious past, which provided a model to be emulated. The poem’s reputation may have rested in part on claims for its technical skill and its achievement of poetic unity, as well as on Tennyson’s reputation as laureate. But even in 1855 his technical expertise did not go unchallenged, as one reviewer, for instance, complained that horses do not gallop in dactyls, but in anapaests.45 At the same time, comparisons with other poems on the same subject reveal works such as that of Dobell to have a compelling poetic unity. Furthermore, it must be noted that in spite of his place in the canon of nineteenth-century literature, not all of Tennyson’s poems have remained equally popular. Perhaps it could be argued that the selection of Tennyson’s ‘Charge’ as the account of the Crimean War to survive for posterity might in part be due to the happy coincidence of the detail and tone of Tennyson’s narrative with a final officially acceptable consensus on these events. As other poems about the charge, and indeed those about other battles and victories of the Crimea campaign, have fallen into oblivion, Tennyson’s ‘Charge’ has survived, way into the twenty-first century, as a definitive statement about that war, a function for which in factual terms it is patently inadequate. If the final verdict on the war had exposed the mismanagement, expressed regret at the enormous loss of life in an ill-thought-out cause, or had censured individuals in authority such as those who gave the orders for the charge of the Light Brigade, Tennyson’s poem would have been irrelevant, a skilful exercise which embodied a deviant and later discountenanced view, and other poetry such as that of Trench might have found a place in the canon as the expression of the spirit of the time. The poems of 1854–5 on the battle of Balaklava told the same story with a number of 95

different emphases. Some of the points raised in these poems were difficult politically. Many were edited out of the story of the Crimean War, at least for the immediate future. The ensuing reputation of Tennyson’s poem (and the invisibility of others) is, perhaps, one facet of that process.46

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Chapter 4 War as Context of Literature (Part II) – January to September 1855: The Press and the Country in Waiting

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a context for a reading of literary works published or written in the year 1855. It will explore the view of the war presented to the public in that year which helped to establish the expectations and interests of contemporary readers. This will then provide the base from which, in the following chapters, this study can explore the reception of literary texts during this period of war. Looking forward to momentous events can create a hiatus in the pattern of everyday living, after which the mundane continuity of life, with its persisting problems, can come as something of a surprise. Such must have been the feelings of many people in January 1855. Emotions had been stirred by the flurry of sentimental commentaries in the press on the loved ones far away at the time of the Christmas celebrations. Yet a new year came and the situation remained the same. Expressions of indignation at the Foreign Enlistment Bill died away slowly,1 as did the hyperbolic recounting of the moments of glory from the battles of late 1854,2 while the press continued the work of praising the French allies and denigrating the Russian enemies. But the uncomfortable questions about responsibility for the mismanagement of events in the East, which had first been raised by The Times’s correspondents, were to persist. By January all the rival papers had had to concede that there was indeed a problem. The Liverpool Chronicle, while admitting that The Times was right about conditions in the East, offered its own ‘local’ evidence: There is at present a gentleman in Liverpool who has recently returned from the Crimea – who was at the camp before Sebastopol as late as the close of December – and his experience is fully confirmatory of what has been brought

out by the leading morning paper. In fact, he declares that the actual state of things was then worse than the literary outline. 3

While the country and, in particular, the men of the press waited for news of another victory, the questions about the competency of the rulers on the one hand, and about the press reporting of the evidence on the other, rumbled on. They remained a theme underlying almost all other major debates during the year from which only more local news events, or the predictable attacks on the Peace Party, could provide a distraction. The newspapers pursued their different editorial lines, definable in 1855 in terms of the degree of their obsession with the war. This was evident in the amount of space allocated to the war compared to home issues, as well as in the editorials themselves.4 As artists such as Joseph Crowe made their way to the Crimea, newspaper illustrations of the war proliferated, first and foremost in the ILN, although other papers occasionally added supplements with illustrations.5 The ILN made the most of the opportunity provided by other events of the year such as royal visits for even more extravagant illustrations. The letters pages of the newspapers, on the other hand, which in early 1855 were still overflowing with correspondence from the front, soon began to shrink. In fact, by March the flow of such letters seemed to have dried up or to have been dammed up,6 in spite of many comments in newspaper editorials and in journals on the advantages of these first-hand accounts.7 The reports from the papers’ own correspondents from the East continued at a steady pace, though for many weeks with little to report except the effects of changes in the weather. These columns must have seemed to readers, concerned for relatives in the East, to be a point of contact with them. The headings such as ‘The Siege of Sebastopol’ and ‘The Army in the Crimea’ under which these reports appeared must have become very familiar to readers. The steady flow of publications about the war continued with the addition now of accounts by tourists, and the reviews of these new books provided further war-related material.8 The amount of coverage of home news varied from one newspaper to another, depending on its usual policy. Only rarely did the regular pages of financial news or news from the assizes give way to the war. One issue, which did not quite disappear in 1855, was the problem of public health.9 Reports on this topic continued to appear and, in the summer 98

months, one unavoidable issue for Londoners was the polluted state of the Thames.10 This was the general pattern of news reporting, but some particular events which were given prominent coverage during 1855 are worthy of note. At the end of January came the fall of the Aberdeen government, defeated on a motion from Roebuck criticising the management of the war effort. It was replaced by the administration of Lord Palmerston two weeks later. In February the negotiations with Russia, which were restarting at Vienna, were given wide coverage, some editorials even expressing hopes of peace.11 The home news in February included more reports of bread riots. Whether the root of these disturbances had anything to do with the war cannot be judged from the short factual reports which appeared.12 However, the ILN did take space to deplore the linking (by whom they did not specify at this time) of the issue of bread prices with the war.13 On 10 March the papers reported the Queen’s visit to the wounded soldiers at Chatham, the ILN providing a full-page illustration for the occasion.14 On 2 March the Czar’s death was announced. From 3 March onwards this event was recorded in the press in Britain with varying degrees of tolerance or patriotism.15 Also in March reports of the meetings of the Roebuck committee of enquiry began to appear regularly in the press and, as Lord John Russell was dispatched to Vienna and took up the job of Britain’s negotiator there, the question of negotiations was frequently aired.16 April was to provide the press with excellent material to fill the space left by the lack of news from the Crimea with the visit of the French Emperor to Britain. In fact, in April the siege was reopened, though, beyond the stating of the fact and reiterating that the war must go on, there was little to add. The visit of the French emperor, on the other hand, offered vast opportunities for lengthy and colourful reports and for pictures to capture the regal and impressive spectacle in the illustrated press.17 A similarly useful event was the ceremony on 19 May at which the Queen distributed war medals to the wounded. The ILN produced a twopage illustration of this royal event.18 Also in May the negotiations taking place in Vienna returned to the news as parliament debated the situation,19 and at the beginning of May the submarine telegraph from 99

the Crimea to Varna, which was to speed up the transmission of news from the East, was completed. From May onwards the movement for Administrative Reform frequently attracted the attention of the press. Reports of public meetings, editorial comment and eventually parliamentary debates were allotted to the issue. In June two other events which gained prominent coverage were the reporting to parliament of the Sebastopol committee on 18 June and the riots in Hyde Park, which occurred on several Sundays from 24 June. The latter were said to have been occasioned by the people’s anxiety over a new bill to curtail Sunday trading in London. There were complaints that the response of the police to these demonstrations had been unnecessarily severe. A committee was set up to look into the complaints, and its meetings were then covered regularly by the press. Meanwhile, in the Crimea, the allied attack on Sebastopol, so long awaited, had failed, and that event was followed shortly by the death of Lord Raglan. The reports of these two events followed one another in quick succession at the end of June and the beginning of July. The tributes to Lord Raglan were many and the opportunities for press coverage were extended by the fact that, after a funeral service in the Crimea, his remains were brought back to Britain where another service was held.20 At last it seemed that there would soon be no lack of dramatic events to fill the newspapers, as further action in the Crimea was assumed to be imminent. Back home, the resignation of Lord John Russell was announced,21 and by this time also the Queen’s visit to France was providing a new source of interest. It remained a major news story throughout August.22 Hardly was that visit over, when in September the news of the fall of Sebastopol arrived. The papers greeted the news of victory with patriotic fervour, and reports of general public rejoicing throughout the land were given prominent coverage. Beyond these events of the period, the questions about the mismanagement of the campaign in the East led to a widening debate, which took in first the organisation of the army, then the role of the aristocracy and the effectiveness of the Civil Service. Reports of the Roebuck committee’s meetings appeared in the press almost daily. Well into the year letters continued to appear with new complaints about 100

inefficiency.23 Meanwhile, several reports in The Times from the Rev. S.G. Osborne provided further reminders of the poor provision that had originally been made for the wounded in the hospital at Scutari. In the first half of 1855 the monthly journals also felt the need to address the issue of mismanagement in the East, which had become the burning question of the day.24 By July the House of Commons was debating the report of the Roebuck committee and many newspapers carried a transcript of these debates.25 The question of responsibility for mismanagement did not only rebound on the government, producing the change of cabinet in February 1855. It was also seen to raise questions about the nature of the organisation of the army. Indeed, The Times helped to make this point as its regular reports of the proceedings of the Roebuck committee were headed ‘The State of the Army’. The early months of 1855 saw a spate of letters to the press and articles on various aspects of the organisation of the army. The existence of the Roebuck committee seems to have been seen as a signal to bring all the grievances out into the open. Army administration and its effectiveness, the aristocracy’s monopoly on administration and senior positions, the system of promotions excluding men from the ranks and the pay of the officers were all suddenly subjects for debate in the pages of the press. The first of these was to be looked at by a government-appointed commission. Many of the monthly and quarterly journals responded to this situation with articles which were first and foremost informative, offering a detailed analysis of the state of the army, though also entering into the debate. The North British Review, after going over the evidence of incompetence in the provisioning of the army, laid the blame on the army itself, and found three main causes: lack of coordination of the departments, the mode of administration of the army and the lack of professionalism in the army. ‘“The right man for the right place”’, said the author, ‘is the cry of the hour’.26 A similarly informative article on ‘The regimental system’, which appeared in Fraser’s Magazine in May, suggested that the problems could be resolved by providing education for the officers.27 Chambers’s Journal limited itself to investigating ‘The feeding of the army’. It provided evidence of the shortcomings of the system but, rather than apportioning blame, concluded with a restatement of the dilemma: ‘How far the calamities in the Crimea are to 101

be attributed to Commissariat imperfections, it does not fall within the province of this sheet to determine.’28 The letters to the press expressed a variety of opinions not visibly organised along party-political lines and posed questions about the ability of the aristocracy to organise a war and, indeed, about whether they were the right people to be in charge in the army.29 To try to simplify the lines of debate would be to underestimate the range and variety of critical opinion being voiced.30 I shall, therefore, simply offer some representative illustrations of the range of opinions during these months. The leader in the ILN on 27 January, considering the current problems under the heading ‘The Re-assembling of Parliament’, applauded the fact that the truth, though unpleasant, was being spoken. At the same time the paper managed to bang the war drum, with praise of this free country and a tribute to the role of the aristocracy: ‘The Aristocracy has done good service, and will do it again.’ By 10 March the ILN was acknowledging the limitations of the present system of promotion in the army, which appeared to deny the new middle classes a role. At the same time, it argued that Britain was superior to its neighbours on points of freedom, because it did not have a large standing army. Punch, on the other hand, was soon into the fray, taking the aristocracy as a target for its satire. A whole-page cartoon, for instance, entitled ‘Shop for Buying Promotions’ was typical of the line taken by that journal31 and, in an article headed ‘Lord Malmesbury on the Aristocrat’, Punch offered a definition of the aristocracy as a class who lived by the conviction of their own superiority. Beside this article was another satiric piece headed ‘Improvements for the Army’ containing parodies of recruitment adverts, implying that all army commanders were ‘decrepit, spiritless old men’.32 On 2 May The Times reported the calling of a public meeting in Sheffield to discuss ‘the propriety of petitioning Parliament in favour of a thorough reform in the army’. The letters page of The Times presented a variety of criticisms of the present system, often from personal experience, such as a correspondent signing himself ‘One of the Aggrieved’ who wrote on the subject of the lack of promotion opportunities in the army,33 or a ‘Royal Marine’ who wrote to ask The Times to take up the cause of reform in his branch of the services: 102

As you are now engaged in advocating reform in the army, thereby insuring to the working men the proper reward, I think you might with justice call public attention to the state of a branch of both services, now happily, styled ‘Nobody’s Children’ which has for many years suffered from neglect and illusage. The corps in question is the Royal Marines.34

By the summer a new term entered into the debate in the letters column of The Times, namely ‘favouritism’, as several correspondents rephrased the demand for fair promotion opportunities.35 The debate about how appointments should be made moved on to include questions about the Civil Service. During the summer of 1855 this debate gathered momentum. It appeared constantly in the press in reports on the activities of the Administrative Reform Society, in parliamentary questions, and in letters and editorial comments. The challenge to ‘red-tapism’ was yet another challenge to the authority of the aristocracy, and, as such, fed into the debate about the conduct of the war or the popular question ‘What are we fighting for?’ As the newspapers presented these arguments they were also open to the accusation of fuelling the fire. This did not go unchallenged in rival papers or even in parliament, where the challenge took the form of an increasingly vociferous debate on the role which the press should be allowed to take in time of war. During 1855 such discussions were increasingly linked to government proposals for changes to the Stamp Duty. The new Stamp Bill purported to tackle the unfair advantage enjoyed by the London-based press, but was seen by The Times as a ‘personal’ attack, since the circulation of The Times by far outstripped that of other papers.36 From a twenty-first-century vantage point the challenge to the authority of the aristocracy may seem the most radical of the many interrelated debates raging in 1855, but perhaps the most surprising aspect of the debate is the diversity and dissension in the views expressed on the conduct of the war. When the editorial in the Morning Chronicle on 1 January began with the comment ‘The history of the year which has just closed possesses a perfect unity of interest’, it was clearly expressing a wish rather than stating a fact, though by comparison with the year to come perhaps it might have had some ring of truth. The ILN also worked hard to maintain a tone of optimism, producing at its worst

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such forced arguments as the following from the editorial of 17 February, where having reviewed the state of the army, the failure to make a successful assault on Sebastopol in the previous year, the condition of the troops before Sebastopol, and the attacks on the aristocracy at home, the editor declared: The suffering which both armies – especially the British – have endured are favourable to the success of any movement which depends on desperate valour. Better to perish nobly in a gallant onslaught than to linger miserably in the cold of the trenches, or to be shipped off from Balaclava to die on the road to Scutari. The very best feeling pervades the soldiers of both nations.37

The Times, on the other hand, when it was not decrying the faults of the rulers, ostensibly asserted the need for unity, though tending, like Hamlet’s Player Queen, to protest too much. The editorial on 17 March, for instance, asserted that the country as a whole had now passed into a ‘state of war’ and that, though the prospects for the war in the East were ‘horrible’, they were to be accepted because ‘this is no ordinary war’, but ‘a contest which is to decide, perhaps for ages, the preponderance of the Western or the Eastern Powers’.38 Again, in April, the editorial prefaced a call for unity with an interpretation of the state of affairs in the country: It is now seriously propounded in various quarters that England is incapable of making war. We have seen it argued with much philosophy and practical illustration that in proportion as we have become more free, more constitutional and more commercial, we have lost that unity of purpose, that warmth of sentiment, and that keenness of action necessary to military success.39

By May The Times was of the opinion that the government, far from leading a unified country, was encouraging disunity, and did not know its own view on the matter of the war.40 In the House of Commons in May Disraeli moved ‘dissatisfaction with the ambiguous language and uncertain conduct of Her Majesty’s Government’.41 Transcripts of the parliamentary debate which followed appeared in the press over several days.42 When the journals were not joining in the debates, they took a patriotic stance and blamed all the evils of war on the Czar.43 Blackwood’s Magazine, which carried several articles on the conduct of the war, modified this line in a piece in July: 104

War is a judgment upon the nations; but if ever a war was clearly traceable to individual agency, it is the present one [...] The ambition of the Czars, and the connivance of the British Cabinet – that is the answer.44

When they could find nothing more positive to say, the papers turned, as in the previous year, to attack the ‘Peace Party’, and John Bright in particular. A.J.P. Taylor has commented on the limited contribution which Bright made to the debate on the war, but the attention given by the newspapers to Bright’s speeches is quite another matter.45 The Peace Party continued to provide a scapegoat or an excuse for belligerent language when all else failed. Typical was a sarcastic suggestion in the ILN that ‘the Emperor of Russia has been encouraged to make war, and to persist in it, by the speeches of Mr Cobden, Mr Bright and the members of the Society of Friends’.46 Two weeks later the ILN editorial excelled in invective against the Peace Party, before condemning them to oblivion as an irrelevance: But we must not overrate their importance on that account. Strictly speaking, the British Government, and the large bulk of the sound-hearted British people, are friends of peace, – peace at all price – peace even at the heavy price of war [...] But we have another peace party – which is in reality the party of war – the party of submission to wrong, because it is inconvenient and troublesome to enforce the right.47

The only change to this pattern of invective came in the summer, when Mr Gladstone made his opposition to the war more explicit, and brought down the fury of the whole press on his head.48 By 11 September reports had reached Britain of the fall of Sebastopol. While all the newspapers gave the news maximum coverage, some still found space to gloat over the opponents of the war. Since this was the great moment for patriotism, it was also the moment to attack those considered unpatriotic: In the hour of triumph, and when peace is so much nearer than it seemed to be but a fortnight ago, it may not be altogether useless to consider what in all probability the chances of peace would have been at this moment if Lord John Russell, Sir James Graham, Mr Cobden, Mr Gladstone, and Mr Bright had had the direction of our affairs since the year 1853.49

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The town of Sebastopol was taken, but, as Punch put it: ‘The work is not completed.’50 To what extent the issues of the year had been specific to the war period did not immediately become clear. There had been, through this year, an underlying anxiety about the relations between government and war, and democracy and war, which was articulated from time to time in many quite disparate discourses on the war. The problem was addressed, for instance, by the leader in the ILN in February, after the establishment of the new administration under Lord Palmerston: The question of questions which Lord Palmerston and the country have to decide resolves itself into this – can a reformed Parliament act in war as vigorously as in peace? The question, if not entirely new to modern civilisation, is new to this country.51

There certainly had been no consensus in the press on how the war should be run. But by September 1855 there was a different spirit in the country from that of the previous year. Whereas in 1854 some home issues had been displaced by the war in public consciousness, in 1855 the experience of war was being used to bring forward other home issues, in particular administrative reform. The criticism of the handling of the war had paved the way for more general criticism of the country’s aristocratic systems. Such was the fare on which the newspaper readers of 1855 were fed. This was the experience of war for readers who were also the audience for the literary works of this period, which will be examined in the following chapters.

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Chapter 5 Poetry of the War: A Shared Discourse?

The end of 1854 saw the publication of Tennyson’s ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’, which has proved the most enduring image of the war from the large output of patriotic and often jingoistic poetry produced in the last months of that year. This chapter will consider the poetry of the next nine months, when, alongside the rabble-rousing tones and now familiar patriotic vocabulary, a more sombre, reflective poetry gained prominence. In time of war emotions cannot be said to exist solely in a private domain, but will inevitably be influenced by and contribute to the mood of the community or nation. Through an examination of a range of poems by authors from different backgrounds the underlying function of the poetry of this period, its potential both for creating images of unity and reassurance, and for controlling its readers’ emotions, will be explored. With few exceptions, the poets worked with prominent common themes rooted in a view of war that already had a long history and is now theorised as a concept of ‘just war’. In the debates of 1854 Watkins’s much-publicised letter to the press quoted Vattel in justification of the present war. Vattel’s commentary on the laws governing the relationships between states provided a review of existing practice in relation to war which was essentially a reworking of the view that if the king’s cause is God’s cause and, therefore, just, then God must be on our side.1 By the 1850s the reality was that the decision to go to war was no longer left to the Queen, and in 1855 the rights and wrongs of parliament’s decisions were being publicly debated even as the war went on, creating an unprecedented disunity in time of war. Sensing the need for unity, the poets helped to build traditional, patriotic images of the war, circumventing the public debates, and imposing instead the simple sequential argument that had pertained when a king went to war. The mood of the country in the final days of 1854 can be illustrated with a number of poems which appeared at that time. The ILN on 16

December reprinted Mackay’s poem ‘The Heroes of the Crimea’ with a musical score, supplementing the heroic language of the poem with audible peals of bells and dramatic ‘crescendos’.2 On 30 December his poem ‘The Battle of Inkermann’ appeared. Here Mackay took his readers to the battlefield, giving a minute-by-minute account of the commencement of the action, presumably assembled from the accounts sent home by soldiers. The tone of the poem changed in mid-stream, however, as the simple language of the battle narrative gave way to a rhetorical, patriotic stance: ‘But each English heart that day / Throbbed impetuous for the fray.’3 Mackay introduced the much-used comparison with Thermopylae to emphasise the inequality of numbers in this battle, and finally asserted that the French and English armies ‘saved a threatened world’.4 As far as Mackay was concerned it was clearly still the poet’s task to bang the patriotic drum, though it was now almost two months since Inkerman, and, with no new battles to report and Christmas and New Year festivities approaching, the attention of the press had turned rather to the stories of the suffering of the soldiers in the Crimea, and the sorrow and concern at home. A rather different poetic contribution appeared in Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine of December 1854. This was an eyewitness account of the battle of the Alma, written by a soldier. To the already copious literature on this battle ‘A Night on the Heights’ added a personal touch that was sentimental in the profuseness of its references to the soldiers’ thoughts of loved ones back home. Also in December Westland Marston, who had already given readers the atmospheric battle scenes of ‘The Death Ride’, contributed the poem ‘War Christmas’, published in the Athenaeum. Here, the heroic story of the battles of the year was summarised in just three verses, while the main part of the poem addressed the sorrow of those mourning, acknowledging that grief would be felt, especially at this time of family festivity, by all who had suffered loss, rich and poor alike.5 These poems from the close of 1854, as they swing from heroic to reflective tone, illustrate the transition in the mood of the press at that time and point the way forward towards a shift in mood for poetic responses to the war in 1855, where reflective poetry was to take a more prominent place. Poetry continued to appear in newspapers and journals in 1855,6 but this was also a time for poets to offer their thoughts to the people in 108

collections of poems, many of which were ready for the press in the first half of 1855. This chapter will include a consideration of collections of poems by William Cox Bennett, Robert Brough, Sydney Dobell, Ernest Jones, W.J. Linton, Gerald Massey, Alexander Smith, Richard Chenevix Trench and Martin Tupper.7 However, no attempt will be made to deal with these in a strictly chronological sequence, or in relation to particular events of the war.8 In fact, while the political situation in England was volatile in the first months of 1855, the circumstances in the Crimea did not change very much at all. There the greatest changes between January and June were the result of the weather. Where particular topical issues are included in the poetry they will be set in context. Otherwise my primary concern here will be to examine the overall function of poetry in relation to this phase of the war, as exemplified in the work of these writers. Many of the reviews of these new collections of poetry for the war commented not only on the poems but also on the special role of the poet in time of war. In 1855 the Athenaeum from time to time rounded up relevant new publications under the heading ‘The War’. On 3 February, with a number of poetic offerings to consider under this heading already, the reviewer noted that ‘the poets and poetasters have possession of the field’. In some of these poems it was the music of war which was praised as, at its best, seeming ‘to echo the tramp of horses and roar of cannon’. In May Blackwood’s Magazine carried a review article dated 12 March, from Sebastopol, in which the writer E.B. Hamley praised the enthusiasm of the poet who ‘burns to sing of the war’. He drew a parallel with the production of the Iliad, as it might have been read by Peleus or Ulysses ‘towards the close of the first year of their sojourn before Troy’: Poetry whose high office is to elect and combine in order to exalt, would do for them the refining work of time. The squalid scenes of the camp and the work-aday operations of the siege would vanish from their mental picture; they would become heroes to themselves; each would begin to believe he had seen the gods of Olympus mingling in the fray, and every Greek who had experienced a touch of cholera, would be ready to swear by the Styx that he had heard the twanging of the silver bow, and felt the sharp arrow of the vengeful archer-god.9

It is the power of poetry to transform which is stressed here. Hamley goes on to suggest that some of the functions of poetry have, in fact, 109

already been exploited by the newspapers: ‘Fancy and invention he [the poet] need not call on for aid, as those elements of poetry have already done their utmost in the columns of the newspapers he subscribes to.’ All that is wanting, he says, is the memorable musical quality of verse itself. While the remit for the new role of war reporter was widely discussed, the more familiar medium of poetry could, less obtrusively, assume a powerful role as a reinforcer of images from the press, catching the reader in a quieter and less critical mood. However, Hamley also commented that the war poetry recently published was not heroic enough for his taste and that the native hue of resolution is sicklied o’er rather too biliously with the pale cast of thought. The philosophy and pathos of the horrors of war are dwelt on somewhat to the exclusion of the martial spirit which should ring through the subject like the sound of a trumpet.10

Hamley’s article implicitly identified the two basic areas of poetry’s operations. The language of verse could create a mood of sympathy, thoughtfulness and reflection, or a tone of martial grandeur and patriotic fervour, and, in practice, these two possibilities were not always mutually exclusive. Some poets explicitly addressed these issues and indicated their personal priorities. One of the earlier war poems by Trench, for example, predicted a more prolific response to the war from the poets in the coming months, which would sound a heroic note: Still, as well my soul presages, Mightier voices soon will sound, Which shall ring through all the ages. While the nations listen round.11

On the other hand, there was a strong philosophic vein in much of Trench’s poetry up to that time. Commenting on Trench’s work some years later, Frederic W.H. Myers noted: ‘Poetry can meet our sorrows face to face, can show us that she also knows them, and can transform them into “something rich and strange” by the suggestive magic of her song.’12 This philosophic mood, in fact, coloured much of Trench’s own poetry on the war.

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Gerald Massey and Ernest Jones, both well-known voices for the working class, and both putting country before class on this occasion, addressed the question of the role of the poet in their collections of poems about the war. Jones, in the preface to The Waves and the War, commented: No-one should lightly encourage war. Whoever abets it, unless an urgent and sufficient cause for that war exists, has doubtlessly a great guilt upon his conscience. Therefore, even verses tending (however feebly) to stimulate the war spirit of the time, should not be written (though the subject may be seductive to the pen), unless the writer conscientiously feels that the war is just and necessary, and its prosecution consistent with the interests of morality and right, as much as a calamity can be [...] It is because the author of these lines believes the present war to be a just one [...] that he ventures to submit the following pages to the public [...] Party differences are the mere question of a day; but the honour of a nation and its martial deeds are themes for all time.13

Not surprisingly Jones, as one who aimed to influence others through his poetry on the question of class, was conscious of the power of poetry, which should not be employed thoughtlessly, though now clearly he was committing his efforts to support for the war. Gerald Massey expressed similar opinions in War Waits. The view of the war adopted by these two writers contrasts with that of two other working-class poets, Prince and Brough.14 John Critchley Prince had assumed a similar mission to that of Jones as a working-class poet, though he did not enjoy an equal reputation or financial reward for his labours.15 Implicit in Prince’s poems on the war is an essentially working-class perspective, which balances the needs of the country against the needs of the working people. His responses to the war were published in the collection Autumn Leaves in August 1856, where the dominant theme is the waste of war and the blessings of peace. Robert Brough was well known in the 1850s for his burlesque plays and journalism, as well as poetry. The preface which he wrote to his Songs of the Governing Classes published in June 1855 made reference to the present crisis only as an opportunity to offer his verse to a more receptive audience, because of ‘the preparation of the public mind by recent events and disclosures’, namely the Crimean War crisis. But Brough’s main argument in the preface stressed firstly, that although

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he had a reputation as a public jester he was extremely serious here, and secondly, that the position from which he wrote was a belief that ‘to the institution of aristocracy in this country [...] is mainly attributable all the political injustice, and more especially the grovelling moral debasement, we have to deplore’.16 Thus Brough refused to take the war itself as his subject, but hoped to find a receptive audience for his satire among the present critics of the aristocracy. For William Cox Bennett the development of the national role of the poet as historian was a major preoccupation, and his writing on the Crimean War was part of that interest. Several poems from his 1855 collection War Songs reappeared in a collection in 1868, as part of his Proposals for and Contributions to a Ballad History of England. It was Bennett’s belief that poetry had been and should continue to provide a medium for the dissemination of a sound account of the national history. In the introduction to the 1868 collection he commented: ‘Our history must reach the people now as it reached them of old.’17 The rather slim 1855 collection was padded out with reprints of earlier poems considered relevant to the present mood, but it would seem that Bennett, as well as taking advantage of the market potential for war poetry, might well have seen himself as contributing to such a ballad history of events at that time. Most poets in 1855 were clearly aware of a special responsibility and a power to influence the public by contributing to (with individual poems) or complementing (with collections) the coverage of the war in journals and newspapers. They were consciously utilising, reinforcing or elaborating images already implanted in the public consciousness through the reporting of the war. There will be a need here, therefore, to consider both the implicit and explicit involvement of the poets in the more contentious issues of the political debate which developed in the press. Poetry was also able to address the more personal areas of experience, whether that of the soldier on the battlefield or the family waiting at home for news. But first I want to consider the continuation of the patriotic role, which was still assumed to be the pre-eminent role for poetry. In 1855 the assumptions, implicit in the poetry of the war so far, of patriotism as synonymous with national unity and based on a history of wars fought under the leadership of divinely appointed kings, took on a greater importance as the public debates about the war exposed 112

increasing disunity.18 The patriotic poetry compensated by associating the call for unity with images of the nation as caring as well as brave, as mourning as well as cheering. Although there were no new battles for the poets to focus on in the early months of 1855, the language of patriotism was incorporated in much of the poetry which was published at that time. Frequent references to ‘England’ in Tupper’s poems carried with them an implicit assumption of tradition and of unity. Similar references from Gerald Massey were noteworthy, in view of his reputation as a writer of the people. His much-used phrases ‘Old England’ and ‘Our England’ assumed a tradition with which all readers, of whatever background, were asked to identify. In the poem ‘War Rumours’ he asserted: ‘Old England still throbs with the muffled fire / Of a Past she can never forget.’19 A.H. Miles referred to War Waits as leaving the readers ‘thrilled with national ardour, or fired with patriotic pride’.20 Trench, too, refers frequently to the tradition of England’s glorious past as an explanation or justification of the present involvement in war, but also as a supporting framework for the present experience. To those who must die in battle, or whose loved ones have died, Trench offers the consolation of joining a great tradition, and being united with the past, though showing perhaps some insensitivity to the usual exclusion of the lower classes from ancestor worship: Stately grief, not wild and tameless, Thine, the privilege to see Gentle, simple, named and nameless, Willing all to die for thee.21

An attempt to build an image of one nation is also prominent in Sydney Dobell’s work. The ‘worthies’ in the sonnet of that title are those who, ‘when England calls’, leave their homes to stand at their post and to die there.22 In ‘Good-night in War-time’ Dobell reflected on the unity of the nation, which responded to the call to battle: [...] Aye, for Man is one; We are a host ruled by one trumpet-call, Where each, armed in his sort, makes as he may The general motion.23

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Dobell’s emotive verse successfully avoids the language of the divisive newspaper debates, where ‘the people’ appealed to were often those who considered that their opinions, as voters, counted. Dobell tries to suggest a wider unity.24 These poems were given a mixed reception,25 but his aim of presenting an image of a nation united across class boundaries in the cause of war was recognised. Tupper also goes out of his way to stress unity across class barriers. In ‘The Gracious Message’, for example, he stresses that the Queen’s message to the troops was sent to the common soldiers. Though the word ‘gracious’ in his title rather belies it, he clearly wants to convince his reader that the class divide is indeed being bridged by the Queen’s message: ‘Tell the men, my wounded sons, ‘Simple privates in the ranks, ‘That to those heroic ones, ‘Queen and Prince have sent their thanks.’26

While these were quite explicit attempts to build an image of the unity of the nation, other poems referred back to the old assumptions of unity in wartime, symbolised in kingship and the cry ‘God on our side’. This was the simple powerful logic underpinning the first of Tupper’s ‘Hymns for our Day of Prayer, on the Declaration of War’, published in Lyrics in 1855. The poem begins with the hymn-like line ‘O God! our Refuge and Defence’, and insists that this relationship pertains now, as ‘of old’. As the cause is righteous and the nation’s cause, it is also God’s. The poem concludes with the reassuring lines: We trust not in our ships and swords, But in Thy Name, O Guard and Guide, Because the battle is the Lord’s, – And God is seen on Duty’s side!27

These arguments were being put forward even while the horrors of the battlefield – the loss of life from sickness and cannon – were being daily presented to the public in the newspapers. Not surprisingly the thoughts of the poets turned to another battlefield and to a king who movingly confronted the question of the horrors of war, Henry V. In Shakespeare’s account the king’s fears about the suffering of his troops were quelled by

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his trust that as a divinely appointed king he could assume his cause to be just and to be God’s cause. He could, therefore, lay all the responsibility for the consequences of war on God. There are many echoes of Shakespeare’s Henry V in the poetry of the Crimean War. Most frequently heard is the opening phrase of the king’s final soliloquy in Act IV Scene 1, ‘O God of battles’. Gerald Massey’s poem ‘Balaklava’ opens with an appeal to the ‘God of Battles’,28 while in Ernest Jones’s poem ‘Prayer for Peace’ every verse begins and many end with the line, ‘God of Battles! give us peace!’29 Mrs Craik introduced the phrase in a rather different context in her poem ‘By the Alma River’, where a mother directs her little son Willie to pray to the ‘God of battles’.30 Trench’s poem ‘Alma’ ends with a reworking of the argument of the St Crispian’s day speech in Act IV of Shakespeare’s play: And our sons unborn shall nerve them for some great deed to be done, By that twentieth of September, when the Alma’s heights were won.31

These echoes of Henry V all served to recall an old tradition, not only of heroic deeds in battle, but also of kingship, order and national unity.32 Many poets stated clearly that they were keen to take up their pens because they saw the war as a just cause. The question remained as to whether they could assume their readers agreed with them, or whether they wrote to persuade others to their views. Many of the collections of poems published in this year of war did make some reference to the justice of the cause, or tackled the question indirectly. But at a time when heated debates were in progress about the operations in the East and when the voice of the peace movement continued to be raised, many poets seemed prepared only at most to dip a toe into the turbulent waters of the political debate. On the whole, the poets took the simplest view of the war from which to launch into the themes which had already been well worked by the newspapers and journals when they were in jingoistic mood, such as the opposition between Liberty, Freedom, and Right on the one hand and Tyranny on the other. In the newspapers, however, these concepts also occurred in discussions of more particular, controversial issues of the war, whereas in the poetry they were usually given prominence in order to exclude those controversial questions. 115

Direct, resounding cries against tyranny and for liberty and freedom echoed through numerous poems of the period. In his poem ‘Woes for the Czar’ Tupper took this position to the extreme, and enthusiastically postulated a grand war aim of freeing all the Russian serfs. The Czar was described as the blackest of the black and the ‘greatest criminal’, with the combined wrath of England and France directed against him personally. However, to prove his libertarian principles Tupper added: ‘Not that we would kill the People.’ He then imagined some new means of fighting whereby the palaces and forts could be blown up, but the people spared.33 In 1855 another argument which had been mooted in the press and which was taken up in the poetry was the view that what England was fighting for was peace. In the first months of the year negotiations had been taking place in Vienna and muted suggestions of the possibility of peace were heard. These came to nothing, but peace could not remain simply an alternative to the present war situation, and therefore potentially in the gift of the British politicians. This would be to place responsibility for the fighting and the suffering of the soldiers on their shoulders. So the view came to the fore and was propagated widely that ‘peace’, in fact, was what England and France were fighting for.34 One poem which was effective in drawing together these images of unity in the cause as patriotic, God-ordained and just was Gerald Massey’s ‘A Battle Charge’. It certainly lived up to A.H. Miles’s praise of Massey as seeming ‘to touch the central feeling of the national heart’.35 The poem offered simple images of a nation fighting in God’s name. The opening line, ‘Help! for thy Braves, Old England’, established the tone which was sustained throughout the poem. The phrase ‘Old England’ occurred several times, encapsulating many of the ideas of patriotism mentioned above. ‘Old’ referred to the fighting tradition, but it also suggested a familiarity like that of a parent or ‘Motherland’ and a relationship, which was at once reassuring and protective. By the last verse the phrase ‘Old England’ had also encompassed all the soldiers fighting in the Crimea, who were all thus included in the nation, continuing its traditions and united in their duty to a national cause.36 Massey, the poet of the people, who only a year earlier had published poems rousing the working men to the cause of ‘Labour’s Lordlier Chivalry’,37 here used all his poetic skills to 116

circumvent any suggestion of class differences, despite the newspaper debates of the time, and to assert the unity of the nation in time of war. However, while many poets chose to exclude the difficult political debates from their poetry in this way, some did take up specific topical issues. In Tupper’s poems the appearance of such details was rarely in any danger of damaging the euphoric patriotic tone which predominated in his poetry. For example, ‘Two Harvest Hymns’ for 1854 simplified what had become a complex debate about the supply and price of bread, to sooth away the readers’ doubts, and present the good harvest as a reward for the ‘dutiful toil’ of a nation united in the fight for the ‘Right’.38 Similarly in ‘The Soldier Comforted’ Tupper put a new gloss on another topical issue, the setting up of the Patriotic Fund. Established in response to the first news of fighting and suffering from the Crimea, the Patriotic Fund was at once a practical answer to an immediate need for help for the poor families left behind, an outlet for the energies of the upper- and middle-class families wanting to make their contribution to the war in which sons and husbands were risking their lives and also a diversion from the questions of political responsibility for the mismanagement in the East. Tupper reduced the whole thing to a charity cost-benefit analysis. The reader is urged to see that the soldiers’ families are adequately provided for, ‘A loaf for the day and a crust for the morrow’, on the basis that their charity will be well repaid: Give this to your Soldier, to comfort and shield him In those who at home are the Wanderer’s care, And all that in kindliness Here you may yield him Be sure he’ll repay you in gallantry There!39

In Trench’s poetry contentious issues such as the question of recruitment or Britain’s relations with her ally France often lurked in the background, but the uncertainty born of debate was always eliminated by creating a reassuring tone and a dominant image of unity.40 For instance, in the sonnet beginning ‘Together lay them’ old fears of Louis Napoleon and potential present jealousies of the French were all circumvented by the poem’s clear message of unity: ‘Together lay them in one common grave, / These noble sons of England and of France.’41 No topical

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questions about who was best at baking bread or who had the best field ambulances were allowed to intrude here.42 For many individuals, however, such issues were subordinate to personal loss, or the anxiety of waiting. Here poetry too had a role to play. As traditionally one role of poetry had been to speak to the private individual, evoking a reflective mood, many poets now made full use of that function of poetry. Taking a basically religious stance, poetry offered consolation and exhorted readers to resignation. Trench’s strongly emotional poems consistently provided images of heroism and duty fulfilled, as the consolation for grieving relatives. A celebration of duty is provided in the poem ‘This, or on this’. Trench explains that these were the words of Spartan mothers, sending their sons off to war. He translates the title as, ‘Bring home with thee this shield, / Or be thou, dead, upon this shield brought home’. He argues that this should also be the attitude of English women now, and that they should prefer to hear: Of loved forms stretched upon the bloody sod, [...] Than look to enfold them in strict arms again, By aught in honour’s or in peril’s path Unduly shunned, for that embrace reserved.43

So, although Trench’s poems used the language of patriotism, this was not done coldly or glibly. Human grief, faced with the inexplicable, searches for explanations, for some certainty to hold on to. Trench offered his readers simple arguments for resignation. The convincing emotional tenor of his poetry suggests that his insistence on the value of heroic deeds and on the concepts of honour and duty sprang from his genuine concern to alleviate the suffering and sorrow of the bereaved.44 In its review of Massey’s collection on the war, the Athenaeum singled out for praise the poem ‘A War-Winter’s Night in England’ as addressing the emotional needs of its readers.45 Those at home, wanting to support their loved ones in the Crimea, were offered a positive role with the idea that their thoughts themselves could somehow be a support to the soldiers: ‘Holding our hearts like Beacons up higher, / For those who are fighting afar.’ These lines, quoted admiringly by the Athenaeum, were repeated as a refrain through the eight verses of the poem, effectively suggesting a channel for sympathy and emotion.46 118

The heavily emotional content of Sydney Dobell’s poetry on the war seems to have been more a product of his usual Spasmodic style than of any constructive aim for poetry on this occasion.47 His poems are full of emotional insights into situations of the war, but these emotions are so raw as to be potentially very painful for his readers. His sonnets of 1855 include a number which seek to capture individual emotional experiences of the war, at home and abroad. ‘Home, in War-Time’, for example, lays bare the emotion of one waiting for news from the East. The woman he describes is given no name. His concern is to capture one moment, in which she thinks of her loved one. The emotions she is experiencing seem to increase her beauty. The setting and the woman are almost as one, since she is looking at objects he used to love, and her love is reflected back in them. Far from being a painful scene, therefore, the whole seems idyllic, almost dream-like, until the beauty is shattered by the poet’s revelation that, in fact, the lover is already lying dead on the Crimean fields and that her thoughts are ‘for him who cannot hear / The raven croaking at his carrion ear’.48 Similarly raw experiences of women’s grief are contained in the dream image of the sonnet ‘The Common Grave’ and even more distressingly in the poem ‘Childless’. The latter explores the mother’s mental searching for her child killed in battle, but this is preceded by the poet’s own harsh statement of reality: ‘To all but thee he is as nought.’49 Reviewers of the time were quite dismissive of Dobell’s emotional excesses, bestowing their praise on the purely patriotic sonnets in the collection.50 His poems also illustrate the way in which a new metaphorical language of emotion was now being built up around the war, just as the discourse of patriotism and heroism had been strengthened through repetition over the previous months of war. In the popular discourse of the war more and more words were acquiring war-specific meanings. References to ‘wind’ and ‘waves’, for instance, now had a link with the Crimea, which did not need to be spelled out each time for contemporary readers. Dobell’s poems frequently make reference to the voice of the wind, as an image of thoughts turned to the Crimea. The poem ‘Wind’ is entirely composed of onomatopoeic lines echoing the sound of the wind, but the assumption was that his readers would recognise this as a poem about the war.51 119

References to images of wind and waves appeared in many poems printed in newspapers and journals at the time. Typical are the poems by Adelaide Anne Proctor, which appeared in Household Words during the war period. These poems sought to establish a mood of resignation, not always explicitly related to the war, yet clearly speaking to readers whose overriding interest and concern was with events in the East.52 In March 1854 her poem ‘The Voice of the Wind’ appeared in Household Words. It was not about the campaign in the East directly, but referred to the wind as having tales to tell, from the far-distant places it had passed over, including the battlefield in the East. The scene by a family fireside on a windy night contrasted with the desolate places the wind had visited. It was a poem for readers in a reflective mood, turning their thoughts to distant lands. Almost a year later in February 1855, the same image was used by Proctor in the opening verses of the poem ‘The Lessons of War’. A reference to the wind here provides a shorthand for the depth of emotion of one who waits: [...] waits, and listens For every eastern breeze That bears upon its blood wings News from beyond the seas.53

In June Proctor again took up this image, this time making it the central subject of a poem.54 Taken out of context now this poem might seem to have nothing whatever to do with the war. The first three verses describing the travels of the wind are, above all, atmospheric. The last verse, addressed to the wind, asks it to take a message ‘Where frail flowers and grasses bend’, that is to the Crimea.55 Proctor assumes that the connections are obvious to her contemporary readers. Poetry utilised its traditional role of speaking to the private individual in order to develop common images of shared, though still painful, emotions and to counsel resignation. Responding to the basic human needs when face to face with death, poetry offered, on the whole, not justification or explanation so much as consolation through a simple idea of duty grounded in religion. In the political arena, criticism of the government and changes in the cabinet opened up discussion of difficult and divisive issues about the operations of the war. In the poetry of 1855

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heroic battle images began to give way to this more reflective mood, building images of oneness, not only in the fray on the battlefield but equally in shared grief. This poetry of sympathy provided a reassuring framework, skirting the difficult political questions to build a positive view even of death and grief. While such aims for poetry sprang from deep human sympathy, at the same time these works were helping to maintain public support for the war. The cause of patriotism was also served by the transfer of the connotations of words from other discourses. For Ernest Jones and his readers, for instance, the concept of ‘Freedom’ came clothed in the deep reverence which it inspired as a working-class goal. Jones’s poetry up to the outbreak of war was devoted to the cause of freedom for the working classes. The effect of now locating this concept within the discourse of war was once again to eliminate many areas of debate, such as the increased suffering of the working class because of the war,56 while transferring the reader’s enthusiasm for ‘freedom’ in the context of class conflict to the war effort. The public, it was suggested by writers of poetry and prose alike, could think of nothing but the war. However, for at least two workingclass poets the war remained subordinate to their concern to achieve emancipation for the working class. While the majority seemed to see every daily event in the context of the war, these two writers persisted in seeing the war in the context of working-class politics. Such was the case in John Critchley Prince’s poems on the war, published in the collection Autumn Leaves in 1856. In a number of poems the war is referred to as one of many issues which affect the lives of the poor. The tone of these references is established in the poem ‘The Waste of War’. His central theme is consistently that war is a waste of life and resources. While attacking this waste, the poet takes essentially a positive line in insisting on what could be done for the whole of mankind if the resources were not wasted in war: Give me the gold that War has cost, In countless shocks of feud and fray, The wasted skill, the labour lost, The mental treasure thrown away.57

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After this opening, four further verses look hopefully to a future utopian world, with no mention of war to cloud the horizon. However, the more positive the visions of the future that he gives, the greater the waste of war appears to be in the present. In ‘Harvest Hymn’ the waste of war is compared to the God-given plenty of the harvest.58 In the sonnet ‘A Thought on War’ Prince highlights the irrationality of those who maintain God’s approval of the war. The last line expresses his outrage at such sentiments: ‘God, how Thy creature man insults Thy holy name!’ An even stronger expression of his revulsion at war opens the poem ‘A Prayer for Peace’: Peace for the nations, God, For the harassed earth complains That her sons are defiling the fertile sod With the blood of each others veins; And sounds of rage and regret are rife; And men grow mad ’mid the waste of life; Labour’s broad brow grows furrowed and pale, And homes are disturbed with the voice of wail.59

In all of these poems the central question is what is to be done about poverty. In Prince’s poetry, war is seen only in the context of this burning issue. In contrast, in the work of many other poets, the construction of patriotic images of war also served to make issues, such as questions about poverty, largely invisible during the war period. The linguistic and conceptual gulf separating Prince from the other poets considered above is clear. However, the recognition of this gulf in turn serves to underline the importance of Robert Brough’s contribution to the poetry of the war year 1855. In the very midst of the war, in the summer of 1855, Brough published a volume of poems entitled Songs of the Governing Classes. These poems are not primarily about the war, and when they do refer to it they do not adhere to the accepted language or public images of the war. Brough writes about class, and war becomes a mere component of this story. The war in the East has to be seen in the context of a crisis of confidence in the governing class. While I have argued above that there was an ever expanding vocabulary associated with war in poetry and in the public consciousness, Brough does not set out simply to circumvent the war 122

vocabulary but to fracture the associations of words with the war and reposition them within a discourse of class. Playfully, but with serious intent, he forces his readers to compare the use of words across different discourses. The word ‘tyrant’, for instance, was, at this point, the label for England’s enemy, but Brough continues to use it to refer to anyone who exploits others. In his allegorical poem ‘The Terriers and the Rats’ the British government, portrayed as the terriers, are plainly labelled ‘tyrants’ as they defend their position of privilege against the rats.60 The poem ‘My Lord Tomnoddy’, in the section headed ‘Portraits’, is about privilege. It describes the appearance, habits and experiences of this ‘son of an Earl’: the way in which he slips effortlessly into a parliamentary seat, a post as colonel or a seat in the House of Lords, with only one qualification, namely that he is ‘the Earl of Fitzdotterel’s eldest son’. In 1855 a great deal was being written about the purchase system for military appointments. These discussions were underpinned by the parliamentary debates and the newspaper reports about the dire need of the moment to provide more troops, and particularly officers, to serve in the Crimea. As such, though their tone may have been critical, their aims were, on the whole, constructive. Brough’s reference to army promotion, on the other hand, has no such starting point. He states bluntly that this young man has no qualifications for the post he holds: My Lord’s a Lieutenant at twenty-three, A Captain at twenty-six is he – He never drew sword, except on drill; The tricks of parade he has learnt but ill – A full-blown Colonel at thirty-one Is the Earl of Fitzdotterel’s eldest son! 61

Without making direct reference to the war, for readers exposed to the daily press coverage this verse must have constituted a head-on confrontation with the issue of mismanagement of the war effort, going straight to the heart of the matter with its blunt exposure of the lack of qualification of the ruling classes to be in charge of the army. However, in Brough’s poem the reference to the army was only one of several illustrations of the positions of privilege enjoyed by the Earl’s son undeservedly and, it was implied, also with potential dangers for the country. The structure of the poem did not allow the war to become the 123

central issue. That clearly remained a more general critique of the role of the aristocracy. Brough’s control of the issues in his poems is well illustrated in another of the portraits, ‘The Earl of Whitechokerlea’. This aristocrat’s outstanding characteristic is his hypocrisy in building up a reputation for charity while, on the other hand, condoning the exploitation of the poor.62 Though the war is never mentioned in the poem, readers who were being exhorted daily to contribute to the funds set up to alleviate the suffering which the mismanagement by the privileged classes had created in the Crimea must have been well aware of the parallels. In choosing to keep the ground for debate away from the war, Brough circumvents the detailed issues of the war, the rights and wrongs of this or that ministerial decision, and also the emotional smokescreen built up through the charity campaigns. What he is implying here is that charity is always a smokescreen and that charity from the aristocracy is always hypocritical. Two poems containing comments more directly related to the Crimean campaign are included in the section headed ‘Historic Fancies’. In each poem a historical situation is used as a medium for quite outspoken criticism of the role of the ruling classes in the present war. ‘The Return from Syria’ describes how Lord Dunois, returning from the East, presumably from the crusades, is held in conversation by a palmer. Dunois is very pleased with himself and his position. His song ‘I’ve prov’d the bravest brave, and mean to wed the fairest fair!’ becomes a refrain for the poem, reminding us at once of the war he comes from and the privileged position to which he is returning. The palmer, however, challenges the young lord’s claims about his feats in battle. His claim to have undergone ‘all the hardships of last winter’s fierce campaign’ is countered by the palmer: ‘Your cloak was lined with sable down: / Your lady mother sent out furs to warm you while you slept.’ To Dunois’s accounts of his bravery in battle the palmer replies with descriptions of the tattered clothes and naked limbs of the poor soldiers he led, while their leader was ‘clad, from head to heel, / In spear and dart-proof armour, of the hardest Milan steel’.63 The refrain becomes increasingly ironic as, with each new revelation from the palmer, the lord’s claim to be the bravest of the brave and his right to his privileged position are challenged. For contemporary readers there would be obvious parallels 124

with the situation in the Crimea. Issues aired in the press in 1855 included attacks on the privileged position of officers serving in the East. They had been provided with huts early in the campaign and were able to receive parcels from home, while the rank and file were without even tents or winter boots. By presenting his exposition of aristocratic privilege through a historical or almost ahistorical drama, Brough is able to confront his readers with a universalised critique, from which, however, they can also extrapolate a message about the present war. This line of attack is pursued again in the poem ‘A Word for Nero’. Here Brough does not leave to his readers the task of drawing parallels between the historical drama and the present situation. A four-line refrain throughout the poem points up its message that the story of Nero is being used to exemplify the characteristics of the English aristocracy. Furthermore, in the second verse he details accusations which had been made in the press about the behaviour of a chief officer in the Crimea leading an indulgent lifestyle ‘While starv’d, and frozen, round him, troops / Unburied lay, as thick as mushrooms’. Brough’s version of the story of Nero presents a situation in which, when insurrection by the downtrodden threatened, Nero put on a show for them, with lectures and concerts to distract them. With this sop to the people the position of the ruling class is maintained, paralleling the present situation where Brough believes small concessions and the power of propaganda are being used to control the people.64 The inference is that any demonstrations of concern on the part of the aristocracy have been mere hypocrisy. A critique of the war situation is again interwoven into a more general attack on the aristocracy in the poem ‘Vulgar Declamation’. This is a monologue in which a young man who hopes to enter parliament is given a lesson by his father on the pitfalls to avoid. The subjects to be avoided are labelled ‘VULGAR DECLAMATION’. The relevance to the present situation is emphasised by the inclusion at the head of the poem of an extract from a speech by Lord Palmerston in which he had used the phrase ‘vulgar declamation’. The subjects to be avoided which are listed in the poem are all essentially exposures of inequality and include reference to the injustices suffered by the soldiers fighting in the Crimea. The speaker in the poem insists, for instance, that the House must never be told that ‘woe to Nations, still must be / Of Monarch’s Wars the

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sequel’. 65 In this way the commentary on the war is embedded in a more thoroughgoing assault on the aristocracy. For Brough, the deception of the public over the war is only one illustration among many of the deceptions practised on the people by the ruling classes. Brough’s jaunty satirical songs hit their mark because the poet is conscious of how the ruling classes use language as a means of control. Recognising this fact, he does not attempt to argue with them on their terms, but sets up his own framework for debate. Brough’s poems problematise the vocabulary and challenge the conceptualisation of war, even while refusing to take war as their dominant subject. In this year of war his exposure of the mechanisms of propaganda constitutes a potential indictment of those other poets who were busy building their positive images of the conflict for whatever ostensibly good motives. The poetry of Prince and Brough which has been considered here is the exception that proves the rule. On the whole, the common discourse of the war which we have seen in operation was working to circumvent contentious issues and to build images of unity. The base in this war culture was common to both the heroic poetry and the poetry of sympathy. The poetry of Tupper and Trench alike served the same patriotic cause. The basic moral sympathy of one human being for another, the acceptance of responsibility for the other in Levinas’s terms, was diluted or deflected in the process of encodification in such poetry, because the available language, as part of the war culture, also served the end of control and social stability. One twentieth-century perspective on poetry, inherited from the Formalists, takes its function to be the defamiliarising of common objects or experiences. But the work considered above illustrates how poetry can also perform the opposite task and, while reinforcing one set of images, can serve to obscure others. Poetry is equally capable of provoking thoughtfulness or controlling thought. Like any other discourse, it begins with a set of building blocks, whose shape has already to some extent been determined by political ideology as a historically specific culture or ‘mythology’.66 The actual readership of the volumes of poetry considered here would be impossible to gauge, but there can be no doubt about the wide audience for poetry on the war. The inclusion of poems in journals and newspapers, the space allocated to reviewing material on 126

the war, and the existence of song books and broadsheet ballads all offer evidence of the wide interest in this medium. The street ballads differed from the poetry considered above in that they focused on sensational incident, but this, as George A. Sala noted, was their usual approach.67 The potential of stirring music to add to the patriotic fervour was utilised widely as many poems were set to music. The selection included in The Crimean War Song Book of 1855 gives an idea of the popularity of poetry during the war.68 The majority of the poems are jingoistic, but the collection also confirms the duality in the language of the poetry of the war examined above. Alongside the patriotic verse, the poetry of sympathy is also well represented. The range of poems contained in this collection, alongside the mass of poems printed in newspapers and volumes published by individual poets, confirms the prominent role of poetry in this crisis period. This was also a moment when poetry was produced by poets and would-be poets from different classes, feeding in to one common ‘poetic’ experience of the war,69 and giving an impression, from the perspective of the twenty-first century at least, of inclusiveness. How real this was, and whether the war accelerated changes in attitudes to the class system, acting as a democratising influence, has been debated by historians.70 J.S. Bratton, for instance, argues of attitudes in the mid-century that the middle class could tolerate and sympathise with the working class as and when they saw them sharing their own values.71 In the reporting of the war, and more extensively in the letters written at the time, there is ample evidence of bigotry against the common soldier, which put him in a position of less importance than the officer’s horse.72 I do not, therefore, want to make excessive claims for the democratising effects of this cultural moment as a shared discourse. It was certainly not universally seen as a classless experience, as the consideration of Brough’s poetry has illustrated. But it was a moment when poetry as a medium of expression was embraced by a whole cross-section of society, and when voices from many different backgrounds contributed to that cultural experience. The poetry that has been considered in this chapter is all work that would now be labelled ‘minor poetry’. Yet it seems quite likely that it might have had a wider immediate impact and influence on the temper of society at the time than some canonical works. However, neither the 127

fierce patriotism of the majority of these minor poets, nor Brough’s republican attack on the aristocracy have fitted them for study within the tradition of literature which a later century, from its own vantage point, has constructed to support its own value systems, both literary and political.

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Chapter 6 Tennyson’s ‘Maud’: Ambiguity and the War

In contrast to the poetry considered in the previous chapter, the text to which I now turn has been intensively analysed. The approach taken in this study of reading literature in the context of the specific historical moment of the Crimean War will not offer a new alternative reading of ‘Maud’. However, it may provide a deeper understanding of the relationship between text and context, and of the reception of the poem in 1855. The poem was published on 28 July 1855, as the newspapers, and indeed the whole country, were still taking stock of the situation after the unsuccessful offensive of 18 June and the death of Lord Raglan. It is a commonplace of Tennysonian criticism that ‘Maud’ was not considered the best poem of the war, and certainly the poem’s later reputation has been built upon other grounds. But to see the poet at work in this time of national tension, and to probe the responses of the readers in that situation, is to take him off his pedestal as ‘great poet’ for a while. In this case we can then begin to probe the contextspecific meanings or encoded specific references in the poem. Such an analysis reveals, not a new truth of what Tennyson intended the poem to mean, but the complexity of the relation between a text and its sociopolitical context, between the poem and its first readership.1 The process of the composition of this poem, including its origins in verses composed some years earlier and the expansion of that idea into the lengthy portrait of the speaker in ‘Maud’, has been traced in detail by other writers.2 It is sufficient here to note that the main period of the poem’s composition spanned the months of war from 1854 to 1855, during which Tennyson, as Poet Laureate, was under some pressure to produce a poem on the war,3 and during which period he also wrote and published ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ which he revised in 1855 for inclusion in Maud and other Poems.

The poem’s expression of themes and interests which had appeared in many of Tennyson’s earlier works has been charted by W.R. Rader.4 For instance, distant reflections of the circumstances of Tennyson’s relationships with Rosa Baring and Emily Sellwood can be seen in ‘Maud’, particularly in the mood of the speaker and his anger against the materialism of society. The poet’s anxieties about the nature of his own role and about the degree to which a poet should be involved in the issues of his day have also been traced. There are also many references to the Crimean War in the poem, which have been documented by Susan Shatto in her edition of the poem. Some are obvious, such as the decision of the speaker in Part III to go off to fight in the war; others less so, as the description of Maud’s brother as an ‘Assyrian bull’, an image that had been used by Punch to satirise the politician Layard.5 The list of such references is long, and yet a set of footnotes can hardly convey to the twenty-firstcentury reader the involvement in the events of the war which this evinces. Tennyson acknowledged that, like everyone else at the time, his thoughts were full of the war. However, this is not necessarily to say that ‘Maud’ is primarily about the war. A question which this chapter will address is the extent to which the contemporary reader would have read ‘Maud’ as a poem about the war. While the poem now enjoys a solid reputation, the opinions of its contemporary reviewers were very varied. Edgar F. Shannon, in his summary of the contemporary reviews of Maud, concluded that ‘the derogatory slightly outnumbered the laudatory; and strident abuse tended to obscure judicious praise’.6 Many commented on the style of the poem, but while some found Tennysonian beauties of style to praise, others took the opposite view. William E. Aytoun in Blackwood’s Magazine, for instance, objected to the general tone of the poem: ‘Mr Tennyson [...] is seriously imperilling his fame by issuing poems so ill considered, crude, tawdry, and objectionable as this.’7 He found the general effect of the poem to be ‘unhappy, unwholesome, and disagreeable’.8 Others compared Tennyson’s style with the productions of the Spasmodic school.9 A critic in the Guardian commented: ‘Maud is a poem in the “Spasmodic” school of poetry, hardly superior in that kind to The Roman, or Balder or Festus.’10 The Times’s review writer attributed to ‘Maud’ ‘all the 130

worst faults of the popular poetry of the day – the poetry which has been called “spasmodic”’.11 Many reviewers commented on the relation of the poem to the present war. The Edinburgh Review considered that the character of the persona in the poem protected the ideas ‘from too close a philosophical investigation’.12 At the other extreme the Athenaeum and the British Quarterly Review both declared the poem to be about the war: a ‘war allegory’, or ‘a genuine war-poem’.13 The London Quarterly Review declared ‘It is no allegory of the war’, but nevertheless gave weight to the views on the war included in the poem: ‘This subject was probably selected as affording occasion for exhibiting the social uses of a war like that in which we are engaged.’14 However, the critics in both the Athenaeum and the Dublin University Magazine expressed some reservations on exactly what Mr Tennyson was saying about the war.15 The British Quarterly Review, on the other hand, came down on the side of praise for Tennyson’s argument on war. ‘Maud’, it declared, appealed to ‘the most thoughtful minds of the country’, with its ‘occasional bursts of war-music’, and its subject clearly gave the lie to the doctrines of those preaching ‘the blessings of peace’.16 The Times accepted that the poem made a valid comment on the war: ‘We rejoice to find the Laureate proclaiming the truth with regard to the war – that this great war is the salvation of the country from evils far more to be dreaded.’ Yet none of these reviews denied that there was a problem of interpretation and the National Review perhaps best summed up this ambivalence: Had the whole been worthier in other respects, its leading idea might have repaid the labour of a disinterment; as it is, it must be content to remain buried [...] It may be an allegory – which is the severest construction that can be put upon it – or it may be an ill-told love-story, full of brief snatches of wonderful beauty, which the poet has clumsily made the vehicle of some of his own views on the question of peace and war [...] The blind raving against peace in Maud, may be only dramatic, but it is such a form as not to be distinguishable by any one from the approved sentiments of the author, and is a poor contribution from the great popular poet of his day, to a cause which demands the greatest strength and most persistent resolution of which England is capable [...] Tennyson gives an exaggerated expression to the mere war-spirit, and no

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prominence to the cause and principles involved, which alone can make war a duty and a blessing.17

Clearly the poet’s intentions in the poem in relation to this topic were seen as problematic; and, while opinions varied, there was a general unease on this subject. While critical opinion seemed to be in agreement on the importance of commitment from the poet as a general principle in the present circumstances, there remained a good deal of confusion as to what line Tennyson was actually taking in ‘Maud’. A survey of contemporary critics, then, offers no simple answer to the question of how the poem’s subject was perceived at the time. But since the poem clearly had something to say about the war, the basic question that needs to be addressed here is why it was not perceived as developing a consistent view of the war to which contemporary readers could relate. The most pervasive connection with the war in ‘Maud’ is in the use of ‘war’ as a metaphor for the condition of English society in peacetime.18 An article by G.C. Swayne in Blackwood’s Magazine in November 1854 had developed such a comparison at some length.19 Since Tennyson and his readers may well have read this piece, it deserves attention here. In November 1854 several important battles had already been fought in the Crimea, and already questions were beginning to be asked about the effectiveness of the campaign. Newspapers were busy thinking up new angles to maintain the interest in the war, while waiting for the next instalment of news direct from the Crimea. Swayne presented his discussion in the form of a dialogue between Irenaeus, a Quaker, and Tlepolemus. They begin with the question of the acceptability or otherwise of the killing involved in war. Tlepolemus develops a comparison between war and duelling, in order to highlight the moral content of the soldier’s experience on the battlefield.20 In the days of chivalry, he argues, when knights fought hand to hand, each battle was also, as it were, a series of duels. Such close encounters made it hard to love one’s enemy, although he finds evidence, even in those battles, of respect for the enemy’s bravery (p.590). In modern warfare, the bravery of soldiers is tested under shellfire, but the country should still take the moral high ground by showing respect for its enemies. Since war puts the arbitration of a 132

dispute into the hands of God, Tlepolemus argues, then we should treat the enemy as ‘an untried man’ not yet proven guilty (p.591). Here Swayne uses Tlepolemus to voice an argument somewhat at odds with the position of the popular press in constructing the image of the tyrannical Czar. The discussion develops into a consideration of the relative merits of different motives for war. Tlepolemus undertakes to prove that ‘war between rival nations is more productive of generous feelings than peace’ (p.593). If countries hate each other, he argues, it would be better to fight hoping that understanding would emerge than to harbour hatred. Irenaeus concedes that a short war may sometimes be necessary ‘to secure a solid peace’, but still is concerned at the evil passions which are rife during war. Tlepolemus then attempts to prove that these same evil passions are often prevalent without war. Swayne then takes two pages of this ten-page article to substantiate a view of the country as ruled by mammonism. It is argued that speculation such as the railway mania, poor relations between workers and employers, and the shop-keeping spirit are all evidence of ‘evil passions’ breeding in society. But Tlepolemus was not allowed to have the upper hand in the argument entirely. He presents the gains of a war as the new friendship between the English and French and a possible ‘lasting pacification of Europe’. Irenaeus, however, notes the inconsistency creeping in here: ‘But friend, I thought you were just arguing that war was better than peace; in fact, was nothing but peace plus bayonets, sabres, artillery, wounded and slain, and that peace was the real war.’ Tlepolemus has to modify his position in response: ‘You mistake my meaning – I hope not wilfully. I only wished to show that peace has its horrors as well as war’ (p.597). Swayne’s dialogue has to be seen as part of an ongoing debate about war, not as a finalised position on the subject. Two months later Swayne took up some of these issues again in another piece for Blackwood’s Magazine entitled ‘Peace and patriotism’. The article takes the form of a letter signed ‘Tlepolemus’, and it echoes many of the points put forward in the earlier dialogue. Though the character Irenaeus is dropped, the article still focuses its attack on the position of the Manchester men – that is, John Bright and his friends, who were the common Aunt Sally for all the press.21 Patriotic zeal was 133

applauded as a good lesson of the war. The relations of officers to men were also praised and compared to the disunity of peacetime when ‘peace made the rich forget the poor’. However, the speaker was able to provide many more illustrations of the officer’s care for his horses than for his men; and this was not surprising, to judge from the number of letters to The Times on the subject.22 These were just two articles among a vast output of material debating the questions of the war, and it is important to remember that subtle variations on these themes were an essential feature of the daily press coverage during the war. For instance, making a similar attack on the ‘Peace Party’ in November 1854, The Times used the comparison of peace and war in a rather different way to support a complaint that the worst crime now was ‘the attempt to make political capital out of her [England’s] distress’. It described the ‘Peace Party’ as: ‘Warlike in peace, and pacific in war, boasting and threatening in the absence of danger, shrinking and cowering in its presence, seeking to degrade national questions to the dimensions of party manoeuvres.’23 Another illustration of the variety and extremes of views being aired on this subject is provided by De Quincey’s essay ‘On War’, reprinted in 1854 in the latest volume of his collected works. While Swayne seemed to have ventured as far as he dared down the line of extolling the phenomenon of war itself, De Quincey’s essay was much more outspoken. He praised war as ‘a positive good’,24 commenting: War is the mother of wrong and spoliation: granted; but, like other scourges in the divine economy, war purifies and redeems itself when viewed as a counterforce to greater evils that could not otherwise be intercepted or redressed.25

In considering the possible link between Swayne’s article and Tennyson’s poem, therefore, it is important to bear in mind that the ‘peace and war’ comparison was continually being invoked and adjusted to support varying points of view. On the whole the poets preferred to avoid the subtleties and complexities of the prose debates. One exception was the poetry of Henry and Franklin Lushington. The former in ‘La Nation Bouti-

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quière’ drew up a profit and loss account and decided that there was a time when a nation had to go to war.26 Franklin Lushington’s poem ‘The Muster of the Guards’ begins in rabble-rousing mood with scenes of soldiers marching off to war. Comments on the new alliance of France and England, and on the Russian enemy as ‘the giant evildoer’ follow well-trodden paths for the poets. However, when he launches into an attack on the Peace Party and their ‘profit and loss’ calculations on war, he begins to slip into details of a debate, rather than keeping to the simple patriotic images as his fellow poets did. He echoes Swayne in arguing that where there is rancour between nations, it is better to fight than live at enmity. He attacks the Peace Party for their ‘vain and silly song, / That we do no sin ourselves, if we wink at others’ wrong’.27 Although this had been only one of several points of comparison that Swayne had made between peace and war, Lushington makes it the central plank of his argument for war: Peace is no peace, if it lets the ill grow stronger, Merely cheating destiny a very little longer; War, with its agonies, its horrors, and its crimes, Is cheaper if discounted and taken up betimes.28

Although the Lushingtons’ poems in part employed the heroic language familiar to readers, they became more tortuous and ambiguous than most of the poetry of this period precisely because they took up issues from the political debate. ‘The Muster of the Guards’ in particular forfeited the appeal of the simple line taken by other poets at this time, as it struggled with the aim, declared in the title of the collection, to write poems ‘chiefly Political’. The readers who turned to Tennyson’s ‘Maud’ in 1855 had been steeped in these debates on the war, as well as in the heroic patriotic offerings of the poets for many months. Bearing in mind the responses of the critics, the questions to be addressed here are whether ‘Maud’ was immediately recognisable for contemporary readers as another war poem and whether the poet’s stance on the subject was clear. There are three levels on which subject of war appears in the poem. Firstly, from Part 1, Section 1 references to war occur as a metaphor

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for the condition of society in peacetime. Secondly, the vocabulary of the war debates is woven into the poem from time to time and, finally, the war crisis is utilised in the central plot of the poem in Part III, when the war provides a haven for the unstable, almost deranged speaker after the personal traumas he has suffered. The opening of ‘Maud’ illustrates the first two of these levels of the poem’s engagement with war. These verses abound with the language of death and horror, evidencing the despairing, depressive state of mind of the speaker. Later criticism has attributed the power of this language to the strength of personal experience on which Tennyson drew, and has seen it as intended to create sympathy for the plight of the speaker. However, read during the war, these passages must have shared with some of Dobell’s productions the charge of insensitivity in the introduction of vocabulary which graphically recalled to readers, many of whom would be anxious for loved ones in the Crimea, the stark reality of human mortality. It is hard to imagine that readers in 1855, who had been exposed to accounts in The Times of horrifying scenes on the battlefields of the Crimea, would not connect Tennyson’s language – ‘blood-red’, ‘red-ribbed’, ‘mangled and flattened and crushed’ – with the emotional impact of the real-life events. It is also in the opening section of the poem that the speaker first rages against the ills of peace, labelling peace a vile species of ‘Civil war’ (I. i. 7). This was one of the propositions developed in the Blackwood’s Magazine article of November 1854, though it did not go unchallenged there. Whether Tennyson was directly influenced by the argument in Swayne’s article as he wrote his poem is less pertinent here than the consideration of whether Tennyson’s readers in 1855 would have immediately identified the position of his speaker with the views expressed in Swayne’s dialogue. This would seem unlikely since, in the months since Swayne’s article had appeared, the comparison between peace and war had been reused in many different contexts and in support of different perspectives on the war. However, the use in this opening section of the poem of both ‘war’ as metaphor and of a vocabulary connected to the experiences of the battlefield, must have served to establish this as a poem about the war which was engaging with the discourse of the political debates of the time, whether this was Tennyson’s prime intention or not. 136

As Maud’s story unfolded, there were further instances where the vocabulary established connections with the war, but, as these took the reader into the arena of the debates about the war, their meaning became ambiguous and confusing. A simple reference to a lion as simile for the power of Maud’s brother, for instance, exemplifies the problems. The stone lion, which is part of the scenery of Maud’s garden, is an image of the pride and power of a class (I. xiv. 1). A little later a rather different meaning is attached to the word in a metaphor when the speaker asks whether Maud’s behaviour is not a trap: To entangle me when we met, To have her lion roll in a silken net And fawn at a victor’s feet. (I. vi. 4)

While the lion is used as a metaphor to refer both to Maud’s brother and her lover, who are to become enemies, for the contemporary reader the readiest association with the ‘lion’ would have been with the patriotic illustrations in the press: the English lion opposed to the Russian bear.29 In fact, later in the poem the ‘lion’ is also used to refer to England (III. vi. 1). Tennyson’s references to this image are neither consistent within the poem nor with the popular usage. This must have been a hindrance for the reader trying to follow Tennyson’s alignment of sympathies with the characters in his story. Similarly, while references to the Sultan in the poem can be attributed to the influence of the present crisis on the poet’s mind, again the uses of this reference are not in line with the familiar patterns of the patriotic vocabulary of war. The phrase ‘a Sultan of brutes’ is used by the speaker in Part II, admittedly now crazed by what has happened to Maud, to denigrate her brother. But this negative image here draws on the old image of Turkey as a tyrannical power, in sharp contrast to the attempts by writers of prose and poetry alike at that time to refashion Turkey and her Sultan as acceptable allies (I. xx. 4).30 On the question of tyranny Tennyson again seemed indifferent to the sensitivities of the topical context. In the press the word ‘tyranny’ was used in opposition to the ‘freedom’ for which England was taking 137

a stand in the war. The Russian ‘Tyrant’ was at once the enemy and the cause of the war. Tennyson, however, pursuing his metaphor of peace as a warlike time, spoke of the tyranny of the brother and his class (I. xviii. 4). This was in contrast to the approach taken by several working-class poets. For instance, although the word ‘tyranny’ had been much used by Ernest Jones and Gerald Massey in their peacetime poetry to refer to the exploiting classes, after the declaration of war they applied the label solely and unambiguously to the country’s enemy.31 Whatever we may think of their shift of loyalties, they certainly produced clear dynamic messages in their war poetry, in contrast to Tennyson who, in his use of this word, must have muddied the waters for his readers. Almost every word which Tennyson used from the vocabulary of the war created ambiguity rather than clarity of direction. This is evident from contrasting the effect of passages in ‘Maud’ with some of the lesser-known poetry of the war. In Part II, for example, the grieving, raving speaker calls down God’s wrath on the heads of his enemies: Arise, my God, and strike, for we hold Thee just, Strike dead the whole weak race of venomous worms, That sting each other here in the dust; We are not worthy to live. (II. i. 2)

Yet the nation, or at least its religious leaders, sensitive perhaps to some such national sin as Tennyson attacked or to the psychological benefits of penance, had declared a national fast day, as a penance for sin and an appeal for God’s support in the war. Martin Tupper took up this subject in ‘Hymn for our Day of Prayer’, where after a plea for God’s protection, he added: Truly, we have deserved Thy wrath,– For many sins it were most meet; Yet, let us never tread the path Of Thy correction in defeat [...]32

From these examples of Tennyson’s choice of diction in ‘Maud’, it does not seem so surprising to find the reviewer in Blackwood’s

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Magazine in 1855 describing ‘Maud’ as ‘ill-considered, crude, tawdry and objectionable’ and the poet as having ‘lost all discretion’.33 It is clear that the poet had said enough to give his readers the impression that they were reading a war poem, and they would, therefore, have expected a clear opinion about the war, a reassuring position of simple patriotic commitment. Since Tennyson has left no statement of his intentions, we cannot know whether he aimed to present a cogent argument on the war, but the evidence of the poem suggests that the vocabulary of the war was simply ready to hand and seemed appropriate to his development of other themes.34 At the same time, he might have seen this vocabulary as offering his readers evidence of his ‘committed’ role as Poet Laureate. Indeed, Tennyson does introduce other topical issues into the poem, but again he does not develop a clear position on them.35 For instance, in one of his outbursts of anger against both Maud’s suitor and her brother, the speaker makes reference to the brother’s being about to mount ‘the rotten hustings’ (I. vi. 6). Parliamentary reform was an issue which was by no means settled by mid-1855. Proposals for a new Reform Bill had been shelved as war loomed nearer, and, though one or two minor points were taken through parliament, the accusations that war had come conveniently to save the politicians from a difficult situation were not wanting. In throwing in this remark Tennyson appears to allow his speaker to engage in that debate, without developing a clear opinion on the subject. Tennyson himself, on the other hand, as Laureate could not really be expected to mount an attack on the establishment. Thus the reference appears topical without advocating any one position. This tendency of the poem to cloud rather than clarify the issues which are touched on is further illustrated in Part I, where the speaker’s anxiety and jealousy about his relationship with Maud enters a new phase, with invectives against his rival because he is a ‘new-made lord’ (I. x. 1–4). In the summer of 1855 the Administrative Reform Society was receiving much coverage, and questions about the effectiveness of the aristocracy had intensified. Tennyson, however, could be interpreted as defending the old aristocracy here. The speaker attacks the sources of this new lord’s wealth. He returns to his theme of society’s mammonism and corruption in peacetime, but whether 139

these accusations are levelled against the whole middle class is uncertain (I. i. 5–12). The speaker also attacks Maud’s suitor as having ‘a bought commission’. But in 1855 this was the outcry of the middle classes against the aristocracy, who were seen as not only ineffective but also monopolising the upper ranks of the army.36 Tennyson has taken his readers into the areas of conflict between the middle and upper classes which emerged from the war crisis, but where he and his hero stand on these issues is not at all clear, nor is it clear how we are intended to position the speaker’s rival in relation to the issue of class. As an expression of the madness of the speaker this may be very effective. He seems to fling at this lord every grievance he can find. However, it would not be surprising if readers, concerned about the war and the crises it had spawned, found these references confusing and a diversion from Tennyson’s story. The third level of engagement with the war comes in Part III, when the hero decides to go off to fight. In Part II the views the speaker had expressed on the war were confusing. When he called for a great leader in the present crisis, for instance, any potential clarity was lost as the comment was qualified with the options: ‘Aristocrat, democrat, autocrat’. The speaker’s madness surely reigned supreme here. To include as equally valid alternatives the two polarities in the popular debates about leadership, ‘aristocrat’ and ‘democrat’, may be madness, but to accept even the possibility of an ‘autocrat’ as leader, when England was engaged in a bloody war on this very account must have been rather hard for readers to accept, even from a madman. When the madman regains his sanity in Part III, however, the views he expresses on the war are still difficult to position in relation to the war debates. The speaker finds hope and a reason for living in war, which represents for him the alternative to a country whose ‘one sole God’ was ‘the millionaire’: Let it go or stay, so I wake to the higher aims Of a land that has lost for a little her lust for gold, And love of peace that was full of wrongs and shames. (III. vi. 4)

The negative view of England in peacetime remains the sole motive for his commitment to war: not an argument Tennyson’s readers 140

would be likely to accept unequivocally in view of the complexities of the current debates. In 1856 one of Tennyson’s staunchest friends Robert James Mann rallied to his defence in Tennyson’s ‘Maud’ Vindicated: An Explanatory Essay. His lengthy exposition of the story of the poem takes as its point of departure the view that the other characters in the story are all seen from the point of view of the speaker in the poem, and that the arguments on peace and war are also his and not the poet’s. For Mann, then, the poem is essentially the drama of the central character, and the remarks on the ‘fraudulent and murderous doings of the day’ or on the ‘war actually in progress’ are alike a coincidental usage of contemporary events to elucidate the speaker’s character.37 This was Mann’s answer to those who had seen in ‘Maud’ specific references to and arguments about the current war. As the war drifted into the realms of history, and Tennyson’s reputation as a major poet of the Victorian era was consolidated, criticism has tended to overlook the adverse response to the publication of Maud as an aberration, and to take a line similar to Mann’s. Anti-Maud, William Cox Bennett’s parody of ‘Maud’ published in 1856, highlighted the essential conflict within Tennyson’s poem, as he attempted to interweave into it a commentary on both social ills and the war. In 1856, when peace was on the horizon, the views expressed in ‘Maud’ seem to have made even less sense, at least to Bennett.38 His first attack is on the emotional content of the opening of ‘Maud’: the speaker’s loss of a father is translated into the death of a lap dog and compared to the tears of those mourning the war dead. The case against the use of the antithesis between war and peace which had been made by other critics is reasserted by Bennett: Why do they prate of the blessings of peace? Bloody war is a holy thing. The world is wicked, and base, and vile – shall I show you a new kind of cure? Smeared with blood and with parents’ tears call for Moloch, horrible King! (p.10)

Bennett attacks Tennyson, on the one hand, for his pessimistic view of pre-war society, arraigning him for having overlooked the positive advances of the last forty years of peace: ‘Under the shadow of peace 141

something was done that was good’ (p.15). On the other hand, Tennyson’s insensitive glorification of war from his comfortable position by the fireside is also attacked: I grieve that a noble soul should trudge on a beaten road, And a voice that can move the heart, a vulgar war-whoop swell. (p.20)

While Bennett admits that ‘much remains to be done’ to tackle problems of poverty, he is clearly concerned at the excesses of Tennyson’s presentation of both the state of England and of war. Typically, Tennyson’s revisions of the poem for the second edition were made in response to the criticisms of the reviewers.39 These revisions, therefore, are interesting as revealing Tennyson’s assessment of the main thrust of this criticism. From the additional references to Maud’s song of war, to the new ending of the poem, the revisions all seem aimed to assert a more positive view of war. Above all, in the final verse Tennyson attempted to adopt the language of the war poetry in order to reproduce the reassuring mood of national unity which had been prevalent in other poetry of the war.40 But this did not eliminate the areas of ambiguity, or of insensitivity to the feelings of readers, and despite these minor amendments ‘Maud’ remained a poem, not of national unity, but of disunity. Studying the poem detached from the poet’s canonised position within the ‘tradition’, and positioning it instead alongside the contemporary readers’ perceptions of the war, highlights its difficult ambiguity. To write on the subject of war in wartime was to invoke the readers’ own immediate experiences. On these grounds, to the contemporary readership, ‘Maud’ was perceived as a war poem, but as such it was not a success.41 Mann’s attempt to defend Tennyson by dissociating the poem from the war context runs counter to the evidence of the strength of the war culture at that time. Later assessments of the poem have been built on other foundations. The study of ‘Maud’ in relation to contemporary images of war, and our recognition of the changes in the poem’s reputation, provide an illustration of the ability of language to acquire powerful contextspecific meanings, and also of the speed with which these can be lost to subsequent readers. 142

Chapter 7 Westward Ho!: A Historical Setting for the War

In 1854 when war was declared against Russia, Charles Kingsley was already a seasoned writer of novels, articles and sermons. He had been the incumbent of Eversley parish in Hampshire for ten years, and the husband of Fanny for a similar period. He also had some reputation as a lecturer, was a self-declared Chartist and Christian Socialist, a campaigner for sanitary reform and an amateur naturalist: clearly ‘a man who could never rest’.1 As well as his own natural energy, money worries arising from his wife’s ill health and her extra needs were a constant spur to activity. This chapter looks at Kingsley’s response to the war and, in particular, his novel Westward Ho!, and examines the way in which the reporting of the war and the debate which flowed from it influenced Kingsley’s writing, affecting both the content and language, and contributing to the immediate success of the piece. Before the advent of the war, one of Kingsley’s major concerns was sanitary reform. The issue merits attention here since the problems of cholera arising from poor sanitary conditions continued into the war period. It was the epidemic of 1849 which first took Kingsley’s attention and began what was to be something of an obsession for him for many years. As cholera swept the country, there were many voices raised declaring the epidemic to be ‘a direct and punitive intervention from Providence’.2 Kingsley’s first sermon on the cholera examines the sins which have led to this ‘punishment’. There he unfolds a tale of ‘covetousness’, ‘tyranny’ and ‘carelessness’ among the ruling classes which, he claims, has directly resulted in this new outbreak of cholera: And when those great and good men, the Sanitary Commissioners, proved to all England fifteen years ago, that cholera always appeared where fever had

appeared, and that both fever and cholera always cling exclusively to those places where there was bad food, bad air, crowded bedrooms, bad drainage and filth – that such were the laws of God and Nature, and always had been; they took no notice of it, because it was the poor rather than the rich who suffered from those causes.3

In the second sermon, the idea that the cholera is a punishment is accepted only in as far as the sins of irresponsibility of those in power were the cause of suffering for others. In the third cholera sermon, looking to find some hope in this bleak situation, Kingsley follows Carlyle’s lead in declaring the veracity of the doctrine ‘I am my brother’s keeper’ and asserting that from those in highest ranks most is expected: ‘Just as the sins of the fathers are visited on the children, so is the righteousness of the fathers a blessing to the children.’4 Kingsley did not confine his activities to the writing of sermons, but was also busy at the front line, as it were, visiting the homes of the sick. When cholera broke out in Bideford in 1854, he again undertook house-to-house visiting in the hardest-hit districts with a new friend, Dr Henry Acland, whose account of the 1854 cholera outbreak was published two years later.5 He made use of his connections to help raise money for the Anti-Cholera Fund, but also, typically looking for a positive way forward, he campaigned untiringly for sanitary reform, writing letters to the press and lobbying ‘anybody he thought could be useful in the cause’.6 Kingsley was busy with these interests at the time when the British government sent an ultimatum to Russia, in February 1854. In a letter from Eversley to Fanny he wrote: ‘The Guards march tomorrow! How it makes one’s blood boil!’7 Kingsley’s enthusiasm for the war was immediate and overwhelming. An idea for another novel was already simmering. During a visit to Torquay, his friend J.A. Froude mentioned that he was reviewing a new edition of Hakluyt’s Voyages, a work which chronicles seafaring adventures at the time when England and Spain were rivals in the rush to discover the Americas.8 Kingsley borrowed a copy, read it with enthusiasm, and in February wrote of having sketched out the ideas for his next novel.9 The editor of the 1854 edition of the Voyages speaks of the bravery and patriotism of the Elizabethan seaman in glowing terms: ‘He saw clearly the course in which lay the advantage

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and glory of his country.’10 In this respect, Kingsley’s enthusiasm for Hakluyt and for the war in the East found common cause. In the months when writers were looking around for material to sustain the interest in the war, other commentators turned their attention to the story of the Spanish Armada, as providing a parallel to the present situation of Britain’s being in conflict with another European power. On 9 September 1854 The Times’s editorial took as its subject those ‘proudest pages in English history’, the defeat of the Armada, as a point of comparison with the present situation: ‘We refer to this well-known passage in our annals because it conveys to the mind a striking conception of the enterprise in which our forces are now engaged.’ In October the Examiner printed a poem on this subject by Edmund Peel. The poem’s six verses were equally divided between accounts of the victory over the Spanish Armada and of the present conflict in the Crimea. Both wars are described as being fought in the cause of ‘Religion’, ‘Liberty’ and ‘Right’, and in the name of a ‘righteous Queen’, with God on our side. As Elizabeth’s war ended in victory for England, the balance of the poem helps to anticipate a victory against Russia in this new war fought ‘on the ground of Right’.11 Thus, Kingsley was not alone in seeing parallels between the present crisis and Elizabeth’s war against the Spanish, confirming, perhaps, his feeling that he was in tune with the mood of the nation. Kingsley was wholeheartedly behind the war effort from the first. In the spring of 1854, as troops were assembled and sent off to aid the Turks in defence of Varna on the Black Sea, his interest in the war was already overriding other issues, as a letter of the time plainly indicates. Writing to a friend on the progress of the sanitary reform campaign, he commented that the success of their deputation to get the Sewers Commission abolished and their powers vested in the Board of Health could not vie for his attention with the war: ‘God knows it is base of one to sit here fretting about little private evils, while the country is doing so well and the ministers so nobly [...] I feel that after all England’s heart is sound.’12 By October, as the country daily received more details of the first battle in the Crimea, Kingsley was totally immersed in his country’s struggle. He wrote to Maurice on 19 October: ‘We think of nothing here but the war [...] I am shut up like any Jeremiah here, living on the newspapers and my old Elizabethan 145

books.’ Reporting on the progress of his work, he announced that it was more than half-written, and that he had hopes of placing ‘the MSS in the printer’s hands by Christmas.’13 By the end of December the novel was indeed finished. Kingsley’s letters during the intervening months show his enthusiasm for the war to be unabated. The nature of that enthusiasm is exhibited in the religious pamphlet which he ‘wrote off excitedly in a few hours’ one day towards the end of December, in response to a remark from a friend.14 The editor of the 1878 edition of his collected sermons noted that ‘Brave Words for Brave Soldiers and Sailors’ was written as an address to the troops before Sebastopol in the winter of 1854–5, ‘when Mr Kingsley’s own heart, with that of all England, was grieving over the suffering of our noble army in the Crimea’.15 More and more details about the inadequacies of the provisioning of the troops had been emerging since mid-October. Kingsley’s pamphlet, however, is written, not to lament over these shortcomings, but to encourage and hearten the soldiers, on the basis that since the cause is just and the war is God’s war, He can be trusted not to fail them: For the Lord Jesus Christ is not only the Prince of Peace; He is the Prince of War too. He is the Lord of Hosts, the God of armies; and whosoever fights in a just war, against tyrants and oppressors, he is fighting on Christ’s side.16

Courage, Kingsley tells them, comes from knowing that you are doing the right thing.17 The strength of the work lies in the conviction of the author rather than originality, for the sentiments here are ones which had been expressed many times already, especially in the poetry of the period. The tone of ‘Brave Words’ mirrored that of the novel which he was just completing, Westward Ho!. That work was published early in 1855.18 It was a great success, and by June a second edition was called for.19 Kingsley said that he aimed for ‘immediate popularity’ and that he conceived it as a recruiting novel for the war. Colloms speaks of the book as ‘his hearty tribute to the Amyas Leighs who were fighting in the Crimea’.20 The general parallel between the subject of Westward Ho! and the situation of 1854 has already been examined by commentators on Kingsley’s work. Here I would like to reappraise the impact of the war context on 146

the production and reception of this novel in 1854–5 through a more detailed consideration of Kingsley’s engagement with the vocabulary and images of the war culture in the writing of this novel. While the stirring qualities of Kingsley’s writing and his historical research were praised at the time, there was also a general consensus that in following the war culture in his treatment of the ‘enemy’ he had gone too far in his negative presentation of the Roman Catholics. The National Review complained: ‘We cannot consent to believe, with Mr Kingsley, that there was no good thing in the Jesuits, any more than we can forget the barbarities and brutalities of the English filibusterers of the Spanish main.’21 The Nonconformist was also unhappy about the biased view presented by Kingsley: The worst feature in the principles of the book, is its ruthless vituperative hatred of the Roman Catholics and Spaniards; and this not merely in the mouths of the dramatis personae, but in the narrative and descriptions, where the author speaks for himself.22

George Whyte-Melville in Fraser’s Magazine complained of the ‘bitter’ and ‘uncharitable’ treatment meted out to Roman Catholics by Kingsley in his new novel.23 The Athenaeum went as far as to suggest that the effect of Kingsley’s work was ‘to rouse a spirit of religious hatred and bitter intolerance’.24 As these critics pointed out, Kingsley’s intolerance of Catholicism was unfortunate at that particular time. Britain had gone to war with an army one third of which was Irish.25 When the call went out for nurses for the East, a major contingent of the group finally assembled was of Catholic nuns. It is not surprising, therefore, that in some newspapers at least the tone of rabid anti-Catholicism of the early 1850s had been toned down. Even so public opinion on the Roman Catholic question was still volatile. During the war period there were reports of anti-Catholic meetings, and of new anti-Catholic organisations being set up in northern towns. These were generally justified with statements about fears of renewed Catholic encroachment or proselytising by the Catholic nuns being sent to Scutari.26 If Kingsley had set out to comment on Roman Catholicism through the historical material for his novel at this time, he would

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surely have been guilty not only of stirring up prejudices, but of ingratitude for the Irish contribution to the war effort. In fact, he later expressed regret at his portrayal of the Irish in the novel: ‘My only pain is that I have been forced to sketch poor Paddy as a very worthless fellow then, while just now he is turning out a hero.’27 Kingsley’s object in selecting the Elizabethan story for his novel had been to mirror the present conflict. His presentation of the Irish and Spanish Catholics aims to be simply a delineation of ‘the enemy’ of Queen, country and religion. They are consistently referred to as ‘wild’, ‘savage’, ‘fiends’,28 and ‘heretics’. In the introduction to the final battle Kingsley employs the much-used antithesis between ‘despotism’ and ‘freedom’, Popery being the epitome of despotism (p.554). He was not alone in linking despotism and Catholicism. For some, the Pope remained a hated symbol of authoritarianism, and the doctrine of infallibility continued to be derided. The new enemy, the Czar, was quite frequently compared to this old ‘hate’ figure, regardless of the ambivalence which such a comparison might expose in present attitudes to Catholicism.29 While Kingsley’s stereotyping of Roman Catholicism may have worried some critics, the sales figures seem to indicate that readers, on the whole, uncritically accepted the novel, as Kingsley intended, as a simple presentation of Britain’s stance as defender of freedom against its authoritarian enemies. For novel readers wanting to be entertained by a good plot with a sympathetic hero figure Kingsley provided the material to make Westward Ho! the immediate success for which he was aiming. The loyal hero Amyas Leigh is thwarted in love and becomes a man with an obsession. Westward Ho! follows him through many adventures to his revenge, and then swiftly to peace and stability. The story of Amyas’s love is, therefore, not only the framework for exciting adventures, but enables Kingsley to end the novel on a satisfying note of calm and order, even though the adventures of such explorers would continue through the pages of history. Kingsley admitted that the writing of the book had been a cathartic exercise for him, and presumably hoped his readers would enjoy a similar experience.30 In 1854, however, Kingsley’s aims went beyond the mere entertainment of his readers. At every turn the narrative is also designed to influence the reader’s attitude to the present war. Basic to 148

this undertaking is the creation of a relationship of trust between narrator and reader, and an acceptance of the narrator’s nineteenthcentury perspective on the action. In introducing his hero to the reader, Kingsley self-consciously draws attention to his own role, describing Leigh as ‘chosen by me as hero and centre of this story’. At the same time he presents the hero as ‘an ignorant young savage’ compared to the youth of the nineteenth century, making clear his own preference for the former and establishing his own role as one of mediator between sixteenth and nineteenth centuries (p.8). When he feels parallels need to be pointed up, phrases such as ‘then as now’ or ‘as in the Crimea’ usefully highlight comparisons, or occasionally initiate a lengthier explication of parallels between the two war situations. While the novel provides many echoes of the reported events in the Crimean War, such as the opening enlisting scene or the atrocious conditions in the trenches in Ireland, to isolate individual examples in this way obscures a full recognition of the persistence of the message which Kingsley’s narrative as a whole sends to the reader. As we saw in ‘Brave Words’, for Kingsley support for the war effort was a matter of moral principles. It is these principles which every page of Westward Ho! is designed to project. They are set out for the reader in the introduction to the character of Sir Richard Grenville, who is to be the hero’s moral guide. Grenville exudes moral purity and ‘heroic’ qualities. He is described as ‘a wise and gallant gentleman, lovely to all good men, awful to all bad men; in whose presence none dare say or do a mean or a ribald thing; whom brave men left, feeling themselves nerved to do their duty better’ (p.12). Grenville represents traditional values of order and stability, which are identified with his family, his community and the nation as a whole. He is a courageous, brave, God-fearing man and leader of men, and only angry when confronted with God’s enemies, notably the Spanish. This last point is developed in a conversation with Mrs Leigh, where England is associated with Reformed Churches and freedom, and their enemies with tyranny. In his fictional sixteenth-century setting Kingsley presents his reader with a set of values which, for him, also underpin support for the war in the Crimea. Our support for the hero’s courageous action is also implicitly support for the values of his 149

mentor Grenville, and references to and renewed definitions of the heroic punctuate the narrative, reinforced by thematic insistence on such topics as loyalty to Queen, country and Church. Conversely every detail of the horrors of the Inquisition reinforces the image of England as supreme defender, now as then, of freedom. Debates on topics of leadership, patriotism and freedom abound,31 and lead towards the final set piece, where all these values are condensed into Amyas’s funeral oration for Salvation Yeo (p.591). It can be said, then, that the conceptual framework for this novel mirrors and reinforces the common culture of war which the press and the poets were busy building. Both contemporary and later critics have commented on the amount of detail in the novel which Kingsley had taken from his Elizabethan sources, and on the effectiveness of his research for this historical novel.32 However, in the incidents in the novel, we also find evidence of Kingsley’s other reading material during the period of his intensive writing, that is, the daily newspapers. The novel provides us with a record of the day-to-day concerns about the Crimean War which surfaced during the latter half of 1854. There was no need for Kingsley to point up the parallels in every case, for the readers, like the author, would have been familiar with these topical issues. Typical of the details from the events of 1854 to be found in the novel is the reference to the Queen’s message to her troops. The Queen’s supportive role had received much publicity in 1854,33 and is mirrored in the novel in a message received from Elizabeth (pp.231– 2). An echo of the controversy surrounding the reports of newspaper correspondents, which some were claiming made valuable strategic information available to the enemy, is woven into an incident when, as Amyas and his friends prepare to set out to fight the Spaniards, there is talk of a spy having been seen. The mystery is unresolved, but Kingsley tells us pointedly that the sailors could not have given away any important information, ‘for the special destination of the voyage (as was the custom in those times, for fear of Jesuits playing into the hands of Spain) had been carefully kept secret among the adventurers themselves’ (pp.313–14). Another detail, which echoes the press debates about the war, is a reference to the country’s state of readiness for war. In 1854, as the evidence of the mismanagement of the 150

campaign reached England, there was much talk of the country’s lack of preparedness for war.34 Kingsley’s enthusiasm for the present campaign clearly favoured this explanation for the allies’ lack of immediate success in the Crimea. In the novel, as the Armada approached England, Kingsley noted with approval the preparedness of the nation to meet this onslaught: ‘Well for England, in a word, that Elizabeth had pursued for thirty years a very different course to that which we have been pursuing for the last thirty’ (p.528). In 1854 much attention was also given to the behaviour of the Russians on the battlefield after Inkerman. W.H. Russell reported seeing Russians attacking helpless wounded men.35 Such incidents were recounted in more vivid style in letters from soldiers36 and, with even greater sense of outrage, by the provincial press: It is horrifying to read the accounts which are given of the brutality which the Russians practised on the wounded soldiers of the allies. A Russian major was taken by the Guards, caught in the act of stabbing and hacking the maimed men on the field, and the skulls of many of the officers of the Coldstream Guards were found to have been smashed before death by the barbarian enemy. This is not fighting, but butchery.37

In Kingsley’s novel Amyas, returning from a skirmish with the Don Guzman’s men, is surprised to see fourteen Spaniards lying dead: For one of the wounded, with more courage than wisdom, had fired on the English as he lay; and Amyas’s men, whose blood was maddened both by their desperate situation and the frightful stories of the rescued galley-slaves, had killed them all before their captain could stop them. (p.388)

This seems to be Kingsley’s response to the reports of Russian atrocities, and an implicit warning against meeting such unacceptable violence with violence. His views on this issue are developed more explicitly in ‘Brave Words’, where he argues that ‘revenge is one of the devil’s works of which brave men cannot be too much afraid’.38 However, there is more heroic enthusiasm than moral clarity in Kingsley’s account of the behaviour of Amyas’s men. Chapter 30 of the novel takes up another issue from the newspapers, with its heading ‘How the Admiral John Hawkins Testified against Croakers’. A letter in The Times of 23 September 151

headed ‘Croaking in the Army’ contained a reminder to officers of their duty to keep cheerful at all times.39 In Westward Ho! Kingsley introduces into the story a suitably reverent old man, John Hawkins, to admonish Will Cary for croaking. He comments: ‘Here’s a fellow calls himself the captain of a ship, and her Majesty’s servant, and talks about failing’ (p.549). While Kingsley’s choice of vocabulary here provides a ready link with the public debate, we can, in fact, see not only this one chapter but the whole of the novel as an answer to the growing mood of gloom evident in the newspapers. Although the action of the novel arises from a story of thwarted love, relatively little attention is paid to the women characters. Mrs Leigh, the most prominent female figure, is clearly, from the first, a Victorian ideal transposed to an Elizabethan setting. With one son away from home, she is described as living patiently ‘by prayer’, and not expecting letters from her son – an appeal to mothers in 1854 to stop complaining about the postal service from the East.40 In making Mrs Leigh a widow, Kingsley is able to focus attention on her role as mother. So, while a dominant Victorian view of the woman’s role as wife was that of bearer of moral values for her husband, Kingsley portrays this central female figure as a mother, who fills a similar role for her son as a source of moral strength. In the latter part of the novel this mother role is expanded to include the mother’s duty in support of the war effort. When John Bright spoke of the angel of death having passed over the country, his image touched a sensitive nerve.41 Already in the autumn of 1854 thousands of homes were mourning, and the wave of grief might well have turned into a wave of revulsion against the war. The need to offer consolation to grieving mothers and, at the same time, to provide a role model for them which stressed resignation, was addressed in poetry at that time.42 For Kingsley, the argument was simple. Since the war was God’s war, it was the woman’s religious duty to send her sons to fight in God’s cause. This is precisely the argument which he presents through the character of Mrs Leigh. From the outset, selflessness and resignation are central to the presentation of her character. After the death of her eldest son Frank, Amyas talks once more of going to join the fight against the Spanish enemy. Her protest that he will break her heart if he leaves again is followed swiftly by 152

the arrival of a messenger with the news that the Armada has sailed. Mrs Leigh now accepts that it is her son’s duty to defend his country (p.537). In this scene Kingsley presents a dramatic counterpart to the efforts of the press and the poets to persuade mothers to support the recruitment drive which had become necessary by December 1854. Although the whole of Westward Ho! reverberates with Kingsley’s enthusiasm for the present war, one scene in particular seems to me to demonstrate his intention to address the emotions of his readers through the Elizabethan scenes. His letters show that he was working to a self-imposed deadline, intending to have his novel with the publisher before Christmas, and he anticipates the mood of the ‘festive’ season in time of war in a scene which is very close in spirit to the poems and articles published at the end of 1854.43 Kingsley’s setting for his Christmas scene is in Ireland, where Amyas is away fighting the Catholics. The connection with the present time is evoked first of all in descriptions of the land fighting, which seem to draw on newspaper accounts of the Crimean battles. In a novel where the passage of time is not always precisely indicated and few dates or seasons mentioned, it is noteworthy that in this chapter the season is specified. We first see Mrs Leigh on Christmas Eve, thinking about her son. He is away across the sea – a different sea from the one separating mothers and sons in 1854. But the images of the sea and the wind which crosses it, bringing messages from loved ones, were ones which had been used by many poets, and their connections with the Crimea would be familiar to readers: ‘There is wind now, where my boy is, God help him!’ said Mrs Leigh: and all knew that she spoke truly. The spirit of the Atlantic storm had sent forward the token of his coming, in the smooth ground-swell which was heard inland, two miles away. (p.176)

Amyas too on Christmas Eve is thinking of his family, as he paces to and fro in the darkness of the night ‘on the dark Atlantic shore’, and he too listens to the wind. This experience of Christmas away from loved ones was one which many of Kingsley’s readers would share. Indeed, another of Kingsley’s aims in writing the novel must have been to provide such reassurance for his readers. The portrayal of

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scenes of fighting with so many parallels to the present must have encouraged readers to see the present conflict as another page in the same glorious history. The novel is a most effective outburst of patriotic fervour using the many possibilities of this literary form to persuade readers to share his views, and paralleling in prose the efforts of the poets. Since Kingsley spoke so disparagingly of the efforts of the poets, he obviously felt that fiction was a much better medium for this task.44 The vocabulary of the war employed by the poets worked to avoid the difficult issues and to focus on simple patriotic lines. In Kingsley’s novel, the action and characters as well as the language from the discourse of war were employed to a similar end. As well as providing parallels with the present to convey his patriotic message, the historical setting is also a means of removing other more contentious aspects of the war from view. The Elizabethan setting distances the narrative from contemporary questions, such as those of class. When Kingsley points out the behaviour of Grenville, he holds him up to the reader as an illustration of the exemplary aristocrat. The chronological distance, however, inhibits the reader from any projection of contemporary questions about the role of the aristocracy on to Kingsley’s narrative. The historical setting acts as a screen, extending the power of the war vocabulary itself to filter out the contentious issues of the present war. By 1855 Kingsley’s enthusiasm for the war was unabated.45 In fact the war had so taken priority that referring to the sanitary reform issue in a letter to a friend, he urged the need to care for the poor to ensure a supply of troops.46 The public’s need for encouragement and reassurance were not abated either. The deepening political crisis rather increased the need for such full-blown enthusiasm as Kingsley’s novel contained, to sweep readers along with its simple, patriotic, uncontentious message.

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Chapter 8 The Warden and Little Dorrit: Novels, Readers and War Issues

This chapter will look at two well-known novels from the period 1854– 5. Neither is ostensibly about the Crimean War, though they were written or published during this period, but it will be argued that their conception or reception was affected by the public debates at the time. In particular, the exposure and problematisation of relationships between government, democracy and the middle classes, the press and public opinion will be considered. The earlier book, Trollope’s The Warden, makes few overt references to the war. Research on the background to this novel has focused on earlier press reports of misuse of church funds as possible sources for the issue of ‘Hiram’s Bedesmen’.1 This study will investigate the extent of the influence of the war culture on the reception of the novel in the early months of 1855. The second novel to be considered is Little Dorrit, which Dickens was writing during the crisis months of 1855, at the time when the initial outcry against the mismanagement of the Crimean campaigns had been subsumed into a wider debate about government incompetence and the ability of the aristocracy to govern. It will be argued that this debate informs and structures the novel Little Dorrit, and that the connections with the public debate would have been obvious to a readership which had been exposed to the press coverage of the war and the developing public debates of the year 1855. Turning first to a consideration of Trollope’s The Warden, the timescale for the writing and publication of the novel is relevant here. Trollope is said to have conceived the basic story for a new novel at the time of a visit to Salisbury in May 1852. In July 1853 he began to write a novel to which he gave the title ‘The Precentor’. At this point his work for the postal service took him to Ireland, where he was offered a position as acting surveyor for the Northern District. As there was a possibility that this might lead to a permanent promotion, the novel had

to wait. It waited until 1854, and the completed manuscript was posted to his publisher on 8 October that year. Trollope received Longman’s agreement to publish the novel on 24 October, and it appeared on 5 January 1855.2 While Trollope was writing his novel in 1854, the press were concerned with speculations about the destination of the troops, their arrival at Varna and the cholera outbreak there. It was only as he was in the final stages of work on the book that news arrived of the movement of troops from Varna to the Crimea, to be followed by news of the battle of the Alma and accusations of mismanagement of the campaign. Trollope does not appear to have made any major attempts to insert references to the Crimean War into the novel which he had been planning for so long. The light-hearted topical allusions which were slipped into the narrative were rather unhelpful by the time of the novel’s publication in 1855. The passing jibe at the Quakers and Mr Cobden as hiring a hall to make ‘an appeal to the public in aid of the Emperor of Russia’ would, no doubt, have retained its satiric bite for many opponents of the ‘Peace Party’.3 The opening of Trollope’s mock-heroic portrayal of Mr Harding’s tea party – ‘The warden attempted to induce a charge [...] not having the tact of a general’ – may have been vague enough to still raise a smile (p.78). But though the Popean extension of that comparison is cleverly entertaining, at a time when all references to battles and fighting were assumed to take a reader’s mind straight to the Crimea, such witty displays could hardly remain detached from the pictures of those horrendous battlefields. R.H. Super’s verdict on The Warden was that it ‘is less a novel than a collection of essays and virtuoso pieces grouped around a single social problem’.4 Along with the satiric portraits of Carlyle and Dickens, the attack on The Times has to rank as one of the novel’s ‘virtuoso pieces’, and it is on the latter that I want to focus here. The Times in 1854 was the leading paper, outstripping all its rivals’ circulation figures.5 Koss notes that in the mid-1850s The Times was seen abroad as ‘a semi-official organ’, and even at home its reports were looked to for the verdict on government action.6 The paper assumed to itself just such a prestigious role: ‘A newspaper such as The Times is in a position rather to confer than receive favours, and rather to act as the umpire than the tool or the instrument of party.’7 The History of ‘The Times’ sums up both the 156

paper’s view of its own importance in the 1850s and the criticism of this. While the paper believed that ‘it was open to any statesman to persuade The Times but to none to command’, there was also a ‘body of opinion which felt, and felt very keenly, that The Times exercised a power no newspaper ought to be allowed to possess’.8 Other developments were lending some urgency to the criticism of the role of The Times in the early 1850s. One of these was the discussion of and adjustment to the label ‘democracy’, another was the possibility of cheaper newspapers being produced, nationally or locally. These were considerations explored by the poet Sydney Dobell in an unfinished article of 1852 on journalism. Dobell was happy with democracy only if there was a strong press to be the voice of a strong government composed of ‘the noblest and most gifted class which the Empire, for the time being, comprehends’.9 Controversy about the role of the press was fuelled in October 1854 by the revelations of The Times’s correspondent about the conditions of the troops in the East. For some time the paper’s rivals such as the ILN persisted in condemning The Times for its alarmist views and even decried its appeal for money for Scutari, suggesting this was all based on ‘false statements’.10 When the reports about the poor conditions in the East could no longer be denied, the questions about the role of the press in wartime persisted in the form of a debate about their responsibilities.11 This soon encompassed a number of questions, not only the relationship between government and the press, but the right of the press to criticise government, their obligation to report the facts balanced against the ‘need’ to keep strategic information from the enemy in wartime, and their role in the service of the general public.12 The ILN continued to attack The Times as its major rival with sarcastic references to ‘a portion of the press’ or ‘the free press’ at every possible juncture. The Times, defending its role as guardian of the true facts, parried: ‘Then we are told it is the duty of every true Englishman to enter the official conspiracy and help to conceal the true state of things from those twin horrors – the British public and the Emperor of Russia.’13 Letter writers rallied to the paper’s defence, praising it as the only one to tell the truth,14 so that the practice of publishing readers’ letters became embroiled in this debate. All the papers had followed the lead of The Times in printing letters from the Crimea, and most 157

commented on the advantages which these letters offered in terms of first-hand information for their readers.15 Yet these letters also in their uncensored state could be seen as providing the enemy with information. What could be said about the war and who should say it remained lively topics for debate well into 1855.16 By the time that Trollope’s novel was in print there had been a further development in the debate, as the government indicated its intention to review the Stamp Duty. Northern MPs had complained for some time that the situation disadvantaged local papers.17 In 1855 Mr Gladstone brought forward a bill intended to tackle some of these grievances. A key issue was the weight which could be sent at a cheap postal rate. The ‘quality’ papers were afraid they would now be disadvantaged by the new legislation. This controversy became embroiled with the wider issues on the role of the press, and even with questions about the role of such institutions in a ‘democratic’ society. The Times turned to its readers for support with a firm hope that those to whose amusement and instruction we have so long been in the habit of contributing will not allow their old acquaintance to be made the victim of laws devised exclusively for the purpose of depriving us of our legitimate circulation, and the public of what they are pleased to consider as an almost indispensable part of every day’s recreation.18

The debate rolled on. When the demise of this Stamp Bill was announced in March, the Examiner declared that it had been intended as parliament’s revenge on The Times, adding: ‘We deprecate setting fire to the entire press for the sole and separate purpose of doing The Times brown.’19 But by June another Stamp Bill was in preparation,20 and through the summer months the issue was taken up by weekly and monthly publications. Stephen Koss in The Rise and Fall of the Political Press in Britain details the annoyance of the politicians with The Times at that period and quotes the Duke of Argyll’s comment in a letter to Lord John Russell: ‘If England is ever to be England again, this tyranny of The Times must be cut off.’21 The questions underlying this remark were more explicitly engaged with in an article in Fraser’s Magazine in July 1855: ‘It has been rather the fashion in the best society, for a few weeks past, to say that representative institutions and the vigorous prosecution of a war are incompatible.’ These ‘representative institu158

tions’ were identified as the House of Commons and the press. While so much was being written about the need for national unity in time of war, the writer in Fraser’s Magazine went as far as to suggest it might be easier to ditch democracy, the House of Commons and The Times, and get on with the war.22 Trollope’s satire on The Times attracted a specific plaudit from the reader for Longman’s in October 1854: ‘The description of The Times under the nom de guerre of Mount Olympus, I will back against anything of the kind that was ever written for geniality and truth.’23 However, one of the early reviews from the Examiner on 6 January 1855 singled out for complaint the introduction of The Times into the novel, arguing that it was ‘not managed in good taste’. Even by then the issues involved were more sensitive. These debates provided the context for the reading of The Warden in 1855. The satire on The Times is introduced into the novel through the character Tom Towers, who works for the Jupiter. At the point where John Bold, out of love for Eleanor, has decided to withdraw from the attack on the injustices of the implementation of Hiram’s will, Trollope pauses to devote almost a whole chapter to developing his satire on the power of the press. The Jupiter’s name initiates much light-hearted mock-heroic entertainment, though this is not without a serious intent. Trollope objected to The Times’s behaviour, because it assumed an authority which he believed should reside solely in parliament, but within the skirmishes in the novel there is no space for any detailed exploration of the problematic relationships between government, press and public. His attack on The Times seems intended to sit comfortably within the realistic novel form as a satiric interlude. But by January 1855 it was unlikely that Trollope’s remarks could be appreciated as just a witty satire, and their serious intent in relation to this now complex issue was not clear. For instance, Trollope compared the authoritarian sway of the Jupiter to the power of the Pope, but also to that of the Russian Czar. After further months of work by the press on building the image of the enemy as the terrible authoritarian Czar, however, a comparison of Britain’s leading newspaper to the enemy would be, to say the least, uncomfortable. A deeper and unintentional irony could now be read into the comment of the narrator: ‘None but fools doubt the wisdom of the Jupiter; none but the mad dispute its facts’ (p.182). 159

The general framework of Trollope’s attack on the newspaper was not clarified by the passage of time either. In The Warden Trollope portrayed attacks on sources of social ills via the press, such as Bold’s foray, as attacks on the establishment. This is essentially the link between the main plot and the three main satiric sketches, including that on The Times. Trollope, as a conservative, was warning his readers of the dangers inherent in the position of the moral do-gooders. However, by January 1855 The Times had wide support precisely because it had taken a moral stance on the plight of the soldiers in the East. Events had produced a new role for The Times, which Trollope could not have anticipated and to some extent his intentions for his novel had been overtaken by events. The situation would only get worse for Trollope’s novel. Within weeks of the publication of The Warden the introduction of the Stamp Bill had broadened the debate. As a result, other aspects of Trollope’s satire, such as his reference to the circulation figures of the Jupiter, must suddenly have appeared to be going to the heart of the new controversy (p.91). Later in the novel, Trollope attacked the bias in the press on ‘Mount Olympus’, hinting at a deeper evil of corruption: There are those who doubt the Jupiter! They live and breathe the upper air, walking here unscathed, though scorned – men, born of British mothers and nursed on English milk, who scruple not to say that Mount Olympus has its price, that Tom Towers can be bought for gold! (p.183)

Trollope’s readers in 1855, however, would come to the novel fresh from newspaper reports on the assault which the government was now planning on The Times. Whatever newspaper they read, they could not but be aware that there were two sides to this story, so that the clear-cut lines of Trollope’s intended attack on the way the press undermined the power of government were lost in the mists of the current controversies. His unequivocal endorsement of the government could no longer simply eliminate questions about relations between parliament and the people, nor did his satire constitute a meaningful commentary on these newly problematised relationships. The reviews of The Warden in 1855 were rather bland. There was general praise for Trollope’s characters, but some uncertainty about what

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exactly the author was trying to say.24 Yet within ten years the novel had been reinstated as one of the books which had established his reputation with readers.25 When the issues of the Crimean War period were no longer visible, the book was praised as being ‘not disfigured by irrelevant matter’.26 While The Warden was awaiting publication Trollope was working on another novel. However, when enquiries about the sales figures in February indicated that The Warden was not the great success he had hoped for, the new novel was put aside and he turned instead to the writing of a collection of essays. The manuscript of The New Zealander was submitted to his publisher on 27 March 1855.27 Longman’s reader rejected the book, describing its better points as ‘a poor imitation’ of Carlyle’s work, and the rest as ‘loose, illogical and rhapsodical’.28 In The New Zealander Trollope again tackled the issue of the power of the press. The war was now a visible backdrop for the issues he examined, but even so Trollope did not engage with the immediate public concerns about relations of press, government and people, or accept the agenda set by the war crisis.29 Trollope’s essays in The New Zealander presented his own priorities. His central point, and one on which he was indeed close to Carlyle, was a call for a more competent aristocracy, and linked to this were his anxieties about the power of the press. To this extent he had entered the arena of the lively public debates, but only to attempt to stem the tide of criticism of the aristocracy and support the clear division of rulers and ruled against the advocates of democracy. Many months on from the writing of The Warden and deeper into the war, Trollope still persisted in his use of the comparison with the Czar to express his fear of the power of The Times: ‘The Czar was too arrogant and too impatient, and so also is the newspaper.’30 Even at this juncture he did not see this comparison as inappropriate. The war and the debates it had spawned remained subordinate to his concern about the power of the press. Thus though the difficulties which The Warden presented to readers in 1855 must have resulted in part from the development of the war crisis between the writing of the book and its publication, it does not really seem likely that Trollope would have removed these difficulties for his readers if he had been writing some months later.

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The problematic areas of social and political interaction which Trollope chose to ignore in the writing of The Warden were of great concern to Charles Dickens. His degree of engagement with the current crisis and its impact on the writing of Little Dorrit will be the subject of the remainder of this chapter. Later criticism has widely acknowledged the importance of the war to the genesis of the novel’s portrayal of the Circumlocution Office. It has, however, been usual to locate the novel’s centre of gravity elsewhere. Lionel Trilling’s essay of 1953 set the tone for much twentiethcentury criticism of Little Dorrit. Trilling explored the social origins of the prison imagery in the novel, only to move on, via Freud’s use of the same image, to stress its pertinence to the psychological interest of the novel, and to see in it an expression of Dickens’s own ‘crisis of the will’ or ‘moral crisis’ at that time.31 The search for the critical ‘key’ to the novel, supported by Dickens’s comment in the preface to Little Dorrit on the finished ‘pattern’ for the book, as well as the explication of the text in terms of individualism are all critical approaches which have been endorsed by twentieth-century criticism. However, looking at the book in relation to the sociopolitical climate of the day, this study draws closer to those critics of the early twentieth century who more forcibly asserted the novel’s power as social critique.32 The discussion here will seek to deepen the appreciation of aspects of the book which, for the contemporary readers, must have derived some of their power from the media discussion of the political issues in the context of a war culture. The critical ambiguity which this study will address, therefore, is that while critics have agreed that the Crimean War is important to the genesis of the Circumlocution Office in Little Dorrit, this link has not been given priority in relation to the whole conception of the book and that unity which Dickens asserted he wished to achieve. To this end the development of the public debates about the war and Dickens’s own writing on the subject will be considered here as well as the thematic patterning in the novel itself. In the period when Dickens was planning Little Dorrit in the summer of 1855, he began to involve himself in the new society set up to promote Administrative Reform.33 As the new organisation was heralded in the press and its meetings reported, so was the support given to them by the well-known writer, and in particular his speech to their third 162

meeting on 27 June.34 On that occasion Dickens insisted that his interest as a writer was not in politics as such, but in the social evils of society. But he did go as far as to lay the blame for these social evils on the gulf between ‘the governors and the governed’.35 The administrative reform movement arose out of the crisis over the mismanagement of the war. Criticism of the provisioning for the army was widespread in the press. There were accusations that ‘red tapism’ was to blame, but also that new ideas to improve the lot of the soldiers were ignored until too late.36 Comparisons with the French war effort were frequently made, and it was generally agreed that things were managed better abroad. The powerful public criticism of the administration of the army, arising from the reports of the Roebuck committee, led to calls for wider reform of the Civil Service in general. Increasingly criticisms focused on the role of the aristocracy.37 The recall of Lord Lucan and the many letters and parliamentary questions about the charge of the Light Brigade reinforced these new challenges to the established order,38 as did reports that officers were leaving the Crimea in droves.39 Since the aristocracy seemed to be failing in their duty, there were those now prepared to go so far as to ask why a system should operate which excluded members of all other classes from roles of responsibility. In this connection the purchase system for commissions in the army received special criticism. The editorial in the ILN for 10 March 1855 took this as its main topic: A portion of the press and a very large portion of the public seem to be agreed that the system of promotion by purchase in the Army should be abolished; and that in the military, as in other professions, merit alone should be the road to success and to distinction. There can be no doubt that the principle is just [...] But [...]

While the editor in the ILN could not bring himself to directly attack the aristocracy, such complaints were well-aired elsewhere in letters, editorials and parliamentary reports.40 Since the aristocracy seemed unwilling to fill the leadership roles in the Crimea under such harsh conditions, it soon proved expedient to begin to relax the rules to allow some promotion from the ranks.41 The question of medals for men from the ranks was also raised and steps taken to mollify the complainants.42 These, of course, were only 163

temporary and expedient responses. But the question of whether a better system could be found in the long term was raised and fed into a renewed call for a review of the whole Civil Service, an issue which had been shelved because of the advent of the war. In an article headed ‘Administrative Reform’, the ILN on 9 June acknowledged the connections between these issues around mismanagement: The disasters of war, a noble army wasted by overwork, disease, and the want of common necessaries of life while within reach of our abundance of men and wealth [...] have apparently made the people forget the mal-administration of peace. It can, however, only be necessary to remind them of such matters as the public sewerage, as railway legislation, as our complicated and unequal system of taxation, to at once convince them that mal-administration of public affairs is our normal condition. War has only brought the mismanagement to a climax, and it can no longer be tolerated.

It was not clear where the ILN would draw the line in apportioning blame. The writer denied that ‘the hereditary principle’ was to blame and, on the other hand, that this was ‘the inevitable consequence of Parliamentary government’. This paper, which had so often sprung to the defence of the aristocracy, was clearly trying to steer a difficult course, recognising the groundswell of opinion in which connections were indeed being made between the home issues and the mismanagement of the war. The connections, which even ILN was being forced to acknowledge in the summer of 1855, were of concern to Dickens. From his letters it can be seen that while acknowledging the need to stop the Russians, Dickens groaned at the neglect of urgently needed reform at home: I am full of mixed feelings about the war – admiration of our valiant men, burning desires to cut the Emperor of Russia’s throat, and something like despair to see how the old cannon-smoke and blood-mists obscure the wrongs and sufferings of the people at home [...] I feel as if the world had been pushed back 500 years.43

There is a deep sadness, even anger, in his expressions of concern here. In 1855 he wrote to another friend, the actor Macready, of his disappointment at the effects of parliamentary reform: ‘As to the suffrage, I have lost hope even in the ballot. We appear to me to have 164

proved the failure of representative institutions without an educated and advanced people to support them.’ He concluded that there was no such thing as a middle class: ‘It is nothing but a poor fringe on the mantle of the upper [class] [...] what with flunkyism, toadyism, letting the most contemptible lords come in for all manner of places.’ He was busy writing Little Dorrit at that time, a process he described as ‘blowing off a little of indignant steam which would otherwise blow me up’. He concluded: ‘I have no present political faith or hope – not a grain.’44 In other letters Dickens gave his view that the lack of involvement of the people in the running of the country was producing a smouldering anger, which he compared to the situation before the French Revolution, though he also expressed some faint hope that if the people would ‘bestir themselves in the vigorous national manner’ something could be done.45 Through 1854–5 Dickens wrote a number of satiric pieces for Household Words, which developed these social and political concerns, with attacks on aristocratic nepotism, exposure of the divide between rulers and ruled, and appeals to the people to question the leadership of the aristocracy. In each case the satire was grounded in home issues, but made reference to the situation in the Crimea to draw on the existing criticism of the administration. An attack on red-tapism in the article ‘Prince Bull: a fairy story’, a political allegory of the events of 1854, encompassed not just the inefficiency of the provisioning of the army but the general operations of government, including their failure to utilise the expertise and innovative ideas available for the good of the country. In Dickens’s story, the land of Prince Bull suffers at the hands of the red tape fairy godmother even in peacetime: Among the great mass of the community [...] were a number of very ingenious men, who were always busy with some invention or other, for promoting the prosperity of the Prince’s subjects, and augmenting the Prince’s power. But, whenever they submitted their models for the Prince’s approval, his godmother stepped forward, laid her hand upon them, and said ‘Tape’.46

As early as January 1854, in the article ‘On her Majesty’s Service’ written with Murray, Dickens criticised ruling-class nepotism, and this point was taken up again in the fairy story ‘The story of Scarli Tapa and the forty thieves’, one of a series which appeared during April and 165

May of 1855 under the heading ‘One Thousand and One Humbugs’. This story exposed the privilege of the upper class and the divide between rulers and ruled. Another fairy story in this series, ‘The story of the talkative barber’, which was an allegory of how the people had been deprived of reform, also showed how the ruling class considered ‘the unhappy Publeek to be their natural prey and rightful property’.47 In September of the previous year Dickens had made this exercise of power to control the people the nub of his satire ‘It is not generally known’: ‘It is not generally known that the people have nothing to do with a certain large Club which assembles at Westminster, and that the Club has nothing to do with them.’ This was the prelude to a satiric picture of the senseless arguing of politicians, who take no account of what the people themselves think on the issues which affect them. The issue with which Dickens illustrated his point was the ‘scourge’ of cholera, which was then attacking the poor at home and the army at Varna alike, the latter gaining much publicity, the former in danger of being overlooked. Dickens attempted to channel outrage at the fate of the army into concern for the plight of the poor at home but also into direct criticism of those responsible.48 This appeal to the people to recognise how they were being manipulated by the politicians was taken up again in February 1855 in the article ‘That other public’, where Dickens expressed the hope that those who had begun to question the establishment on the issues of the war organisation would not forget the lessons of the present war when attention returned to home issues.49 In May in the article ‘The toady tree’ he continued his critique of the condition of society, with a satirical portrayal of the unmerited deference shown to the upper class. There was more on the subject of red-tape, with a character Hobbs, whose ingenious and useful invention was ignored, and the conclusion of the satire once again reinforced Dickens’s complaint of the division between the rulers and the ruled.50 In August 1856 Dickens was still driving home these same points. The article ‘Nobody, Somebody, and Everybody’ has been seen as particularly pertinent to a reading of Little Dorrit because of the parallel between the title of this article and Dickens’s earlier idea for the title for his new novel, ‘Nobody’s Fault’.51 In the article ‘Nobody’ is the scapegoat used by those in power to avoid blame, just as the gentleman 166

in the earlier story ‘Fast and loose’ had blamed Providence while he himself was actually playing tricks on his fellow traveller. The parallel between the language of the article and Dickens’s first idea for a title for his novel, therefore, might be seen as evidence of the connection between the novel and the thinking he had been developing over the last eighteen months in his articles in Household Words. It must be noted, however, that while the word ‘Nobody’ is retained in the title of four chapters of the novel, it there clearly refers to Clennam. The use of the word ‘Nobody’ in one of the Christmas stories of 1853, ‘Nobody’s story’, seems a more likely parallel to Dickens’s use of the term in Little Dorrit. In the earlier story ‘Nobody’ is asserted to be the rank and file of the earth,52 a view which would accord with Dickens’s picture of Clennam, particularly in the final paragraph of the novel where we are told that the hero and Little Dorrit ‘went down into a modest life of usefulness and happiness’.53 The connection between his portrayal of the Circumlocution Office and the fierce debates about the role of red tape in the Crimea is wellestablished. But while for later readers this one connection with the war stands out in the novel, for contemporary readers the connections with the debates generated by the war must have appeared more pervasive, as Dickens sought to redirect his readers’ sympathy and anger, so effectively aroused by the press over the issues of the war, towards questions of reform and to establish a critique of the aristocratic system. Like Dickens himself in the preface to the 1857 edition, critics have claimed for Little Dorrit a unity of conception, though varying opinions have been advanced about the source of that unity. I will argue that the novel replicates the many-faceted national debate generated by the war, and that at the heart of the novel the presentation of the Barnacles as at the heart of those debates, contains a criticism of the ruling class. The very name ‘Barnacle’ itself as a metaphor provides a link to the question of the fitness of the aristocracy to govern. They are the encrustations, intent on sticking ‘on to the national ship’ (p.162). They are the focal point to which all other critical issues in the book return, just as in the public debate in 1855 all criticism was essentially related to the question of the incompetence of the ruling class. From the provocative heading to the chapter introducing the Barnacles – ‘Containing the Whole Science of Government’ – con167

temporary readers could not have failed to make connections with the war. They might have expected an attack on the government similar to that provided by the press. Throughout the novel Dickens reinforced the connections with the newspaper debates with parenthetic remarks such as ‘(as everybody knows without being told)’ (p.145), and ‘with the blessing of Providence upon the harvest (natural, not political)’ (p.146). The tag phrase he uses in the novel to sum up the inefficiency of the establishment is the art of ‘How not to do it’, a phrase intended to encompass all those impressions of the establishment gleaned from the copious press reports of the Roebuck committee’s investigations. This is the essence of the Circumlocution Office, which has blighted the life of Doyce and, equally importantly, the lives of those potential beneficiaries of his inventions. Even as Mr Meagles begins his account of Doyce’s experience of the Circumlocution Office, Dickens again draws on his readers’ knowledge of events in the Crimea, drawing them into complicity with his critique of the establishment: ‘With this prelude, Mr Meagles went through the narrative; the established narrative, which has become tiresome; the matter-of-course narrative which we all know by heart’ (p.161). As the Barnacles of the Circumlocution Office represent a whole class (p.152), so Doyce also insists that his case is no worse ‘than a hundred others’ (p.163). Dickens must have hoped that his readers would now share Meagles’s consternation, not just because they sympathised with Doyce, but because they remembered the suffering in the Crimea which had resulted from such red tape and inefficiency. Thereafter, as he develops his view of the Barnacle class, from time to time he tosses in the briefest reminder of the war, a reference to red tape, or a battle image (p.155), to maintain those connections. Such references would also carry with them for Dickens’s dedicated readers echoes of his previous attempts to establish these connections in the satiric essays in Household Words. As in those articles, Dickens hopes to channel the indignation about the war crisis into what he feels are the more basic causes for concern at home. The power exercised by the Barnacles is a central concern. Through the members of the Barnacle clan Dickens illustrates the many institutions of the country which come under their influence. The Church, Parliament and the Law are all so many branches of their family influence.54 Beyond the Barnacle clan themselves are, not a middle class 168

as such, for in Dickens’s opinion they do not exist, but a swarm who aspire to join the Barnacle ranks. Dickens’s would-be Barnacles are seeking either a blood connection with the Barnacles through marriage, or aspiring to be accepted into the clan because of their money, or both. Pet’s unhappiness must be attributed, in part at least, to her father’s admiration for everything Barnacle. She thus finds herself married to a Gowan, ‘a distant ramification of the Barnacles’ (p.250), whose sole aim in life seems to be to survive without taking any responsibility. The Merdles too have been accepted into the Barnacle circles, in their case because they have money. Casby’s connection with the Barnacles, on the other hand, rests on his ability to earn money for them, because his ‘benignant’ appearance is such that ‘nobody could suppose the property screwed or jobbed under such a man’ (p.190). For Mr Dorrit, the gathering of Barnacles at which he is present is the culmination of all his aspirations, the reward for hanging on all those years to his firm conviction of his rightful social position. The Dorrit self-image had been sadly put out by the naive Clennam’s lack of sympathy in this matter, so that Dorrit is said to have commented to his family ‘that he feared Mr Clennam was not a man of high instincts’ (p.301). Ironically, at the peak of his career, accepted back among the Barnacle clan, Mr Dorrit breaks down, and his mind reverts to the experiences of life in the Marshalsea prison (p.709). The Barnacles are ‘Society’: they are ‘the country’. Their ‘Great Patriotic Conference’ exposes the nepotism which sustains their power. Finding a suitable honour to reward Mr Merdle presents Lord Decimus with a problem: For the Barnacles, as a group of themselves in creation, had an idea that such distinctions belonged to them; and that when a soldier, sailor, or lawyer became ennobled, they let him in, as it were, by an act of condescension, at the family door, and immediately shut it again. (p.756)55

Beyond the Barnacles and their hangers-on there was only the mob: It was agreed that the country (another word for the Barnacles and Stiltstalkings) wanted preserving, but how it came to want preserving was not so clear. It was only clear that the question was all about John Barnacle, Augustus Stiltstalking, William Barnacle and Tudor Stiltstalking, Tom, Dick or

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Harry Barnacle or Stiltstalking, because there was nobody else but the mob. (p.362)

At every turn Dickens’s portrayal of the Barnacle clan echoes the critique of the aristocracy which the war had generated. Since the central plot, the story of Arthur Clennam, revolves around his relationship with the Barnacles, these links to the contemporary debates lie at the heart of the novel. Clennam’s values set him apart from the satiric portraits of the Barnacles, but his weaknesses almost lead him in to the role of a hangeron. Only when thoroughly cured of any tendency to aspire to join the Barnacle clan, can Clennam be considered a worthy hero, one who will happily live a ‘modest life of usefulness and happiness’ (p.895). While there is no doubt that the critique of the Barnacles permeates the novel, it is also pertinent to consider whether the opening of the book directs the reader towards this subject. Dickens does not generally attempt to set out the whole agenda for his novels in the opening pages, but the imagery usually provides an indication of the direction of his thinking. The two prisoners we meet in the first chapter are at first glance very distant from our Barnacle clan, and very different from each other. John Baptist acts as a foil to Rigaud Blandois: his helplessness is contrasted with Rigaud’s drive for power. It is through the eyes of John Baptist that we come to appreciate, even on this first occasion, that Rigaud’s commitment to crime as a way of life is also a desire for power, the latter a characteristic which is central to the portrayal of the Barnacle clan.56 In the divided society which Dickens presents in Little Dorrit, Rigaud belongs with the ruling classes, in that he aspires to join them. In the opening chapter of the book the prison setting, the detail given about this prisoner and his own statements all serve to distance the reader from the values he represents: from the beginning it is not difficult to recognise Rigaud as the villain of the piece. Yet the values he espouses prove to be a mirror image of those of the Barnacle clan. This view of Rigaud is consistently reinforced in his subsequent appearances in the story. Even as he attempts to pull off his blackmail plot, standing in another prison to confront Clennam, he asserts that he is ‘always a gentleman’ (p.814), always sure of his ‘superiority’ (p.817), and tells Cavalletto ‘I am born to be served’ (pp.815, 821). His trade, he asserts, links him to ‘Society’: ‘Society sells itself and sells me; and I sell 170

Society’ (p.818). Dickens also links the first prison scene to the climax of the action involving Rigaud through the motif of the song ‘Compagnon de la Majolaine’. In the opening prison scene this is sung by the warder to his daughter. To the free translation of the French children’s song, Dickens has added the repeated line ‘Of all the king’s knights ’tis the flower’ (p.45), another indication of the role allocated to Rigaud as representative of a class.57 At the climax of the action, when Rigaud confronts Clennam in the Marshalsea, he forces Cavalletto to repeat the refrain of the song as an act of submission (p.820).58 Rigaud meets his end in the collapse of the old house in which another family of rapacious hangers-on have lived and schemed. The event might be seen as foreshadowing the fall of the whole Barnacle clan as its collapse engulfs, in the figure of Rigaud, the very emblem of aristocratic villainy. Another character whose fate echoes one aspect of this central theme of the narrative, the division between the two classes, is Pancks. In doing Mr Casby’s dirty work for him, Pancks had functioned as another hanger-on, as one who espoused ‘their’ values. When the realisation comes to him that he does not belong with the likes of Casby, he astounds Bleeding Heart Yard by publicly deriding his former employer (p.868). The connection of employer and employee with the Barnacle clan and the ship of state is made clear in Pancks’s explanation: ‘He provides the pitch, and I handle it and it sticks to me’ (p.871). Allusions to the war reporting of 1855 in the closing section of the novel provide a further indication that Dickens’s conception of its central themes are rooted in the war crisis. Tying up the ends for the reader, Meagles brings Clennam up to date on the fate of his friend Doyce, who has at last won the recognition he deserves abroad: Where they don’t want things done and find a man to do ’em, that man’s off his legs; but where they do want things done and find a man to do ’em, that man’s on his legs. (p.891)

Moreover, Doyce’s genius has been acknowledged with a medal ‘Over there’ on the continent where they know how to reward the men of talent and innovation. This stark contrast to the Circumlocution Office mirrors the comments of many letter writers and editors during the war that things were managed better abroad. This reminder of ruling-class 171

inefficiency in the management of the war is a footnote to all such discussions in this novel. In Little Dorrit Dickens has exposed the formidable ability of the ruling class to preserve its power, and through the images of the oneness of the Barnacle clan he has provided a powerful critique of the establishment. While he provides variety and interest with a wide range of characters, social groupings and settings, all, from Rigaud to Dorrit, are linked back to the Barnacles and are utilised in his critique of aristocratic power. In this respect the novel parallels the arguments of Dickens’s satires in Household Words, as well as the debate initiated by the reports of the Roebuck committee in 1855, which encompassed a whole range of issues, and at the heart of which lay a fundamental questioning of the right of the aristocracy to rule. He draws on the emotive roots of this debate in the mismanagement of the campaign in the Crimea, but seeks to channel his readers’ concern into a fundamental critique of the establishment. It has been argued, then, that the critical receptions of the two very different novels considered above have been influenced by the war context in which they were published or conceived. The former, Trollope’s The Warden, which ignored the deeper implications of the war debate and whose brief references to the war were largely overtaken by events before the novel was published, rose in critical standing as the memories of the war faded. Dickens’s Little Dorrit, which had engaged with the powerful critique of society which had developed at that time, has not always been subsequently credited with this strong sociopolitical theme.

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Chapter 9 Gender Issues and the Crimean War: Creating Roles for Women?

In considering the role of women in the period of the Crimean War one is not at first glance overwhelmed with evidence. The politicians of the time were exclusively male, as were the personnel of the army and navy; indeed few references to women survive in the accounts of this war. Interestingly, however, for many today the only figure remembered from the Crimean War may well be a woman – Florence Nightingale. A statue of Florence Nightingale was erected in London during the First World War, clearly an instance where an acceptable and well-known image from a previous war was being used as a rallying point in a later one. This fact in itself would seem to be evidence of the centrality of Florence Nightingale in the later mythology of the Crimean War.1 This chapter will explore the operation of language in the public discourse on the war as it related to the perceptions of the roles assigned to women. It will examine the presentation of Florence Nightingale’s role in the newspapers and through the medium of poetry, and the relationship between these images and the roles more generally assigned to women during the war.2 Finally, other contributions made by women as workers or as poets will be considered. Before considering the achievements of Florence Nightingale, it is useful to note the social role into which she was born simply by virtue of being an upper-middle-class woman. F.K. Prochaska in her introduction to Women and Philanthropy sums up the position of women in Victorian England with a list of adjectives popularly applied to them: ‘Moral, modest, attentive, intuitive, humble, gentle, patient, sensitive, perceptive, compassionate, self-sacrificing, tactful, deductive, practical, religious, benevolent, instinctive and mild’.3

The extent to which the majority of women at that time were inclined to question their lot is now difficult to assess. The views of Florence Nightingale herself did not agree with those of the activist Barbara Bodichon, for example.4 Miss Nightingale’s own thoughts on the role of women can be found in her unfinished work Cassandra, where she analysed her own spirit of rebellion against the role socially allocated to her.5 Sir Edward Cook has commented on the struggle she faced in her early pursuit of knowledge about nursing: Now that the fruits of Florence Nightingale’s pioneer work have been gathered, and that nursing is one of the recognized occupations for gentlewomen, it is not altogether easy to realize the difficulties which stood in her way. The objections were moral and social, rooted to large measure in conventional ideas. Gentlewomen, it was felt, would be exposed, if not to danger and temptations, at least to undesirable and unfitting conditions. ‘It was as if I had wanted to be a kitchen-maid’, she said in later years. Nothing is more tenacious than a social prejudice.6

It will be helpful here, therefore, to outline some of the basic facts about this woman who became so involved in the Crimean War. All her biographers consider her family relationships to have been to some extent difficult. Florence has left clear evidence of the frustration which she felt as a result of the demands made on her by her family when she saw herself as having a higher purpose to fulfil. Those demands were, in part, individual and personal, the results of the health or emotional needs of her father, mother and sister and, at times, of her aunts. The restraints were also the product of social pressures, of the family’s perceptions of what was acceptable behaviour for an unmarried woman and of the extent to which they considered that her behaviour touched their own reputations. The experience of nursing institutions which she had acquired before the autumn of 1854 had been gained in the teeth of strong family opposition. However, when she insisted on going out to the East and became famous as the nurse of the British army, they all revelled in her reputation, especially her sister Parthe. In October 1854 revelations about conditions at the Scutari hospital in Constantinople were printed by The Times, and one subsequent letter to the editor called for nurses to be sent to the East. 174

Florence responded, sending a letter to her friend Sidney Herbert, then Secretary at War, offering her services. Her letter crossed with Herbert’s asking for her help. The moment was significant. Florence certainly felt that this was the task she had been preparing herself for, and equally Herbert seems to have recognised at once that she was indeed the right person for the role he had in mind. Preparations were made with all speed. The reports on the conditions at Scutari appeared in The Times on 9, 12, and 13 October. Sidney Herbert’s first letter to Florence on the subject was dated 15 October. Miss Nightingale with her party of thirty-eight nurses set off on 21 October and arrived in Constantinople on 4 November.7 There can be no doubt from her letters that Florence saw the organisation of the nurses as a major part of her role. It was a source of stress for her, and there have been various opinions as to her success on that count. By January 1855 quite a few of the original nursing team had gone or been sent home.8 At Scutari there were supporters and opponents of Miss Nightingale’s organisational methods. She had to deal with the problems of dirt and lack of sanitation, of obtaining supplies and preparing food, all of which involved her in difficult relations with doctors and army administrators.9 Religious issues and prejudices also caused her problems. The British people were still suspicious of the aims of Roman Catholics,10 and Miss Nightingale had been instructed to guard against proselytising by the Roman Catholic nuns among her contingent of nurses.11 From November 1854 to May 1855 Miss Nightingale worked unremittingly in the barrack hospital at Scutari. Later in 1855 and again in 1856 she visited the hospitals in the Crimea itself.12 On the last visit she was taken ill, but she soon returned to her duties at Constantinople, and did not return to England until after the last patient had left Scutari, in July 1856.13 At the end of the war she was a heroine. From 1856 for several years a steady flow of memoirs of the Crimea found their way into print, from people who had served there as officers, soldiers, doctors or nurses, or who had visited the Crimea and Constantinople. This literature helped to preserve the memory of Miss Nightingale’s efforts, and to reinforce perceptions of their importance.14 While twentieth175

century opinions varied as to the exact foundation of the legend that has been built up around her, the existence of the legend cannot be denied.15 It is time to turn to consider what the public learned about Florence Nightingale from the press during this year of war. In October 1854, when the first reports of the chaos in the East were published, Florence Nightingale’s mission was widely reported, though it was only one of several antidotes to the national pangs of conscience over conditions in the army. The Times was more concerned with its own project, the ‘Sick and Wounded Fund’, though it did give space to comments on Florence Nightingale’s mission in letters to the paper. Here the tone was not always restrained. A letter of 21 October urging the need for nurses for the East, presented the role of nurse in glowing patriotic colours: ‘The women of England must surely yearn to take a part, however small, in the glorious deeds of their countrymen; nor will they allow themselves to be eclipsed in self-sacrifice and devotion by the French Sisters of Charity.’16 A letter from ‘One who has known Miss Nightingale’, which was printed on 25 October, was full of ardent praise for her and even suggested a comparison with Christ: When our Saviour did works of charity, the Evangelists tell us he said, ‘See that thou tell no man;’ but the more he charged them so much the more a great deal they published it abroad; and we, in like manner, are, [I] think, justified in making it known that Miss Nightingale gave up everything that education, wealth, and connexion could afford to make this life a life of pleasure, when she first devoted herself to the care of the sick.17

One newspaper included Miss Nightingale in a list of the benefits of war: ‘We owe to the war the merciful mission of Miss Nightingale, the beautiful letter of Mr Sidney Herbert, the noble generosity of the British soldier offering water to the dying lips of his wounded Russian foe on the heights of Alma.’18 The ‘beautiful letter’ by Mr Herbert had been printed in The Times on 24 October. Restraint was the dominant tone of Mr Herbert’s pragmatic pronouncement, as he argued against sending out more nurses, especially untrained ones, to the army hospitals, where they might cause chaos:

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The Government have felt that it would be impossible to throw open a military hospital, or indeed any hospital, to the indiscriminate nursing of any persons whose benevolence or wish for employment might induce them to offer themselves, without evidence of their experience or fitness to perform the arduous duties they undertake.

On the other hand, he spoke in glowing terms of Florence Nightingale’s abilities as an organiser, and hence as offering in her person a solution to the problems of the moment at Scutari. An article in the Examiner entitled ‘Who is Mrs Nightingale?’ was widely reprinted. The conventional nature of Miss Nightingale’s education, accomplishments, and family background were stressed, and the quest for nursing experience which had taken her beyond the range of ordinary female activities was explained as arising from a ‘yearning affection for her kind’. Although her mission to the East was described as an act of self-sacrifice, there was still a touch of scepticism as the writer implied that her mission was indeed a departure from the norm.19 A letter to The Times on 13 November also generated more comment and highlighted the issues involved. ‘Common Sense’ offered grudging praise of Florence Nightingale, but expressed reservations about the ‘discretion’ of the politicians who had taken up the offer of her services, suggesting the job would be better done by ‘50 or 60 hospital orderlies’. Problems of accommodation for women, of tasks suited to women, of control and disciplining of women, were all raised with the underlying implication that Scutari was not a place for women. He also queried the particular role of Florence Nightingale as being subordinate to the medical men, but in charge of the women. Sisters of Charity, ‘Common Sense’ argued, were a different matter because of their religious training. He concluded that the ‘reckless devotion’ of Miss Nightingale and her nurses was likely to prove an embarrassment to the government department which sent them. In the responses to this piece, whether in support of the women or against them, the sensitivity of the issues raised by their action in going out to the East was evident. These issues emerged again in a report of her arrival at Scutari from The Times’s correspondent, published on 23 November:

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The employment of female aid in this way was tried once before in our army and failed, and many experienced officers are doubtful as to the success of this renewed attempt, but in the French service it answers admirably, and there seems no sound reason why those who in the popular belief, as in the poets’ language, are ‘ministering angels’, by the bed of sickness and death should, on fair trial, be found wanting now. The public, ever ready to appreciate acts of devotion, will watch with lively interest the progress of such an experiment, and will be reluctant to admit, except upon the clearest evidence, that Protestant England cannot send forth upon a mission of such high benevolence Sisters of Mercy quite as effective as any Roman Catholic country.20

There are a number of problems latent in this summary of Florence Nightingale’s role. The suggestion, for instance, that the nurses are to be a Protestant equivalent of the French Sisters of Charity is fraught with ambiguities. For instance, a large proportion of the British soldiers were, in fact, Roman Catholic, but then, for lack of other suitable candidates, so were a good proportion of the nurses. In December, Herbert’s speech to parliament in which he made reference to Florence Nightingale gained wide coverage, though W.E. Aytoun in Blackwood’s Magazine in January 1855, attacking the government, referred to Sidney Herbert as sheltering behind Miss Nightingale’s skirts.21 In the first months of 1855 the reports from the self-appointed supervisor of The Times’s fund, the Reverend S.G. Osborne, and from other correspondents in Constantinople continued to bring the issues at Scutari, if not the figure of Miss Nightingale herself, constantly before the public.22 In the reports of the meetings of the Roebuck committee the nurses were rarely mentioned, but even so their role, and especially that of Florence Nightingale, must have been called to mind by every reader, when presented with accounts of the muddle that had preceded their arrival. However, the news of Miss Nightingale’s illness in the summer of 1855 received only brief coverage in the daily papers, since by that time, after a long period of inactivity, the allies had at last engaged the enemy, and coverage of the military exchanges and then of the death of Lord Raglan were the main news stories. Finally it should be noted that there must have been hundreds of letters arriving in Britain from soldiers treated at Scutari, making reference to the nurses, and some soldiers at least returning home to 178

spread the word.23 Such letters and verbal accounts must have played no small part in the creation of the reputation of Florence Nightingale during the war. From 1854 through to the end of the war a steady trickle of poetry about Florence Nightingale appeared in print, contributing to the creation of the public’s image of her.24 As the poets constructed an acceptable image of her role, a vocabulary for this purpose was refined from one poem to another. The now famous image of the lady with the lamp appeared only late in 1855 towards the end of this process. Punch was among the first to speak of Miss Nightingale in verse with a poem ‘The Nightingale’s Song to the Sick Soldier’ printed on 4 November 1854.25 Published at a date when only The Times seemed entirely convinced of the necessity of Miss Nightingale’s mission, the poem now has an almost impenetrable ambiguity. It would seem to be one of Punch’s tongue-in-cheek productions, punning on her name and the ‘jug, jug’ song of the nightingale. But, addressed to the common soldier, the poem is also about the comfort and care which he can expect to receive, and, while threatening to transgress the boundaries of decorum at times, the poem finally does offer some muted praise: ‘’Tis a NIGHTINGALE as strong in her heart as in her song, / To carry out so gallant an idea.’ The ambiguity of this poem is deepened by comparing it with a prose satire which was printed on 11 November 1854 under the heading ‘Nurses of Quality for the Crimea’.26 This purports to be a report of a meeting of women interested in making the journey to the East to help nurse the soldiers there. The views of the women, who are said to be following ‘the noble example of Miss Nightingale’ but who are all given satiric names, are characterised as frivolous and ignorant, and the fun is heightened with a few touches of double-entendre. Finally, the character Dowager Lady Strong’ith’head draws attention to the government’s role in this affair, insisting: It was the business of the Government to provide proper nurses for military hospitals: and not to leave the duties of the soldier’s nurse to be undertaken by young ladies of rank and fashion, who knew not even as yet what it was to nurse a baby.

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This succinctly reasserts the parameters of the female role, which was first and foremost to be wives and mothers. Miss Nightingale’s actions are dismissed by the Dowager as a mere ‘display of enthusiasm’. The illustration included with the satiric sketch shows a nightingale with a young woman’s head, perched on a chair beside the bed of a wounded soldier, while in the background a nurse, with angels wings, offers a drink to another soldier. It would seem likely that this illustration would be intended to extend the satiric attack of the prose passage.27 To what extent Punch expected its readers to make connections with the legend of Philomena is not clear.28 In general, personal invective or criticism in Punch was reserved for the public figures, who were, of course, all men. The very fact that Miss Nightingale was named in the paper positioned her beyond the pale of the usual female experience. However, the poetry about her which appeared in various papers over the next few months offered almost unmitigated and intensifying praise, beginning the process of incorporating her role into the culture of the war. A four-verse poem in the Globe on 2 December entitled ‘Russian and English Women’ compared the Russian women enjoying the spectacle of the bloody battlefield with the positive role envisaged for the English women newly arrived at Scutari, who were praised directly in the last lines of the poem. Utilising this comparison with the already established image of the evil Russian enemy, the poem needed to add very little to produce an effective eulogy on the English women.29 Westland Marston’s poem ‘At Scutari’ which appeared in the Athenaeum on 20 January did not name Miss Nightingale, though it focused on her reported activities and began a process of associating her work with the biblical connotations of the imagery of ‘light’, to foreground the religious nature of Miss Nightingale’s role.30 By 27 January 1855 Punch was defending Miss Nightingale in prose,31 and on 17 February it printed another poem on the subject of ‘Scutari’,32 employing similar imagery to Marston’s poem: she is ‘a bright star’, ‘blessed’ and her work is ‘saintly’. The pun on her name now leaves only a residual image of sweetness: ‘Lady – thy very name so sweet / Speaks of full songs.’ The final verse describes her, this time with deadly seriousness, as ‘noble’, shedding ‘a saint’s glory’ around her, and as putting into action ‘what Christ preached’. 180

Such views of Florence Nightingale’s role continued to gain credibility, a reflection, perhaps, of the search for images of national unity, even while the politicians wrangled. The poets helped to construct an acceptable public image for her, a period-specific female role, forcing into the background any anomalies in her situation as a woman present at the scenes of war. The acceptability of this new role for a woman, its religious base, and its assimilation into the public image of war traditionally perceived as a male-dominated event are all subjects which are addressed by Tupper’s poem ‘To Florence Nightingale’.33 Essentially, Tupper seeks to establish Florence Nightingale as ‘the crown of Christian womanhood’ and, to this end, the language of the poem is heavily weighted with religious associations. He establishes Miss Nightingale’s Christian credentials with references to her as ‘saint’ and ‘good Samaritan’, and even a comparison of her work with that of Christ himself, describing her as: With tender eye and ministering hand Going about like Jesus doing good Among the sick and dying:

The horrors of war are mentioned briefly as a contrast to foreground the calm and peace which is brought by Miss Nightingale, ‘Calm dove of peace amid war’s vulture woes’. Tupper is not presenting an argument about whether a woman should or should not go to such scenes in foreign lands, or constructing a new role model for women in general, but is rather establishing a mediating diction to make her work acceptable within this specific situation of the war. The suggestion is that Florence Nightingale solves all the problems out in the East by her very presence. Herein lay her usefulness to a beleaguered government. It was not what she did that mattered to the politicians so much as what she represented to the public. The association of Florence Nightingale with images of peace may also have had another public function. After the considerable hostile publicity given to the Peace Party, by the spring of 1855 editors and poets alike were countering any further calls for peace with the line that peace was actually what the allies were fighting for. 181

An image of Florence Nightingale as the agent of the government bringing ‘peace’ must have been a most useful support to this position. The opposition between peace and war, or the idea of peace in war, is central to the sonnet to Miss Nightingale in the collection of war poems by Smith and Dobell. The reviewer in Blackwood’s Magazine in May 1855 commented: ‘The sonnet to Miss Nightingale is, as the subject requires, altogether graceful and good, and winds up with a beautiful image.’34 There is, in fact, a great deal about pain and horror in the first half of the sonnet, but this provides a foil to the presence of Miss Nightingale, who remains an image of perfect peace, ‘unsoiled’ by the scenes of suffering, her reputation miraculously unsullied in spite of her having transgressed so many social taboos.35 These patterns of imagery are to be found repeated in many other poems about Florence Nightingale. The poem ‘The Nurses’ from Henry Sewell Stokes’s 1855 collection Echoes of the War and Other Poems is essentially a compilation of these much-used images to which he adds a fresh emphasis on the image of the nurse as ‘Angel’.36 Coventry Patmore’s recent poem The Angel in the House had developed the comparison of the perfect loving wife/mother as ‘angel’.37 Applied to Florence Nightingale then, this image effectively endowed her role with all the positive attributes of the carer, even though she was not herself a wife or mother. This was a sensitive area, yet the accounts of her work tended to foreground precisely this personal aspect of the nurse’s position, as an area with the greatest appeal to the public at that time in their anxiety about family members in the East. Miss Nightingale’s role as a substitute carer was referred to more explicitly in the street ballad ‘The Nightingale in the East’, where she appeared not only as substitute mother-carer, but even (with apparently no moral difficulties) substitute wife. This doggerel verse intended for an audience of wives and mothers of ordinary soldiers thus bears witness to the extent to which Miss Nightingale had been placed above the common social taboos in popular perception.38 The ballad also further assimilated her into the heroic story of war, through the reference to her self-sacrifice: ‘She’ll lay down her life for the poor soldier’s sake.’39 The heroic aspect of her role was given increasing prominence in the poetry of 1855 and in accounts of her work in the period following the fall of Sebastopol.40 Her status as 182

national heroine provided a striking use of language to eliminate uncomfortable debate. Once subsumed into the category of ‘hero’, she became a symbol of national unity and, as such, it became inconceivable to question the role she performed. The poets were essentially retelling a story about her which had appeared originally in the newspapers, and as new incidents were reported they were quickly transposed into poetic images. A poem in Punch on 8 December 1855, for example, included information from recent reports about her nocturnal tours of the wards: Upon the darkness of the night how often, gliding late and lone, Her little lamp, hope’s beacon-light, to eyes with no hope else has shone!41

That this picture of her should be the one to capture the public imagination is not surprising, as it so effectively drew together so much of the imagery which had been used over the previous year. Longfellow’s poem ‘Santa Filomena’, published in 1857, can be seen as completing the transformation of the young lady who wished to go as a nurse to the East into the figure of the national heroine, to be preserved for posterity: A Lady with a Lamp shall stand In the great history of the land, A noble type of good, Heroic womanhood.

Her presence passing along the wards, and by implication her role in the war, are compared to a light which shone briefly when a door was opened and then closed: As if a door in heaven should be Opened and then closed suddenly, The vision came and went, The light shone and was spent.42

Longfellow’s image of the lady with the lamp must have been reinforced in the public mind by parallels with another very popular visual image of the period, that of Holman Hunt’s painting ‘The Light of the World’. The reputation of Hunt’s painting, from its first 183

exhibition in April 1854 through the travels of its two versions in the next few years in Britain, Europe and America, has been documented by Jeremy Maas.43 William Bell Scott commented on the wide interest in the painting: ‘For the first time in this country a picture became a subject of conversation and general interest from one end of the island to the other, and indeed continued so for many years.’44 The simplicity and accessibility of the symbolism employed by Hunt was examined by Ruskin in a letter to The Times in May 1854.45 George Landow has noted that this symbolism would have been immediately comprehensible to any audience, ‘because such “natural” symbolism does not require any knowledge of iconographic traditions’.46 It would seem likely that this ready-made visual image of the biblical metaphor of the divine light ‘which lighteth every man that cometh into the world’ must have influenced the poets, and Longfellow in particular, in their choice of imagery and have contributed to the lasting popularity of this final transcendant image of ‘the lady with the lamp’.47 I now want to contrast the work and public image of Florence Nightingale with other roles taken by or assigned to women during the war. Information can now be gleaned from memoirs and letters about the presence of other women in Turkey and the Crimea, wives of officers and soldiers and other nurses, though only passing references are made to them and little detail of the circumstances of their lives is provided.48 At the time, very little was said of these groups, and the wives of the common soldiers in particular remained almost invisible. In October a letter to The Times put the case for employing soldiers’ wives as nurses. The letter writer described the dreadful conditions in which women were living in the East, whether from first-hand knowledge is not clear, and argued that since there was work to be done, the country should train these women, because otherwise their fate was a ‘stain upon our character as a Christian and civilised people’.49 From the uniqueness of this comment, we can deduce that this solution was not generally considered plausible. A passing reference to the presence of soldiers’ wives in the East occurred in the article ‘The story of the campaign’ which appeared in Blackwood’s Magazine in March 1855. E.B. Hamley, describing the wards at Scutari, noted: ‘At some beds, a woman, the wife of the patient, sat 184

chatting with him; beside others stood the somewhat ghostly appearance of a Catholic sister of charity, upright, rigid, veiled, and draped in black.’50 The question of how these wives came to be there was not addressed, but assumed either to be understood or unimportant. When their presence at Scutari was noted, they were treated as a problem, and it was the bad element who were described: It has been necessary within the last few days to carry out with some decision, after infinite annoyance, the extradition of 20 soldiers’ wives out of a total of 120; of those who remain a portion only are willing to be in some degree useful, and do some kind of labour for the hospitals; the rest are simply mischievous and disorderly, and many of them drunken and profligate.51

A rare instance of more attention and understanding being directed to the plight of this group was provided by Household Words. In an article ‘The soldier’s wife’ published on 21 April 1855, Henry Morley made the organisation of the army the main subject of his attack, illustrating this with the case of the wives. First, the army allowed only a few soldiers in each regiment to marry, and then it provided no married accommodation for them. On both of these counts, therefore, the army could be seen to be encouraging the soldiers and their wives to break the rules. In the new circumstances of war, he notes, ‘even the small proportion of wives allowed to each regiment are not only not cared for, but are surrounded by such circumstances as allow them to escape demoralisation only by a miracle.’52 Though these women were at Scutari and available for work, no useful role, and certainly no visible role, was allocated to them. In spite of Morley’s plea for them the soldiers’ wives left stranded in the East seem to have remained at the bottom of the social pile, disadvantaged both by sex and class, a sharp contrast to the public role created for Florence Nightingale. However, a few accounts of the war written by women did appear in print alongside those by men, were reviewed, sometimes praised and presumably widely read. These included the adventures of Mrs Duberly, an officer’s wife who went to the Crimea,53 and Mrs Davis’s account of her work as a nurse.54 A traveller’s account by Mrs Young was widely reviewed and praised, in spite of offering a view of events that was more sensitive and other-centred than most. In fact, 185

many of the travellers who took a trip to the East during the war and published their commentaries were to some extent critical of the establishment and sensitive to the hardships endured by the soldiers. Within the spectrum of such writing Mrs Young’s account would appear to be positioned towards the critical and sensitive extreme, but by no means beyond the pale of public tolerance.55 The memoirs of Mrs Seacole were well received when they were published in 1857, though she had attracted little public attention previously.56 The role which she made for herself in the Crimea appears to have been unique. As a woman of Creole origin, she recognised the prejudice of the whites against her. However, she also had an independent spirit and she worked hard to provide for herself and make herself useful in spite of that prejudice. She saw the war as an opportunity for such usefulness. She was also tolerant and apparently without prejudice, whether busy providing for the arrival of the Sardinian troops,57 or tending the wounded of many different nations on the battlefield.58 She took on a motherly role, grieving for the young men who did not return from the fighting. When she left the Crimea she was almost sorry that this period of usefulness was ended. Mrs Seacole’s independent spirit led her into a role which fitted with none of the models available to women at the time. The fact that her efforts were overlooked in later accounts of the war constitutes not only history’s judgement on her role but, implicitly, a gloss on the position of its chosen heroine, Florence Nightingale. Mrs Seacole’s role, though accepted in the crisis and given brief public attention as the war ended, was not accommodated in the pages of history until she was rediscovered as a heroine of the Crimean campaign in the late twentieth century. In contrast with the public image of Florence Nightingale on the one hand, and the invisibility of Mrs Seacole on the other, are the role models presented for women in the patriotic poetry. The copious output of war poetry, which was working to create images of national unity in spite of political crisis and dissension, reinforced a traditional, supportive role for women in the war. Many of the poems of Richard Chenevix Trench addressed those mourning at home and advocated resignation. In the poem ‘This, or on This’ Trench offered an image of Spartan motherhood as an ideal. Though there is sympathy for their 186

tears, mothers are still urged to regulate their behaviour by ‘duty’s perfect law’.59 Women deserve praise as they conform to this role model, which serves to eliminate any questioning of the process which has led to a son’s death in battle, and fashions a concept of motherhood strictly in accordance with national needs in wartime.60 The personification of England as the mother figure which was developed in many poems of the period presented the country, which was asking for personal sacrifice, in a personal, caring, role. Thus the relationship of soldier to country was presented in terms of a one-toone personal relationship, a more potent image than the colder ‘duty to country’. Typical is the poem ‘Our Mother’ by Sydney Dobell, in which the thoughts of a grieving mother become a metaphor for the mother country, so that by the time we read the injunction to the soldier in the last lines of the poem the two images are conflated: ‘Whoe’er thou art, / Thank God if thou art called a son of hers.’61 The role of poet was another publicly visible role which women continued to fill during the war. A number of poems by women writers were published in the journals at this time. The very fact that these poems reached the public would suggest that they were not perceived as different, or especially distinguished from the rest of the vast output of war poetry. For instance, Mrs E.L. Hervey’s poems of this period, describing battle scenes, praising victories, and lamenting and praising deaths in battle deserve a place among the main body of war poetry.62 However, in her poem ‘Alma’ an intense identification with the despair of those grieving is woven into the central section of an otherwise predominantly patriotic poem. The poem does not, therefore, leave the reader with quite the same comfortable viewpoint as was achieved by the majority of poets employing the rhetoric of patriotism alone.63 In fact, the familiar voice of women’s poetry in the midnineteenth century as moralistic and emotional is still heard during the war. Many poems by women writers do not tackle the subject of war directly, but have a strong emotional or psychological link with the experiences of wartime.64 For example, in the poem ‘The Spirit of May’ Mrs Hervey took ‘a beautiful German legend’ as her subject, but used this to explore themes of motherhood and grief, so that the final mood of resignation was one familiar from other war poetry.65 187

Dinah Maria Craik’s poetry takes a more visibly other-centred stance. Her poems on the war incorporate an intense conception of individual experience, the presentation of which involves her in crossing boundaries set for poetry by the war culture. For instance, her poem on the death of the Czar notes the levelling quality of death, considering the Czar as just another human being. In doing so it crosses a barrier which the press and other poets had been working to build up, between the ‘human’ good allies and the simply evil Russian enemy.66 Her contribution to the copious poetry on the battle of the Alma, ‘By the River Alma’, contains a sprinkling of the usual heroic language and ultimately advocates a position of resignation, but it also shows us the harsh reality of the family’s poverty and appeals for the reader’s sympathy for them on that count as well: ‘Poor the bed is, poor and hard.’ The poem’s structure is that of a dramatic monologue, in which national concerns of the war are subordinated to the fate of the loved one, and it is the intensity of the poet’s identification with the sorrowing woman that gives the poem its power. A similarly distinctive point of view is evident in her poem ‘Looking Death in the Face’, which gives the doubts and anxieties in the mind of a soldier on the night before the battle of Inkerman. While the poem again closes on a note of resignation, the honest identification with the emotions of the soldier rather than the construction of images to reassure the readers is central to the poem.67 While the poems referred to above were published in newspapers whose editorial policies were essentially supportive of the war, Dickens’s approach at Household Words was to concentrate on the issues of concern at home, instead of jumping on the war bandwagon. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that the poetry by women contributors, Mary Jane Tomkins and Adelaide Anne Proctor, printed during the war did not consistently follow the themes of national glory and unity. Proctor’s poem ‘Waiting’, for instance, presents the thoughts of a working-class woman patiently waiting for her husband’s return.68 The poem reaches out to explore an experience that was common in that year of war, on a personal level. Whether this is essentially a woman’s point of view is difficult to argue, but it is certainly both a departure from the norm and characteristic of Anne Proctor’s poetry. 188

Whether she is writing about the poor mother’s despair,69 or the grave of an unknown soldier,70 she is equally striving to understand another life, another point of view, noticeably unhampered by common prejudices. Two poems by Mary Jane Tomkins which were published during the period 1854–5 offer a perspective on the war which was unusual in poetry or prose of this period, except in Household Words. The poem ‘At Thy Peril’ begins with the question ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ and explores the relationship between different classes at an individual level, reminding readers that diseases such as cholera do not discriminate between the classes in the East or at home. This link between responses to the events in the East and the issues at home was rare in the poetry of the time, as it contained the seeds of criticism of the Establishment.71 In the poem ‘Before Sebastopol’ Tomkins again seeks an understanding of an individual’s situation, in this case a soldier encamped before Sebastopol, suffering from cold and hunger.72 There is praise for his courage, but at the centre of the poem lies a criticism of the role of the government, whose ‘world-old rules and party faction’ are seen as responsible for the fate of the poor soldier. Again sympathy with the individual is maintained, creating a tone which is quite out of line with the patriotic fervour of most of the poetry of the period, though consistent with the tone maintained by Household Words. Such crossing of boundaries was also consistent with Dickens’s editorial approach at Household Words. On the whole, however, the sympathy for the individual, the common soldier or the grieving mother, which appeared in many poems by women does not appear to have been seen as challenging the patriotic consensus in poetry. The concern with emotional or spiritual well-being was an extension of the familiar ground for women’s poetry, and the volatility of the political debate ironically meant that these concerns could be assimilated. During the Crimean War difficult public debates threatened the consensus which the discourse of patriotism was striving to maintain. The images of Miss Nightingale, the accommodation of the role of women as poets and the poetic constructions of traditional domestic roles for women were all drawn in to support the notions of national unity and patriotism. In the case of the public image of Florence 189

Nightingale, the language of poetry had been used to make problematic aspects of her role invisible and to focus on simple unambiguous images. The acceptable role of carer was foregrounded and reinforced through religious imagery. The new period-specific role thus created made it possible for one woman to cross the normal boundaries for female activity in the public domain and in the process to rescue the Establishment. Florence Nightingale would have been useless to the government as merely an aberrant female. As a contemporary novelist noted: ‘Womanhood will teach you that a fearful penalty must be incurred by any straying out of the bounds prescribed for your sex.’73 But the strength of the war culture was shown in its ability to create the new myth of one public female role which could coexist comfortably with the traditional supportive role for all other women in wartime. It is the malleability of language which is illustrated here. Language is demonstrated to be a commodity which can be rapidly beaten into a new shape, used, and, with equal speed, hammered back into its original form and put back to its old use: an illustration of the ideological content of language as ‘myth’.74 Such speed of change of language usage and development of new myths was associated in the twentieth century with the efforts of extreme political wills and authoritarian politics of the left or right. Considering the poetic images of Florence Nightingale in relation to the very specific sociopolitical circumstances of the Crimean War exposes the temporary ideological framework within which they originally functioned. The myth creation achieved by the poets cannot be seen as ideologically neutral and is essentially an exercise of power. Cardinal Wiseman, defending the work of the Sisters of Mercy, acknowledged: ‘These ladies are an illustration of power and organisation.’75 During the war the adapted female role for Florence Nightingale and the other-centred language of the women poets were alike subsumed into the war culture. Only when the control of language which made this possible is acknowledged as an exercise of power can the significance of the experience of women in the Crimean War, the adjusted images of some, the complete invisibility of others, be fully appreciated.

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Chapter 10 Conclusions: War Culture in Action

In this study I have tried to reconstruct, as far as is possible, the impressions of the war which the British public were able to glean from the media during 1854–5. This has enabled me to look afresh at some literary landmarks and some forgotten literature against the background of a year of war which strained the new democratic consciousness. Sebastopol fell in September 1855, but England remained at war until 1856, when peace was concluded and the troops were brought home. Only then could society return to normal. Little seemed to have been changed by the war. The reforming zeal resulting from the fatal mismanagement of the war effort by the aristocracy was channelled into limited reform of the Civil Service. Some of the discontent was assuaged by the opportunities to establish provincial newspapers afforded by the abolition of the Stamp Duty. As the French and Turks had been transformed from age-old enemies into allies when war broke out, so, some two decades later, the Turks would become the enemy once again. Looking back over that year, a great deal of what was written seemed intent on contributing to building a wholeness of the cultural experience of war. In the field of poetry, in particular, verses appeared from a great variety of sources and from writers from different classes, and seem to have been available to a wide audience. On this basis it has been argued that the war was a democratising experience and a force for social change, though the history of the late nineteenth century and the enormous battles for reforms, which still remained to be fought, rather contradict this.1 On the other hand, all the literature considered above either engaged in the debates arising from the war or contributed to the building of images of the war and potentially influenced public opinion. This is equally true of the poems of Brough or Dobell, or of Dickens’s essays and novel. Everyone, it seems, was touched by the war. Whilst the reputations of some of these writers were built up in later years, the immediate critical responses to their work in the war year have been

largely overlooked. On the other hand, the works of those poets who are now so rarely read because tradition has marginalised them have insights to offer us about that cultural moment. A culture as ‘a signifying system’2 was created through the vocabulary and discourses of the war, using the old symbols and images of war and creating new ones. The power of the language of war seems to have been a multiple of its usage. The war culture was constantly expanding, taking in to itself aspects of every day life (letter writing or Christmas festivities) and political and social issues (cholera in the East or effectiveness of the Civil Service). It seemed that every incident of ordinary life now had to be seen through the lens of this war culture. While many would-be poets were having their moment of glory in spite of their limited technical expertise, the reputations of some established writers were, temporarily at least, affected by the degree or nature of their engagement with the war culture. For Kingsley, tapping into the new ‘myths’ produced a great success. For Dickens and Mrs Gaskell, trying to circumvent the vocabulary of war or to disconnect debates and images from the war culture created difficulties. Trollope’s timing and his lack of engagement with the developing discourses of the war in his novel The Warden produced a rift with his readers which was reflected in the novel’s poor sales figures. The war culture told people how to think, overriding existing cultural allegiances or class and gender role models. The Turks and French became allies; the working class were soldier-heroes; women were the mothers and wives of heroes. Foucault has posed questions about the ‘sacralization’ and ‘institutional validation’ of literature, asking what exactly is this activity of circulating literature.3 Looking at literature in the context of a war culture, placing canonical works and minor writings side by side, has a similar effect to that which Foucault attributes to Barthes’s ‘myths’: ‘a desacralization of literature’ so that all discourses are seen ‘in the general mass of what is said’.4 This also suggests another dimension of power at work in the ‘sacralization’ process, where texts are selected, not on the basis of the reputation of a writer or political figure, but in terms of the prominence and usefulness of particular acts or works within the war culture. It could be argued that Tennyson’s ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ and Florence Nightingale’s nursing work are remembered because of their centrality to the war culture as it was to be perpetuated. 192

The foregrounding of these contributions functioned to preserve a war culture intact and to soften or silence any aberrant voices in the account of the war transmitted to posterity. ‘One of the obstacles to peace’, it has been said, ‘is the way in which wars are remembered’.5 The final chapter of the story of the engagement of literature with the events of the Crimean War, the final exercise of power of this war culture, is contained in the retelling of the story for posterity in the following months and years.6 Here I will only mention the immediate reworkings of the accounts of the war into fiction. These probably did not set out intentionally to blur the distinction between fact and fiction, merely to capitalise on the interest in the war, but the incorporation of details from the newspaper reports into fictional prose inevitably became part of the process of establishing the ‘true’ account for the reader. As early as January 1855, Fraser’s Magazine rehearsed the arguments for sending nurses to the East in the fictional account ‘The Hospital Nurse: – An Episode of the War: Founded on Fact’.7 In June 1855 Chambers’s Journal ran a serial entitled ‘Karl Hartmann: A Story of the Crimea’, which used the Crimean setting for a tale of intrigue and sentiment incorporating accounts of the battlefield and of the suffering of the soldiers.8 In December the story ‘Grace Benson’s Little Plot’ in ILN used a slender love plot as the vehicle for further battlefield scenes and heroic language.9 Here, the medium of prose fiction is playing a powerful social role. Another striking example is provided by Pierce Egan’s novel Clifton Grey, published from 1854 to 1855 in serial form. It deals with events from the declaration of war to the fall of Sebastopol. At the end of the novel, therefore, or possibly even throughout, Egan must have been writing of events just a few weeks after they had been reported in the press. The novel has quite an elaborate plot and compelling characters, if rather sentimentally handled. Through these devices its presentation of the war is in no way neutral, but sets out to give an interpretation of the events from a patriotic standpoint. Its account continues a process of selecting and simplifying the events which were to be remembered from the complex experience of the war period.10 This is also a process in which the dominance of the vocabulary of war, both its old and new ‘myths’, is being established for future readers. It is interesting to turn from these fictional accounts of the war for British readers to an account of the same war by the Russian writer 193

Tolstoy, which constitutes almost a denial of the possibility of detached recording of events. For his short stories about life inside Sebastopol under siege, Tolstoy chose the unusual form of the second-person narrative to provide immediacy, addressing the reader as if he or she were there. This enables him to open up to his reader the gamut of emotions experienced by the soldier when under attack.11 But it can also be seen as a product Tolstoy’s own experience in the Crimea, when he found himself enlisted to write an official account of the war. The constraints with which this task was hedged about led him to decry the whole business of producing such records. His biographer Aylmer Maude has noted: ‘This experience of how war is recorded produced in him that supreme contempt for detailed military histories which he so often expressed in later years.’12 This facet of social control, which is intensified in time of war, stands exposed in its supposed moment of triumph. Tolstoy’s personal experience of war revealed to him the distortions of fact of which language is capable. In writing his fictional account of the siege, Tolstoy was trying to locate the ‘truth’ of the experience outside the official encodification of events and declining to contribute to the perpetuation of a war culture. The creation and pervasiveness of the war culture in Britain during the Crimean War is revealed through its dominance within the discourses and literary works of the year of war studied here. However, perhaps at this distance the power of this culture might not have been so evident if the control exercised through political power had not begun to weaken. It is the existence of critical voices that by contrast alerts us to the aspiration of a war culture to override other discourses. It is interesting that the complex political debates during the period, which developed in spite of the war culture, disappear from view in the recounting of a ‘story’ of war for a society whose culture was returning to ‘normality’ by 1856. The mismanagement of the war sparked a challenge to the institutions of mid-nineteenth-century society and a handful of works incorporating a remarkably other-centred discourse. The project which Dickens elaborated in Little Dorrit and in the pages of Household Words in response to these evident failures of the aristocratic system – a call for the solidarity of all those outside the ruling class – constituted a fundamental challenge to the establishment which, it could be argued, has hardly been realised by the twenty-first century. What is 194

lost, in the end, as the war culture is packed away with any dissident voices, such as those of Brough or Dickens (on this issue), suitably edited out, is an engagement with questions about power, which their challenging of the role of the aristocracy had brought so close to the surface during the war. The intense questioning about how a democracy can go to war, for instance, did not have any major political results beyond the war period. Yet it was to the authority and power of a divinely appointed sovereign that defenders of the ‘just war’ turned when challenged, most notably in the citing of Vattel as an authority in the exchange of letters between Bright and Watkins.13 In the face of mounting criticism of the management of the war, its defenders turned the attack against democracy itself by asking: ‘Can a reformed parliament act in war as vigorously as in peace?’14 In the late twentieth century the continuing presence of the ‘sovereignty’ issue in politics has been noted as evidence of an underlying link back to a monarchical past. Raymond Williams sees this residue from the past as opposing and limiting ‘the creative interpretation of society as a flexible human organization’,15 while Foucault has underlined the existence of this link with the past by asserting: ‘We need to cut off the king’s head.’16 As we are told at the beginning of the twenty-first century that we are entering an era of continual war against terrorism, it seems that democracy and war may still be uncomfortable bedfellows. The issues about power raised in Brough’s republican poetry, for instance, still have a resonance within a later version of the war culture. In the twenty-first century we perhaps ought to have some doubts about the efficacy of our political system, when the questions about how a democracy goes to war are still not up for discussion. In individual works, what impressed me in the course of this study was the ability of language to acquire new period-specific meanings. The power of these accumulated ‘myths’ I have referred to as a culture of war, overriding other cultures or discourses so that everyday actions and fictional narratives alike had to be seen in the context of war. This is essentially an exercise of power, at least in Foucault’s terms, as consisting in ‘guiding the possibility of conduct and putting in order the possible outcome’.17 What is noteworthy from the point of view of Barthes’s theorising of the ‘myth’ is, firstly, that those new meanings 195

could be packed away so quickly, and, secondly, that the war culture could reappear as fresh and powerful as ever in every war period through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In a postmodern era, however, having dismissed grand narratives and history as fallacies of the past, and embraced the global multi-cultural experience, we might think that the very nature of our culturally diverse society might be security against the domination of any one culture. However, the circumstances of the Crimean War have demonstrated that, where cultural differences existed, their energy was subsumed into the war culture with ease. The workingclass poets sent their comrades off to die in the Crimea in the name of ‘freedom’ and women carers became mourning mothers with little apparent sense of the conflict of these changed cultural roles. Political or moral judgements on the events of 1854–5 have not been the concern of this study. But where a moral guide was needed, Levinas’s grounding of morality in responsibility for the ‘Other’ seemed in tune with the efforts of writers such as Dickens and Mrs Gaskell, as they consciously tried to subvert the war culture and write narratives of human responsibility. Here, Levinas provided a guide to the direction of their work, albeit from a twentieth-century perspective. This study was not the place to explore Levinas’s philosophy further, but the evident antithesis between a war culture and a morality based on an ethic of unlimited responsibility might offer a model for thinking at other moments when a culture of war is dominant. It suggests the importance of Levinas’s legacy to the twenty-first century. His philosophy of ‘the infinite demand of the ethical relation’18 issues a challenge to us to reconceptualise the relationship between morality and war. For me, the process of researching the literature of the Crimean War period and the identification of its war culture in action has raised more questions than it has answered: questions to which, at this distance of time, our limited knowledge of the ordinary citizen’s experiences during that war cannot provide the answers. Sadly, however, the twentyfirst century seems likely to provide further opportunities to study a war culture in action.

196

Notes

Introduction 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

22.

See Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and other Writings, 1972–1977, ed. by Colin Gordon (New York, 1980), pp.86–7. Herbert L. Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow, Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics (Chicago, 1982), p.13. Michel Foucault, ‘The Subject and Power’, in Dreyfus and Rabinow, pp.208–26 (p.208). Peter Schottler, ‘Historians and discourse analysis’, History Workshop, 27 (1989), 37–65 (p.42). S.J. Kleinberg, ed., Retrieving Women’s History (Oxford, 1988), p.15. Dreyfus and Rabinow, p.209. Dreyfus and Rabinow, p.219. Dreyfus and Rabinow, p.222. See, for instance, Foucault’s essay ‘Questions on Geography’ in Power/ Knowledge, pp.63–77 (p.72). Dreyfus and Rabinow, pp. 222–3. Roland Barthes, Mythologies (1973). Barthes, pp.142–3. Barthes, p.120. See, for example, Anthony Easthope, Literary into Cultural Studies (1991). Raymond Williams, Culture (1981), p.30. See, for instance, R. Billington et al., Culture and Society (Houndmills, Basingstoke, 1991), pp.21–8. R.A. Cohen, ed., Face to Face with Levinas (New York, 1986), p.8. ‘Meaning and Sense’ [1972], in Collected Philosophical Papers, trans. by Alphonso Lingis (The Hague and Boston, 1987), pp.75–108 (pp.75, 96–7). Emmanuel Levinas, ‘Ethics as First Philosophy’, in The Levinas Reader, ed. by Sean Hand (Oxford, 1989), pp.75–87 (p.82). Dreyfus and Rabinow, p.221. Michael Howard, Studies in War and Peace (1970), p.32. Azar Gat, in The Origins of Military Thought from the Enlightenment to Clausewitz (Oxford, 1989), comments: ‘Jomini’s great reputation in the nineteenth century rested partly on the belief that he had revealed the principles of Napoleonic warfare’ (p.131). Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. by Anatol Rapoport (1968). The influence of Clausewitz’s work on twentieth-century thinking has been explored by a

23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

29. 30. 31.

number of writers. See, for example, Raymond Aron, Clausewitz: Philosopher of War (1976); Michael Howard, Clausewitz (Oxford and New York, 1983); Peter Paret, Clausewitz and the State (Oxford, 1976). Gat, p.248. G.W.F. Hegel, The Philosophy of History, trans. by J. Sibree (1956), p.48. Hegel, p.39. See, for instance, Y. Melzer, Concepts of Just War (Leyden, 1975); P. Ramsay, The Just War (New York, 1968). Gat, p.182. The British Museum Catalogue lists the early English translations of Clausewitz’s work as: The Campaign of 1812 in Russia (1843); On War, trans. by Col J.J. Graham (1873). Emerich de Vattel, The Law of Nations (1811). Illustrated London News, 10 February 1855, p.121. This journal will be referred to hereafter in abbreviated form as the ILN. Mary Seacole, The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands ed. by William L. Andrews (New York and Oxford, 1988), p.147.

Chapter 1 1.

2. 3. 4. 5.

6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

198

Historians have examined various facets of the problem, such as the diplomacy of Stratford de Redcliffe in Turkey, the protection of Christians in the Ottoman Empire, or the various trade issues. See for example: Philip Warner, The Crimean War (1972); Olive Anderson, A Liberal State at War (1967). For the transcript of the speech see The Times, 1 February 1854, p.3. The Letters of Queen Victoria, ed. by Arthur Christopher Benson and Viscount Esher (1907), III, 8. The leader article in the Liverpool Chronicle, 14 January 1854, p.4. See, for example, an article headed ‘The new Reform Bill’ in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 75 (1854), 369–80, which began with a rhapsody on the war. (This journal will be referred to by its common shortened form of Blackwood’s Magazine throughout this study.) See also, for instance, ILN, 18 February 1854, p.136. The Times, 14 February 1854, p.4. Blackwood’s Magazine, 75 (1854), 369–80 (p.373). Blackwood’s Magazine, 75 (1854), 369–80 (p.374). The Times, 26 January 1854, p.6. Benson and Esher, p.15. ILN, 15 April 1854, p.333.

13. 14. 15. 16.

17. 18.

19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

27.

28. 29.

30. 31.

Punch, 26 (1854), 113. Punch, 26 (1854), 123. Punch, 27 (1854), 97. A sampling from the local press gives a clearer picture of the unrest. The Manchester Courier, for example, in January covered the Preston strike and bread riots in Devonshire; reports and commentaries on the former continued through February, and by March the meetings of the Ten per Cent Movement were being covered. In April there were reports of strikes at Preston, at Stockport, and on the London railway. The Times, 4 January 1854, p.8. The Rev. Sydney Godolphin Osborne will reappear later in this chapter as The Times’s envoy to Constantinople. For facts and figures on the cholera outbreaks in Britain in the previous decade see D.N. Ray, A Treatise on Cholera and Kindred Diseases (Calcutta, 1906); George Godwin, Town Swamps and Social Bridges, ed. by Anthony D. King (1972). A report by W. Farr on the cholera epidemic of 1848–9 published December 1853 is quoted in Leonard Rogers, Cholera and its Treatment (1911). Quoted in Monkchester, Cholera-theories and Cholera-facts (1855), p.27. Benson and Esher, p.40. Punch, 26 (1854), 2. See, for example, the editorial in The Times, 3 January 1854, p.6, or the reference to the country’s prosperity in the Queen’s Speech to parliament. Typical is the leader article in ILN, 28 January 1854, taking issue with a speech by Cobden on this question. Benson and Esher, pp.10–11. This question was raised in ILN, 25 February 1854, p.175. In the summer of 1854 the Commissioners on Promotion in the Army presented their report to parliament. This was widely reported. See, for instance, ‘Promotion in the army’, New Monthly Magazine, 101 (1854), 489–95. This seems to be one reason why the writings of the theorists Clausewitz and Jomini were not well known in the British army. For an account of the state of the army at this time see Elizabeth Holt, The Crimean War (1974), pp.28–35. Quoted in Michael Howard, Studies in War and Peace (1970), pp.54–5. Howard, p.62. Figures which show the domination of the officer ranks by the upper classes are presented by Gwyn Harries-Jenkins in The Army in Victorian Society (1977). The Times, 9 February, 1854, p.6. For a detailed discussion of this question see E.R. Norman, Anti-Catholicism in Victorian England (1968). Lord Lyndhurst is quoted in Doyle’s autobiography as saying: ‘The aggressive character of Rome (for which I am not blaming her) can never be extinguished, it is part of her nature’: Sir Francis H. Doyle, Reminiscences and Opinions 1813–1885 (1886), p.129.

199

32.

33. 34.

35. 36.

37.

38. 39. 40.

41. 42. 43.

44. 45.

200

The monthly journals were less ‘topical’ of necessity, but were soon taking an important role in these debates. See, for instance, ‘A German view of the Eastern Question’, New Monthly Magazine, 101 (1854), 291–301. See, for example, a poem entitled ‘Wery Ridiculous’, Punch, 26 (1854), 128. A review article on the subject in the Edinburgh Review, 99 (1854), 282–314, listed just four books on Turkey for review, but the article began: ‘We have selected these works from the enormous mass of literary compilations to which the present state of Eastern Europe has given birth.’ ‘A glance at Turkish history’ in Blackwood’s Magazine, 75 (1854), 184–92 (pp.185–7). For the history of the peace movement in the early nineteenth century see: Peter Brock, Pacifism in Europe to 1914 (Princeton, New Jersey, 1972); A.C.F. Beales, The History of Peace (1931); Henry Richard, Memoirs of Joseph Sturge (1864). On the peace movement during the Crimean War see A.J.P. Taylor, ‘John Bright and the Crimean War’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 36 (1954), 502–22. The Liverpool Chronicle, 7 January 1854, leader headed ‘Mr Sommerville’s “Thunderbolt”’. Beales (p.97) lists the few papers which did voice opposition to the war. Later in 1854 an article in the Manchester journal, British Quarterly Review, gave a carefully reasoned answer to Bright’s argument, but this stands out as exceptional: 20 (1854), 504–27. Richard, pp.448–55. Quoted Brock, p.357. ILN, 6 May 1854, p.405. Earlier in 1854 a letter writer suggested that Cobden and Bright were behind all the strike disturbances: Manchester Courier, 21 January 1854, p.10. Punch, 26 (1854), 134. Punch, 26 (1854), 151. For details of the campaign against Sturge see Richard, pp.489–92. Punch, 26 (1854), 162. The newspapers now began to criticise Aberdeen for not getting on with the job: The Times, 2 September 1854. Punch, 27 (1854), 38, made the same point by comparing Aberdeen with the Peace Party. This view was echoed in the Liverpool Chronicle, 28 March 1854. A letter from Aberdeen to Queen Victoria as early as June 1854, spoke of draft instructions for Lord Raglan ‘in which the necessity of a prompt attack on Sebastopol [...] was strongly urged’: Benson and Esher, p.36. The question of when the politicians took the decision becomes crucial for the historian in apportioning blame for the mismanagement of the landing in the Crimea later in the year. From the point of view of this study considering how the British public saw the war at the time it is important to note here that no decision about the destination of the troops was made public during the summer months. The Times’s editorial on 26 February commented: ‘The Government have wisely

46. 47. 48. 49. 50.

51. 52. 53. 54. 55.

56. 57.

58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64.

abstained from giving, and the public from requiring, any information as to the future movements [...] in which the forces [...] may ere long be engaged.’ Punch, 26 (1854), 136, 197. See, for example, Punch, 26 (1854), 257. See, for instance, the report of the departure of the troops: The Times, 23 February 1854, p.8; Punch, 26 (1854), 72; ILN, 15 July. See, for example, the supplement devoted to ‘The Day of Humiliation and Prayers’, ILN, 29 April 1854. See, for example, the leader in the Liverpool Chronicle, 10 June 1854; ILN, 29 April 1854. For details of Kossuth’s campaigns in 1854 see Peter Brock, ‘Joseph Cowen and the Polish exiles’, Slavonic and East European Review, 32 (1953–4), 52–69. See, for example, ILN, 11 March 1854. See ILN, 24 June 1854. The Times, 18 November 1854, p.7. The editorial in The Times, 22 September 1854, p.6. See, for example, on Turkey: Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, 21 (1854), 583–8; 749–51. For articles on Russia see: Blackwood’s Magazine, 26 (1854), 452–7; Bentley’s Miscellany, 36 (1854), 361–70; Chambers’s Journal, N.S. 2 (4, 11, 8 November 1854), 288–92, 308–10, 332–4. Athenaeum, 14 October 1854, p.1231. Edinburgh Review, 100 (1854), 534–62 (p.554). This article is interesting not only for its detailed analysis of the ineffective structure of the army and the War Department, but also for the way it assumes a link between the civil and military government services: ‘The single purpose of preliminary examinations for public employment, civil or military, is or ought to be this; – that competent judges shall be satisfied that candidates are possessed of such an amount of general intelligence and ability, as shall qualify them for the right discharge of the duties which it is proposed to assign to them’ (p.554). A letter to The Times, 26 December 1854, from an Indian Oficer, reported that 200 officers had resigned in two days. The Times, 18 December 1854, p.8. Punch, 27 (1854), 66. The Times, 29 December 1854, p.9. See the report of the proceedings of the House of Commons carried in The Times, 19 December 1854, p.5. See The Times, 6 November 1854, p.8. Copious evidence of this problem is available to later readers in the diaries and memoirs of officers who served in the Crimea, where it is evident that a great deal of their time was taken up with jockeying for positions and seeking influential contacts. See, for example, Godman’s letters: P. Warner, ed. The Fields of War (1977), pp.93, 108.

201

65.

66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81.

82. 83. 84. 85.

86.

87. 88. 89.

202

See a letter in The Times, 8 December 1854, p.8. Other correspondents complained that particular acts of bravery or actions by specific divisions had been overlooked in the reporting of the war. See, for example, a letter in The Times, 20 December 1854, p.10. Punch, 27 (1854), 249. See, for example: The Times, 2, 4, 6 September; Manchester Courier, 2, 9 September; Observer, 3 September 1854. The Times, 2 September 1854, p.8. See The Times, 2 September 1854, p.8. See The Times, 9 September 1854, p.9. See The Times, 13 September 1854, p.4. Punch, 27 (1854), 106. See, for example, a poem entitled ‘Our Mean Metropolis’: Punch, 27 (1854), 158. For reports on the cholera epidemic see, for example: The Times, 25 December 1854, p. 9; ILN, 30 December 1854. There were occasional exceptions to this pattern. See, for example, Reynold’s Newspaper, 17 September 1854, p.7. Punch, 27 (1854), 154. See also letters to The Times, 20 September 1854, p.6; Manchester Courier, 28 October 1854; Manchester Examiner, 8 and 18 November. The Times, 6 December 1854, p.10. Fraser’s Magazine, 50 (1854), 504–12 (p.512). Punch, 27 (1854), 158. For other commentaries on Royer’s book see: Examiner, 30 September 1854, p.616; Morning Herald, 6 October 1854, p.3; The Times, 20 October 1854; ILN, 21 October 1854; Gentleman’s Magazine, December 1854, pp. 599–600; a parody of Royer’s tales by Dudley Costello, ‘Harry Brown and the Emperor’, New Monthly Magazine, 102 (1854), 269–82; Spectator (1854), p.1062. Manchester Guardian, 7 October 1854. Manchester Courier, 7 October 1854. Sunday Times, 15 October 1854, p.5. On 11 November the ILN was still finding new angles on the battle of the Alma, with an illustration giving a view of the battlefield as seen from ‘the Mizen top of HMS “Retribution”’, p.481. ‘The War in the Crimea’, New Monthly Magazine, 102 (1854), 253–68: ‘The story of the campaign, written in a tent in the Crimea, Part I’, Blackwood’s Magazine, 76 (1854), 619–37. The latter was the first of a series of articles which ran to December 1855. Alan Hankinson identifies Thomas Chenery as the writer of these reports: Man of Wars: William Howard Russell of ‘The Times’ (1982), p.70. See Sydney Godolphin Osborne, Scutari and its Hospitals (1855), pp.50–1. The Times, 14 October 1854, p.6.

90.

91.

92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100.

101.

102. 103.

104. 105. 106. 107.

One dissenting voice was heard in the editorial of the Sunday Times, 29 October: ‘Our conviction is, that the maintenance of the soldiers’ and sailors’ wives and children should not devolve on a charitable association, but be provided for regularly by parliament.’ The paper was similarly adamant that all the needs of the soldiers themselves should be met by government and not by charity. The ILN editorial on 21 October denied the need for a second fund and the veracity of the reports from Scutari: ‘The first appeal will meet with a liberal and cordial response – the second, we hope, will fall dead with the contradiction of the false statements, on the truth of which alone it would have been justifiable either to make or respond to it.’ Typical of the instinctive antagonism to The Times’s fund from other papers was the announcement of the Morning Chronicle on 18 October that the fund had failed. That paper also, however, soon had to acknowledge the need for the fund. See letters to The Times from 1 November and reports and letters in many other papers. See, for instance, Manchester Courier, 18 November 1854. See, for instance, the report in the Manchester Examiner, 13 December 1854. Manchester Courier, 30 September 1854, p.7. For letters home asking for supplies see, for instance, the Godman letters: Warner, pp.56, 98, 112. More detail of the mixed response to Miss Nightingale’s mission will be given in Chapter 9. For a more detailed examination of this subject see Chapter 3. See, for example, The Times, 26 October, 2 November 1854. An account by The Times’s correspondent was published on 5 December, but was supplemented by innumerable accounts in letters both to the editor and private letters through to the end of December. See Manchester Guardian, 2 December; Manchester Examiner and Times, 2, 6, December; The Times, 1 December; ILN, leader article, 9 December; Liverpool Chronicle, 2 December. Fuller discussions of his views were given in journal articles such as, ‘Kossuth on the conduct of the war’, Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, 21 (1854), 487–91. Punch, for example, printed a poem which began with an attack on Bright, but ended as a call for new recruits for the Crimea: 27 (1854), 199. The Manchester Examiner and Times on 20 December printed a report of a meeting at the town hall at which Bright and Watkin again clashed, and this generated more debate in the newspaper’s columns. The editorial of 27 December 1854. The Times, 19 December 1854, p.7. The Times, 20 December 1854, p.10. The editorial in the Sunday Times, 17 December 1854: ‘It is generally believed that the Poles and Hungarians will form a large proportion, perhaps the majority

203

108.

109. 110. 111. 112. 113.

114. 115. 116. 117.

118.

119.

120.

121. 122.

204

of the 15,000 men to be immediately raised and disciplined for service in the east.’ 26 December 1854. Evelyn Bolster quotes the figure of 10,000 Germans fighting on the allied side in the Crimea, presumably as mercenaries: The Sisters of Mercy in the Crimean War (Cork, 1964), p.211. When the news of this bill reached the Crimea, Godman recorded in his diary a general opposition to the move: Warner, p.129. Punch, 27 (1854), 262. Letter dated 30 September: W.H. Russell, The War: From the Landing at Gallipoli to the Death of Lord Raglan (1855), p.196. Report dated 19 October: Russell, p.217. Russell, pp.279–80. Letters to the press, as well as later diarists, all agree with Russell’s emphasis on the rain, mud and boredom. ILN, for instance, on 16 December commented: ‘We understand that the Commander-in-Chief in the Crimea has deemed it necessary to remonstrate with the Correspondents of two of our daily contemporaries in Sebastopol for sending information to London of a nature to be of service to the Russians’ (p.602). A reading of the diary accounts of how the British officers collected information would seem to confirm this. The Times, 7 December 1854, p.6. 8 December 1854, p.6. The passage of news was a two-way affair. There is evidence that soldiers at the front were disheartened by inaccurate reporting, though cheered by the realisation that people at home sympathised with their situation. For comments on the accuracy of the reporting of the war see: Mabell, Countess of Airlie, With the Guards We Shall Go (1933), pp.121, 172; George Palmer Evelyn, A Diary of the Crimean War, ed. by Cyril Falls (1954), pp.93, 125; Warner, pp.83, 130. For instance, the Liverpool Chronicle, describing, it must be said, what it considered to be an outrage, indulged in colourful references to the physical horrors of war which must have been extremely painful to those readers whose relatives were in the Crimea, but which was presumably intended to arouse extremes of anger against the enemy: 25 November 1854, p.4. Punch, 27 (1854), 218. Other examples in Punch include: ‘The Due of the Dead’ (p.173); ‘The Battle of Balaklava’ (p.219); ‘The Battle Roll, The Battle of Inkerman’ (p.236). Typical are poems in Punch, for example, ‘A schoolboy’s song of the War’, 27 (1854), 179. See also a poem in New Monthly Magazine, 102 (1854), 64–5, ‘The Pagan and the Czar’ which addressed the Czar as ‘the sole cause of war’. ILN, 16 December 1854, p.597. See, for example, the advertisements in ILN, 30 December 1854.

123. Bentley’s Miscellany, 36 (1854), 541–3 (p.542), in its New Year review, noted the number of reforms which had been shelved to make room for the war. 124. For instance, a short letter signed ‘Poor Parson’ appeared in The Times, 27 December 1854, p.7, asking the paper to help the poor workers as it had helped the poor soldiers. 125. See, for instance, ILN, 30 December 1854, which, under the heading ‘The Old and New Year’ asserted: ‘Vulgar and common-place orators, who find it easy to declaim upon the horrors of the battlefield, are often unable to render justice to its glories, its self-devotion, its manly virtue and its disinterested heroism.’ 126. The Times, 23 December 1854, p.9.

Chapter 2 1. 2.

3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

14.

15.

T.W. Hill, ‘Charles Dickens and war’, Dickensian, 10 (1914), 257–62 (p.257). Letter dated 31 July 1854, from Villa de Camp de Droite, Boulogne: The Letters of Charles Dickens, ed. by Madeline House, Graham Storey and Kathleen Tillotson (Oxford, 1967– ), VII: 1853–5, ed. by Graham Storey, Kathleen Tillotson and Angus Easson (Oxford, 1993), pp. 382–3. Letter dated 12 July 1854: The Letters of Charles Dickens, VII, 366–7 (p.367). The Letters of Charles Dickens, VII, 418–19 (p.419). Letter dated 4 October 1854: The Letters of Charles Dickens, VII, 429–31, p.430. The Speeches of Charles Dickens, ed. K.J. Fielding (Oxford, 1960), pp.170–1. The Letters of Charles Dickens, VII, 453–6 (p.454). The Letters of Mrs Gaskell, ed. J.A.V. Chapple and A. Pollard (1966), p.314. The Letters of Mrs Gaskell, pp.316–19 (p.319). Letter dated 30 October 1854: The Letters of Mrs Gaskell, pp.321–2 (p.321). E. Haldane, Mrs Gaskell and her Friends (1930), pp.104–5. The Letters of Mrs Gaskell, pp.325–6 (p.325). See Harry Stone’s introduction to Charles Dickens’ Uncollected Writings for ‘Household Words’ 1850–59, 2 vols (1986), I, 3–68. See also Gerald Giles Grubb, ‘The editorial policies of Charles Dickens’, Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, 58 (1943), 1110–24 and ‘Dickens’ influence as an editor’, Studies in Philology, 42 (1945), 811–23. Stone, I, 14. See also Stone, II, 477–8, where he prints a letter from Dickens to Wills which he discusses as evidence of the way in which Dickens exercised this tight editorial control. Household Words, 1 (1850), 1–2 (p.1).

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16.

17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.

25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40.

41.

206

For details of Grenville Murray’s association with Household Words see Anne Lohrli, Household Words: Table of Contents, List of Contributors and their Contributions (Toronto, 1973), pp.381–5. The collected articles by ‘The roving Englishman’ were published in 1855 and were praised in reviews. See The Times, 1 June 1855, p.10; ILN, 9 June 1855, p.586. Household Words, 9 (1854), 56–61 (p.56). Household Words, 9 (1854), 349–52 (p.352). Household Words, 9 (1854), 32–3. Household Words, 9 (1854), 266–8. Punch also used this song title as an introduction to a short serious article on the condition of the wives and children left behind. See Punch, 26 (1854), 86. Punch, 26 (1854), 241; ILN, 25 February 1854. ‘Mr Bull’s somnambulist’ appeared on 25 November: Household Words, 10 (1854), 337–9. The relationship is traced by A.B. Hopkins in Elizabeth Gaskell: Her Life and Work (1952), pp.135–51 and in ‘Dickens and Mrs Gaskell’, Huntington Library Quarterly, 9 (1945–6), 357–86. Letter dated 3 May 1853: The Letters of Charles Dickens, VII, 76. Letter dated 23 April 1854: The Letters of Mrs Gaskell, pp.279–81. Undated letter [11–14 October 1854]: The Letters of Mrs Gaskell, pp.305–10 (p.310). Letter dated 27 October 1854: The Letters of Mrs Gaskell, pp.316–21 (p.321). See, for instance, Edgar Wright, Mrs Gaskell: The Basis for Reassessment (1965), p.129. Letter dated 27 December 1854: The Letters of Mrs Gaskell, pp.323–4 (p.323). See also an undated letter to Anna Jameson, [January 1855]: The Letters of Mrs Gaskell, pp.328–9. The Letters of Charles Dickens, VII, 513–14 (p.513). Hopkins, ‘Dickens and Mrs Gaskell’. See also Gerald G. Grubb, ‘Dickens’ editorial methods’, Studies in Philology, 40 (1943), 79–100. Household Words, 10 (1854), 169–70. Household Words, 10 (1854), 276–7. Household Words, 10 (1854), 196–9. Household Words, 10 (1854), 217–21. Household Words, 10 (1854), 560–1. Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South (Harmondsworth, 1970), p.47. References for subsequent quotations from this novel are given in parentheses in the text. For details of Lord Cardigan’s career see Cecil Woodham-Smith, The Reason Why (1953), chapters 3–5. Reports of the Perry case appeared in all the leading papers from midsummer 1854. This is achieved, for instance, through discussions which show the cause of the strike to be high bread prices (p.201), or through Margaret’s fresh unprejudiced view of the factory girls (p.110).

42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47.

The image of England as a caring parent is one much used in the patriotic poetry of the period, which is considered in Chapters 3 and 5. See, for instance, Quarterly Review, 95 (1854), 250–70 (p.251). Deborah A. Thomas, Dickens and the Short Story (1982), p.64. Thomas, p.72. Letter dated 17 December 1854: The Letters of Mrs Gaskell, pp.323–4 (p.324). Henry Morley in his article ‘Preventible accidents’ begins the last paragraph, in which he baldly states the culpability of the negligent factory owners, with the statement ‘I am going to close this article in a whisper’: Household Words, 9 (1854), 105–6.

Chapter 3 1.

2. 3.

4.

5.

6. 7.

See Hallam Lord Tennyson, Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Memoir, 2 vols (1897), I, 381. A similar comment is given in Sir Charles Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson (1950), p.283. Edgar Shannon and Christopher Ricks, ‘“The Charge of the Light Brigade”: the creation of a poem’, Studies in Bibliography, 38 (1985), 1–44. See William H. Russell, The War: From the Landing at Gallipoli to the Death of Lord Raglan (1855), entry dated 21 September 1854, p.177, and printed in The Times, 10 October 1854. The record of later wars indicates that many lessons were learned from the Crimean experience by later politicians. One such was clearly the danger of releasing high casualty figures upon an unprepared public, another the need for control of the press during a war. Trench’s poem ‘Alma’ appeared in his collection of 1855, and was published earlier in The Times, 24 October 1854, and in Weekly Dispatch, 31 December 1854, p.842. His poem ‘After the Battle’, published in The Times, 15 November 1854, like ‘Alma’ dealt with the individual’s feelings of loss, offering consolation for the fate of the loved one, through conviction of his status as hero. Blackwood’s Magazine, 76 (1854), 696–7. Nicholas Mitchell’s poem ‘The Decisive Charge at the Battle of the Alma’ appeared in New Monthly Magazine, 102 (1854), 294–5. The poem offers quite a lengthy account of the battle, couched in consistently heroic diction and punctuated with heroic similes, ending with ‘the shout of victory!’ In January 1855 a poem, ‘Alma’, published in Fraser’s Magazine, 51 (1855), 125–6, referred to the ‘glory’ and ‘victory’ of Alma, and addressed the fallen in euphoric terms: ‘Heroes, I count your lot divine, / My heart beats wildly at your

207

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

208

name, / Your glory kills this life of mine, / And turns our petty pride to shame.’ These poems are typical of a large output of poetry on the battle of the Alma, which served to build and consolidate heroic images of the war for the public. Eyewitness accounts of the battle published later are divided on the question of the role of the Turks in the sequence of events at Balaklava, and though some offer explanations and understanding of the action of the Turkish soldiers, others rather provide insights into the degree of prejudice which remained amongst the soldiers and officers against the Turks, in spite of the efforts of the press to build a new image for Britain’s new ally. Criticism of the Turks is heard, for instance, in A Trip to the Trenches in February and March 1855, by ‘An Amateur’ (1855), pp.227–8; Sir Joseph Crowe, Reminiscences of ThirtyFive Years of my Life (1895), p.159; Anon., (H.B.), Letters from the Crimea During the Years 1854 and 1855 (1863), p.56. A counterview, less prominent in the newspapers of the time, can be found in G. Buchanan, Camp Life as Seen by a Civilian 1854–1856 (Glasgow, 1871), p.210; R.C. Macormick, Two Months in and about the Camp before Sebastopol (1855), p.78; P.H. Rathbone, A Week in the Crimea (Liverpool, 1855), pp.41–2. In the newspaper reports the figures given for the number of men who took part in the charge varied from one account to another. It can be seen from passages quoted above that The Times offered two different figures. A letter in the Manchester Examiner of 22 November put the figure at 850, while a letter to The Times of 20 November gave the figure of 900. This in itself suggests that The Times’s account of 14 November was the one to which Tennyson returned when he wrote his poem, or at least that Russell’s account was the one which had stuck in his mind. This merely confirms Emily Tennyson’s explanation to John Forster in a letter of 6 December 1854. She notes also that ‘He prefers “six hundred” on account of the metre’. See The Letters of Alfred Lord Tennyson, ed. by C.Y. Lang and E.F. Shannon, 3 vols (Oxford, 1982–90), II, 100. See, for example, a letter to the The Times, 25 November 1854, p.7, dated 31 October, from a soldier to his mother, giving a brief personal account of the battle of Balaklava. Also a letter of 2 December, p.12, on the same subject. The Sunday Times, 26 November 1854, returning to the account of the battle: ‘Ten thousand of the enemy, to use the Homeric phrase, “bit the dust”’; the editorial in the Liverpool Chronicle, 25 November 1854, on the horrors of the battlefield. The Times, 28 November 1854, p.6. Emerich de Vattel, who was quoted by A. Watkins in his correspondence with John Bright as a well-known authority on the subject, stated in The Law of Nations (1811): ‘When the sovereign or ruler of the state declares war against another sovereign, it is understood that the whole nation declares war against another state’ (p.321). Though the members of the British cabinet and the gentlemen of the press were less likely to have read Carl von Clausewitz’s On War, what was happening, in effect, illustrated his point that once a war was undertaken, everything should be subordinated to

13.

14.

15. 16. 17.

18. 19.

20.

21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

the aim of winning that war. Thus, the editor here presents Clausewitz’s argument for unanimity in time of war, because ironically the country is experiencing the difficulties of war without complete and unequivocal support at home. After the coup d’état in France, and Louis Napoleon’s introduction of a constitution which gave him power for ten years, Tennyson, rather than waiting to follow the establishment line, had jumped in with a personal reaction to the events in France. In a series of poems Tennyson praised Britain as the defender of freedom, and hinted at the dangers now posed to that freedom from across the channel. See ‘Suggested by Reading an Article in a Newspaper’, in The Poems of Tennyson, ed. by Christopher Ricks, 3 vols (1987), II, 477; ‘The Third of February 1852’, Poems, II, 473. The same sentiments are also evident in his poem ‘Ode on the death of the Duke of Wellington’, Poems, II, 480. Punch, 27 (1854), 219. Whether Tennyson read this poem on 2 December is irrelevant if we consider, not the hypothesis that the laureate might have been influenced by Taylor’s poem, but the reality that Taylor clearly follows the same source as Tennyson did, to produce these heroic images. The poem was also printed in Reynold’s Newspaper, 24 December 1854. Examiner, 9 December 1854, p.780. Reprinted in the Morning Post, 25 February 1855, p.10. Shannon and Ricks give a precise account of both manuscript and printed alterations to the poem from its conception on 2 December to the version which was depatched to the Crimea in August 1855. A letter dated 9 December 1854: Letters, II, 102. Robert Story, The Third Napoleon: An Ode Addressed to Alfred Tennyson Esq. Poet Laureate (1854), p.3. The poem was reviewed in Athenaeum, 9 September 1854, p.581. Article appearing on 25 November: ‘The month: the library and the studio’, Chambers’s Journal, N.S. 2 (1854), 349–52 (p.349). This would appear to be the poem ‘The Battle of the Alma’ to be found in Poems, III, 627. John Murray Moore, in Three Aspects of Alfred Lord Tennyson, the Late (1901), commenting on this poem noted that: ‘Tennyson wrote the first verse, and Mrs Tennyson both finished the song and set it to music’ (p.73). The poem is quoted in full by Hallam Lord Tennyson: Memoir, pp.198–9. Blackwood’s Magazine, 76 (1854), 696–7 (p.696). Letter dated 24 March 1854: Letters, II, 83. See, for example, the comment quoted from Tennyson’s journal in October: Memoir, p.199. Letters, II, 101. Forster’s words ‘And now you have done it’, from a letter dated 9 December 1854: Letters, II, 102. The building of images of war through poetry in general is considered in more detail in Chapter 5.

209

27. 28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33. 34.

35.

210

Athenaeum, 16 December 1854, p.1522. The Death-Ride: A Tale of the Light Brigade (1854), p.8. Concern at the standard of poetic expression on the war was the ostensible message of the poem ‘Poets’, signed ‘W.J.L.’, Examiner, 30 December 1854, p.834. However, this seems to have been simply an excuse for more rhetoric on the war. Shannon and Ricks have made a case for the judgment of Tennyson in the choice of his title, ignoring the earlier use of the same wording. Westland Marston’s title obviously passed into popular folklore as a summary of the event, since an article on the reputation of Captain Nolan in Reynold’s Newspaper, 18 March 1855, at the time when the questions about responsibility for the charge of the Light Brigade were being asked in parliament, was headed ‘The Death-Ride’. The comparison of the sacrifice of British lives in the charge of the Light Brigade with the sacrifice of Greek lives at Thermopylae was also taken up by prose writers: G.C. Swayne, ‘Peace and patriotism: a letter to Irenaeus’, Blackwood’s Magazine, 77 (1855), 97–111 (p.109), and E.B. Hamley, ‘The story of the campaign’, 77 (1855), 492–8 (p.495). My first concern is with the poem which appeared on 9 December, 1854. Shannon and Ricks have carefully considered the effect of all the changes Tennyson made to his poem or considered making, particularly as they affect the polishing and perfecting of the poem, their critical yardstick being the creation of a poetic unity between form and content. The visual quality of Tennyson’s war poetry has been noted by Jerome J. McGann, The Beauty of Inflections (Oxford, 1985). He compares it to ‘the iconography of heroism’ in French painting of the post-Napoleonic years (p.197). McGann concludes that Tennyson was seeking to give to the English cavalry the status which they deserved as the aristocratic branch of the army, and had never had (p.200). Such an interpretation of the poem’s strengths suggests Tennyson’s astute skill in assimilating the current images of battle. The ILN, for instance, frequently carried pictures of soldiers on the battlefield. For a full discussion of the role of art in the Crimean War period see Matthew Paul Lalumia, Realism and Politics in Victorian Art of the Crimean War (Epping, 1984). Reprinted in T.J. Wise, A Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Lord Tennyson, 2 vols (1908), I, 145. For further discussion of this point and for Tennyson’s revised handling of the phrase ‘Someone had blunder’d’ with similar effect, see Shannon and Ricks, pp.14–15. The recall of Lord Lucan and the discussion of his case in parliament were well covered in the newspapers in March and April 1855. In fact at this point a number of papers which had not previously done so began to carry the texts of parliamentary reports from The Times. These debates in turn generated a correspondence on the subject in the columns of the newspapers. Another

36.

37.

38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44.

45.

46.

source of renewed interest in the incident in 1855 was provided by the publication and reviewing of a number of journals. See, for instance, Lieut. George Shuldham Peard, Narrative of a Campaign in the Crimea (1855), reviewed in Athenaeum, 16 June 1855, p.702, and in the Morning Chronicle, 4 June 1855, p.6. Since poetry was popular in local as well as national newspapers, there were doubtless many more poems than this study has located. For one example in a local paper, see ‘At Balaclava’ signed ‘T.B.A.’ and taken from the New York Journal of Commerce, in the Preston Pilot and County Advertiser, 14 April 1855. This was an approach taken up in many heroic poems on the war thereafter. Marston’s comparison of the Light Brigade with the heroes of Thermopylae had served to make the same point. Poems (1865), pp. 335, 343. Frederic W.H. Meyers, ‘Archbishop Trench’s poems’, Nineteenth Century, 2 (1877), 489–96 (p.495). Sydney Dobell and A. Smith, Sonnets on the War (1855), p.21. This volume was reviewed as early as January in the Athenaeum, 13 January 1855, p.46. See a letter quoted in Shannon and Ricks, p.12. Quoted in Shannon and Ricks, p.8. For details of the production of Tennyson’s ‘Charge of the Heavy Brigade’ see Poems, III, 92–3. For instance, the overall verdict on Tennyson’s poem from the reviewer in Fraser’s Magazine in September 1855 was very positive. Perhaps illustrating the general reputation of Tennyson’s ‘Charge’ is a comment in a footnote to a poem published in The Preston Pilot and County Advertiser, 14 April 1855. The poem signed ‘T.B.A.’ is entitled ‘At Balaclava’ and is taken from the New York Journal of Commerce. It mixes echoes of Tennyson’s poem with more lurid and dramatic language, and ends with a hope that the story of the Light Brigade will take its place ‘on the scroll of history,/ And on the lips of poesy’, with a footnote to these lines: ‘The author refers to Mr Tennyson’s ode, which will take its place with such noble lyrics as Campbell’s “Hohenlinden” and Burns’s “Bannockburn”.’ ‘Tennyson’s Maud’, Fraser’s Magazine, 52 (1855), 264–73. See also Richard M. Milnes’s verdict on the poem in a letter of 16 July 1855: ‘A real gallop in verse, and only good as such’: Wemyss T. Reid, The Life and Letters of Richard Monckton Milnes, 2 vols (1890), I, 511. It has not been the remit of this chapter to engage directly with more recent critical assessments of Tennyson’s ‘Charge’, which range from varying degrees of praise, for instance, from biographers such as Philip Henderson, to the fairly derisory commentary from Bernard Bergonzi in Heroes’ Twilight: A Study of the literature of the Great War (1965), p.16.

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Chapter 4 1.

2. 3. 4. 5.

6.

7.

8.

9. 10.

11.

212

In commentaries in January the journals were essentially catching up on this issue. See Blackwood’s Magazine, 77 (1855), 1–20 (p.16) and 97–111 (p.104); Fraser’s Magazine, 51 (January 1855), 32–9 (p.34). The debate on the bill fed into the wider issues which dominated 1855, as illustrated in a letter to The Times, 4 January, p.10, in which the writer claimed the problem of recruitment was caused by poor pay and lack of promotion opportunities. The charge of the Light Brigade stayed in the public eye well into 1855, by virtue of parliamentary questions about the ‘glorious’ disaster. Liverpool Chronicle, 27 January 1855. For the political affiliations of individual newspapers at this time see Stephen Koss, The Rise and Fall of the Political Press in Britain, 2 vols (1981), I, p.111. See Sir Joseph Crowe, Reminiscences of Thirty-Five Years of my Life (1895). Later, photographs were available: Roger Fenton, Photographs of the Seat of War in the Crimea (Manchester, 1856). The exceptions to this pattern are few but striking. For instance, a letter from a doctor described the appalling conditions for the wounded resulting from mismanagement: The Times, 2 August 1855, p.12. See, for instance, the Prospective Review, 11 (1855), 39–50, Article III, ‘A month in the camp before Sebastopol’: ‘These private letters are of inestimable value to those who like to obtain facts at first hand, veritable fragments of reality, unhampered by reflection and unmixed with hearsay’ (p.39). The editorial in the ILN on 6 January 1855 also commented on this subject: ‘Every letter from the Crimea in which private soldiers relate the history of their hardships [...] manifests a spirit of pugnacity, and of impatience at the compulsory inaction to which the weather has reduced them, that augurs ill for the success of the Russians in the next battle.’ Veronica Bamfield notes that package tours were being run to the battle zone by ‘an enterprising shipping firm’: On the Strength: The Story of the British Army Wife (1974), p.70. Typical of the travel accounts is A Trip to the Trenches in February and March 1855 (1855), by An Amateur. See, for example, the report on public health in The Times, 14 March 1855, p.9, though by 11 April a letter-writer claimed there had been a vast improvement. See, for example, cartoons and poems on dirty old Father Thames: Punch, 29 (1855), 26, 50, 53, 64. See also ‘The Poisonous State of the River Thames’, ILN, 21 July 1855; ‘The Public Health’, ILN, 4 August 1855, and similar reports on public health in The Times during July. See, for example, the Liverpool Chronicle, 20 January 1855. The extent to which the public entertained hopes of peace at this time is difficult to judge, but among the soldiers at the front there does seem to have been a strong interest in the Vienna talks. Many of the writers of diaries and journals make reference to

12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

17.

18. 19. 20.

21. 22. 23. 24.

25. 26.

27. 28.

rumours in the camps that peace was imminent: Surgeon in the Crimea, ed. by Victor Bonham-Carter (1968), pp.149–50; Robert Beaufoy Hawley, The Hawley Letters, ed. by S.G.P. Ward (1970), pp.44–5. See, for example, the Liverpool Chronicle, 24 February 1855; Reynold’s Newspaper, 25 February 1855; Morning Post, 23 February 1855, p.5; Weekly Dispatch, 25 February 1855, p.13. See the editorial in the ILN, 6 January 1855. ILN, 10 March 1855, p.237. See, for example, The Times, 3, 5, March; Examiner, 3 March; ILN, 10 March; Blackwood’s Magazine, 77 (1855), 481–92. The Times on 6 March announced that Lord John Russell had reached Vienna, and articles on the subject appeared thereafter until May in this and other papers. The event was given prominence for many weeks, with The Times on 29 March announcing that preparations for the visit were under way, and covering the visit itself from 16 April. ILN, 26 May 1855, pp.504–5. The parliamentary debate was widely covered and assessed in the editorials. See, for instance, The Times through 22–26 May. 18 June: Allied attack on the Malakhoff and Redan batteries; 22 June: Newspapers begin to carry story of unsuccessful attack on Sebastopol; 28 June: Death of Lord Raglan; 2 July: News of death of Lord Raglan; 19 July: The Times reported on the funeral of Lord Raglan; 24 July: The arrival of his remains in England was reported. See, for example, the leading article in the ILN, 21 July 1855. Every issue of the ILN during August carried something on the royal visit, which was also frequently referred to in The Times, with daily reports at the end of the month. The Times editorials 1, 12, March, 10 April, and a letter printed on 7 April, p.9. A.W. Kinglake noted the intensity of feeling in England on this question: ‘The suffering endured by our troops was an evil that might well be expected to provoke the wholesome wrath of a nation [...] Our people at home before long were in the agonies of pity and anger’: A.W. Kinglake, The Invasion of the Crimea, 8 vols (Edinburgh and London, 1880) VI, 260. See, for example, ‘Parliamentary Intelligence’ in The Times in July, and editorials on 20, 28 July 1855. ‘Our military disasters and their causes’, North British Review, 23 (1855), 266– 306 (p.301). See also in the same journal an article based in part on the report of the government commission on promotions in the army: ‘The system of purchase in the army’, 23 (1855) 521–35. Charles Edward Stuart Gleig, Fraser’s Magazine, 51 (1855), 485–505. Chambers’s Journal, N.S. 3 (1855), 265–7 (p.267).

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29. 30. 31.

32. 33. 34.

35.

36.

37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45.

46. 47. 48.

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The fact that the aristocracy continued to dominate the upper ranks of the army into the twentieth century makes the open debate of 1855 all the more noteworthy. See Gwyn Harries-Jenkins, The Army in Victorian Society (1977). Asa Briggs has commented on the strength of feeling on this subject, suggesting that if the war had continued beyond the summer of 1856, the army would have been reformed then rather than in 1871: Victorian People (1965), p.84. Punch, 28 (1855), 75. It is interesting now to consider the evidence provided by the later publication of diaries of officers in the Crimea showing the extent to which these men were preoccupied with the question of their own promotion, perhaps understandable in the boredom of life in the Crimea in 1855. See the Godman letters: Philip Warner ed., The Fields of War (1977), pp.108, 173. However, Godman also deplored the system, even while doing his best to survive in it: ‘This system of patronage is the ruination of our army’ (p.161). Punch, 28 (1855), 73. The Times, 3 April 1855, p.10. The Times, 10 May 1855, p.5. The Times, 23 May, in ‘Parliamentary Intelligence’, covered the introduction of a motion on the purchase of commissions. See letter headed ‘Favouritism in the Army’ in The Times, 30 August 1855. Figures on the number of promotions from the ranks, 483 in 1854–8 compared to 15 between 1861 and 1863 when the purchase system was restored, are quoted in Matthew Paul Lalumia, Realism and Politics in Victorian Art of the Crimean War (Epping, 1984), p.262. Alan Hankinson notes that the circulation of The Times in 1854 was four times that of the combined circulation of its rival papers (Morning Post, Morning Herald, and Morning Chronicle): Man of Wars: William Howard Russell of ‘The Times’ (1982), p.47. ILN, 17 February 1855, p.150. The Times, 17 March 1855, p.8. The Times, 26 April 1855, p.8. See the editorial, 23 May 1855. The Times, 25 May 1855, p.3. See ‘Parliamentary Intelligence’, The Times, 2, 3, 6, 8, 9 June 1855. See, for instance, poems in Punch, 28 (1855), 8, 14, 29; 29 (1855), 69. R.H. Patterson, ‘Two years of the condemned cabinet’, Blackwood’s Magazine, 78 (1855), 98–115 (p.108). A.J.P. Taylor, ‘John Bright and the Crimean War’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 36 (1954) 502–22. See also G.M. Trevelyan, The Life of John Bright (1913). ILN, 20 January 1855, p.54. ILN, 3 March 1855, p.198. An attack on Gladstone’s position as essentially unpatriotic was made in the article ‘Mr Gladstone’s peace song’, Punch, 29 (1855), 71.

49. 50. 51.

ILN, 15 September 1855, p.318. Punch, 29 (1855), p.116. ILN, 10 February 1855, p.121.

Chapter 5 1. 2. 3. 4.

5.

6. 7.

8.

9.

Emerich de Vattel, The Law of Nations (1811). The earlier version, ‘The Heroes of the Alma’, appeared in ILN, 14 October 1854, p.359. ILN, 30 December 1854, p.693. A comparison with the heroes of Thermopylae was also used in journal articles. See, for instance, ‘Whence have come our dangers?’ and ‘The story of the campaign, Part V’ in Blackwood’s Magazine, 77 (1855), 123–6 (pp.126, 129); 492–8 (p.495). Athenaeum, 23 December 1854, p.1559. This poem was also printed in Reynold’s Newspaper, 7 January 1855, p.3. Similar sentiments were expressed in Gerald Massey’s poem ‘As we sit by the household fire’, printed in the Weekly Dispatch, 24 December 1854. See Appendix. Reviews of some of these collections give a clue to a more precise date of publication. For example, Ernest Jones’s The Battle Day and other Poems was reviewed in the ILN, 22 September 1855, p.363 and the Examiner, 6 October 1855, p.627. Gerald Massey’s War Waits was listed in the review of new books in the Athenaeum, 13 January 1855, p.81 and reviewed in Reynold’s Newspaper, 21 January 1855. A. Smith and S. Dobell, Sonnets on the War was reviewed in the Athenaeum, 13 January 1855, pp.45–6; Morning Post, 17 January 1855, p.2; Reynold’s Newspaper, 28 January 1855, p.3. Some events did appeal particularly to the poets during 1855. See, for instance, poems on the death of the Czar: ‘The Dead Czar’ by ‘G.R.E.’ and ‘Death hath Conquered’ by Caroline A. Double, both in Weekly Dispatch, 11 March 1855, pp.5, 10; ‘The 2nd March 1855’ by Henry Lushington in La Nation Boutiquière (1855), pp.25–8; ‘The Dead Czar’ by Dinah Craik, Chambers’s Journal, N.S. 3 (1855), 256. On the fall of Sebastopol see: ‘Song of Victory’ by Charles MacKay, ILN, 29 September 1855, p.384; ‘Aktiar: A Retrospect’ by E.L. Hervey, ILN, 29 September 1855, p.398; ‘Poem for Victory’ by ‘M.J.J.’, ILN, 6 October 1855, p.422; ‘A Song for Sebastopol’ by W.W. Synge, Morning Post, 20 September 1855, p.6; ‘English Worship in Sebastopol’ by Mrs Ogilvy, Chambers’s Journal, N.S. 4 (1855), 400. Blackwood’s Magazine, 77 (1855), 531–5 (p.531).

215

10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

15.

16. 17.

18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.

25.

216

Blackwood’s Magazine, 77 (1855), 531–5 (p.532). Richard Chenevix Trench, ‘What though yet the spirit slumbers’ in Alma and other Poems (1855), pp.1–6. ‘Archbishop Trench’s poems’, Nineteenth Century, 2 (1877), 489–96 (p.495). Ernest Jones, The Emperor’s Vigil and The Waves and the War (1856), p.iii. I have not here associated Martin Tupper’s poetry with the working class since, although he wrote on social issues at other times, in 1855 his reputation was largely based on his volume Proverbial Philosophy, which by 1854 had reached its twentieth edition. For an assessment of Tupper’s poetry and reputation see Derek Hudson, Martin Tupper: His Rise and Fall (1949) and J.S. Bratton, The Victorian Popular Ballad (1975). His biographer R.A. Douglas Lithgow wrote of him in The Life of John Critchley Prince (Manchester, 1880): ‘His mission is to preach the gospel of humanity, to cheer and encourage the hearts of the people with the evangel of truth and love, of faith and charity, whilst he earnestly strives to federalise his fellow-men in a brotherhood of manly worth and independence’ (p.65). Preface to the first edition, dated 28 June 1855, Songs of the Governing Classes (1890), p.xi. J.S. Bratton in The Victorian Popular Ballad (1975) sees Bennett’s ideas as occupying a key position within a developing discussion of the role of ballad as history. There are obviously characteristics in Bennett’s songs of the war, which would qualify them to form part of such a ballad history. A.H. Miles said of Bennett’s war poems: ‘His verse is characterised by hearty English sense and feeling. There is no obscurity of style to pass for profundity of thought, but all is written for the people in a manner easily to be understood’: The Poets and Poetry of the Nineteenth Century, ed. by W.E. Fredeman et al., 2 vols (New York and London, 1986), I, no pag. For a detailed discussion of diverse political movements of the 1850s see Olive Anderson, A Liberal State at War (1967). Gerald Massey, War Waits (1855), p.1. Miles, II, no pag. Richard Chenevix Trench, ‘What though yet the spirit slumbers’ in Alma and other Poems (1855), pp. 1–6. Alexander Smith and Sydney Dobell, Sonnets on the War (1855), p.26. This sonnet is attributed to Dobell in a review in Chambers’s Journal, N.S. 3 (1855), 80. Many of the poems in the collection England in Time of War, published in 1856, also reflect this aim. The sketches of individuals which the poems provide were taken from a wide spectrum of society, from the rich lady to the poor village girl. Richard Garnett said of Dobell: ‘He never seems to know when he is writing from the heart and when he is condescending to affectation’: quoted in Miles, I, no pag.

26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

33.

34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40.

41. 42. 43. 44.

45. 46.

47.

48.

Martin Farquhar Tupper, Lyrics (1855), p.153. Tupper, Lyrics, pp.163–4. War Waits, p.23. The Emperor’s Vigil and The Waves and the War (1856), pp.48–53. Dinah Maria Craik, Poems, [n.d.], p.47. Trench, Alma and other Poems, pp.7–9 (p.9). See also W.J. Linton’s ‘A National Hymn’, ‘Heart and Will’ and ‘1854’ in Claribel and other Poems (1865), pp.263, 262, 260; Gerald Massey’s ‘After Alma’ and ‘Balaklava’ in War Waits (1855), pp.12–16, 23–5; Dobell’s ‘In War Time: A Psalm of the Heart’ in England in Time of War (1856), p.71. Tupper’s enthusiasm again takes him into excesses when he tackles this opposition in the poem ‘The Cause’ in Lyrics (1855), p.161. Here the Czar is presented as a madman intent on ruling the world at the head of ‘his barbarian hordes’. See, for instance, Ernest Jones, ‘Prayer for Peace’ in The Emperor’s Vigil, p.52 and Martin Tupper, a second ‘Hymn for our Day of Prayer’ in Lyrics, p.166. Miles, II, no pag. War Waits, p.40. Gerald Massey, ‘The Chivalry of Labour’ in The Ballad of Babe Christabel with other Lyrical Poems (1854), pp.130–1. Lyrics (1855), pp.167–70. Lyrics, p.151. See, for instance, Trench’s poem ‘Not in Vain’ dated June 1855 and written at the time of the breakdown in negotiations: In Time of War, ed. by W.H. Myers (1900), pp.31–4. Poems (1865), p.339. See The Times, 13 October 1854, p.8. Alma and other Poems, pp.17–18. For Trench’s own expressions of sorrow at the death of his eldest son, see the ‘Elegiac’ group of poems in Trench’s collected works: Poems (1865), pp.355– 94. War Waits, reviewed in the Athenaeum, 3 February 1855, pp.138–9. Gerald Massey, War Waits, pp.33–7. Among other poems addressing the question of grief and resignation are a number by women writers. See Chapter 9 below. The features of the ‘Spasmodic school’, of which he was a leading figure, were an overuse of metaphor and appeals to the emotions of the readers. By the late 1880s Dobell’s work could still find admirers for its subject matter. The writer of the introduction to the 1887 volume of his poems commented: ‘The great merit of his work is that it is steeped in that higher atmosphere towards which it is the aim of all enduring literature to raise our spirits’: The Poems of Sydney Dobell (1887), p.xx. Alexander Smith and [Sydney Dobell], Sonnets of the War (1855), p.23.

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49.

50. 51.

52.

53. 54. 55.

56.

57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67.

68.

218

Sonnets of the War, pp. 42, 41. See also ‘The Army Surgeon’ (p.14), where the sights to which the surgeon is exposed on the battlefield are described in harrowing detail: the shocking detail of battle wounds in ‘War’ (p.36) and ‘The Wounded’ (p.15). See, for example, Chambers’s Journal, N.S. 3 (1855), p.80 and the Athenaeum, 13 January 1855, p.46. England in Time of War (1856), p.175. The poem ‘Alone’ (p.128) is also based entirely on this image. The use of the image of the wind was not, of course, exclusive to the Crimean War. It also appears in seafaring songs such as those in W.C. Bennett’s collection Songs by a Song-Writer (1859). But, for a short period, the references to the wind acquired a more limited meaning specific to the circumstances of the war. See in Household Words, 11 (1855), ‘Strive, Wait and Pray’, p.446; ‘One by One’, p.157; ‘The Unknown Grave’, p.226; ‘The First Sorrow’, p.376; ‘The Angel’, p.540; ‘Time’s Cure’, p.565. Household Words, 11 (1855), 12. The poem ‘Wind’ in Household Words, 11 (1855), 420. Letters to the press recorded that soldiers were sending home flowers and grasses from the Crimea. See a soldier’s letter printed in the Manchester Examiner, 18 October 1854, p.9, and Dobell’s poem ‘Grass from the battle field’ in England in Time of War, pp. 146–59. Ernest Jones and Gerald Massey used the images of liberty and tyranny frequently in their war poems, in spite of the fact that their defence of the working class had often been couched in similar terms. See, for instance, Massey’s poem ‘Liberty’s Bridal Wreath’ in War Waits (1855), pp.11–12 and Ernest Jones’s poems ‘Liberty’ and ‘The Cry of the Russian Serf to the Czar’ in Battle Day and other Poems (1855), pp.101, 102–4. Autumn Leaves, p.79. Autumn Leaves, p.63. Autumn Leaves, p.90. Songs of the Governing Classes, p.94. Songs of the Governing Classes, pp.24–6 (p.26). Songs, pp.27–30 (p.29). Songs, pp.47–51. Songs, pp.67–71. Songs, pp.87–9 (p.88). Roland Barthes, Mythologies (1973). ‘Bright Chanticleer’, Household Words, 11 (1855), 204–9 (p.207). The impossibility of estimating the volume of sales of broadsheets is less important, since, as Sala noted, the salesmen sang their wares in the streets for all to hear. Many of the 44 songs included here were accompanied by a note about where the music could be bought.

69. 70.

71. 72.

This is evident from a survey of the authorship of poems printed in newspapers. See Appendix. See Olive Anderson, A Liberal State at War, p.279. Ronald H. Reitz has argued that the literature of the period supported a democratising process in ‘Classconsciousness in the Literature of the Crimean War’ (unpublished PhD thesis, South Illinois University, 1972). J.S. Bratton, The Victorian Popular Ballad, pp.121–2. John Shepherd, The Crimean Doctors (Liverpool, 1991), p.306.

Chapter 6 1.

2. 3. 4.

5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

Edmund Gosse, Silhouettes (1925), suggesting that Dobell’s Balder and the Crimean War were the two parents of ‘Maud’, noted: ‘During the long years when the Tennysonian idolatry was rampant, this relationship was carefully ignored, and has never been properly examined’ (p.335). See Christopher Ricks, ed., The Poems of Tennyson, 3 vols (1987), II, 513–15; Susan Shatto, ed., Tennyson’s ‘Maud’: A Definitive Edition (1986), pp.1–32. See Chapter 3 above. R.W. Rader in Tennyson’s ‘Maud’: The Biographical Genesis (1963), saw ‘Maud’ as a crucial biographical document: ‘It is Tennyson’s purgative recapitulation of the inner and outer circumstances of his tortured early life’ (p.115). ‘Maud’, I. vi. 6. Further references to ‘Maud’ will be indicated in parentheses in the text. See note in S. Shatto, ed., p.181. Edgar F. Shannon, ‘The critical reception of Tennyson’s “Maud”’, Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, 68 (1953), 397–417 (p.405). Blackwood’s Magazine, 78 (1855), 311–21 (p.321). Blackwood’s Magazine, 78 (1855), 311–21 (p.314). The critic W.C. Roscoe, in Prospective Review, 10 (1854), 99–118, reviewing Alexander Smith’s poems, offered an interesting summary of Spasmodic characteristics: ‘He belongs to the firework school [...] He falls upon us in glittering showers, red, blue, and white stars, which vanish into airy nothing, and are succeeded by others [...] His business is neither with thought nor feeling, but with imagery, pur et simple [...] of the art of making similes, varied, striking, and sometimes even significant, Mr Smith is a master. Still his fancy, though naturally rich and varied, is confined by the poverty of the rest of the mind, and runs within narrow limits ever and ever the same sparkling round’ (pp.115–16).

219

10. 11.

12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

19.

20. 21.

22. 23. 24.

25. 26.

220

Guardian, 29 August, 1855, p.664; quoted in Edgar F. Shannon, ‘The critical reception of Tennyson’s “Maud”’, p.398. The Times, 25 August 1855, p.8. M. Shaw in ‘Tennyson and his public 1827– 59’ attributes the good sales of Maud and other Poems to the inclusion of the poem ‘The Brook’, and the bad reviews to the association of ‘Maud’ with the Spasmodics: D.J. Palmer, ed., Tennyson (1973), pp.52–88 (pp.80–1). Coventry Patmore’s review of ‘Tennyson’s Maud’ in Edinburgh Review, 102 (1855), 498–519 (p.510). Athenaeum, 4 August 1855, p.893; British Quarterly Review, 22 (1855), 467– 98 (p.492). London Quarterly Review, 5 (1855), 213–29 (p.227). Athenaeum, 4 August 1855, p.893: Dublin University Magazine, 46 (1855), 332–40 (p.338). British Quarterly Review, 22 (1855), 467–98 (p.494). National Review, 1 (1855), 377–410 (pp.405–6). The first example comes early in the poem ‘Maud’, I. i. 6–12, where a description of the state of the country in peacetime, when cheating and greed are rampant, provokes the question from the speaker, ‘Is it peace or war?’. ‘Peace and war: a dialogue’, Blackwood’s Magazine, 76 (1854), 589–98. Further references to this article are given in parentheses. For a discussion of the relevance of this article to Tennyson’s poem see Robert C. Schweik, ‘The “Peace or War” passages in Tennyson’s “Maud”’, Notes and Queries, N.S. 7 (1960), 457–8; also Shatto, p.167. The comparison between war and duelling was also used by Henry Lushington in his Preface to La Nation Boutiquière and other Poems Chiefly Political (Cambridge, 1855), p.xi. ‘Peace and patriotism: a letter to Irenaeus’, Blackwood’s Magazine, 77 (1855), 97–111. Robert C. Schweik makes the point that in the November article Irenaeus is ‘simply a convenient man of straw against whom Tlepolemus directs his arguments’, and notes that Tennyson may have introduced such a figure ‘as a representative of peace advocates generally, without realizing that other motives would certainly be imputed to him’ (p.458). See, for instance, a letter headed ‘Horses in the Crimea’ in The Times, 20 December 1854, p.10. The Times, 28 November 1854, p.6. ‘On War’, in Collected Writings of Thomas De Quincey, ed. by David Masson, 13 vols (1897), VIII, 369–97 (p.392). The editor noted that this essay was published by De Quincey in 1854 in volume IV of the collected edition of his writings ‘but whether previously printed in any magazine I have not ascertained’ (p.369). ‘On War’, p.373. Henry and Franklin Lushington, La Nation Boutiquière and other Poems Chiefly Political (Cambridge, 1855), pp.1–19. Tennyson’s friendship with the

27. 28.

29. 30. 31.

32. 33. 34.

35.

36.

37.

Lushingtons dated from his university days. See, for instance, Robert Bernard Martin, Tennyson: The Unquiet Heart: A Biography (Oxford, 1980), pp.95–6. Henry and Franklin Lushington, pp.67–72 (p.70) H. and F. Lushington, p.71. Although the argument of the final verses of ‘The Muster’ runs parallel to part of Tlepolemus’s argument in the ‘Peace and war’ dialogue, this is not exactly the argument developed by Tennyson, as suggested by Shatto, p.166 (quoting Winston Collins, ‘“Maud”: Tennyson’s point of war’, Tennyson Research Bulletin 2 (1971), 126–8). Collins interprets these verses as directly paralleling Tennyson’s argument that peace can be a state of war on the home front. Another of Tennyson’s friends had tackled the comparison of peace and war earlier: William Allingham in a letter of 22 February 1854 wrote of having sent his father an ode he had written entitled ‘Peace and War’: William Allingham: A Diary, ed. by H. Allingham and D. Radford (1907), p.70. For typical illustrations see Punch, 26 (1854), 67, 162; 29 (1855), 86, 125. See note in Shatto, pp.196–7. See, for instance, the call to battle ‘Peoples were not formed for tyrants’ from Jones’s poem ‘The Emperor’s Vigil’ in The Emperor’s Vigil and The Waves and the War (1856), pp.20–40 (p.30). Martin F. Tupper, Lyrics (1855), pp.163–4 (p.164). See also the poem ‘Liberty’, especially v.10, in Lyrics, p.124. Blackwood’s Magazine, 78 (1855), 311–21 (pp.320–1). The dearth of comments from Tennyson on the Crimean War has been noted by James R. Bennett: ‘What Tennyson thought about the Crimean War must be purely conjectural’ (p.37). Tennyson is quoted by Ricks as having disavowed any intention of writing a poem about the war: Ricks, II, 516. On the other hand, embarking on a rare eulogy of ‘Maud’ as a ‘genuine poem of the war’, a reviewer commented: ‘The nation expects a poem suitable to the occasion’: British Quarterly Review, 22 (1855), 467–98 (pp.490–2). Tennyson, in the epilogue to ‘The Charge of the Heavy Brigade’, took a very moderate line, looking back at the war period: ‘And who loves War for War’s own sake / Is fool, or crazed, or worse’: Christopher Ricks, ed., The Poems of Tennyson, 1-vol. edition (1969), p.1308. It has been suggested that the social denunciation in ‘Maud’ owes much to the poet’s discussions with Charles Kingsley and F.D. Maurice: Ricks, p.516; F.B. Pinion, A Tennyson Chronology (1990), p.68. The question of bought commissions arose as the crisis in the Crimea deepened. Some felt that blame should be laid on the system of advancement in the army, which, it was argued, favoured privilege rather than talent. Typical of the objections to the exclusion of the middle classes from the upper ranks of the army was a letter to The Times, 29 December 1854, p.9. See also the note in Shatto, pp.186–7. Robert James Mann, Tennyson’s ‘Maud’ Vindicated, ed. by William E. Fredeman, et al. (New York and London, 1986), p.76. For comments on critics

221

38.

39. 40.

41.

following this line see James R. Bennett, ‘The historical abuse of literature: Tennyson’s Maud: A Monodrama and the Crimean War’, English Studies, 62 (1981), 34–45 (p.36). W.C. Bennett’s view of the war in 1856 is encapsulated in the final line of AntiMaud (1856): ‘We sit and gaze on a world that is waste, and reap the storm we have sown’ (v.51): Anti-Maud, ed. by William E. Fredeman, et al. (New York and London, 1986), p.30. Further references to this work will be given in parentheses in the text. For the revisions to earlier poems made in response to the reviewers’ criticisms see Edgar F. Shannon, Tennyson and the Reviewers (Cambridge, Mass., 1952). For a summary of critical assessments of Part III see Michael C.C. Adams, ‘Tennyson’s Crimean War poetry: a cross-cultural approach’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 40 (1979), 405–22. The Nonconformist offered what it considered to be a final verdict of dismissal on ‘Maud’ in September 1855, as it quoted the harsh judgment, summing up the verdict of the press: ‘Dismally dull, and dolefully dawdlin’ / Tennyson’s ‘Maud’ should be Tennyson’s maudlin’’ (p.691).

Chapter 7 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

6. 7.

222

Brenda Colloms, Charles Kingsley: The Lion of Eversley (1975), p.119. Colloms, p.121. Charles Kingsley, Sermons on National Subjects (London and New York, 1890), p.136. Sermons, p.162. Henry Wentworth Acland, Memoir on the Cholera at Oxford in the Year 1854 (1856). Other contemporary accounts of the cholera include: W. Farr, Report on the Mortality of Cholera in England 1848–49 (1852); William Baly and William W. Gull, Reports on Epidemic Cholera (1854); [No initial] Monkchester, Cholera-theories and Cholera-facts (1855); George Godwin, Town Swamps and Social Bridges, ed. by Anthony D. King (1972). Later commentaries include: D.N. Ray, A Treatise on Cholera and Kindred Diseases (Calcutta, 1906); Leonard Rogers, Cholera and its Treatment (1911); George Patrick, A Plague on You, Sir! (Hull, 1981). Colloms, p.173. See also Charles Kingsley: His Letters and Memories of his Life, edited by his wife [Fanny Kingsley], 2 vols (1877), I, 217–18. Letter dated 27 February 1854, in Fanny Kingsley, I, 421. See also Colloms, p.183.

8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.

25. 26.

27. 28. 29.

Richard Hakluyt, Divers Voyages Touching the Discovery of America and the Islands Adjacent, ed. by John Winter Jones (1850). See Colloms, p.184. Hakluyt, p.xvi. ‘The Two Armadas’, in the Examiner, 14 October 1854, p.650. Letter dated March 1854 in Fanny Kingsley, I, 421–2 (p.422). Letter to Rev. F.D. Maurice, dated 19 October 1854 in Fanny Kingsley, I, 432– 4 (p.433). Margaret Farrand Thorp, Charles Kingsley, 1819–1875 (New York, 1969), p.118. Charles Kingsley, True Words for Brave Men (1878), p.vi. Charles Kingsley, ‘Brave Words for Brave Soldiers and Sailors’ in True Words for Brave Men (1878), p.204. True Words, p.205. In December Kingsley had expressed the hope that the novel would be published in January: letter to T. Hughes, 18 December 1854, in Fanny Kingsley, p.434. ILN, 9 June 1855, carried an advert for the second edition. Colloms, p.204. National Review, 1 (1855), 124–61 (pp.158–9). Nonconformist, 18 July 1855, pp.560–1 (p.561). Fraser’s Magazine, 51 (1855), 506–17 (p.515). Athenaeum, 31 March 1855, p.376. While these critics showed some tolerance on the Roman Catholic question, even leading politicians could be quite insensitive in their handling of the issue. Herbert, for instance, defending his record in providing an army for the East commented: ‘For some time emigration to some extent has been going on from this country, and more especially from the sister country, Ireland, which has dried up the sources of our military supplies’: The Times, 13 December 1854, p.8. On the other hand, some voices were raised praising the contribution of Roman Catholic forces, and the injustice of the current attacks on their creed: letter headed ‘Remember the 5th of November’, The Times, 7 December 1854, p.7. See Evelyn Bolster, The Sisters of Mercy in the Crimean War (Cork, 1964), p.xxi. See, for example, a report on the formation of the Blackburn Protestant Association in the Manchester Courier, 30 September 1854, p.5; editorial comment on ‘The Pope and the priests in Ireland’, Liverpool Chronicle, 22 November 1854. Letter to T. Hughes dated 18 December 1854 in Fanny Kingsley, I, 435. Westward Ho! (1989), pp.220–2. Further references to this text will be given in parentheses. See, for instance, a satiric article in Punch, 27 (1855), 113, linking Catholicism, Wiseman and the Czar. Trollope also took both the Pope and the Czar as

223

30. 31.

32.

33. 34.

35. 36. 37.

38. 39.

40.

41. 42. 43.

224

examples of authoritarianism in his satiric sketch of The Times in The Warden. See also Chapter 8 below. ‘The writing of it has done me good’: letter dated 19 October 1854, Fanny Kingsley, I, 432–4 (p.433). The narrator, for instance, addresses the reader on the subject of leadership in discussions which are akin to those stimulated in the national press in 1854 by questions about the quality of Raglan’s leadership of the army (pp.264, 374). See, for example, National Review, 1 (1855), 124–61 (p.158); A.J. Hartley, The Novels of Charles Kingsley: A Christian Social Interpretation (Folkestone, 1977), pp.104–16. See, for instance, reports of her visits to troops: ILN, 2 October 1854, p.398; The Times, 16 October 1854, p.7; ILN, 21 October 1854, pp.396–7. See, for instance, the comment on the need for war preparedness in G.C. Swayne’s article ‘Peace and war’ in Blackwood’s Magazine 76 (1854), 589–98 (p.597). The Times, 1 December 1854, p.7. See, for instance, The Times, 7 December 1854, p.7. Liverpool Chronicle, 25 November 1854, p.4. Eyewitness accounts of such incidents are given in volumes of letters and diaries published later. See, for example, a letter dated 10 November 1854 in George Palmer Evelyn, A Diary of the Crimea, ed. by Cyril Falls (1954), p.108; from Godman’s letters, a letter dated November 1854 in Philip Warner, ed., The Fields of War (1977), p.87. True Words for Brave Men, p.208. The Times, 23 September 1854, p.6. See also accusations against The Times for ‘croaking’ in the Examiner, 30 December 1854 and a letter from an artillery officer complaining about ‘croakers’ in the Manchester Examiner, 30 December 1854. Complaints about the postal service to the East had appeared in the press in the latter months of 1854. See, for example, a letter from ‘Our Own Correspondent’ in Constantinople in The Times, 12 October 1854; an article headed ‘The Postal Shortcomings’ in the Observer, 22 October 1854, p.3; reports from correspondents, The Times, 14 December 1854, p.9 and 20 December 1854, p.10; Manchester Examiner (from Morning Chronicle), 16 December 1854. Evidence of widespread concern on this issue is recorded in Victor BonhamCarter, ed., Surgeon in the Crimea: The Experiences of George Lawson Recorded in Letters to his Family (1968), pp.40, 89. For the text of John Bright’s speech of 23 February 1855, see The Diaries of John Bright, ed. by R.A.J. Walling (1930), pp.189–90. See Chapter 5. See, for instance, the article ‘War Christmas’, Spectator, 23 December 1854, pp.1350–1 and numerous poems: ‘A Christmas Carol for the Crimea’, Punch, 27 (1854), 255; ‘A Crimean Soldier’s Christmas Story’, London Weekly Investigator, 22 December 1854, p.31; ‘War Christmas’ by W. Marston,

44.

45.

46.

Athenaeum, 23 December 1854, p.1559; ‘As We Sit by the Household Fire’, Weekly Dispatch, 24 December 1854, p.7; ‘How We Spent Christmas at Home’, Morning Post, 27 December 1854, p.5. In a letter to T. Hughes, 18 December 1854, Kingsley replied to a request to write a poem on the war: ‘There is no use fiddling while Rome is burning [...] Every man has his calling, and my novel is mine’: quoted in Thorp, p.118. Kingsley’s view of the war later in 1855 is recorded in the sermon on ‘Providence’ where he comments: ‘I do not complain of the war. I honour the war. I thank God from the bottom of my heart for this great and glorious victory’: The Works of Charles Kingsley, 28 vols (1880), XXIII, p.178. See letter to J. Simon, 28 December 1854, quoted Fanny Kingsley, I, 423: ‘It is a sad thing that “food for powder” requires to be of the best quality.’ William J. Baker has explored some of the ambiguities of Kingsley’s attitude to the war in ‘Charles Kingsley on the Crimean War: a study in chauvinism’, Southern Humanities Review, 4 (1970), pp.247–56.

Chapter 8 1.

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

See N.J. Hall, Trollope: A Biography (Oxford, 1991), p.134; M. Sadleir, Trollope: A Commentary (1927), p.155. For material on Trollope’s sources for Hiram’s Hospital see R.H. Super, The Chronicler of Bartsetshire: A Life of Anthony Trollope (1988), p.68. For further details see, for example, Hall, pp.131–5. Anthony Trollope, The Warden, (Oxford, 1980), p.131. Further references to this text will be given in parentheses. Super, p.71. Olive Anderson, A Liberal State at War (1967), p.71; Alan Hankinson, Man of Wars: William Howard Russell of ‘The Times’ (1982), p.47. Stephen Koss, The Rise and Fall of the Political Press in Britain, 2 vols (1981), I, 102. An article in The Times, 15 March 1854, quoted in The History of ‘The Times’, 2 vols (1939), I, 161. See also an article on the role of the press quoted p.149. The History of ‘The Times’, I, 164, 200. The Life and Letters of Sydney Dobell, ed. by [E. Jolly] 2 vols (1878), I, 305. ILN, 21 October 1854, p.245. G.C. Swayne, in his article ‘Peace and war’ in November, commented on this issue: Blackwood’s Magazine, 76 (1854), 589–98 (p.591).

225

12.

13. 14. 15.

16.

17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

23. 24. 25. 26.

27. 28. 29. 30.

226

See, for instance, the Morning Chronicle, 7 November 1854, on the role of The Times; ‘War Responsibilities of the Press’ in the Spectator, 18 November 1854, p.1203. The editorial on 1 January 1855. The Times, 2 January 1855, p.5. A letter writer in the Leader, 21 October 1854 commented: ‘The contributions of intelligence from private hands are not among the least interesting histories of the events of the day’ (p.988). See also a letter praising the inclusion of letters from the Crimea in the press in The Times, 2 January 1855, p.5. In a review of A Month in the Camp before Sebastopol, by a Non-combatant [H.J. Bushby] in the Prospective Review, 11 (1855), 39–50, the reviewer also praised the private letters as being ‘of inestimable value to those who like to obtain facts at first hand, veritable fragments of reality, unhampered by reflection and unmixed with hearsay’ (p.39). See, for instance: editorial, ‘The Press and the War’ in the Examiner, 6 January 1855, reprinted The Times, 8 January 1855; article, ‘The Newspaper Press’ in the Weekly Dispatch, reprinted in the Morning Chronicle, 8 January 1855, p.3; a letter from S.G. Osborne discussing the issue of what should be printed, in The Times, 13 January 1855, p.7; an article ‘The Mission of the Press’ in the Morning Chronicle, 16 January 1855, p.5. The MPs Bright, Cobden and Gibson had campaigned for the abolition of the duty. The editorial of 23 February 1855. Reprinted in The Times, 19 March 1855, p.7. The text of the bill, taken from the Gazette, appeared, for instance, in ILN, 9 June 1855, p.590. Koss, I, 112. Fraser’s Magazine, 52 (1855), 115–22, (p.115). This problem was raised as early as 10 February 1855 in ILN, where the editorial expressed the view that the existence of a free press was another of those attributes of the present society which might make it ‘impossible to carry on so gigantic a war’. Joseph Cawin to William Longman, 13 October 1854 in The Letters of Anthony Trollope, ed. by N.J. Hall, 2 vols (Stanford, California, 1983), I, 38–9. For a summary of the reviews see N.J. Hall, Trollope: A Biography, p.135. North British Review, 40 (1864), 369–401 (pp.376–7). Fortnightly Review, 11 (1869), 188–98 (p.194). N.J. Hall has noted the change in the reputation of The Warden in the introduction to The New Zealander (Oxford, 1972), p.xv. The New Zealander, ed. by N.J. Hall (Oxford, 1972), p.xii. Joseph Cauvin to William Longman, 2 April 1855: Hall, ed., Letters, I, 42. See Hall, Trollope: A Biography, pp.136–8. Hall, ed., The New Zealander, p.45.

31.

32.

33. 34.

35. 36. 37.

38. 39. 40.

See S. Wall, ed., Charles Dickens: A Critical Anthology (Harmondsworth, 1970), pp.363–75 (p.373). John Lucas’s study in Literature and Politics in the Nineteenth Century (1971) starts from a similar premise that ‘for Dickens the noble air of freedom becomes more and more stifled and threatened by the social prison’ (p.xiii), but he too moves from considering the prison of society to the prison of the self, with perhaps a bias towards the importance of the latter. This critical preoccupation with the image of imprisonment in Little Dorrit has been subjected to historical analysis by Philip Collins in his article ‘Little Dorrit: the prison and the critics’, Times Literary Supplement, 18 April 1980, pp.445–6. See, for instance, G.K. Chesterton, Criticisms and Appreciations of the Works of Charles Dickens (1933); G.B. Shaw, ‘Charles Dickens and Little Dorrit’, Dickensian, 4 (1908), 323-4. The organisation was set up in April 1855. A report of its inauguration was carried in The Times, 28 April 1855. See The Speeches of Charles Dickens, ed. by K.J. Fielding (Oxford, 1960), pp.197–208. By the end of the summer a wide range of newspapers were taking an interest in the new organisation, and the issue of administrative reform was being addressed in the monthly journals. See, for instance, ‘Reform of the Civil Service’, North British Review, 23 (1855), 137–92; ‘Administrative Reform: the Civil Service’, Blackwood’s Magazine, 78 (1855), 116–34; ‘The Civil Service and the competitive principle’, National Review, 1 (1855), 351–76; ‘On the just and the unjust in the recent popular discontent’, National Review, 1 (1855), 1–30. Speeches, p.203. See, for example, a poem in Punch, 28 (1855), p.94. The limited defence of the aristocracy by the ILN on 27 January 1855 can be compared with Punch’s more vitriolic attacks, for instance the article ‘Lord Malmesbury on the aristocrat’, 28 (1855), 73, and the poem ‘Madrigal of Administrative Reform’, 28 (1855), 215. See, for instance, a letter to The Times, 19 February 1855, p.10, on the Light Brigade and mismanagement. See, for instance, reports from correspondents in The Times, 16 January, p.9; 15 February 1855, p.6. See a letter criticising the purchase system in The Times, 3 March 1855; a letter on army promotions, 3 April 1855; letters criticising how appointments were made, 17, 18 April; a letter on promotion in the marines, 10 May; report of Parliamentary debate on army reform, 19 May; a report on Parliamentary debate on the purchase system, 23 May 1855. Typical of the questioning which was finding its way into print at this time are comments included in a travel book on the Crimea published in June 1855; R.C. Macormick, Two Months in and about the Camp before Sebastopol (1855). Having catalogued just some of the ‘instances of astounding negligence’ which he had personally witnessed,

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41.

42.

43.

44.

45. 46. 47. 48. 49.

50. 51.

52. 53. 54. 55.

56.

57.

228

Macormick clearly laid the blame at the door of the British aristocratic system, where preference was given ‘to wealth and rank over ability and experience in the appointment of officers in the army’ (p.127). The specific issue of whether examinations should be instituted was addressed in the article ‘The government, the aristocracy and the country’, Fraser’s Magazine, 51 (1855), 354–62. See, for instance, in The Times a letter of 16 January, p.12 and questions in the House on war medals, in ‘Parliamentary Intelligence’, 26 May 1855: in Punch 28 (1855), ‘Organisation of the army’ p.18, ‘An order for John Bull’, p.48 and a cartoon, p.64. Letter to Mrs Watson, dated 1 November 1854, in The Letters of Charles Dickens, ed. by Madeline House et al., (Oxford, 1965– ), VII: 1853–5, ed. by Graham Storey et al. (1993), pp.453–6 (p.454). See also a letter to M. de Cerjat, 3 January 1855, Letters, VII, 495–7. Letter dated 4 October 1855, Letters, VII, 714–6 (p.715), also reprinted in Wall, p.97. For comments on Dickens’s lack of faith in the ruling class, see W. Walter Crotch, ‘Dickens’s instinct for reform’, Dickensian, 1 (1905), 227–31, 255–8. See letter, dated 10 April 1855, to Mr Austen Henry Layard, Letters, VII, 586–8 (p.587). Household Words, 11 (1855), 49–51 (p.49). Household Words, 11 (1855), 313–16 (p.314). Household Words, 10 (1854), 49–52 (p.50). Household Words, 11 (1855), 1–4 (p.2). This was also the point he attempted to drive home through another allegory of the relations between rulers and ruled, ‘Fast and loose’: Household Words, 11 (1855), 169–70 (p.70). Household Words, 11 (1855), 385–7 (p.386). Household Words, 14 (1856), 145–7. For comments on the original title see John Forster, The Life of Charles Dickens, 2 vols (1966), II, 179; John Butt and Kathleen Tillotson, Dickens at Work (1957), pp.222–33. Household Words, 8 (1853), pp.577–9. Little Dorrit, ed. by John Holloway, (Harmondsworth, 1985), p.895. Further references to this edition will be given in parentheses in the text. See, for instance, the list of guests at Pet’s wedding, pp.454–8. The idea of the ruling class occasionally letting in someone from below to defuse any opposition to their power was central to Brough’s poem ‘The Terriers and the Rats and the Mice and the Cats’, Songs of the Governing Classes (1855), pp.90–9. Earle Davis in The Flint and the Flame: The Artistry of Charles Dickens (1964) has noted that Rigaud represents Dickens’s theme that ‘vice on the criminal level is morally the same as vice on a business or fashionable level’ (p.228). For the text of the original French roundelay see ‘Compagnon de la Marjolaine’, Dickensian, 5 (1909), 44–5; ‘Blandois’s Song’, Dickensian, 24

58.

(1928), 157–8. We hear the song again when Blandois visits Mrs Clennam (p.598). There are echoes here of another refrain which asserted class superiority in the poem by Robert Brough, ‘The Return from Syria’, ‘I’ve prov’d the bravest brave, and mean to wed the fairest fair!’: Songs of the Governing Classes (1855), pp.47–51.

Chapter 9 1. 2.

3. 4.

5 6. 7. 8.

For an account of the legend of Florence Nightingale see M. Goldsmith, Florence Nightingale: The Woman and the Legend (1937). Mary Poovey in Uneven Developments: The Ideological Work of Gender in Mid-Victorian England (1989) has addressed the question of ‘The Social Construction of Florence Nightingale’. Poovey’s chapter, however, considers this question within the context of Nightingale’s contribution to the history of nursing. I will be looking at this subject within the narrower confines of a study of the war. F.K. Prochaska, Women and Philanthropy in Nineteenth-Century England (Oxford, 1980), p.3. For an account of her work see H. Burton, Barbara Bodichon 1827–1891 (1949). For excerpts from her writing see Candida Ann Lacey, ed., Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon and the Langham Place Group (1986). R. Strachey in ‘The Cause’: A Short History of the Women’s Movement in Great Britain (1928), notes that Nightingale ‘shared with Harriet Martineau an active distaste for the feminist writing and propaganda which was multiplying so rapidly during her lifetime’ (pp.24–5). For a view on the position of women from the war period see Eliza Lynn, ‘The rights and wrongs of women’, Household Words, 9 (1854), 158–61. Cassandra, published in Strachey as Appendix 1, pp.395–418. Sir Edward Cook, The Life of Florence Nightingale, 2 vols (1914), I, 60. For a more detailed account see Cecil Woodham-Smith, Florence Nightingale, 1820–1910 (1950), pp.130–50. S.M. Goldie, ed., ‘I have Done my Duty’: Florence Nightingale in the Crimean War 1854–56 (Manchester, 1987), p.80, puts the number at nineteen. F.B. Smith in Florence Nightingale: Reputation and Power (1982) comments that by Christmas 1854 ‘Nightingale had dismissed – on my estimate, because the evidence is ambiguous – 13 of her original contingent, leaving her with 25 nuns and nurses to help about 11,000 men admitted to the hospitals rotten with

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9.

10.

11.

12.

13. 14.

15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

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disease – only about 100 had war wounds. The total was to rise to its peak in January 1855’ (p.40). Some of her biographers have come down heavily on the side of the doctors. See, for instance, Nancy Boyd, Josephine Butler, Octavia Hill, Florence Nightingale: Three Victorian Women who Changed their World (1982), p.184. For a view of these prejudices from the Roman Catholic point of view see the review of Hospitals and Sisterhoods in the Rambler, 14 (1854), 209–29. On the other side see, for example, the review of a new novel The Sister of Mercy: A Tale for the Times we Live in in the Athenaeum, 28 January 1854, p.117. The new novel is described as being ‘written to prove that the Sisterhood of Mercy is, virtually, a most unmerciful association, devised by unfeeling priestcraft for the subjugation of morbid feminine feebleness and vanity’. Miss Nightingale was accused by some of sympathising with the Catholics, by others of prejudice against them. Compare ‘Religious Objections to Miss Nightingale’ in Punch, 28 (1855), 37, and evidence provided in Goldie, p.231. Miss Nightingale was never alone in her position in the East. The role of the Bracebridges, for instance, is noted by Rev S.G. Osborne in Scutari and Its Hospitals (1855): ‘I must not pass over my friends Mr and Mrs Bracebridge; the latter ever watchful over her charge Miss Nightingale’ (p.29). The French cook, M. Soyer, also accompanied her to the Crimea: [Soyer’s] Culinary Campaign: Historical Reminiscences of the Late War (1857), pp.166–7. Woodham-Smith, pp.250–5. See, for example, a description of a visit to Scutari in R.C. Macormick, Two Months in and about the Camp before Sebastopol (1855), ch.19; thoughts on Florence Nightingale’s role from the author of Inside Sebastopol and Experiences in Camp: Being the Narrative of a Journey to the Ruins of Sebastopol Accomplished in the Autumn and Winter of 1855 (1856), pp.248–9; comments on the hospitals in the East and on Florence Nightingale in Chambers’s Pictorial History of the Russian War 1854–56 (1856), pp.301, 306–10; details of Florence Nightingale’s work at Scutari in Harriet Martineau, England and her Soldiers (1859), pp.190–6; views of the hospitals at Therapia (pp.73–4), and at Balaklava (pp.306–7) and of ‘this celebrated lady’ Florence Nightingale in Constantinople (pp.150–1), in Lady Hornby, Constantinople During the Crimean War (1863). See Elspeth Huxley, Florence Nightingale (1975), p.146; Woodham-Smith, pp.220–1; Goldsmith, p.188. The Times, 21 October 1854, p.7. The Times, 25 October 1854, p.7. The editorial in the War Express and Daily Advertiser, 1 November 1854, p.2. Examiner, 28 October 1854. The Times, 23 November 1854, p.7. See also a short story in which the arguments against a woman of good family going to the East are rehearsed:

21.

22.

23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35.

36. 37. 38. 39.

40.

‘The hospital nurse: an episode of the war’, Fraser’s Magazine, 55 (1855), 96– 105. ‘The conduct of the war’ in Blackwood’s Magazine, 77 (1855), 1–20 (p.15). The view that the role of Miss Nightingale was essentially useful to the politicians is expressed in The History of ‘The Times’, 2 vols (1939), II, 178–9, and in Evelyn Bolster, The Sisters of Mercy in the Crimean War (Cork, 1964), p.235. Rev. S.G. Osborne’s reports provided further publicity for Miss Nightingale’s mission when they were published in book form: Scutari and its Hospitals (1855). Woodham-Smith, p.234. See Appendix. Poem by Percival Leigh in Punch, 27 (1854), 184. Punch, 27 (1854), 193. See also a cartoon by Captain H.R. Howard on 25 November 1854. ‘The Jug of the Nightingale’: Punch, 27 (1854), 215. Philomena was changed by the gods into a nightingale so that she could escape from the wrath of Tereus, having already been raped by the Thracian king. The poem is dated 30 October 1854. Athenaeum, 20 January 1855, p.81. ‘Serious objections to Miss Nightingale’ by Percival Leigh, Punch, 28 (1855), 37. Poem by Tom Taylor in Punch, 28 (1855), 61. Martin Farquhar Tupper, Lyrics (1855), p.159. Blackwood’s Magazine, 77 (1855), 531–5 (p.533). The degree to which the construction of the image of Miss Nightingale breaks the rules on female behaviour is well illustrated by comparing Dobell’s poem about her with his personal views on women, as expressed, for instance, in a letter to his sister, where he stated: ‘a woman’s first “mission” in this world is to be beautiful’: The Life and Letters of Sydney Dobell, ed. by E. Jolly, 2 vols (1878), II, 11. Henry Sewell Stokes, Echoes of the War and other Poems (London and Truro, 1855), pp.49–52. Patmore’s poem was first published in 1854. See Charles Hindley, Curiosities of Street Literature, ed. by Michael Hughes (1969). The poem is probably picking up a new issue from the press here, since Richard Monckton Milnes wrote to The Times in October stressing Miss Nightingale’s self-sacrifice: a letter by ‘One who has known Miss Nightingale’ in The Times, 25 October 1854. See, for instance, repeated references to her bravery in the poem ‘A Nightingale in the Camp’, Punch, 28 (1855), 229.

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41.

42. 43.

44. 45. 46.

47.

48.

49. 50.

51.

52.

232

Punch, 29 (1855), 225. The editorial in The Times, 23 August 1855, referred to Miss Nightingale’s ‘nightly wanderings through those long wards’. WoodhamSmith, p.236, refers to Mr Herbert reading out a letter to a meeting in November 1855, ‘in which a soldier described the men kissing Miss Nightingale’s shadow as she passed’. Eastern Hospitals and English Nurses: A Narrative of Twelve Months’ Experience in the Hospitals of Koulali and Scutari by a Lady Volunteer [F.M. Taylor], confirmed this detail of the Nightingale story: see a review in the Athenaeum, 19 April 1856, pp.484–5. A similar picture is presented in Dodd’s history of the war: Pictorial History of the Russian War 1854, 1855, 1856 (1856), p.311. The Poetical Works of Longfellow (1961), pp.312–13. The poem is dated by Sir Edward Cook as having been written in 1857: Cook, I, 237. Jeremy Maas, Holman Hunt and the Light of the World (Aldershot, 1987). The popular engravings of the painting were not produced by Gambart until 1860: see Maas, pp.72–4. Quoted in Maas, p.58. Quoted in Maas, pp.61–4. George P. Landow, William Holman Hunt and Typolo (1979), p.34. Landow also quotes Hunt’s own explanation of his symbolism. On the subject of Hunt’s symbolism see also J.B. Atkinson, ‘Mr Holman Hunt: his work and career’, Blackwood’s Magazine, 139 (1886), 540–58. For details of the perpetuation of this image for posterity see Woodham-Smith, ch. 11. It is interesting to note that the frontispiece to Little Dorrit made use of a similar association of the heroine with light, as the figure of Little Dorrit was shown illumined by the light from a half-open door. Many of the memoirs of the Crimean War written by men make brief reference to women on the scene. See, for example, Robert Beaufoy Hawley, The Hawley Letters, ed. by S.G.P. Ward (1970). Buchanan and Reid both make mention of Mrs Seacole: G. Buchanan, Camp Life as Seen by a Civilian 1854–1856 (Glasgow, 1871), pp.177, 217; Douglas Arthur Reid, Memories of the Crimean War, January 1855 to June 1856 (1911), pp.13–14. The presence of women in the camps is documented by Piers Compton in Colonel’s Lady and Camp Follower: The Story of Women in the Crimean War (1970). The Times, 24 October 1854, p.9. Blackwood’s Magazine, 77 (1855), 349–58 (p.356). A handful of references to women are to be found in W.H. Russell’s letters from the East. See, for instance, The War: From the Landing at Gallipoli to the Death of Lord Raglan (1855), p.35. The report of the correspondent for the ‘Sick and Wounded Fund’, The Times, 19 March 1855, p.10. See also a reference to the soldiers’ wives in the parliamentary debate reported in The Times, 17 March 1855, p.5. Household Words, 11 (1855), 278–80 (p.280).

53.

54. 55.

56.

57. 58. 59. 60.

61. 62. 63.

64.

65. 66. 67. 68. 69.

Fanny Duberly was the most prominent of what appears to have been a small number of officers’ wives who went with their husbands to the Crimea: Journal kept during the Russian War: From the Departure of the Army from England in April 1854 to the Fall of Sebastopol (1855). For a review of the book see the Athenaeum, 29 December 1855, pp.1528–9. Mrs Davis’s remarks on Florence Nightingale are outspoken and critical: The Autobiography of Elizabeth Davis, ed. by Jane Williams (Cardiff, 1987), p.183. Our Camp in Turkey, and the Way to It, by Mrs Young. For reviews see, for instance, Athenaeum, 23 December 1854, pp.1555–6; Morning Chronicle, 18 December 1854, p.3; Morning Post, 23 January 1855, p.2; a review by J.M. Capes in the Rambler, 15 (1855), 127–35. Capes noted that Mrs Young’s narrative mentioned the soldiers’ wives in the East: ‘The sex of the writer of Our Camp in Turkey leads her to bring prominently forward another point, unhappily too much overlooked by male writers, even the most determined of abuse-hunters; namely, the condition of the women’ (p.132). Mary Seacole, The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands, ed. by W.L. Andrews (New York and Oxford, 1988). She made mention of her friend W.H. Russell in the preface to her book. He had mentioned her in his reports to The Times. See The War: From the Landing at Gallipoli to the Death of Lord Raglan (1855), p.360. Seacole, p.149. Seacole, p.166. Alma and other Poems (1855), pp.17–18. See also ‘Eastward Ho!: Song of the Women to the Soldiers of Great Britain’ by Samuel Lover in Poetical Works (1868), pp.308–9; from The Crimean War Song Book (1855), ‘The Soldier’s Wife’ by Henry Russell, p.10, and ‘Weep not for the Heroic Dead’ by A. Kirkaldy, p.9. Several poems from Sydney Dobell’s England in Time of War (1856) adopt a female voice as narrator and in this way appraise the female role. Alexander Smith and Sydney Dobell, Sonnets of the War (1855), p.43. See, for example, ‘Valentine from the Crimea’, ILN, 17 February 1855, p.166. ILN, 21 October 1854, p.390. For a similar approach in a war poem by a woman see ‘The Patriot’s Widow’ by Sophia Iselin, Chambers’s Journal, N.S. 3 (1855), 272. See, for example, ‘Losses’ by Francis Browne in the Athenaeum, 7 July 1855, p.790; ‘The Wanderer’s Return’ by Marie J. Ewen, in Chambers’s Journal, N.S. 3 (1855), 400. ILN, 5 May 1855, p.430. Chambers’s Journal, N.S. 3 (1855), 256. The poem had the sub-heading ‘Before Sebastopol, November 4th’, and appeared in ILN, 2 December 1854. Household Words, 10 (1854), 204. ‘The Cradle Song of the Poor’, Household Words, 10 (1855), 560–1.

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70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75.

‘The Unknown Grave’, Household Words, 11 (1855), 226–7. Household Words, 9 (1854), 248–9. Household Words, 11 (1855), 85. Review of Women As They Are in the Spectator, 9 December 1854, pp.1292–3 (p.1292). R. Barthes, Mythologies (1973). The Future Historian’s View of the Present War (1855).

Chapter 10 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

7. 8. 9. 10.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

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See Ronald H. Reitz, ‘Class-Consciousness in the Literature of the Crimean War’ (unpublished PhD thesis, South Illinois University, 1972). R. Williams, The Long Revolution (Harmondsworth, 1965), p.209. Michel Foucault: Politics, Philosophy, Culture: Interviews and other Writings, ed. by L.D. Kritzman (New York, 1988), p.309. Michel Foucault: Politics, Philosophy, Culture, p.310. Michael A. Lutzker, ‘Expanding our vision: new perspectives on peace research’, Peace and Change, 24 (1989), 444–60 (p.454). See novels such as Eliza F. Pollard’s True unto Death: A Story of Russian Life and the Crimean War (n.d.) [c.1900] and many others before that date listed by Ronald H. Reitz. Fraser’s Magazine, 51 (1855), 96–105. Chambers’s Journal, N.S. 3 (1855), 353–7; 379–84; 387–90; 410–13. ILN, 22 December 1855, pp.746–7. The process of selecting events for a persuasive purpose is perhaps even more obvious in the rewriting of events offered by Captain R. Hodasevich. His narrative of the campaign was a factual work, offering a new perspective for the British reader since he had fought on the Russian side until able to escape. Many of those points on which attacks on the government had been based were answered indirectly in his narrative: A Voice from within the Walls of Sebastopol (1856). Leo Tolstoy, ‘Sevastopol’, ‘The Two Hussars’ and other Stories, trans. by Louise and Aylmer Maude (1905). Aylmer Maude, The Life of Tolstoy: The First Fifty Years (1908), p.122. See The Times, 4 November 1854, p.5. ILN, 10 February 1855, p.198. Williams, p.122. The Foucault Reader, ed. by P. Rabinow (Harmondsworth, 1991), p.63.

17. 18.

Herbert L. Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow, Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics (Chicago, 1982), pp.221–2. The Levinas Reader, ed. by Sean Hand (Oxford, 1993), p.8.

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Appendix

The following is a list of poems of the Crimean War located during this study. Its purpose is to give the reader an indication of the vast amount of poetry written on the war and the range of sources in which it is found. Part I lists poems published in newspapers and journals in 1854–5. It is not, of course, in any way a complete list. Firstly, almost every edition of Punch carried material on the war, usually including some poetry. As a result, the contribution of Punch alone to a list of poems on the war would be vast, though listing them would add nothing to the understanding of the range of the sources of material. For these reasons it was decided not to include poems published in Punch here, but to ask the reader to weigh in this material en bloc, as it were, having had a flavour of their contribution from the examples quoted in my main text above. Secondly, only a small sampling of local papers could be consulted for this study and all carried poetry, some regularly. If this pattern was repeated throughout the country, then the output of amateur poetic offerings on the war must have been enormous. Part II provides an alphabetical list by title of poems on the Crimean War contained in anthologies published during or soon after the year 1854–5. Also listed are some broadsheet poems collected by Charles Hindley.

Part I ‘After Alma’ (Gerald Massey), Reynold’s Newspaper, 5 Nov. 1854, p.3. ‘After the Battle’ (Louisa Crow), Weekly Dispatch, 7 Oct. 1854, p.10. ‘After the Battle’ (R.C.T. [Trench]), The Times, 15 Nov. 1854, p.8. ‘Ahktiar: A Retrospect’ (E.L. Hervey), ILN, 29 Sept. 1855, p.398. ‘Alma’, Fraser’s Magazine, 51 (1855), 125–6. ‘Alma’ (Mrs T.K. Hervey), ILN, 21 Oct. 1854, p.390. ‘Alma’, Liverpool Chronicle, 18 Nov. 1854, p.2. ‘Alma’, Morning Chronicle, 7 Dec. 1854, p.6. ‘Alma’ (‘A Trumpeter’), Morning Post, 7 Dec. 1854, p.6.

‘The Alma’ (R.C.T. [Trench]), Preston Chronicle, 28 Oct. 1854, p.6; The Times, 24 Oct. 1854, p.9; Weekly Dispatch, 31 Dec. 1854, p.842. ‘Another Conquest, Brave Old Land’ (C.H. Bradbury [Quallon]), Weekly Dispatch, 14 Oct. 1855, p.10. ‘As We Sit by the Household Fire’ (Gerald Massey), Weekly Dispatch, 24 Dec. 1854, Supplement, p.7. ‘At Balaklava’ (T.B.A.), Preston Pilot (taken from New York Journal of Commerce), 14 Apr. 1855, p.3. ‘At Scutari’ (W.M.), Athenaeum, 13 Jan. 1855, p.81. ‘The Battle Charge’ (W. Kirkwood), Theatrical Journal, 14 Mar. 1855, p.86. ‘The Battlefield’ (Alfred Hanbury Whitaker), Morning Post, 8 Dec. 1854, p.5. ‘The Battlefield’, ILN, 14 Apr. 1855, p.350. ‘The Battle of Alma’ (A Boy of fifteen, a pupil of the Rev. W.C. Williams [...] ), Liverpool Chronicle, 18 Nov. 1854, p.2. ‘Battle of Inkerman’ (A.R.W.B.), Morning Post, 7 Dec. 1854, p.6. ‘The Battle of Inkermann’ (Charles Mackay), ILN, 30 Dec. 1854, p.693. ‘The Battle of Inkermann’ (Edmund Falconner), Preston Chronicle, 23 Dec. 1854. ‘The Battle of the Alma’ (W.C. Bennett), Reynold’s Newspaper, 22 Oct. 1855, p.3. ‘The Battle of the Alma’, Theatrical Journal, 3 Jan. 1855, p.6. ‘Before Sebastopol’ (Mary Jane Tomkins), Household Words, 11 (1855), 85. ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’, Morning Post, 28 Nov. 1854, p.5. ‘Christmas’ (J. James, of Leyland), Preston Chronicle, 23 Dec. 1854. ‘A Crimean Soldier’s Christmas Story’, London Weekly Investigator, 22 Dec. 1854, p.31. ‘The Dead Czar’ [Dinah Craik Mulock], Chambers’s Journal, N.S. 3 (1855), 256. ‘The Dead Czar’ (G.R.E.), Weekly Dispatch, 11 Mar. 1855, p.5. ‘The Death-Angel Visits’, Preston Pilot and County Advertiser, 3 Mar. 1855, p.3. ‘Death Hath Conquered’ (Caroline A. Doubble), Weekly Dispatch, 11 Mar. 1855, p.10. ‘The Decisive Charge at the Battle of the Alma’ (Nicholas Michell), New Monthly Magazine, 102 (1854), 294–5. ‘English Worship in Sebastopol’ (Mrs Ogilvy), Chambers’s Journal, N.S. 4 (1855), 400. ‘The Fall of Sebastopol’ (Thomas Miller), Illustrated Times, 22 Sept. 1855, p.255.

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‘Farewell to ’Fifty-Four’ (John Swain), Nonconformist, 15 (1855) 18. ‘A Farewell to 1854’ (Nicholas Michell), Weekly Dispatch, 14 Jan. 1855, p.10. ‘The Heights of Alma’ (T. Whitehead), Preston Pilot and County Advertiser, 28 Oct. 1854. ‘Heroes of the Alma’ (C.M. [Charles Mackay]), ILN, 14 Oct. 1854, p.359. ‘Heroes of the Crimea’ (Charles Mackay, music by Frank Mori), ILN, 16 Dec. 1854, p.632. ‘A Hope for the Brave’ (Quallon [H.S. Bradbury]), Weekly Dispatch, 18 Mar. 1855, p.10. ‘How We Spent Christmas at Home’ (E.N.B.), Morning Post, 27 Dec. 1854, p.5. ‘Inkerman’, Fraser’s Magazine, 51 (1855), 126. ‘In Memory of P.D.A. who Died January 1855’ (H.L.), Examiner, 27 Jan. 1855, p.54. ‘The Interment of the Heroes of Inkerman’ (Nicholas Michell), Morning Post, 7 Dec. 1854, p.6. ‘A Lady’s Reply to “Common Sense”’ (D.S.W.), Morning Chronicle, 23 Nov. 1854, p.5. ‘Life Spurned’ (Patrick Scott), Weekly Dispatch, 8 Apr. 1855, p.10. ‘The Light Cavalry Charge’ (J.T.B.), Morning Post, 21 Nov. 1854, p.5. ‘The Lion Flag of England’, Weekly Dispatch, 12 Aug. 1855, p.10. ‘Lord Raglan’ (W.W.F.S.), Morning Post, 13 Jul. 1855, p.5. ‘Lord Raglan and the Weather’ (David Walkinshaw), Reynold’s Newspaper, 8 Apr. 1855, p.9. ‘Losses’ (Frances Browne), Athenaeum, 7 Jul. 1855, p.790. ‘The Majesty of England’ (Quallon), Weekly Dispatch, 21 Jan. 1855, p.10. ‘The Man of Peace’ (J.M.), Liverpool Chronicle, 5 May 1855, p.2. ‘The Men of Famous England’ (R.W.), Preston Pilot and County Advertiser, 25 Nov. 1854, p.3. ‘A Monument for Scutari’ (R.M.M.), The Times, 10 Sept. 1855, p.9. ‘Mother Can This the Glory Be?’ (J.E. Carpenter), Preston Pilot And County Advertiser, 17 Feb. 1855, p.7. ‘A New Song for the Times’ (B.S.S.), Preston Pilot and County Advertiser, 27 Jan. 1855, p.7. ‘A Night on the Heights’ (Private Jones), Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, 21 (1854), 743–5. ‘Oh! Queenly Briton, Firm and Free’ (C.H. Bradbury [Quallon]), Weekly Dispatch, 28 Oct. 1854, p.10. ‘On War’ (W. Fogg of Ormskirk), Preston Chronicle, 9 Dec. 1854 p.3.

239

‘Our Soldier-Brothers’ (Mrs D. Ogilvy), Chambers’s Journal, N.S. 3 (1855), 16. ‘The Pagan and the Czar’ (Nicholas Michell), New Monthly Magazine, 102 (1854), 64–5. ‘The Patriot’s Widow’ (Sophia Iselin), Chambers’s Journal, N.S. 3 (1855), 272. ‘Peace’, Examiner, 31 Mar. 1855, p.198. ‘Poem for Victory’ (M.J.J.), ILN, 6 Oct. 1855, p.422. ‘Poets’ (W.J.C.), Examiner, 30 Dec. 1854, p.834. ‘Portrait’, Morning Post, 28 Nov. 1854, p.5. ‘A Prayer for Peace’ (F.W. Chesson), The British Friend, 8 Mar.1855, p.189. ‘Prayer in Time of War’ (E.L. of Stockport), Preston Chronicle, 16 Dec. 1854. ‘Professor Schalhaube of the University of [...] A Sketch from the life’ (C.M. [Charles Mackay]), ILN, 9 Jun. 1855, p.551. ‘The Queen’s Letter’, Morning Post, 9 Jan. 1855, p.3. ‘Russian and English Women’ (L.S.G.), Globe, 21 Nov. 1854, p.3. ‘Russian Rites and English Prayers’, Sunday at Home, 2 (1855), 176. ‘Scutari by Night’ (John Greet), Preston Chronicle, 14 Apr. 1855. ‘The Second of March 1855’ (H.L.), Examiner, 19 May 1855, p.308. ‘The Sister of Charity’, Preston Pilot and County Advertiser, 27 Jan. 1855, p.7. ‘The Soldier of Sebastopol’ (Maurice S. Asher), Theatrical Journal, 15 Aug. 1855, p.262. ‘The Soldier’s Wife’ (H.H.), Morning Post, 2 Feb. 1855, p.3. ‘A Song for Sebastopol’ (W.W. Synge), Morning Post, 20 Sept. 1855, p.6. ‘Song of Victory’ (Charles Mackay), ILN, 29 Sept. 1855, p.384. ‘Sonnet to England’ (George H. Boker), Bentley’s Miscellany, 36 (1854), 360. ‘The Spirit of May’ (E.L. Hervey), ILN, 5 May 1855, p.430. ‘Stand to your Arms’ (J.C.), Preston Chronicle, 19 May 1855. ‘’Tis not when entering illumined halls’, Liverpool Chronicle, 2 Dec. 1854, Supplement p.2. ‘To Arms’ (John Murphy), Preston Pilot and County Advertiser, 2 Dec. 1854, p.5. ‘To Florence Nightingale’ (M.F.T.), Morning Post, 2 Feb. 1855, p.3. ‘To the Friends of our Dead Heroes’ (L.S.), Spectator, 16 Dec. 1854, p.1334. ‘The Two Armadas’ (Edmund Peel), Examiner, 14 Oct. 1854, p.650. ‘The Twentieth of September, Eighteen-Hundred Fifty-Four’ (Corporal John Brown), Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 76 (1854), 696–7.

240

‘The Union’, (E.N.B.), Morning Post, 15 Dec. 1854, p.5. ‘The Unknown Grave’ (A.A. Proctor), Household Words, 11 (1855), 226–7. ‘A Valentine from the Crimea’ (E.L. Hervey), ILN, 17 Feb. 1855, p.166. ‘Victory’ (M.J.J.), ILN, 6 Oct. 1855, p.422. ‘The Victory at Alma’, Preston Pilot and County Advertiser, 14 Oct. 1854, p.6. ‘The Voice of the Nation’ (Caroline A. Doubble), Weekly Dispatch, 11 Feb. 1855, p.10. ‘Waiting’ (A.A. Proctor), Household Words, 10 (1854), 204. ‘The Wanderer’s Return’ (Marie Ewen), Chambers’s Journal, N.S. 3 (1855), p.400. ‘War’ (T. Westwood), Fraser’s Magazine, 51 (1855), 651. ‘The War Christmas’ (Westland Marston), Athenaeum, 23 Dec. 1854, p.1559; Reynold’s Newspaper, 7 Jan. 1855, p.3. ‘War Christmas’, Spectator, 23 Dec. 1854, pp.1350–1. ‘The War-Fiends’ Mission’ (Mrs Bushby), Bentley’s Miscellany, 36 (1854), 630. ‘War Music’ (F.F.), Spectator, 25 Nov. 1854, p.1230. ‘When the world shall rise resplendent’, Liverpool Chronicle, 17 Feb. 1855, p.2. ‘Ye Men of Famous England’ (R.W.), Preston Pilot, 25 Nov. 1854, p.3. ‘Young Standard-bearer! whom, with mournful pride’ (L.S.), Spectator, 30 Dec. 1855, p.1378.

Part II ‘Afloat and Ashore’, Dobell, England. ‘After Alma’, Smith and Dobell, Sonnets. ‘After Alma: In Memory of the Dead’, Massey, War Waits. ‘After the Battle’, Stokes, Echoes. ‘After the Battle’, Trench, Alma. ‘The Alliance’, Stokes, Echoes. ‘The Allied Soldier’s Pollacca’ (Alex. Kirkaldy), Crimean War Song Book. ‘Alma’, Smith and Dobell, Sonnets. ‘Alma’, Lushington, La Nation. ‘Alma’, Trench, Alma.

241

‘The Alma: September 20th, 1854’, Bennett, War Songs. ‘Alone’, Dobell, England. ‘The Army Surgeon’, Smith and Dobell, Sonnets. ‘The Arrival’, Jones, The Emperor’s Vigil. ‘Balaclava’, Doyle, The Return. ‘Balaclava’, Stokes, Echoes. ‘Balaclava: October 25th’, 1854, Bennett, Proposals. ‘Balaklava’, Massey, War Waits. ‘Balaklava’, Trench, In Time. ‘The Baltic’ (Charles Jefferys), Crimean War Song Book. ‘The Baltic’, Jones, The Emperor’s Vigil. ‘The Baltic Fleet’, Jones, The Emperor’s Vigil. ‘A Battle Charge’, Massey, War Waits. ‘The Battle March’, Massey, War Waits. ‘The Battle of Alma’, Stokes, Echoes. ‘Battle of the Alma’, Hindley, Curiosities. ‘Battle of Inkerman’, Hindley, Curiosities. ‘A Bear Hunt’, Lushington, La Nation. ‘Before Sepastopol’, Massey, War Waits. ‘Be Thyself’, Linton, Claribel. ‘Beware, O Czar, Beware!: 1853’, Bennett, War Songs. ‘The British Volunteers’ (W.J. Rhodes), Crimean War Song Book. ‘By the River Alma’, Craik, Poems. ‘Calls to Battle’, Jones, The Emperor’s Vigil. ‘The Captain’s Wife’, Dobell, England. ‘The Cause’, Tupper, Lyrics. ‘The Cavalry Charge’, Smith and Dobell, Sonnets. ‘Certain Ministers and the People’, Massey, War Waits. ‘Childless’, Smith and Dobell, Sonnets. ‘The Common Grave’, Smith and Dobell, Sonnets. ‘Cossack We Will Never Be’, Bennett, War Songs. ‘A Cry from Exile’, Massey, War Waits. ‘The Cry of the Russian Serf to the Czar’, Jones, The Battle-Day. ‘Daft Jean’, Dobell, England. ‘The Dead Czar’, Craik, Poems. ‘Dead-Maid’s Pool’, Dobell, England. ‘Death at Alma: To the Memory of Captain Arthur Watkin Williams Wynn’, Doyle, The Return. ‘The Death of the Czar’, Shore, Poems. ‘Desolate’, Dobell, England.

242

‘The Dirge’, Stokes, Echoes. ‘Down in Australia’, Massey, The Ballad. ‘The Drummer’s Death-Roll’, Prince, Autumn Leaves. ‘1854’, Linton, Claribel. ‘The Emperor’s Vigil’, Jones, The Emperor’s Vigil. ‘England Approved’. Tupper, Lyrics. ‘England Goes to Battle’, Massey, The Ballad. ‘England, the Anchor and Hope of the World’ (George Linley), Crimean War Song Book. ‘The Englishman’ (Eliza Cook), Crimean War Song Book. ‘An Evening Dream’, Dobell, England. ‘The Expedition’, Stokes, Echoes. ‘The Fall of Sebastopol’, Hindley, Curiosities. ‘Farewell’, Dobell, England. ‘The Fifth of November at Inkerman’, Massey, War Waits. ‘The Flag of Old England’ (W. West), Crimean War Song Book. ‘The Fleet before Sebastopol’, Massey, The Ballad. ‘The Fleet under Sail’, Lushington, La Nation. ‘For Charity’s Sake’, Dobell, England. ‘The Fountains of History’, Jones, The Emperor’s Vigil. ‘Freedom’, Smith and Dobell, Sonnets. ‘Freedom Now her Banners Waving’ (George Linley), Crimean War Song Book. ‘The French Invasion: April 1855’, Bennett, War Songs. ‘From what of passion and of earthly pride’, Trench, Alma. ‘The Gaberlunzie’s Walk’, Dobell, England. ‘The Ghost’s Return’, Dobell, England. ‘The Glorious Battle of Inkermann’ (Alex. Kirkaldy), Crimean War Song Book. ‘God Defend the Right’ (George Linley), Crimean War Song Book. ‘The Gracious Message’, Tupper, Lyrics. ‘Grand Conversation on Sebastopol Arose!’, Hindley, Curiosities. ‘Grass from the Battle-Field’, Dobell, England. ‘Guns of Peace: March 30 1856’, Craik, Poems. ‘Hark! The Wolves Are on the Track’, Bennett, War Songs. ‘Harvest Hymn’, Prince, Autumn Leaves. ‘Harvest Hymn for 1854’, Tupper, Lyrics. ‘A Health to the Queen’, Dobell, England. ‘Heart and Will’, Linton, Claribel. ‘He is Safe’, Dobell, England.

243

‘He Loves and Rides Away’, Dobell, England. ‘Help for the Turk’ (J.S. Clement), Crimean War Song Book. ‘Helping Hands’, Jones, The Emperor’s Vigil. ‘The Heroes of the Alma’ (Anon.), Crimean War Song Book. ‘A Hero’s Grave’, Dobell, England. ‘Hoist High the Flag’ (Dr J.R. Werford), Crimean War Song Book. ‘Home’, Smith and Dobell, Sonnets. ‘Home Wounded’, Dobell, England. ‘How’s my Boy’, Dobell, England. ‘A Hymn for Christmas Morning, 1855’, Craik, Poems. ‘Hymn for our Day of Prayer on the Declaration of War’, Tupper, Lyrics. ‘In huts and palaces are mourners found’, Trench, In Time. ‘Inkerman’, Lushington, La Nation. ‘Inkerman’, Stokes, Echoes. ‘Inkerman’, Trench, In Time. ‘Inkermann: November 5th, 1854’, Bennett, War Songs. ‘In War-Time: An Aspiration of the Spirit’, Dobell, England. ‘In War-Time: A Prayer of the Understanding’, Dobell, England. ‘In War-Time: A Psalm of the Heart’, Dobell, England. ‘Judged’, Tupper, Lyrics. ‘Lady Constance’, Dobell, England. ‘Life Returning After War-Time’, Craik, Poems. ‘The Lilies of France and Old England’s Red Rose’, Massey, The Ballad. ‘The Little Girl’s Song’, Dobell, England. ‘Looking Death in the Face’, Craik, Poems. ‘March to the Battle Field’ (anon.), Crimean War Song Book. ‘The Market-Wife’s Song’, Dobell, England. ‘The Marshal’s Death’, Stokes, Echoes. ‘Marshal St Arnaud’s Farewell to Alma’ (anon.), Crimean War Song Book. ‘Meditative’, Smith and Dobell, Sonnets. ‘The Milkmaid’s Song’, Dobell, England. ‘Miss Nightingale’, Smith and Dobell, Sonnets. ‘The Morn of Inkerman’, Lushington, La Nation. ‘Mortality’, Craik, Poems. ‘The Mother’s Lesson’, Dobell, England. ‘Murmurs’, Smith and Dobell, Sonnets. ‘The Muster of the Guards’, Lushington, La Nation. ‘A National Hymn’, Linton, Claribel. ‘La Nation Boutiquière’, Lushington, La Nation. ‘New National Anthem’ (Alex. Kirkaldy), Crimean War Song Book.

244

‘Nicholas and the British Lion’, Massey, War Waits. ‘The Nightingale in the East’, Hindley, Curiosities. ‘Night in the Soldiers’ Hospital at Scutari’, Shore, Poems. ‘Not in Vain’, Trench, In Time. ‘A Nuptial Eve’, Dobell, England. ‘The Nurses’, Stokes, Echoes. ‘Old England’, Massey, The Ballad. ‘On Alma’s Heights’ (T. Walker), Crimean War Song Book. ‘On the Breaking Off of the Conference at Vienna, June, 1855’, Trench, In Time. ‘The Orphan’s Song’, Dobell, England. ‘Our Country’, Linton, Claribel. ‘Our Guards’, Bennett, Proposals. ‘Our Mother’, Smith and Dobell, Sonnets. ‘Our Native Land and Queen’ (J. Oliver), Crimean War Song Book. ‘Our Triumph for Sinope: 1853’, Bennett, War Songs. ‘The Parting’, Stokes, Echoes. ‘Peace and War’, Jones, The Emperor’s Vigil. ‘Prayer for Peace’, Jones, The Battle-Day. ‘A Prayer for Peace’, Prince, Autumn Leaves. ‘The Pride of Old England’ (Alex. Kirkaldy), Crimean War Song Book. ‘The Queen and the Navy For Ever’ (J. Beular), Crimean War Song Book. ‘The Recruits’ Ball’, Dobell, England. ‘Rest’, Smith and Dobell, Sonnets. ‘The Return’, Jones, The Emperor’s Vigil. ‘The Return of Peace’, Prince, Autumn Leaves. ‘The Return of the Guards’, July 9, 1856, Doyle, The Return. ‘The Road to the Trenches’, Lushington, La Nation. ‘The Sailor’s Night Watch’, Jones, The Emperor’s Vigil. ‘The Sailor’s Return’, Dobell, England. ‘The Score is – Four: September, 1854’, Bennett, War Songs. ‘Sebastopol’, Smith and Dobell, Sonnets. ‘The Second of March, 1855’, Lushington, La Nation. ‘A Shower in War-Time’, Dobell, England. ‘The Siege’, Stokes, Echoes. ‘Signs of Glory’, Jones, The Emperor’s Vigil. ‘Sleeping and Waking’, Dobell, England. ‘The Sodger’s Lassie’, Dobell, England. ‘The Soldier Comforted’, Tupper, Lyrics. ‘The Soldier Knows that Every Ball’ (anon.), Crimean War Song Book.

245

‘The Soldier’s Tear’ (anon.), Crimean War Song Book. ‘The Soldier’s Wife’ (Henry Russell), Crimean War Song Book. ‘Song’, Bennett, Our Glory Roll. ‘A Statesman’, Smith and Dobell, Sonnets. ‘Sunday, November the Fifth, 1854’, Trench, Alma. ‘Take, Flags, One More Glory’, Bennett, War Songs. ‘Tars and Soldiers’ (anon.), Crimean War Song Book. ‘Things Will Go Better Yet’, Massey, The Ballad. ‘This, or on this’, Trench, Alma. ‘This War’, Tupper, Lyrics. ‘Thought is Free’, Stokes, Echoes. ‘A Thought on War’, Prince, Autumn Leaves. ‘To Florence Nightingale’, Tupper, Lyrics. ‘Together lay them in one grave’, Trench, Alma. ‘Tommy’s Dead’, Dobell, England. ‘To the Autocrat’, Stokes, Echoes. ‘To the Besiegers of Sebastopol’, Bennett, War Songs. ‘The Tricolor: A Cry for European Freedom, 1855’, Bennett, Proposals. ‘The Unforgotten’, Trench, Alma. ‘Up with the Standard of England’ (anon.), Crimean War Song Book. ‘Viva Victoria!’ (C.W. Glover), Crimean War Song Book. ‘Volunteers’, Smith and Dobell, Sonnets. ‘Vox Populi’, Smith and Dobell, Sonnets. ‘War’, Smith and Dobell, Sonnets. ‘War Music’, Shore, Poems. ‘War Rumours’, Massey, War Waits. ‘A War-winter’s Night in England’, Massey, War Waits. ‘The Waste of War’, Prince, Autumn Leaves. ‘Waterloo Avenged’, Tupper, Lyrics. ‘Weep not for the Heroic Dead’ (Alex. Kirkaldy), Crimean War Song Book. ‘What though yet the spirit slumber’, Trench, Alma. ‘When the Rain is on the Roof ’ , Dobell, England. ‘Where, O Poland, are thy Lances’, Bennett, War Songs. ‘Who are the Brave?’ Stokes, Echoes. ‘Widows and Orphans’, Stokes, Echoes. ‘The Widow’s Lullaby’, Dobell, England. ‘Wind’, Dobell, England. ‘Woe is me’, Dobell, England. ‘Woes for the Czar’, Tupper, Lyrics. ‘The Words of the West’, Jones, The Emperor’s Vigil.

246

‘Worthies’, Smith and Dobell, Sonnets. ‘The Wounded’, Smith and Dobell, Sonnet. ‘Yes, let us on it in conference free’, Trench, Alma. ‘The Young Man’s Song’, Dobell, England.

247


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Marzena Sokołowska-Paryż

The Myth of War in British and Polish Poetry 1939–1945 Bruxelles, Bern, Berlin, Frankfurt/M., New York, Oxford, Wien, 2002. 313 pp. New Comparative Poetics. Vol. 4 General Editor: Marc Maufort ISBN 90-5201-962-2 / US-ISBN 0-8204-4679-3 pb. sFr. 53.– / €* 36.50 / €** 34.10 / £ 22.– / US-$ 33.95 * includes VAT – only valid for Germany and Austria ** does not include VAT

In recent decades, there has been a marked tendency to look at war literature from a perspective that reaches beyond the experiences of particular nations. Characteristically, though poetry and prose from Poland, Hungary and former Czechoslovakia are included in multi-national anthologies, the war literatures of Eastern Europe seem to have been ignored in critical studies. The Myth of War in British and Polish Poetry. 1939-1945 aims to fill in this critical vacuum. This study concentrates on the processes through which British and Polish poetry contributed to the shaping of myths of war, each offering creative interpretations of historical facts and developments. Both poetic traditions are analysed in the context of their national literary heritage and historical background in order to explain the discrepancies characterising these imaginative versions of war. Yet, the ultimate objective is to discover spheres of convergence within a network of differences. This comparative analysis of British and Polish war poetry paves the way for discussions about the relationships between national and individual experiences of history, inviting consideration of how seemingly unsurpassable borders can be crossed. Contents: Survey of the developments in British and Polish poetry of the First World War – The creation of national myths of war and their impact on post-1918 literature – British and Polish poetry of the Second World War – The myth of war and the myth of the wartime generation – The impact of the British and Polish myths of war on post-1945 poetry.

PETER LANG Bern · Berlin · Bruxelles · Frankfurt/M. · New York · Oxford · Wien

Berry Palmer Chevasco

Mysterymania The Reception of Eugène Sue in Britain 1838–1860 Oxford, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt/M., New York, Wien, 2003. 284 pp. European Connections. Vol. 6 Edited by Peter Collier ISBN 3-906769-78-X / US-ISBN 0-8204-5915-1 pb. sFr. 79.– / €* 54.40 / €** 50.80 / £ 33.– / US-$ 50.95 * includes VAT – only valid for Germany and Austria ** does not include VAT

Mysterymania examines the reception in Britain of the French author Eugène Sue from 1838 to 1860 with the aim of furthering understanding of the intellectual and cultural dialogue between France and Britain and the effect of that dialogue on British fiction during the Victorian period. Sue’s novels were widely read throughout the western world during the 1840s, especially amongst the newly literate of the poor and working classes. His success with these new readers helped to feed the controversies of the period surrounding the influence of fiction on public morality. The study of Sue’s reception in Britain offers insight into these controversies as well as adding to the awareness of the concerns of an important period in the history of English literature. Because of his widespread success, Sue’s effect on popular culture and fiction is easily recognized. Mysterymania explores the more problematic relationship of Sue’s fiction with contemporary British works which now form part of the established canon. Particular attention is paid to the relationship Sue’s novels bear to some of the most studied figures of English literature, notably Dickens and Thackeray. Mysterymania seeks to advance the appreciation of a nineteenth-century author whose works were significant to his time but whose importance has been largely ignored since. Contents: ‘Roi du Roman Feuilleton’: life and works of Eugène Sue – ‘The moral epidemic’: critical response to Sue in the British press 1838-1857 – ‘Mysterymania’: an historical examination of the effect of G.W.M. Reynolds’s The Mysteries of London and Les Mystères de Paris – Response to Sue’s fiction in the papers and works of key Victorian authors, Dickens, Thackeray, Elizabeth Gaskell, Disraeli, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Eliot and Charles Kingsley – ‘Social problem novels’ and the poor fallen woman: Sue’s legacy on Victorian English fiction.

PETER LANG Bern · Berlin · Bruxelles · Frankfurt/M. · New York · Oxford · Wien

A War Culture in Action: A Study of the Literature of the Crimean War Period

The Crimean War: A History

Crimean War

Crimean War

Why the Crimean War?: A Cautionary Tale

The Culture of War

The Crimean War 1853-56

Fredericksburg, a study in war

The Crimean War: 1854-1856

A study of war, vol. 1

A study of war, vol.2

A study of war, vol.1

A study of war, vol.2

A Study of War (Volume I)

A Study of War (Volume II)

A War of Gifts

A Philosophy of War

A War of Shadows

A Philosophy of War

A Rumor of War

A Rumor of War

A Time of War

A Moment Of War

A War of Gifts

A War of Gifts

A War of Shadows

A Time of War

A War Of Shadows

A War of Shadows

A War of Shadows

A War of Shadows

A War Culture in Action: A Study of the Literature of the Crimean War Period

The Crimean War: A History

Crimean War

Crimean War

Why the Crimean War?: A Cautionary Tale

The Culture of War

The Crimean War 1853-56

Fredericksburg, a study in war

The Crimean War: 1854-1856

A study of war, vol. 1

A study of war, vol.2

A study of war, vol.1

A study of war, vol.2

A Study of War (Volume I)

A Study of War (Volume II)

A War of Gifts

A Philosophy of War

A War of Shadows

A Philosophy of War

A Rumor of War

A Rumor of War

A Time of War

A Moment Of War

A War of Gifts

A War of Gifts

A War of Shadows

A Time of War

A War Of Shadows

A War of Shadows

A War of Shadows

A War of Shadows

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