Mercenaries for the Crimea: The German, Swiss, and Italian Legions in British Service, 1854-1856 9780773592377

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MERCENARIES

FOR THE

CRIMEA The German, Swiss, and Italian Legions in British Service, 1854-1856

C. C. BAYLEY

McGILL—QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY PRESS

Montreal & London 1977

©McGill-Queen's University Press 1977 International Standard Book Number 0-7735-0273-4 Legal Deposit first quarter 1977 Bibliotheque nationale du Quebec This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Social Science Research Council of Canada using funds provided by the Canada Council

Design by ALLAN HARRISON Printed in Canada by Imprimerie Gagne Ltee

Contents Preface

1 Army Recruiting before the Crimean War

1

2 The Search for Allies

26

3 ' The Search for Recruits

35

4 The Foreign Enlistment Bill

44

Origins Parliamentary Debate on the Bill 5 Press and Public Opinion on the Bill

56

6 Preparations for Foreign Recruiting

67

Germany Switzerland Sardinia 7 Problems of Foreign Recruiting

80

Germany Italy Switzerland 8 The Period of Training and Service

107

9 Disbandment

117

Swiss Legion German Legion Italian Legion 10 Conclusion

134

Appendixes A: Foreign Recruiting in the British Isles, 1815-35

145

B: Return of officers, NCOs and men enlisted in each of the Foreign Legions during the late war

149

C: The Officers of the German Legion

151

D: The Officers of the Italian Legion

154

E : The Officers of the Swiss Legion

156

F : The Geographical Composition of the German and Italian Legions

157

Notes

159

Select Bibliography

176

Index

187

vi

Preface

The more dramatic episodes of the War in the Crimea have never lacked historians; but less attention has been paid to the unspectacular yet crucial problem of recruiting for the army which confronted British ministries in 1854-55. An industrial and agricultural boom coincided with a rising rate of emigration to drain the pool of manpower potentially available for military service. Concurrently the heavy losses suffered in the Crimea brought the question of reinforcements and recruiting to the forefront of public attention. The customary method of stimulating domestic enlistment was to increase the bounty, which was raised to £17 without notable effect. The equally traditional course was to tap the trained manpower of the states of continental Europe by open or clandestine recruiting. The German, Swiss, and Italian Legions ultimately brought into British service were procured at heavy expense and at the cost of some diplomatic friction with the countries involved. Their failure to reach the Crimea cast a shadow over the enterprise and encouraged lively domestic criticism of foreign recruiting. The War in the Crimea acted as a slow dissolvent on the fading Wellingtonian tradition, and the venerable custom of recruiting and subsidizing troops on the Continent was one of the ultimate casualties. Episodes in the history of the legions have been previously related in articles by Hoffmann and Michel (see Bibliography). The subsequent publication of Sardinian diplomatic sources and the exploration of relevant material in the Public Record Office have contributed to a more comprehensive and detailed treatment of the subject. Chapter 1 surveys the traditional mechanisms and policies of army recruiting in their social setting. Chapter 2 describes in bare outline the failure of Anglo-French diplomacy to bring the armies of Austria or Prussia into the field in a concerted offensive against Russia.

Consequently the sluggish pace of recruiting at home became a source of concern as the Crimean campaign bit deeply into the strength of the British forces (Chapter 3). A hastily contrived remedy for slack domestic recruiting took the form of the Foreign Enlistment Act (Chapter 4), which met with a mixed reception from an unprepared public opinion (Chapter 5). The preliminary probings and inquiries undertaken abroad to test the practicability of the act are touched upon in Chapter 6. Chapter 7 considers the numerous and delicate problems engendered by the recruiting drive in the countries involved. The deployment of the legions against the enemy was arrested by the conclusion of peace before any part of the force could reach the Crimea (Chapter 8). Hence the disbandment of the legions (Chapter 9) proceeded in an unfavourable climate of public opinion, and was complicated by the refusal of some European governments to readmit discharged legionaries, by disputes over severance terms, and by dissatisfaction with official plans for settling legionaries overseas. The conclusion drawn by the government from the disconcerting experiences of 1854-56 was that the abortive experiment of the foreign legions should not be renewed (Chapter 10). The author tenders his warm thanks for special kindnesses to the Trustees of the British Museum and to the Public Record Office. He wishes to acknowledge the gracious permission of Her Majesty the Queen to use the Royal Archives at Windsor, and is also most grateful for the aid afforded by the staffs of the Cambridge University Library, the John Rylands Library of the University of Manchester, the McGill University Libraries, and the Widener Library of Harvard University. The support of the Social Science Research Council of Canada in aid of publication is gratefully acknowledged.

viii

1 Army recruiting before the Crimean War

The enlistment of foreign legions during the Crimean War as a partial remedy for the shortfall in domestic recruiting created a public furore and excited bitter debate in Britain. But in fact recruiting difficulties on the domestic front and the consequent employment of foreign troops had long been firmly established in British military tradition. The increasing scale and intensity of Britain's continental and colonial wars after the Revolution of 1688 imposed an unprecedented strain on the creaking and inadequate machinery of recruiting for the regular army. At the same time the accesion of a Dutch prince as William III and of a German prince-elector as George I in 1714 facilitated access to the recruiting grounds of Europe. These alternative sources of manpower contributed to diminish the pressure for drastic change in the voluntary basis of domestic recruiting for the regular forces. Only the more unfortunate members of society were regarded as fit subjects for coercion. Thus an enactment of 1696 permitted the release of imprisoned debtors for army service provided that they were under forty years of age and their debts did not exceed one hundred pounds.' Similarly, the medieval practice of extending the royal pardon to criminals under detention on condition that they enlisted received statutory form in 1702.2 Early in the following year a bill was introduced to authorize the levying of men for the armed forces in all the counties of England. But the reaction of the electorate was so unfavourable that the measure was watered down to allow magistrates to enforce the enlistment of paupers, vagrants, and persons without a lawful trade or occupation.3 In the voluntary sector of the system, recruiting parties composed of an officer, a sergeant, and a drummer were sent out by each regiment to raise men in village and town "by beat of drum."

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA The recruiting sergeant, often swaggering, devious, and profuse in roseate promises, adopted an inn or tavern as his temporary base of operations, and softened the resistance of likely recruits by deep and continuous potations. Despite the glamour of his full regimentals and his anecdotes of glorious deeds on the battlefields of Europe his activities were not universally popular. The squirearchy disliked the possibility of losing reliable labourers to the army.4 Local authorities feared that the enlistment of heads of families would plunge dependents into poverty and thus increase the burden of parish relief. Hence they normally exerted pressure only on the unemployed and the socially undesirable elements of the parish population. In this unpropitious atmosphere the chief weapon of the recruiting sergeant, the offer of "levy money" or the enlistment bounty, acquired increasing importance. But it was fixed by tradition at forty shillings, a totally inadequate amount. Instead of raising the bounty the government proposed in 1707 a compulsory levy of 16,000 men from all the counties and parishes of England. This enlargement of the coercive sector of the system was narrowly defeated in the House of Commons by 185 votes to 177.5 Early in 1708 the bounty was raised to five pounds for volunteers who enlisted before 1 May, but it was reduced to the previous figure after that date.6 The consequent chronic shortage of recruits encouraged the abuse of the system by all participants. Men enlisted for the sake of the slender bounty, spent it in drink, and then demanded their release or deserted on the plea that they had been enticed into the army while under the influence of alcohol. Recruiting parties attempted to guard against this practice by holding the men incommunicado until they reached regimental headquarters. Between 1694 and 1697 a clause of the annual Mutiny Act required that recruits should be brought before a justice of the peace within four days of enlistment in order to express their consent or dissent.' Men who wished to withdraw must repay their enlistment bounty and twenty shillings to cover the incidental costs of enlistment (the so-called "smart money") within twenty four hours. This legislative protection for repentant recruits was frequently ignored by recruiting parties, and in any case was valueless to dissentients of scanty means. They had usually dissipated the bounty in some tavern before they faced the magistrate for attestation. Families were usually prepared to 2

Army Recruiting before the Crimean War

make financial sacrifices to recover a husband or a son from the clutches of the recruiting sergeant. But their collective resources were often too small and the stipulated five days' period of grace was too brief to permit them to take timely action. The attestation clause was partly directed, however, against the unsavoury recruiting activities of civilian "crimps" who, in conjunction with the military, virtually kidnapped men for military service. In 1694 a London justice of the peace, Ralph Bucknall, testified in a petition to the House of Commons that he had received complaints of illegal enlistments conducted by Robert Davis, a deputy provost marshal, and Michael Tooley, the proprietor of a crimping house in Holborn. The victims charged that the two accused had invited them to drink in a local tavern and had stealthily slipped the king's shilling into their pockets as a token of enlistment. The recipients were then informed that they were soldiers of the king. When they objected that they had received nothing, they were ordered before witnesses to examine their pockets, and the shillings were brought to view. They were taken under strong escort to Tooley's residence and locked into verminous rooms to await the arrival of a recruiting party. In the meantime Tooley attempted to exploit their predicament by offering to release them immediately for the payment of twenty shillings each, an amount which far exceeded their present means. Two members of the House of Commons investigated the charges and reported that only eight of thirty-four men detained on Tooley's premises had freely enlisted. Tooley admitted the offences and implored pardon on his knees before the bar of the House. He was duly reprimanded by the Speaker and discharged on 20 March 1694.8 His punishment was not excessive, and the attestation clause introduced into the Mutiny Act of 1694, perhaps as a result of the incident, was dropped after 1697 and did not consistently reappear until 17359 The crimping houses of London continued to function steadily under the tacit approval and protection of the military authorities. The coercive aspect of recruiting was deeply rooted in financial considerations. Under the prevailing system of proprietory regiments each regiment was an autonomous body under its colonelproprietor, and was regarded for recruiting purposes as a separate entity. Its recruiting officers paid the enlistment bounty to the recruit immediately, and subsequently claimed the amount 3

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA

expended from the regimental funds, the so-called "stock purse."10 If a recruit deserted en route to the regiment, the bounty money was deducted from the officer's pay. Consequently recruiting parties kept a close watch on recruits in transit and frequently pinioned or handcuffed them for greater security. Despite these precautions nocturnal escapes from custody were not unusual. They were carried out with notable skill and contrivance by experienced "bounty jumpers" who filled their pockets with bounty money by means of a rapid succession of enlistments and desertions. Finally, the current rate of pay in the eighteenth century was a powerful deterrent to legal recruiting. The wage of eightpence per day assigned to the private soldier, of which six pence were deducted for his daily subsistence, was attractive only to the poor or the utterly destitute. The fluctuating and uncertain inflow of native recruits heightened the importance of the foreign contingents in British service. In 1695 the Dutch, Danish, and Hanoverian troops attained a strength of over 21,000 men of a grand total for all ranks of 87,440.11 The renewal of the war against France in 1701 ushered in an extensive recruiting campaign in Europe. Subsidy treaties, direct recruiting, and an influx of Huguenot refugees rapidly raised the proportion of foreign troops to 81,000 men of a total of 150,000 in British pay. After the peace treaties of 1713-14 the steep reduction of army strength to a nominal establishment of 26,000 men for Britain and Ireland tended to increase the need for foreign auxiliaries in time of emergency. Thus the Hanoverian, Hessian, and Dutch regiments played an important role in the suppression of the Jacobite uprising of 1745. Nevertheless their employment inside the realm remained highly distasteful to Parliament. A strong body of opinion favoured the use of the militia, the "constitutional force," for home defence, and urged that foreign levies should bear the main burden of Britain's wars on the European continent. The case was stated in uncompromising terms by Lord Egmont in 1756: "I shall never be for carrying on a war upon the continent of Europe by a large body of national troops, because we can always get foreign troops to hire. This should be our adopted method in any war on the continent of Europe."12 These comfortable assumptions were well calculated to maintain general confidence in the viability of the traditional system of 4

Army Recruiting before the Crimean War

recruiting for the regular army insofar that it imposed minimum demand on the useful manpower of the nation in time of war. During the struggle with France and Spain between 1739 and 1748 the customary devices to stimulate domestic recruiting were simply revived. The impressment of parish paupers was reapplied in 1739. In 1743 short-term enlistments for three years were reintroduced, with a bounty of £4. An act of 1744 authorized the forcible enlistment of rogues and vagabonds above twelve years of age.13 But the scope and intensity of Britain's European and colonial campaigns created a serious recruiting problem in the midst of the Seven Years War of 1756-63. By 1760 the current mechanisms of domestic recruiting, operating under full pressure, had increased the national elements in George III's armies to a strength of 97,000 effectives, which were supplemented by 60,000 foreign troops in British pay. But in the closing years of the war the greatest difficulties were experienced in finding recruits. The expanding metallurgical and textile industries, stimulated by the demands of the armed forces, offered wages which the army could not match, and the embodying of the militia following 1757 immobilized great numbers of potential recruits in home defence. In some desperation the military authorities offered commissions to young gentlemen of means who were prepared in return to recruit "independent companies" at their own expense. The entrepreneurs attracted by the proposition ransacked the country for recruits. Their most powerful argument, the enlistment bounty, varied from £6 to £10. This expedient of "recruiting for rank" brought in-only 6,200 men by the close of the war. Inspecting officers reported that most of them were old men and boys, below regulation height and physically unfit for active service." On the eve of the War of American Independence the effective strength of the British army outside North America stood at 15,000 men in England, 12,000 in Ireland, and 13,000 in Gibraltar, Minorca, and the West Indies.15 At the outbreak of hostilities the need for heavy reinforcements of seasoned troops for the British forces in North America was apparent, if the "rebellion" was to be snuffed out quickly. Parliament was not in session, and George III and his ministers decided to conduct large scale recruiting in Europe. But Catherine the Great rejected out of hand a request for a subsidy treaty involving 20,000 Russian regulars, and the United Provinces were equally adamant with regard to their Scots 5

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA Brigade. The princes of Hesse, Brunswick, and Waldeck were more accommodating, and agreed to furnish nearly 18,000 men in return for generous subsidies.16 Domestic recruiting among the lower orders of society for a distant and generally unpopular war was slow and difficult. Only 8,620 men were found for the regular army in 1777. Lord North revived the system of obligatory parish quotas in 1778, and in the following year sponsored legislation to conscript the pickpockets and vagabonds of London. The measure raised 1,000 men, who took the first opportunity to desert en masse. The enlistment bounty, thriftily fixed at £3 in 1777, was raised to three guineas in 1778. Short-term enlistments for five years were offered to men between seventeen and forty-five years of age. Constant demands for reinforcements from the British generals in North America stimulated the feverish hunt for recruits. Recruiting parties of individual regiments competed unscrupulously for the dwindling supply, and crimping attained unheard-of proportions. Regimental officers habitually haunted the local courts of quarter sessions and procured the discharge of offenders on condition of enlistment.17 Young men of the parish who had increased the population without benefit of clergy were invited by magistrates to choose between marriage and enlistment. The creation of the office of inspector-general of recruiting to supervise and coordinate the raising of men by the various regiments was a tacit commentary on the promiscuous nature of recruiting and on the declining quality of recruits. The recruiting system did not wholly escape reassessment when the American war reached its inglorious close in 1783. It was arguable in retrospect that slow domestic recruiting had played some part in the failure to marshal swiftly sufficient forces to nip the American revolt in the bud. In this connection the relative inelasticity of the enlistment bounty, still fixed at three guineas in the final year of the war, was felt to have been a major obstacle to more successful recruiting. The source of the bounty, the regimental stock purse, was supplemented at need by grants from the royal contingency fund for the army. But regimental funds could be rapidly depleted during periods of competitive bidding for recruits. George III peremptorily forbade recruiting officers to give covert supplements to the standard bounty. He acknowledged the problem, however, by his proposal that the

Army Recruiting before the Crimean War

nobility and gentry should privately pay an additional halfguinea bounty to men raised in their locality. The colonels of the proprietory regiments, in stressing their recruiting difficulties, petitioned constantly that the burden of the bounty should be lifted from the regimental funds."B In 1783 an act sponsored by Edmund Burke transferred the payment of the bounty from the regimental stock purses to the public treasury.19 In the decade of peace which followed the army was steeply reduced in numbers and the potential value of Burke's measure was not seriously tested. When France declared war on 1 February 1793 the regiments in Britain and Ireland were sadly undermanned and did not exceed 38,000 effectives. Pitt, in sanguine expectation of a short war, provided for an immediate increase of less than 10,000 men. The Committee of Public Safety decreed the conscription of single men between eighteen and twenty-five years of age, and Pitt was compelled to intensify recruiting from all sources. By 1794 the regiments of Hanoverians, Hessians, and Badenese engaged by virtue of subsidy treaties exceeded 33,000 men.20 A statute of 9 May of the same year also empowered the Crown to accept the services of French emigres residing in Britain and Germany. In deference to parliamentary prejudice against the presence in strength of foreign levies on English soil the enactment stipulated that the number of such volunteers training in Britain should not exceed 5,000 at any one time. Notice of the landing of fresh contingents must be given to Parliament within two weeks of their arrival, and none were to be brought more than five miles inland. Opposition spokesmen conceded grudgingly that it was expedient to enrol the resident emigres rather than to allow them to become a "dead weight" on the country.21 The rising urgency of the situation was also reflected in the improved terms of domestic enlistment. The pay of the private soldier was raised from eightpence to a shilling a day. The bounty soared to £10, and later to fourteen guineas.22 Short-term engagements were revived in the face of heavy opposition from senior officers, who argued insidiously that a generous bounty for a brief period of service was inordinately expensive to the government. Pitt also reinvigorated the device of recruiting for rank: a major who raised 450 men for his battalion was accorded a lieutenantcolonelcy at a purchase price of only £600. The army encountered

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA keen competition in its recruiting activities from naval press gangs and from officers of the forces of the East India Company, which offered a higher enlistment bounty. Nevertheless its recruiting parties and crimps raised 120,000 men for the regular army between 1793 and 1796. But officers were disquieted by the high proportion of old men and boys in this impressive total.23 The unremitting activity of army crimps in these critical years kindled serious civilian rioting in London.24 The initial disturbances on 15 August 1794 were touched off by the misfortunes of a young gentleman, George Howe, who entered a brothel in the notorious Charing Cross district and discovered too late that it was also a crimping house. He was seized and confined in a garret pending the arrival of a recruiting party. The filthy pallet on which he lay infected him with smallpox, but his appeals for medical aid were ignored by the proprietor. In rising delirium he tore off his clothes to abate the heat of fever, forced the garret window, climbed out on the roof, and fell headlong to his death in the street below. A furious mob assembled and partly demolished the house before it was dispersed by a detachment of Foot Guards. The intervention of the unpopular regulars gave fresh impetus to the protest movement. In the following week larger mobs methodically raided recruiting houses in Holborn, Bride Lane, Golden Lane, Drury Lane, Moor Lane, Smithfield, Whitechapel, and Clerkenwell. The unwilling inmates were liberated, and the houses gutted. A mayoral proclamation from Mansion House threatened rioters with shooting on sight, and the ferment temporarily subsided. Four of the ringleaders were sentenced to death at the Old Bailey on 29 September. The exemplary penalties did not prevent a vast crowd from gathering before a recruiting establishment near St. George's Fields on 9 January 1795. The well-furnished house contained a recruiting party and two women of the town, elegantly gowned, who were used as bait. The young men who entered were handcuffed, detained, and carried by coach under cover of night to their future regiment. On this occasion the alarm was raised by a kidnapped pot boy, who contrived to break a window and to cry "Murder!" before he was silenced. The crowd stormed the house and released eighteen involuntary recruits from their manacles. Next day the mob freed the inmates of the other recruiting establishments in the neighbourhood. Army patrols were not always 8

Army Recruiting before the Crimean War

able to protect widely dispersed crimping houses from sudden assault: an establishment in Lambeth Road was wrecked by mob action in July 1795 before the disturbances died away. Notwithstanding the dubious nature of their activities the army crimps involved received maximum protection. They were usually taken into custody in order to protect them from the fury of the mob and quietly released a few days later to resume their vocation. The popular outbursts of 1794-95 applied only a local and temporary brake to recruiting activities. The more permanent deterrents were the rooted aversion of working-class families to the enlistment of any of their members in the regular army; the sombre prospect of service in the dreaded West Indian stations, where yellow fever swept away new recruits without pause; the rate of pay, still inferior to that of the average agricultural labourer; and the retention of manpower by the growing war industries. Moreover, service in the militia, selected by ballot for home defence under the act of 1757, adversely affected the flow of men into the regulars. Militiamen drawn by ballot could escape service in person by furnishing a substitute, who by private bargain might receive as much as £20. Men qualified for the militia took out a form of insurance against personal service by forming local militia clubs, the funds of which were fed by their individual subscriptions. Any member balloted for the militia was entitled to draw upon the accumulated capital for the amount required to purchase a substitute. Hence potential recruits passed more readily into the militia as substitutes rather than into the regulars. A legislative act of 1797 empowered the voluntary transfer of 10,000 men from the militia to the regulars.25 It foundered, however, on the opposition of the militia colonels. Many of these were landed noblemen and gentlemen of considerable influence, and they objected strenuously to the depletion of their regiments for the benefit of the regular army. They protested further against the recruiting of their men by regular army officers and the accompanying "scenes of drunkenness." But the government, though insistent, was not inflexible. The militia bill of 1799 empowered the army to recruit on a voluntary basis up to one quarter of the current strength of the militia. Recruiting was confided, however, to militia officers, and men accepting were to serve for five years in the European theatre only.26 These concessions, backed by a ten guinea bounty, brought over 15,000 militia into the regulars in 1799. Beyond the 9

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA confines of the militia the enlistment of boys of sixteen years was legalized in 1797 if they had attained a height of five feet one inch, three inches below the reduced standard of five feet four inches for older recruits.27 Foreign recruiting, stimulated by the growing prospect of a long war and of correspondingly heavy casualties, was conducted with great vigour during the first decade of the conflict. The French loyalist émigrés enlisted under the act of 1794 were formed into the Loyal Emigrant Regiment commanded by the Comte de la Chartre. It suffered heavy losses during the campaign of 1794 in the Low Countries. The French forces, filled with revolutionary fervour, gave no quarter to wounded and prisoners taken from the regiment. Baron de Roll, a senior officer of Louis XVI's Swiss Guard, renounced the French cause and brought his regiment into British pay in the same year. Col. Edward Dillon's "Irish" Brigade, raised in 1795, was recruited from French émigrés in Lombardy. In its second phase, foreign recruiting was chiefly addressed to the "submerged nationalities" which lay in the wake of French expansion. Covert recruiting on Swiss territory, which was overrun in 1798, initially yielded only 2,000 men, raised at a heavy cost of more than £140,000. The Swiss corps of Frederick de Watteville, which fought with the Austrian armies in the disastrous campaign of 1799, survived the defeat and was re-formed in British pay in 1801. The Count de Meuron's Swiss Regiment, displaced by the French invasion of the United Provinces in 1795, passed from Dutch into British pay. The Minorca Regiment, commanded by Brigadier John Stuart, consisted of Germans in Spanish service who were captured at Minorca in 1798. The debris of Conde's loyalist regiment, which had been involved in the Austrian disaster of 1799, almost miraculously made their way to Britain and were reintegrated in 1801 as the Chasseurs britanniques. The remainder of the foreign formations — the Albanian, the AngloCorsican, the Calabrian Free Corps, and the Corsican Corps — were exotic, unruly, and of questionable military value.28 This intensive recruiting at home and abroad raised the strength of the army on the eve of the short-lived Peace of Amiens to 150,000 men, excluding officers and noncommissioned officers.29 After the rupture of the peace the threat of invasion by Napoleon's "Army of England" enabled Addington and Pitt to expand the militia and to exploit it increasingly as a feeder of recruits to 10

Army Recruiting before the Crimean War

the regular army. Addington's Army of Reserve Act of 1803 conscripted men by ballot for home defence only, but declared significantly that the enrolled men might volunteer at any time for the regulars.30 Nearly one-half of the 45,000 men raised under the act in 1804 volunteered for general service. But Pitt's Quota Act of the same year,3' which required each parish to levy a fixed number of men for home defence in the expectation that a substantial proportion of the enrolees could be prevailed upon to volunteer for general service, was far less successful. Parish officers met with resistance in the process of selection, and they themselves strongly resented the fine of £20 imposed on the parish for each man deficient in the assigned quota. The legislation was finally repealed as inoperable in 1806. At this juncture Secretary for War William Windham attacked the recruiting problem from a different angle. He rejected conscription for the regular army, which, he admitted, was favoured in some quarters, and advocated instead short-term enlistments, better pay, minimal use of the lash as a military punishment, and pensions on completion of service. He contended with some optimism that these reforms would attract recruits in such numbers that the enlistment bounty could be pared down from the current rate of sixteen guineas.32 But Castlereagh, the secretary at war, was sceptical. He proposed instead to intensify the existing mode of recruitment by employing discharged officers as recruiting agents at half pay. Their remuneration was to be reduced to onethird if they brought in no more than four recruits annually. He recommended further that each recruiting party should appoint ten civilian agents, who would receive "bringing money" at the current rate of one guinea for every man brought forward by them for enlistment. These auxiliaries would be dismissed if they were unable to maintain a quota of four men yearly.33 In the following year Castlereagh admitted that the recruiting figures, which remained stationary at approximately 16,000 men annually, had not improved.34 Hence enlistment from the militia into the regulars continued to be authorized by a series of annual acts, though it was stipulated that militia regiments should not be depleted to less than three-fifths of their strength.35 Between 1807 and 1812 enlistments from the militia into the regulars decreased by one-third.36 But the government increased the pressure on the ground that the danger of invasion had passed and a 11

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA powerful militia was therefore no longer required for domestic defence. In 1813 Parliament sanctioned the enlistment of volunteers from the militia up to three-quarters of its strength, to a maximum of 30,000 men." Outside the militia the search for recruits was equally unrelenting, and left clear traces on the legislation of these years. Master craftsmen might not reclaim enlisted apprentices unless they reported their absence to a magistrate within one month.38 Apprentices who concealed their status when enlisting were obliged to join the regulars on completion of their two-year gaol sentence. Enlisted men whose physical defects and infirmities were subsequently detected on medical examination were not released, but were transferred to garrison, veteran, or invalid battalions.39 The course and scope of foreign recruiting during this period were of course heavily influenced by the expansion and subsequent contraction of the Napoleonic imperium in Europe. At the conclusion of the Peace of Amiens Britain seized the opportunity to disband the foreign regiments of inferior calibre. The survivors included the Swiss formations of de Roll, de Meuron, and de Watteville, Dillon's Brigade, the Minorca Regiment, and the Chasseurs britanniques. The collapse of the Peace of Amiens in 1803 brought in its wake a military windfall. A French army of 25,000 men under General Mortier mounted a lightning invasion of George III's Electorate of Hanover, surprised the electoral army, and compelled it to disband under the terms of a military convention signed at Sulingen. George III naturally refused to ratify the accord. Thus encouraged, many of the disbanded officers and men made their way to Britain through the north German ports to form the King's German Legion.40 The royal connection was emphasized by the appointment of Adolphus Frederick, seventh son of the king, as colonel-in-chief. The legion enjoyed parliamentary sanction under the Foreign Enlistment Act of 1804, which was given rapid passage despite some murmuring that foreign recruits were not needed, that their presence in the country was unconstitutional and dangerous, and that they were composed of the "sweepings and offscöurings" of Germany. The legion attained a strength of 6,000 men in 1805, but suffered heavy losses from disease in the course of the abortive Walcheren expedition. Its recruiting officers were sent from Walcheren to raise reinforcements in Hanover. But the Elbe was swarming with 12

Army Recruiting before the Crimean War

French cutters, and prospective recruits were shot on capture. In its subsequent campaigns in Sicily, Spain, and France the legion was kept up to strength by the enlistment of German prisoners taken from Napoleon's polyglot armies. A second military windfall was blown to Britain's shores by the defeat of Austria at Wagram in 1809. Among the vanquished on that occasion was the celebrated "Black Legion" of Brunswickers, so called from its dramatic sable uniform and insignia of skull and crossbones. Its commander was Frederick William, the son of Duke Charles William Frederick of Brunswick whose march on Paris in 1793 had been checked by the cannonade of Valmy. The duchy was subsequently confiscated by Napoleon, and the son retired to his patrimonial estate of Oels in Silesia to await the ebb tide of Napoleon's fortunes. Early in 1809 he concluded a military convention with Austria, raised his free corps of Black Brunswickers, but discovered at Wagram that his day of final reckoning with Napoleon had not yet arrived. Under his leadership the Brunswickers completed an adventurous and hotly contested march to the Weser, where they were picked up by a British squadron on patrol at the mouth of the river. Composed of hussars and light infantry, the original nucleus performed creditably in the Peninsular campaign. But new recruits impressed from enemy prisoners deserted in droves. The other foreign regiments experienced similar difficulties in maintaining their effective strength and quality. Nocturnal desertions from the Chasseurs britanniques during the Peninsular war were on so majestic a scale that the entire formation was perforce declared disbanded in 1814. Previous to this diminution the rank and file of the foreign corps numbered over 32,000 men, compared with 227,000 regulars of British origin." This increasing dependence on domestic manpower contributed to kindle interest in the improvement of the current system of recruiting. Wellington himself, deeply disquieted by the inferior quality of the fresh drafts to the Peninsular armies, declared privately that the government ought to enlarge its views on recruiting: "It is expected that people will become soldiers in the line, and leave their families to starve.... What is the consequence? That none but the worst description of men enter the regular service.... The best measure you can adopt to aid the recruiting of the army is to give an allowance to the wives and children... . 13

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA In Ireland I had an opportunity of knowing that the women took the utmost pains to prevent the men from volunteering to serve in the line; naturally enough, because from that moment they went, not upon the parish, but on the dunghill to starve."42 An anonymous contributor to the Edinburgh Review agreed that the regular army was recruited from the dregs and refuse of the population, but contended that this process was socially beneficia1.43 All populous and wealthy countries (the argument ran) contain a proportion of indigent persons, criminals, and casual workers of bad character and idle habits. The natural destination of this "congeries of outcasts" is the naval and military service of the state, where discipline will reform them or at least keep them within the bounds of order. Thus as "rotten members" they will be separated from the healthier branches of society, and pressing and sudden demands for recruits can be satisfied without social derangement. By this providential system the armed forces can be manned without stopping the loom and the plough and drying up the sources of national wealth. The "evil humours" secreted in the body politic are drained away, and the healthier organs escape the danger of contagion. "The regular army, recruited by voluntary enlistment, draws off precisely those who ought to enter, and leaves all those free who can be better employed as citizens than soldiers." This sociological justification of the existing system of recruiting was a blend of old and new elements. The belief that the armed forces were natural depositories for idle and criminal persons was enshrined, as we have seen, in the recruiting legislation of the late seventeenth century. The contention that the system allowed productive workers in agriculture and industry to pursue their occupations undisturbed was well designed to appeal to the landed interest and to the captains of industry. Finally, to the solid majority of Englishmen who dreaded the spread of radicalism among the underprivileged, the army was depicted as a corrective institution which isolated new recruits from the ferment of social discontent. But the periodical was far less satisfied with the current direction and operation of this venerable system. A slashing article in its columns affirmed that stronger financial incentives were required to encourage enlistments.44 Complaining of the "puerility and mismanagement" of the government's recruiting policies, the contributor asked pointedly why men could be recruited more 14

Army Recruiting before the Crimean War

easily for industry than for the army. He replied that the industrial employer offered higher wages for the more dirty and exacting tasks. Unless the government followed the same principle it would never obtain the men needed by the army. He charged that the chicanery used in recruiting and the regular emptying of gaols for the benefit of recruiting officers were implicit in the government's cavalier disregard of the natural law of supply and demand. Underlying these criticisms was the tendency of recruiting parties to focus their activities on the larger urban centres. But it was precisely in these locations that the differential between industrial wages and army pay constituted a most formidable obstacle to easy recruiting. In the rural areas recruiting parties were thinly scattered, and the more poorly paid agricultural labourers knew little of the bounty and the terms of army service. The landed interest was not dissatisfied with the situation, since it feared that heavy enlistments would create a scarcity of hands and an upward trend in wages. The expanding industrial centres of the midlands and the north, a comparatively recent phenomenon, lay off the beaten track of recruiting parties. In any event they harboured few of the "idlers" who formed the natural prey of the recruiting sergeant. In the light of this bleak prospect the heavy official pressure on the militia, a ready-made pool of men, to transfer to the line was understandable. But the enormous cost of the system as as whole could not be circumvented. Recruiting expenses between Christmas 1803 and Christmas 1808 amounted "as far as can be ascertained" to £2,122,977.45 With the advent of peace in 1815, however, public concern over the problems and cost of recruiting receded rapidly. Parliamentary attention was absorbed by quite a different issue: the reduction of the armed forces with all possible speed to a low and economical peace footing. In laying the army estimates of 1817 before a restless House of Commons,46 Palmerston announced soothingly that close to 140,000 regulars had been disbanded since the close of hostilities. Opposition spokesmen were not impressed, observing acidly that the reduction was essentially due to the firmness of the Commons in their refusal to renew the income tax. They also protested in traditional terms that a large standing army in time of peace was a threat to constitutional freedom. Palmerston's reply was cast in an 15

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA equally familiar mould. He adverted to the defence requirements of an enlarged empire and to the role of the army in protecting society against domestic disorder and sedition. Undeniably manufacturers threatened by Luddites lost no time in invoking the aid of regular troops. Moreover, the rapid construction of barracks during the recent war, partly as a means of insulating the forces from the contagion of revolutionary principles, had opened a widening gulf between the army and the lower orders. The radical journal The Black Dwarf complained in 1817: "The army and the people are separated, and no intercourse can be allowed where it can be prevented, lest the soldier should begin to remember that he is a man."47 Thus the return of the army to a peace footing and the mounting popular prejudice against military service combined to depress the annual recruiting figures in the immediate postwar years. From 15,000 men in 1816 the intake declined to 5,500 in 1819, and recovered only slightly to 7,300 in 1821. The effective strength of the rank and file in the latter year was 93,000.48 The recruiting statistics showed no significant variations during the decade of the 1820s. The estimates normally provided for an annual intake of 6,000 recruits in Great Britain and Ireland as replacements. A low enlistment bounty of £4 limited the cost of recruiting, which oscillated between £90,000 and £100,000 yearly.49 The estimates calculated resignedly that 1,200 men of the annual intake would regret their over-hasty enlistment and would procure their release by the payment of smart money.5° The widespread agrarian riots of 1830-31 in the south and west of England and destructive popular disturbances in Bristol and Nottingham persuaded the government to raise its recruiting needs to 12,000 men in 1831, and to increase all under-manned regiments to full establishment strength.51 But enlistment for a limited period, reintroduced in 1821, had attracted only 2,000 recruits by 1829, largely by reason of the smaller bounty offered to this category of recruits. After a brief lull in 1834 the recruiting figures resumed their upward trend, stimulated by the Papineau Rebellion in Canada (1837) and the resurgence of Chartism in 1838. By 1842 army strength had increased to 95,000.52 The extraction of recruits from the civilian population remained, however, a difficult task. It was recognized that the heavy absorption of manpower, notably from

16

Army Recruiting before the Crimean War

the fruitful recruiting ground of Ireland, in railroad and canal construction was an adverse influence. But the conviction was growing that the main impediment to recruiting was the terms and conditions of service in the army itself. The proponents of military reform in the House of Commons were as yet a mere handful, an odd coalition of Radicals led by the persistent Joseph Hume and of progressive army officers headed by Boldero and Layard. They criticized the excessive length of service, the inadequacy of the pension payable on discharge, the lack of opportunity for advancement from the ranks, and the retention of flogging as a standard mode of punishment of the private soldier. The deception practised in the payment of the enlistment bounty was also trenchantly exposed by Layard.53 He noted that the current enlistment bounty for the cavalry stood at £6.17.6d., while the cost of the whole kit was £8.3.71/2d. The comparable figures for the infantry were £3.17.6d. and £4.9.101/2 d. respectively. In both cases recruiting sergeants carefully concealed from intending recruits the fact that the cost of the kit was deductible from the bounty after induction. Hence enlisted men entered the army in debt, and the cost of the kit was deducted in instalments from their pay. The consequent sense of grievance was one of the most potent causes of desertion, which was most common in the first year of army life. Between 1842 and 1844 deserters numbered 7,537. Of these 4,638 were recaptured.54 Further, the steeply rising curve of emigration during the 1840s carried a growing number of potential recruits out of the reach of the recruiting sergeant. The Highland "clearings," which swept crofters from their smallholdings, reached a high pitch of intensity during the decade with mass evictions in Ross and Sutherland. In Ireland the potato famine of 1845 acted as a temporary spur to recruiting. But emigration societies, often constituted under the patronage of local notables intent upon reducing the burden of the poor rate, provided an alternative escape route for paupers and indigent persons. English emigration, hitherto of modest dimensions, took a great leap forward in 1829-30, and rose inexorably thereafter. Nevertheless, economic distress in the British Isles during the "Hungry Forties" was sufficiently acute to preclude a sharp drop in recruiting. Approved enlistments in 1845 numbered 11,420, and rose to 24,000 in the following year under

17

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA the stimulus of the potato famine in Ireland. Of these 63 per cent were agricultural labourers, 31 per cent were artisans and industrial workers, 4 per cent were clerks and shop assistants. The rest were the sons of gentlemen or professional persons brought into the army by adverse circumstances or a dissolute mode of life.55 Finally, social and professional comment on the mode of recruiting assumed a sharply censorious tone in these years. Punch, a faithful mirror of middle-class opinion, levelled its literary broadsides against the system in 1844-45. Denouncing the recruiting sergeant as "the clown in the bloody pantomime of glory," the periodical stigmatized him as "an allowed man stealer, a permitted swindler with streamers in his cap."56 The devices by which he lured simple country lads into uniform were summarized with savage irony as the art of "turning the green one red," and in the end "the bumpkin feels, or scarcely feels, the homicidal shilling slipped into his hand."57 Critics inside the military establishment were naturally more disturbed by the inferior quality of the recruits thus obtained. Maj.-Gen. John Mitchell charged in 1838 that the ranks of the army were full of undesirables who had enlisted for want of a better occupation.56 The remedy lay in higher pay and improved prospects of promotion from the ranks. Henry Marshall, who had become conversant with the less glamorous aspects of military life during a long career as deputy inspector-general of army hospitals, stated flatly that the army as a whole stood low in public esteem, and that it was detested even by the working class from which most of its recruits were drawn. The young peasant or artisan who enlisted suffered a complete break with his family, and at his approach the door of his father's cottage or workshop was firmly closed. The community in general regarded the common soldiery as a degraded class which unfailingly corrupted the new recruits consigned to them. As long as the army remained in popular abhorrence it would continue to be recruited from the discontented, profligate, and dissolute elements of society.59 Marshal's denunciation was perhaps a trifle extravagant, but in appealing to public opinion he was naturally anxious to demonstrate that the Victorian virtues of morality and respectability ranked low in the army's scale of values. The same note of uncompromising criticism was struck by the versatile G. R. Gleig, a future chaplain-general, in his Sketch of the

18

Army Recruiting before the Crimean War military history of Great Britain, and by the inspector-general of army hospitals, Robert Jackson, in his View of the formation, discipline, and economy of armies. 60 Jackson's work , replete with statistics, was sympathetically noticed in the columns of the Quarterly Review, which conceded that "the army is not a popular body." The overwhelming majority of poor people (the reviewer observed) heartily disliked the prospect of any member of the family embarking upon a military career, and were willing "to reduce themselves to beggary to pay the necessary smart money." Farmer's sons, artisans, and tradesmen must be in desperate condition before they will enlist. "The present method of recruiting is morally and financially bad. We cannot get men as fast as we want them, and there is scarcely a regiment with its full complement ... Recruiting for the army begins in falsehood, continues in intemperance, and ends in remorse."61 These revelations were initially greeted with indifference by the House of Commons, which usually emptied rapidly when army reform was brought up for debate. In 1846, however, a military cause celebre placed the more dubious aspects of recruiting in the full glare of publicity. A deserter from the 8th Regiment arraigned before a court martial pleaded that his enlistment had been illegally conducted on the ground that he had been recruited in one county and attested in another. The procedure in question was clearly in defiance of a standard clause of the annual Mutiny Act. The court's inquiry into the circumstances of his enlistment substantiated the claim of the defendant. He was immediately discharged. The news of his release spread like wildfire through the ranks. Four hundred men of the Grenadier Guards demanded and obtained their discharge on the same ground. It was estimated that between 5,000 and 6,000 men in all had been improperly enlisted, and their requests for release poured into regimental headquarters.62 Manifestly the devious practices of recruiting sergeants were recoiling with disastrous effect upon the heads of the military authorities. The embarrassed Russell ministry attempted to fill the depleted ranks of the army by rushing a short-term enlistment bill through Parliament, offering a ten-year period of service to infantry recruits and twelve years to the cavalry. Despite frequent appeals for haste from the ministerial side of the House the measure was

19

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA debated at length before adoption by 91 votes to 42. The opposition in the. Lords openly proclaimed that most officers of the highest rank were hostile to the bill, which crept through by a narrow margin of 108 votes to 94. Russell was incensed by the weight of military opposition to the bill, which had been precipitated by the army's illegal methods of recruiting. He was heard to say that radical changes must be effected in the mode of enlistment, and that the procedures employed forty years earlier were no longer capable of ensuring an adequate supply of suitable recruits.63 But the brisk tempo of enlistment in the following years tended to delay urgent reconsideration of recruiting procedures. The reforms inaugurated during the 1840s to appeal to a "better class of recruit," though not derisory, were marginal in their effect. They reflected with some fidelity the muffled impact on the army of the middle-class cult of education, thrift, and humanitarianism. Barrack libraries were introduced in 1840, financed by a universal and compulsory deduction of one penny monthly from the private soldier's scanty pay. Regimental savings banks were founded in 1844 to reduce reckless expenditure on drink in the canteen. Regimental schools appeared two years later to combat the high level of illiteracy among recruits. The repulsive custom of flogging as a military punishment, introduced by William III and increasingly assailed in the Commons, was limited in 1846 to a maximum of fifty lashes. The effectiveness of these reforms in attracting recruits of higher quality was unfortunately blunted by the failure of the army to redirect the activities of its recruiting officers. John Stevenson, a recruiting sergeant of the Guards, observed pointedly: In England the recruiting sergeant goes to the very places in which he is least of all likely to meet with sturdy and respectable men. He goes to the public house, the fair, the races or the wake, the haunts of the idle and dissolute; and in many cases, having stupefied some lazy vagabond with intoxicating drink, he slips a shilling into his hand ... Of those who voluntarily enlist, some are driven by poverty, some have disgraced themselves in their situation or employment, others may have committed misdemeanours which expose them to the penalties of the law of the land, and most are confirmed drunkards.64 20

Army Recruiting before the Crimean War

James McMullen, a staff sergeant of the 13th Light Infantry, wrote in equally sombre terms. In his informed estimate, indigency and unemployment accounted for an average 51 per cent of enlistments. Approximately 20 per cent consisted of the chronically idle, who mistakenly believed that a soldier's life was easy and undemanding. A further 10 per cent were men of defective character who enlisted as a last resort, and an equal proportion was drawn from adventurous and discontented persons weary of civilian life. Some 2 per cent were respectable men who had fallen victim to misfortune or imprudence. Of the remainder 2 per cent were "perverse sons seeking to grieve their parents," 2 per cent enlisted in hope of promotion, 2 per cent were unclassifiable, and 1 per cent were criminals seeking to escape punishment.65 Doubtless these statistics cannot be pressed too hard, but they were grounded on extensive and varied personal experience. The legislature itself was not entirely free of some measure of responsibility for these lamentable results. The pay of the private soldier had remained unchanged since 1793. Any further increase was precluded by the vigilance with which the Commons scrutinized the annual army estimates and by the "Manchester howl" against the outrageous cost of the military establishment. The shrinking public revenues of the 1840s reinforced this tendency in the Commons despite the cries of alarm emitted by prominent military men concerning the danger of invasion by a French expeditionary force carried in the new steamships. The continuing uproar finally led the Russell ministry to propose in 1848 additional expenditures of £420,000 on the army and navy and the embodying of the militia at a cost of £150,000.66 But the projected increase in the rate of income tax from sevenpence to a shilling in the pound aroused intense opposition in the Commons 67 and the plan was hastily abandoned. The duke of Wellington, who had succeeded Lord Hill as commander-in-chief in 1842, privately believed that the regulars should be augmented by 50,000 new recruits to counter the French menace. But he freely conceded that any ministry which favoured a massive augmentation of the regular army would sign its own political death warrant.68 Moreover, his lifelong regard for civil authority prevented him from challenging governmental decisions on military matters. As the living symbol of past victories he was accorded immense respect and a measure of adulation. But with increasing age the discharge 21

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA of his functions had also become symbolic. In the words of a contemporary: Regularly as noon came round the Duke got upon his horse and rode to the Horse Guards . . . Through the open doorway he passed without taking any notice of those about him, and, mounting the steps, made straight for the little room in which he transacted military business. But the business transacted there came in the end to be sometimes of the smallest possible importance. Not infrequently he would fall asleep the moment he sat down in his armchair, and Adjutant General, Quartermaster General, and Military Secretary were too full of respect to disturb him. They looked in one after the other, each with his papers in his hand. They withdrew silently, waiting till his bell should ring; and if it never rang at all, as was not infrequently the case, they, being familiar with his views, and having numerous precedents to guide them, went on with the current business of the day to the entire satisfaction of themselves and of the army. On these occasions the Duke usually slept on till four o'clock, when his horses were brought round, and he departed as he had come, the observed of all observers.69 A partial text of one of the more alarmist private letters of the duke on the defenceless condition of the country appeared without his permission in the columns of the Morning Chronicle early in 1848. But the duke, true to his principles, refused to participate when the issue of national defence was raised in the Lords, and the thrifty temper of the House of Commons remained unshaken. In the following year the Queen's Speech forecast a reduction of the army establishment, and a select committee of the Commons was appointed to consider ways and means of effecting economies. The consequent malaise in military circles was expressed with soldierly bluntness by Sir John Burgoyne, inspector-general of fortifications since 1845. He characterized the defence situation of the country vis-à-vis France as "absolutely awful," and continued: "The very object of armed forces appears to be gradually diminishing from sight. The troops seem to be considered as a reserve police force for the preservation of internal tranquillity."70 The House of Commons was more strongly influenced, however, 22

Army Recruiting before the Crimean War

by the current improvement in economic conditions generated by the gold discoveries in California and Australia. The budget was brought into balance, and the successive reports of the select committee excited only lukewarm debate. Louis Napoleon's coup d'état of 2 December 1851 strengthened fears in Britain that the French volcano, dormant since 1815, was about to erupt once more. The Russell ministry was therefore able to obtain parliamentary approval of a modest increase of 3,223 men for the regular army in the estimates of 1852." Its substitute for a massive increase of the regular forces was a projected militia bill which envisaged the enrolment for local defence of 80,000 volunteers between 18 and 35 years of age. An enlistment bounty of £6 was contemplated. The men were subject to call for a period of five years, but drill and military exercises were not to exceed twenty-eight days annually. The proposed legislation was unpopular: no less than 1,370 petitions against it were directed to the House of Commons. The manufacturing interest disliked the prospect of a large-scale withdrawal of labour from industry for four weeks yearly. But Cobden himself was compelled to admit that enlistments in the regulars fell short of meeting the problem of defence.72 On behalf of the parliamentary opposition Palmerston moved the omission of the word "local" from the title of the militia bill in order to make the militia regiments available for defence outside their particular localities. The motion was carried by 135 votes to 126, and the Russell ministry resigned. The succeeding Derby administration introduced a revised bill which incorporated Palmerston's amendment. It was carried by comfortable majorities in both Houses. Despite the depth of suspicion concerning French intentions and much sabre rattling in the press, parliamentary and public opinion was immovably opposed to conscription as a remedy for the recruiting problems of the regular army. In 1852, however, the redoubtable army chaplain G. R. Gleig ventured to grasp the nettle of obligatory service. He maintained that the regulars should be augmented by 60,000 men to a total of 200,000, and that it was the duty of Parliament to supply the necessary funds to raise the pay of the private soldier and thus to encourage recruiting. "For it is ridiculous, through the columns of a newspaper, to call upon young men who are in receipt of good wages ... to relinquish their peaceful occupation and to shoulder the musket at a shilling 23

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA a day." If higher pay did not encourage enlistments, he continued, then compulsion might be necessary as a last resort: "What if we were to be driven to legalize a system of modified conscription? We may shrink from the contemplation of such a measure. We must, one and all, deplore it; but there really seems to be scarcely an alternative."73 It is difficult to resist the suspicion that the writer was releasing a trial balloon on behalf of the army command. But neither the landed nor the industrial interest was disposed to give the military a mandate to make regular inroads on its labour force in a period of high employment, and Gleig's sombre forecast was received in icy silence. The complacency of the new Aberdeen ministry was faithfully reflected by the secretary at war, Sidney Herbert, in introducing the army estimates for 1853-54. Herbert assured the Commons that the recent reforms in the regular army had produced a marked improvement in the number and quality of enlistments. The opposition member for Richmond, Henry Rich, retorted that army service was still abysmally unpopular among the working class. He cited in evidence the financial sacrifices made by humble families to annul the rash enlistment of a husband or a son. He noted also that a considerable proportion of short-term recruits took their discharge at the close of their ten-year term, and thus forfeited the pension of sixpence daily payable after a further eleven years' service.74 Finally, recruiting for the militia was not proceeding briskly. The agents and emissaries of the antimilitarist Peace Society, founded in 1816, distributed masses of pamphlets in town and country to discourage enlistment.75 But the more basic impediments to militia recruiting were outlined to the Commons with painful clarity by the member for Brighton, Sir George Pechell: "In my county [Sussex] I know that the labouring classes are all well employed, and by no means desirous of volunteering into the militia, nor are the inhabitants generally afraid of a French invasion. In Brighton especially they are far more afraid of the militia than of the French."76 A year later Britain and France simultaneously declared war on Russia. On 14 April 1854 a Times editorial observed with some concern that the strength of the militia, fixed at 80,000 under the Militia Act, stood at 66,000. But The Times assured its readers that volunteers from the militia into the regulars were usually numerous, and that the expansion of the line regiments would therefore 24

Army Recruiting before the Crimean War

proceed with little difficulty." With equal optimism it was anticipated that at need the Anglo-French entente could be converted by diplomatic pressure and financial subsidies into a grand European coalition against Russia. The search for allies had begun.

25

2 The Search for Allies

When Great Britain and France declared war on Russia on 22 March 1854, responsible statesmen in London and Paris entertained high hopes of enlarging the dual alliance into a grand coalition of European powers. The treaty signed between the two parties on 10 April duly called upon all the free peoples of Europe to join the crusade against Russia in the name of freedom and civilization. Behind the stirring trumpet call of the allies lay the desire, ever present in those who cast the iron dice of war, to achieve a speedy victory by the rapid application of overwhelming strength. Napoleon III could not fail to envisage the possibility that domestic opinion, which in large part could discern no vital French interest at stake in the war, might pass into a mood of disenchantment unless military triumphs were promptly forthcoming. In London it was foreseen that British land forces, raised on a voluntary basis, might be numerically incapable of ensuring a decisive victory if France faltered or withdrew. Hence both powers had unusually strong incentives to expand the dual alliance by attracting or subsidizing new members for the projected coalition. The allies directed their attention primarily to Austria and Prussia. Napoleon III was especially attracted by a wideranging plan to draw both powers into the Anglo-French alliance on the basis of a collective crusade against Russia. The Austro-Prussian armies were to form the vanguard of a massive attack on European Russia which would kindle the flame of insurrection among the submerged nationalities under the tsarist yoke. After victory, southern Russia was to be annexed and partitioned between Austria and Prussia, who would thus become the guardians of Constantinople and the Straits. But neither beneficiary relished the prospect of

The Search for Allies

bearing the brunt of the heavy fighting involved. Nor did the outcome of the campaign of 1812 offer an encouraging precedent to any invader. For his part, Bismarck was convinced that, if the Austro-Prussian armies moved against Russia, the devious Napoleon III would force Nicholas I to pay a maximum price for peace with France and would then leave his allies in the lurch. The markedly neutral position of Prussia was emphasized by the recall from London of the anglophil Prussian ambassador, Baron Christian von Bunsen, who had drafted an unofficial proposal on 1 March 1854 for the eventual partition of southern Russia between the two invading powers.1 This vast and sweeping project, so congenial to Palmerston, made less impression on Lord John Russell, the gadfly of the Aberdeen ministry. He pressed incessantly for greater cabinet activity in recruiting the strength of the army and navy, and reminded his colleagues that the neutral powers of Europe could be largely influenced by evidence that Great Britain was determined to prosecute the war with maximum vigour. On 17 April 1854 he urged Aberdeen to open negotiations for an alliance with Oscar I of Sweden, whose land forces would be invaluable in seconding the operations of an Anglo-French fleet in the Baltic. The bait to be dangled before King Oscar was the restoration to Sweden of Finland and the Aland islands, lost to Russia in 1809. To this end a Swedish force of 50,000 men would be subsidized by the allies at the rate of £200,000 monthly. But Aberdeen was convinced that Russia should be assailed from the south, and favoured the alternative of taking 150,000 Austrians into British pay. Russell repeated his proposal a month later, but encountered opposition from a majority of his colleagues in the cabinet.2 In Sardinia the British search for subsidized forces met with an equally restrained reception. Early in April 1854 the Aberdeen ministry authorized Sir James Hudson, the able and irrepressible British minister in Turin,3 to inform Cavour and his foreign minster Gen. Giuseppe Dabormida that Austria would not join the Anglo-French alliance unless her Lombard territories were guaranteed against Sardinian aggression. Britain had declined to furnish Austria with the required guarantee, and Hudson documented this refusal by displaying items from 27

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA the diplomatic correspondence of Lord Clarendon. Hudson then submitted to Cavour alone a proposal from Clarendon to the effect that one-third of the Sardinian regular army of 45,000 men should be taken into British pay for service against Russia. The British request was not prompted merely by the desire to acquire a trained military force. The Austrian General Staff was avowedly reluctant to embark upon full-scale coalition warfare against Russia until the Lombard territories of the Empire had been freed from the threat of an irredentist insurrection followed by Sardinian invasion. The proposed reduction in the strength of the Sardinian army was calculated to reduce Austrian misgivings on this point. Cavour ventured to submit the matter to the Sardinian Council of Ministers on 14 April 1854, but received support only from his finance minister, Luigi Cibrario. Public resentment against Austria had been recently intensified by Marshal Josef Radetzky's drastic suppression of the Milanese uprising in February 1853. The memory of the cinque giornafe, with the sombre sequel of mass flight and wholesale sequestration of property, had been kept alive by the pitiable plight of the Milanese refugees who had flooded into Sardinia. The public press almost without exception attacked the project on the ground that it shelved the Lombard question in the interests of France and Britain. National and liberal opinion grew indignant at the assumption that Sardinian troops could be engaged like Swiss mercenaries. Cavour bowed temporarily to the storm, but did not neglect the opportunity to improve the occasion. He pressed Clarendon to intercede with Austria for the revocation of the sequestration decrees imposed on the Lombard refugees. Clarendon perceived the wisdom of mollifying Sardinian opinion, and duly opened negotiations with Vienna on the sequestration issue. The conversations proceeded inconclusively, and anti-interventionist sentiment in Sardinia remained unappeased.4 Tentative Anglo-French advances met with an unexpected rebuff in Switzerland, for centuries an abundant source of mercenary troops. Through the summer of 1854 the two governments made persistent attempts to engage 60,000 Swiss regulars in return for a joint subsidy of 200,000 francs monthly.5 The proposal was brought to a stay by Article XI of the Swiss constitution of 1848, which barred the federal government from concluding 28

The Search for Allies

military conventions designed to place its forces in the pay of foreign powers. It was notorious that several cantons continued to permit clandestine recruiting in isolated inns and farmhouses, despite renewed federal prohibitions in 1851 and 1853. But France and Britain fell into the serious error of making their offer of subsidies direct to the federal government, which could not change its stand on an issue so highly explosive. As the summer wore on the prospect of aid from Sweden also dwindled to vanishing point. King Oscar had not been deeply impressed by the Anglo-French naval operations in the Baltic, which had resulted only in the capture of the Russian bastion of Bomarsund in the Aland islands on 16 August 1854. He was prepared to participate in an invasion of Finland on condition that Austria entered the Anglo-French alliance and threw the full weight of her armies against Russia in the south. In addition, he required an Anglo-French guarantee of the integrity of Finland after it had passed into Swedish possession. On these terms he was willing to open a campaign in Finland with 60,000 men, provided that the allies supported him with a force of equal strength. The exacting nature of the king's conditions was prompted in part by the suspicion that the allies were seeking to entangle him in hostilities against Russia before the approach of winter compelled them to withdraw their naval forces from the Baltic. Hence Oscar declined to compromise his neutrality by accepting the dangerous gift of Bomarsund, which was dismantled by the allies before their fleets quitted the Baltic on 4 December 1854.6 The necessity of influencing Austrian policy was clearly so vital that Anglo-French diplomatic pressure on Vienna steadily increased throughout 1854. Austria in turn attempted to strengthen her diplomatic hand by obtaining the maximum degree of support from the Germanic Confederation. Prussia exerted a strong countervailing influence in favour of neutrality, and solemnly besought the member states not to allow themselves to be drawn into war in the wake of a belligerent Austria. The key to the situation lay in the Danubian principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, occupied by Russia at the expense of Turkey since 1853. The withdrawal of the Russian forces of occupation as a necessary preliminary to a general settlement had been demanded by Saxony, Bavaria, and four other German states at

29

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA the Conference of Bamberg on 26 May 1854. In the absence of an immediate reply Austria seized the opportunity on 28 July to submit to the member states a proposal for the full mobilization of the federal forces, on the ground that the whole Confederation was menaced by Russian expansionism. Tsar Nicholas I removed his troops from the principalities, which were promptly occupied by Austrian forces. Thereafter the Confederation was far less impressed by Austrian fears of Russian imperialism, and the subsequent efforts of Austria to engineer full mobilization of the federal army made no progress.' The Austrian army remained in a state of partial mobilization, and the eight army corps (250,000 men) concentrated north of the Carpathians in Galicia were retained under arms. The diplomatic offensive of the western powers had brought them as yet no firm allies or solid assurances of subsidized military aid. But Russian strategists could not safely conclude that the solid front of neutrality among the countries adjacent to the European frontier of the Russian Empire would not be broken at some future date. Elementary caution demanded that the bulk of the imperial armies should remain extended on a vast front of 2,000 kilometers from Finland to the Crimea. At the outbreak of war 207,000 Russian troops stood in Finland, 140,000 in Poland, 180,000 in Bessarabia and the Danube region, 32,000 near Odessa, 39,000 in the Crimea, 46,000 between the Don and the Caucasus, and 55,000 on the Russo-Turkish frontier. A new danger appeared with the disembarkation of the Anglo-French expeditionary force at Eupatoria on 14 September. The wide dispersal of the tsarist forces and obstinate problems of military transportation prevented the Russians from concentrating sufficient strength at the battle of the Alma on 20 September 1854 to crush the invading force of 50,000 men. The success of the allies in maintaining their foothold in the Crimea encouraged Austria to renew her pressure on the Confederation. She submitted a resolution in favour of full mobilization of the federal forces to the Federal Council on 1 October. But Otto von Bismarck, the Prussian representative in the Bund, organized the opposition with great skill, and the motion was lost. Austria then attempted to influence the Confederation by ordering full mobilization of her own military forces by an imperial decree of 22 October. The failure of the second Russian attempt at Inkerman on 5 November to break the 30

The Search for Allies

invading forces before Sevastopol further encouraged the apparently more vigorous trend of Austrian diplomacy. Militarily the Austrian mobilization prevented the Russian commander-inchief, Paskevich, from dispatching massive reinforcements from the Danubian front to Prince Menshikov's army in the Crimea. The rising Austrian pressure on Russia was not contemplated with equal satisfaction by all the advisers of Franz Joseph I. The policy was sponsored primarily by Count Alexander Bach, the president of the Council of Ministers, and Count Karl Buol, the foreign minister, who could point to the Russian evacuation of the Danubian principalities as evidence of its effectiveness. But the pursuance of this policy to the point of an open break with Russia was strongly opposed by Gen. Heinrich von Hess, chief of the General Staff, and by the venerable and influential Marshal Josef Radetzky, who commanded the Austrian armies in Lombardy. Both expressed the fear that an Austrian offensive across the Dniester against Russia might be the signal for a Sardinian invasion of Lombardy. They observed further that the failure of the Germanic Confederation to proceed to a partial or full mobilisation of the federal army was a positive indication that Austria in such an eventuality could not count upon military support from the member states. Behind these arguments lay also the calculation that Russian military aid, which had proved to be so useful in breaking the liberal-national uprisings of 184849 in the Habsburg Empire, might also be required to suppress future disturbances. The whole question was exhaustively discussed by the Council of Ministers of 17 and 19 November.8 In the course of these crucial debates the financial advisers of the monarchy aligned themselves with the military. The public revenues of the Empire had been adversely affected by the insurrections of 1848-49, and recovery had been delayed by the necessity of maintaining large forces in Lombardy and latterly in the Danubian region. Hence the financial omens were not favourable for a fierce and possibly protracted war against Russia. Anglo-French financial aid would assuredly become available if Austria took the plunge; but the Council of Ministers was reluctant to accept for Austria the none too dignified role of a beneficiary of foreign subsidies. On 21 November Franz Joseph accepted the majority opinion and decided against immediate war with Russia. The order for full mobilization issued on 22 October was revoked on 22 31

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA November. The withdrawal from the Danubian principalities of the Turkish forces under Omar Pasha on 7 December for service in the Crimea left the Austrians in sole possession; and it was felt in Vienna that these important acquisitions might be retained without full Austrian participation in the war. The Austrian decision of 21 November was not of course communicated to Paris and London, and Buol was able to continue his policy of maximum diplomatic pressure on Russia. The result was the remarkable treaty concluded with Great Britain and France on 2 December 1854. Under the terms of the pact Austria entered the Anglo-French alliance with the object of ensuring "a restoration of peace." If peace did not descend by 1 January 1855, the three signatories would consider without delay the steps necessary to realize the aim of the alliance. This Austrian gesture imparted a fresh impulse to Anglo-French efforts to calm the professed anxiety of Hess and Radetzky concerning possible Sardinian aggression in Lombardy. Both Britain and France gave explicit assurances to Austria on 22 December that they would refrain from encouraging revolutionary movements in Italy. In addition they guaranteed the integrity of Austrian territories in Italy in the event of Austrian participation in the war against Russia.9 This timely move by the western allies was calculated to relieve the apprehensions of the Austrian General Staff and to lend new vigour to Buol's forward policy against Russia. Buol immediately resumed his efforts to wean Prussia and the other states of the Confederation from their previous neutrality. The Austro-Prussian treaty of defence and protection, signed on 20 April 1854, had required Prussia inter alia to contribute a force of 200,000 men for joint defence against aggression. The Germanic Confederation in its entirety acceded to the treaty on 24 July. Buol, supported by intense Anglo-French diplomatic activity in Berlin, demanded Prussian mobilization against Russia on the basis of the treaty of 20 April. The Prussian minister Manteuffel returned the inevitable refusal on the ostensible ground that he had not been informed of the terms of the treaty of 2 December between Austria and the western allies. There was genuine fear in Berlin that Austria was bent upon war with Russia, and the belief gained ground in diplomatic circles there that she might contrive to

32

The Search for Allies

secure the two-thirds majority in the Bundesrat necessary for general mobilization of the federal forces. But Bismarck in Frankfurt assessed far more accurately the rising anxiety of the majority of the member states, which dreaded the prospect of being dragged at the heels of Austria into a war wherein no vital interests of their own were at stake.10 He played upon these fears by denouncing Austria as a warmonger intent upon expanding her own territories under the pretext of checking the Russian Drang nach Westen. The issue of German neutrality had developed into a contest between Austria and Prussia for paramountcy in the Bund, and Bismarck was fully resolved that Prussia should not once again tread the path to Olmütz. In his official and unofficial correspondence with Berlin, where the Crown Prince William dreamed of a great four-power alliance against Russia, Bismarck outlined with vigour and precision the case for Prussian neutrality. In his view, no vital Prussian interest was implicated in the Eastern Question. If Prussia entered the war side by side with Austria, the two powers would be forced by reason of their geographical situation to bear the main burden of land operations on behalf of France and Britain. He contended further that the undue weakening of Russia was not in the interest of any of the conservative powers, which had all profited directly or indirectly from Russian military intervention in Hungary in 1849. Lastly, Prussia imperatively required the benevolent neutrality of Russia in the coming struggle between Austria and Prussia for hegemony in the Germanic Confederation. This neutral orientation of Prussian policy coincided broadly with the position of King Frederick William IV, who wished to preserve the bonne entente of the conservative powers and to maintain neutrality as a basis for Prussian mediation between the combatants. The efforts of Prince William and the leaders of the Wochenblattpartei to edge Prussia into a four-power alliance with Austria, France, and England lost headway after Austria recoiled from full mobilization on 22 November 1854. On 5 January 1855 Prussia answered renewed Austrian demands for mobilization with a flat refusal, and thus gave a strong lead to the other members of the Confederation. Buol then attempted to circumvent the Prussian denial of aid by submitting a similar demand to the Bund as a whole. But it was already evident that Prussian influence over the

33

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA northern members precluded the possibility of obtaining the necessary two-thirds majority for mobilization stipulated in the federal constitution. Hence the Austrian delegation was instructed, in anticipation of an adverse vote, to prevail upon the more compliant members of the Bund to place their forces under Austrian command.11 In return they were to receive an Austrian guarantee of their territorial integrity and a share of the spoils accruing from an eventual victory over Russia. On 8 February the Bund formally rejected the proposal to mobilize. Only Austria, Baden, and Darmstadt stood in opposition.12 The rebuff to Austria was so patent that Buol's subsequent efforts to engineer the mobilization of the forces of the Austrophil members of the Bund made little headway. On 25 April Vienna announced portentously that Austria would withdraw from the Bund unless the machinery of federal mobilization was set in motion at once. The declaration was greeted with barely concealed incredulity,13 and proved to be a brufum %ulmen. The resolute neutrality of the Bund provided Buol's opponents in Vienna with a further telling argument against Austrian intervention in the war. Between February and April 1855 official opinion in London and Paris slowly turned to face the inevitable, and statesmen in both capitals despondently warned their colleagues that all hope of military aid from Austria and the Bund had been finally extinguished.

34

3 The Search for Recruits

The inability of the Western powers to enlist substantial military aid on the European continent was a matter of primary concern to Great Britain, committed to a system of voluntary enlistment which was regarded with some distaste by her French ally. The annual conscription law in France empowered the imperial government to induct a maximum of 80,000 recruits yearly; and this intake could be readily augmented by recalling to active service those classes which had recently completed their period of obligatory military training. Thus the conscription law of 1854 summoned 140,000 men to the colours. Fed by voluntary enlistment, the British army could scarcely expand at a corresponding tempo. The consequent danger of a certain apparent disparity between the French and British war effort was voiced by Lord Cowley, the British ambassador to Paris, in a letter of 22 April 1854 to the foreign minister, Lord Clarendon. Cowley urged that recruiting in Britain ought to be pushed with vigour in order to disarm French suspicions; but he bluntly predicted that emigration and high wages would defeat all efforts to divert a significant body of manpower into the army.' The dilemma was expressed in not dissimilar terms by Lord John Russell in a typically trenchant communication to his apathetic chief, Lord Aberdeen. He drew attention to the imprudence of contemplating large-scale operations against Cronstadt or Sevastopol in the absence of a reserve fleet or army. But he concurred with Cowley on the prospective difficulty of finding recruits for the army during a period of high demand for labour. As an emergency measure he suggested that 15,000 militiamen should be encouraged to undertake garrison duty in British possessions in order to release an equal force of regular troops for

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA field service.2 The cabinet did not share Russell's sense of urgency, and the proposal was temporarily laid aside. It was notorious that the colonels of the militia regiments, often landed noblemen of considerable influence, did not relish massive "raiding" of the militia by recruiting parties from the regular army. They thundered against the apparent tendency in Whitehall to regard their formations as mere feeders for the regular forces, and stressed the primary function of the militia as an instrument of domestic defence. They offered scant encouragement to the recruiting parties, which demoralized their regiments by furnishing the generous quantities of beer traditionally employed to reduce the resistance of likely recruits to the acceptance of the Queen's shilling. The rank and file of the militia had strong reasons for resisting the beer and blandishments of the recruiting sergeants. Under the terms of the recent Militia Act of 30 June 1852,' the militia of England and Scotland was to be embodied in case of invasion or of imminent threat of invasion. Volunteers enlisted for a term of five years, and received a bounty of £6, payable in instalments over their period of service. They were actually withdrawn from their civilian employments for military drill and exercises only during twenty-eight days in the year, although this stint could be extended to fifty-six days annually by order-in-council. On the outbreak of war the Aberdeen ministry reactivated recruiting for the militia, but failed for some months to notice that it could be legally embodied only in the event of actual or threatened invasion. The danger of a Russian descent upon the British Isles was scarcely imminent. Hence the government introduced an amendment to the Militia Act on 12 May 1854 which authorized the embodiment of the militia whenever a state of war existed. It was further enacted that the Crown might extend ad infinitum the period of training and exercise of those militia regiments which had not completed the maximum stint of fifty-six days service in the current year. Since the militia had been generally called out for the normal twenty-eight days training, the measure in effect retained it under arms until further notice. The law officers of the Crown had declared this dubious enactment to be infra sires, on the ground that the amendment had retroactive effect.' It may be conjectured that pressure had been applied by the War Office,

36

The Search for Recruits

which hoped to reap a rich harvest of recruits from a permanently embodied militia. In response to lively objections in Parliament, Newcastle gave assurances on 14 May that married militiamen would be obliged to perform no more than twenty-eight days training, and that all others could apply for release from training after fifty-six days service. These concessions were not broadly publicized to the militia. Many failed in consequence to make the necessary application for release, and thus continued to be held in training under the amendment of 12 May. Other militiamen of slender means were unable to repay their enrolment money, and hence failed to qualify for discharge from training. Some militia colonels, under pressure from the War Office, declined to release married men unless the latter furnished proof of the existence of at least two children born in lawful wedlock.5 The resulting discontent in the ranks of the militia was enhanced by a sharp reduction in their pay. The pay of the militiaman during his annual period of twenty-eight to fifty-six days training had been fixed at three shillings per diem. But in the cases of those men who had been retained for an indefinite period after the expiration of their summer training the government had thriftily ordained that they were to be placed upon the regular army pay of one shilling per diem. 6 The strategy of locking men up in the militia in the hope that they might be induced at length to volunteer for the regular army was ineffective in face of the formidable sense of grievance which infected the lower ranks. The War Office contemplated the slender trickle of volunteers from the militia into the regular army with some misgiving, but made no further move until the news of the bloody battle of Inkerman (5 November) brought the problem of recruiting to the forefront. On 20 November the War Office issued a circular to the commanding officers of the eighteen regiments of militia already embodied. It urged the recipients to support by all means at their disposal a project to recruit for the regular army at least 25 per cent of the current strength of their regiments. The inducements offered to the prospective recruits were not overwhelming. They were to receive a bounty on enlistment of £1. An officer of the militia who could prevail upon seventyfive of his men to transfer with him to the regular army was to

37

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA receive an ensigncy in a regiment of the line.' The same terms were offered to the additional thirty-four regiments of militia which were ordered embodied in the United Kingdom and Ireland on 25 November. By reason of these efforts, the proportion of militia among new recruits to the regular army temporarily increased. In 1854 the militia had contributed 12,265 volunteers of a total of 34,844 men who had entered the regular forces. From January to June 1855, enlistments from the militia into the regulars totalled 11,805. But this increasing contribution of the militia to the regular army was not subsequently maintained.8 Recruiting for the militia itself proved to be slow and difficult. The army estimates for 1855 had provided for the enrolment of 60,000 militia. By the end of April 1855 the strength of the force stood at only 25,000. The unhappy experiences of the militia at the hands of the government in 1854 assuredly applied a heavy brake to recruiting. In addition, landed proprietors, farmers, and agricultural interests generally restrained labourers from enlisting in the militia. They had originally offered no objection to the passage of their workers into the militia, on the assumption that they would lose their services on the farm for a maximum of eight weeks yearly. They were not equally prepared to surrender their labourers to the militia for an indefinite period, as was prescribed by the order of 12 May. The government made no financial provision for the wives and families of militiamen already permanently embodied, nor would it consent to make such provision for future recruits. Hence agricultural employers, dismayed by the possibility of a long term loss of workers and a rise in the poor rate, held their labourers in a tenacious grip. The situation was so notorious that Newcastle appealed to the Lords to refrain from throwing any impediments in the way of recruiting.9 The resistance of militia commanders to recruiting activities by the regular army also stiffened in spring 1855. In February the War Office was under the necessity of sending field officers to apply pressure to the colonels of the numerous militia regiments which had not filled the quota of 25 per cent prescribed in the November circular. Sir John Astley, a captain in the Guards Brigade who had been wounded in the Crimea, recorded his experiences as the head of a recruiting party of regulars sent to "coax the militia" in Sussex: "I was repeatedly met, on offering a likely 38

The Search for Recruits

looking customer the Queen's shilling to enlist, with the remark: 'Not me; it was only last night, when we stood the parish clerk drinks to read us how the war was going in the East, that we heard there was no beer, and wonderful little to eat for the soldiers there. We made up our minds that we would'nt fight on an empty stomach, and we are'nt going to try."10 Astley was no more fortunate at Lewes, where he invited the more likely members of the local militia regiment to meet him in the courtyard of the leading inn. After deep potations thirty or forty of the men were prevailed upon to take the queen's shilling. But half of these were rejected next day by the medical examiner on ground of malformation of toes, varicose veins, and other physical defects. Others on sober reflection reversed their decision to join the regulars and were released on payment of the conventional £1 of "smart money." In the end no more than eight recruits were netted for the regular army. The well-publicized hardships suffered by the British expeditionary force to the Crimea were obviously an important influence in cooling the ardour of the militia for general service. The Aberdeen ministry strove to circumvent this obstacle by the Militia (Service Abroad) Act of 23 December 1854. The measure solicited volunteers from the militia for service outside the United Kingdom for a term of five years. Each militia regiment might contribute up to 75 per cent of its current strength for this purpose. It was generally understood that volunteers under the act, to a maximum of 15,000 men, would be stationed in Gibraltar, Malta, and the Ionian islands in order to release the regular garrisons there for service in the Crimea. The measure experienced a heavy pounding by the parliamentary opposition. It was objected that many militia regiments had not furnished their quota on 25 per cent of their effectives requested by the circular of 20 November 1854. It was further contended that few militiamen of the labouring classes would serve for five years and leave their families without means of support during that period. Lastly, the argument was advanced that country gentlemen, who formed the bulk of the militia officers, would run the risk of ruin if they abandoned their civilian occupations for five years. The bill was adopted under the pressure of the current emergency, though Earl Granville, chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, bluntly warned the House that the militia did not in fact display the immense 39

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA readiness to proceed on foreign service which government speakers attributed to it.11 Recruiting under the terms of the measure produced a scant 5,000 volunteers who, brigaded into ten skeleton regiments, embarked for the Mediterranean in spring 1855. As early as 21 December 1854 Newcastle had informed the Lords that the militia was unable to perform its traditional function of supplying large-scale reinforcements to the regular army. In consequence he gave notice of his intention to recruit more actively from "the general public."12 But the cautious army reforms of the 1840s had been too slender in substance to impress the populace at large with the conviction that the army was being transformed from "a receptacle for outcasts" into "an honourable profession." The secretary at war, the future Lord Panmure, informed the Commons in 1847 with his usual painful frankness that the conditions of army service remained so unattractive that the majority of new recruits were fugitives from civilian life. He doubted whether anyone ever enlisted into the army for the purpose of making it a regular profession for life. He found that there were some classes of their recruits who had readily gone into the ranks, not with any view to the future, but rather with a view of escaping present distress. Their ranks were very much recruited by the idle and dissolute, who thought that in the life of a soldier they would find that idleness and dissipation congenial to their dispositions. It was too often the case that the prodigal sought in the army a refuge from his improvidence, and lads who had got into disgrace immediately had recourse to enlistment in order to avoid their masters. With that class voluntary enlistment was at an end. All the rest was voluntary only in name: it was brought about by the artifices and promises of recruiting officers towards those who could scarcely be said to be responsible for their own conduct. The result of the system was that the great majority of our recruits entered the army under circumstances most disadvantageous to the service itself.13 On the eve of the Crimean War, Henry Rich, M.P. for Richmond, paid tribute in the House to the recent improvements in the sol40

The Search for Recruits

dier's lot, but was forced to concede that "the service is not popular among the lower classes." Panmure, true to the economic philosophy of his time, had laid great stress in his address on the personal and moral deficiencies which drove young men to enlist. But at a more impersonal level economic fluctuations and consequent oscillations in the demand for labour also strongly affected the rate of recruiting. In 1847, a year of marked economic distress and unemployment, the army had enlisted 24,000 men, more than double the normal rate. By the early 1850s the national economy, stimulated by the gold discoveries in California (1849) and Australia (1851), was showing definite signs of recovery.14 The basic iron, coal, and textile industries resumed their spectacular expansion, and rapidly mopped up the pool of unemployed formed in the 1840s. Agriculture remained, however, a vastly important depository of manpower. In England and Wales alone it gave employment to 1,760,000 persons, equal to 20.9 per cent of the working population in 1851. This agricultural labour force continued to grow through the 1850s. Hence the farmer retained the capacity to enhance production by increased employment of land and labour without radical departures from the traditional techniques of agriculture. The replacement of men by machines had barely begun by the midcentury. Certainly a fairly wide range of labour-saving devices were available. They included the Meikle threshing machine, the Bell and McCormick reapers, the Garrett and Croskill harvesters. But their wide adoption was delayed by the opposition of labour, the conservatism of the employer, and cost considerations, which weighed heavily with the small farmer. The uncertainty created by the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, and a series of poor harvests between 1849 and 1853 also acted as retarding influences on mechanization. In the early stages of the war the press nourished the hope that a vast surplus of men existed in agriculture who could be readily recruited into the armed forces." It was assumed that the iron law of wages would depress their remuneration to subsistence level, and that they would be prepared in consequence to enlist. But a combination of circumstances led in 1854 to an extremely brisk demand for agricultural labour. The scanty harvest of 1853 had necessitated large imports of American, Prussian, Russian, and French cereal grain. The difficulties occasioned by the outbreak of 41

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA war and the diversion of shipping to military needs entailed a marked decline of supplies from these areas in the following year. It was naturally the Russian grain exports to Great Britain which suffered most severely. The military occupation by Russia of the vast wheat lands of Moldavia and Wallachia had been countered by a British naval blockade of the mouths of the Danube. The customary outflow of Russian grain by way of Odessa and the Straits was also inhibited. There were suspicions in Great Britain that Russian wheat was being funneled by Prussian merchants into the ordinary channels of the Baltic trade. But the statistics do not suggest that these operations were of prime importance. British imports of grain (per 1000 qrs) 1853 1854 1855

RUSSIA

PRUSSIA

FRANCE

U.S.A.

1071 507 —

1145 675 540

341 206 26

1582 1152 441

The steep decline in imports was reflected in the domestic price of wheat, which rose from 53s. 3d. per quarter in 1853 to 72s. 5d. in 1854 and to 74s. 8d. in 1855. The slackening of foreign competition and the buoyant price of grain afforded a golden opportunity to the British farmer. But a scarcity of agricultural labour would increase his wage bill and multiply the difficulties of bringing in the bounteous harvest of 1854. Hence the landed interest, already irritated by the government's attempt to immobilize their labourers in a permanently embodied militia, lent little support to recruiting for the regular army in the rural areas. Its spokesmen did not hesitate to remind the country of the disadvantages of unduly depleting the supply of labour. L. Palk, M.P. for Devon, remarked in the Commons on 13 December 1854 that "when they called on the labouring classes of the country they must remember that they not only robbed the national industry, but took away the pith and marrow of the agriculturalists, of those who raised the crops of the country ,.i6 His studiously moderate words gave expression to the fear in agricultural and industrial circles that the government of the day, desperately anxious to accelerate recruiting, might adopt the

42

The Search for Recruits

fairly obvious policy of increasing the enlistment bounty and military pay continuously until a plentiful supply of recruits was assured. But employers of labour everywhere disliked the prospect of a round of competitive bidding for men between the army and private interests. We have other things to do, be it remembered, besides carrying on the war. We have to carry on the arts of peace, the agriculture, trade, and commerce of the country.... When our existence as a nation is at stake, we may then task our utmost efforts; but we have not yet come to that pass. In our opinion it is better to employ foreign mercenaries than to convert steady industrious artisans into soldiers for a year or two, and then to fling them back, spoiled for civilian pursuits.17

43

4 The Foreign Enlistment Bill

Origins The project of raising a foreign legion was conceived by Albert, the prince consort, soon after the battle of Inkerman. In recent months he had abandoned all hope of an early Austrian entry into the war on the side of the Western Powers, and foresaw in consequence the alarming probability that powerful elements of the Russian 3rd, 4th and 5th Corps would be transferred from the Danubian region to the Crimea. He was convinced, therefore, that a military catastrophe in the Crimea could be prevented only by the speedy and massive reinforcement of Raglan's command. On 11 November 1854, six days after Inkerman, the prince submitted to Lord Aberdeen a long and urgent communication concerning ways and means of providing emergency reinforcements for the Crimea. He suggested infer alia that the Crown should be empowered to enlist foreigners with a view to forming a foreign legion.' The prime minister agreed to discuss the matter with the cabinet. Palmerston favoured the proposal. But Russell contended that European recruits would require a lengthy period of retraining before they could be directed to the Crimea, where the need was immediate.' In the light of the current crisis Russell's argument was scarcely conclusive. The states of the Germanic Confederation abounded in men who had completed their obligatory military training. On displaying a certificate to this effect, they were legally entitled to leave their native land as emigrants. Young men who had not yet received their army training were forbidden to emigrate. But many evaded the prohibition by clandestine departures via Lübeck or Hamburg, where ships' captains were not excessively concerned with legal niceties. Open recruiting in the German states by foreign powers was officially discountenanced by a resolution of the Bund passed on 7 February 1853. The lesser German states, which had been the traditional recruiting grounds

The Foreign Enlistment Bill

of the great powers, reaffirmed their neutrality in the current conflict by the Declaration of Bamberg on 23 May 1854. There was still a possibility, however, that some would tolerate British recruiting in their territories, provided that it was conducted unobtrusively and with maximum discretion. Majority opinion in the cabinet, which had initially displayed a marked distaste for the prince's project, was converted by two developments. Raglan's dispatches, which reached London on 15 November, urgently requested reinforcements of seasoned troops and suggested that the raising of a foreign legion might serve in part to meet the emergency. A week later Palmerston learned from French sources that 30,000 Russian troops had begun to move from the Danube to the Crimea. This alarming intelligence lent a keener edge to Clarendon's warning that "a great catastrophe" might be looming in the Crimea. Under these converging pressures the cabinet decided to submit a bill to Parliament at the forthcoming session to authorize the enlistment of foreigners for preliminary training in England. The resolution, wrung from a divided cabinet largely by force of circumstances, was communicated to the queen on 24 November. Thus the government of the day placed the raising of a foreign legion on its legislative program before taking any positive steps to ascertain the practicability of the project. Parliament had been urgently summoned for 12 December. Clearly no time was to be lost in testing through diplomatic channels the possibility of a recruiting campaign in the territories of the states of the German Confederation. The preliminary investigation of recruiting prospects in Germany was entrusted to Sir Alexander Malet, minister plenipotentiary to the Bund, who was instructed to inquire discreetly into the feasibility of the project. On 30 November Malet reported that he had submitted three questions to Lt. G. Follenius, a retired Hessian officer resident in Fulda. Firstly, which of the German states permitted recruiting of their subjects by foreign powers without express authorization? Secondly, was it possible to recruit men who had not begun their period of military training? Lastly, what system of recruiting could be adopted if the states officially prohibited foreign recruiting? Follenius replied on 4 December to the effect that some of the lesser states might extend unofficial toleration to clandestine recruiting activities. He felt that open recruiting was inadvisable in the light of the law of 1853. But he 45

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA reminded Malet that many German youths of military age emigrated illegally by way of Hamburg and the island of Heligoland, and hinted that this source of recruits might be tapped. Follenius added encouragingly that the system of illicit emigration was in the hands of competent agents, and that small vessels were continuously available to carry the emigrants to Heligoland, a British possession since 1807. Naturally he offered no comment on the broader diplomatic implications of his proposals. But clearly the launching of a recruiting campaign in the Germanies would test the degree to which the individual states of the Bund were committed to a policy of strict neutrality. It was equally clear that Prussia, as the champion of German neutrality, would attempt to give a lead to the other states and would strain every nerve to obstruct the passage of intending recruits to Heligoland. The lieutenant proceeded with practised hand to outline the measures necessary to bring recruiting under way. He suggested the insertion of a discreet announcement in the major German newspapers to the effect that Her Majesty's government desired to engage the services of a number of German officers, who were to apply to the British minister resident in their particular state. Some of the officers selected were to supervise the activities of recruiting agents, preferably time-expired noncommissioned officers, in the larger cities. Recruits should be assured of a bounty and travelling expenses, but no actual payment of any kind ought to be made until they reached Heligoland. Senior officers in Hamburg and Bremen were to group the recruits and organize their transportation to the island. The raising of men in central and south Germany would be facilitated by the establishment of a recruiting station on the French side of the Rhine at Strasbourg. With the consent of the French government, intending recruits might cross the frontier on giving a simple declaration to the French border officials of their desire to join the projected German Legion. After induction they could be forwarded in successive detachments across French territory to Britain.3 The hard-pressed Aberdeen cabinet, already committed in principle to the raising of a foreign legion, was sufficiently impressed by the report to proceed with the drafting of an Enlistment of Foreigners Bill for submission to Parliament at the forthcoming special session. The proposed legislation was based in part on the statutes of 1794 and 1804 enacted to legalize the enlistment 46

The Foreign Enlistment Bill

of foreign nationals during the Napoleonic Wars. The hotly debated act of 9 May 1794 permitted the voluntary enlistment of French émigrés for European service. But no officer was to be entitled to half pay on retirement; the force was not to be brought more than five miles inland during drilling and training in Great Britain; its total effectives on British soil at any one time were not to exceed 5,000 men, and it was to be subject to His Majesty's articles of war. Finally, the act was declared subject to automatic expiry one year after the close of hostilities.4 The statute of 14 July 1804 was designed to encourage enlistment in the King's German Legion, formed mainly of Hanoverians who had fled the electorate after the French occupation in 1803. The stipulations of the act of 1794 with regard to half-pay for officers, the articles of war, and the legal duration of the legislation reappeared in the later statute. No more than 10,000 of the legionaries might be stationed at any time in the United Kingdom. Officers wounded or disabled in the course of service might receive pensions to a maximum of one half of their active pay at the discretion of Parliament.5 These two measures furnished the bulk of the principles and procedures later embodied in the Foreign Enlistment Bill of 1854. The bill of 1804 in particular had experienced a stormy and disputed passage through Parliament. The opposition resented the presence of "foreign" troops on English soil, and demanded irritably that the defence of the realm against Napoleon's armee dAngleterre should be confided exclusively to Britons. It was further objected that portions of the legion had been "stealthily" formed before the bill had been introduced, and that the force was bound to the Crown by a tie of "absolute obedience."6 These ancient but powerful prejudices were ignored by the Pitt ministry, which empowered numerous agents to recruit sub rosa for the legion in Hanover and the adjacent German states. Enlisted men were directed to the ports of Busum, Tönning, and Bremerhaven, where they were taken on shipboard and formally inducted. After 1807 the newly acquired island of Heligoland was used as an assembly point. By this date the force had attained a strength of 14,000 men. It was placed under the nominal command of Adolphus Frederick, duke of Cambridge, the amiable seventh son of George III. Closer French surveillance of the north German ports, however, gradually reduced the flow of recruits. Hence the legion, 47

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA which suffered heavy losses in the Peninsular War, was compelled to enlist German prisoners captured from the polyglot French armies in the peninsula. Despite the ensuing decline in its military quality, the legion fought with distinction, notably at Salamanca. At Waterloo a contingent of 300 legionaries defended, gallantly but unsuccessfully, the famous farmhouse at La Haye Sainte. The formation was disbanded in 1816, when those officers who did not wish to transfer to the Hanoverian army were placed on the half-pay list or, when appropriate, accorded disablement pensions. In the preceding years isolated voices had been raised in Parliament to protest against the presence of "foreign adventurers" in the British army. But the legion found a doughty defender in Palmerston, secretary at war since 1809, who reminded the House that the legionaries were subjects of George III, and that they merited respect as men who had preferred exile to servitude.' It is possible that Palmerston's strong advocacy of foreign recruiting in 1854 was not unconnected with his recollection of the good service performed by the legion during the Napoleonic Wars.

Parliamentary debate on the bill The Foreign Enlistment Bill was introduced in the House of Lords on 12 December 1854 by Henry, duke of Newcastle, who had occupied the increasingly onerous post of secretary for war since 12 June. The cabinet had foreseen that this remedy for the shortage of trained reserves would be found somewhat unpalatable by the Lower House. Hence the projected measure was first presented for debate in the more tranquil and equable atmosphere of the House of Lords. It was hoped that, with the seal of the Lords' approval, the bill would experience a smoother passage through the Commons. Newcastle, very much on the defensive, strove hard to invest the bill with the aura of a normal and routine piece of legislation. He reminded the Lords that the country had no system of conscription for accumulating trained reserves, and that the enrolment of foreigners had always been necessary in the initial stages of a major war. He gave assurances that recruits procured under the provisions of the bill would not be drafted into British regiments of the line, which were restricted by the act of 48

The Foreign Enlistment Bill

1837 to a proportion of one foreigner to fifty native-born soldiers.

Further, he promised the House, which had always opposed foreign recruiting under royal authority, that recruiting activities abroad would not be undertaken until the bill had passed into law. Newcastle predicted that Germany and Switzerland would readily yield 15,000 recruits, the maximum envisaged in the bill. Most of these would be men who had completed their obligatory period of military training. The Conservative opposition in the Upper House sensed the explosive quality of the measure in terms of insular prejudice, and opened a steady drumfire of criticism. Their chief spokesman was Lord Ellenborough, the eloquent and impetuous ex-governor general of India, who had endeared himself to the regular army by his frequent gifts of oranges to wounded soldiers during the campaign in Sind. Ellenborough argued with some cogency that prospects of recruiting on the continent of Europe were less favorable than they had been during the Napoleonic Wars, when men from French-occupied countries could be enlisted under the slogan of a war of liberation. Reverting to an ancient popular grievance against foreign troops, he suggested that the projected force might be employed to suppress domestic disturbances. At an equally speculative level, he expressed grave doubts concerning the discipline and military qualities of the prospective recruits. He was confident that the nation could supply the necessary manpower, and urged a more extensive use of the police to stimulate recruiting for the militia, the traditional feeder of the regular army.9 Lord Derby, the leader of his party and one of its most brilliant orators, was more restrained, and merely pointed out that the crowns of Hanover and England had been disjoined since 1837. Hence Newcastle's belief that the formation of the King's German Legion constituted a valid precedent for the raising of the projected force was ill-founded. The legion had been largely composed of subjects of the British crown, but the present bill contemplated exclusively the enrolment of aliens.1O Newcastle bowed before the storm and sought to placate a highly irritable House by piecemeal concessions. He gave assurances that the foreign legionaries would not be stationed permanently in the United Kingdom to take the place of British troops 49

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sent to the Crimea. He was further willing to reduce the maximum strength of the foreign force on British soil at any one time from 15,000 men, stipulated in the original draft of the bill, to 10,000.11 But Ellenborough, who would have succeeded Newcastle as secretary for war in the event of a Conservative victory at the polls, was inexorable. He returned to the attack by asking pointedly whether any understanding on the subject of foreign recruiting had been reached with the German states.12 An affirmative answer would have convicted the government of seeking to implement the bill before it had received parliamentary sanction. A negative answer would have enabled the opposition to censure the bill as speculative and impractical. Hence Newcastle was forced to evade the question. The rather feeble and apologetic presentation of the government's case was continued by Lord John Wodehouse, under-secretary for foreign affairs, who observed that the measure was a purely temporary expedient entailed by the opposition of all parties to conscription. But the Lords could scarcely reject the measure before its effectiveness in raising foreign recruits had been tested in practice. Hence they defeated an opposition motion to delay the consideration of the bill for six months, and the measure passed into committee on 15 December. In the committee stage Ellenborough seriously overplayed his hand. He claimed that the bill injured the royal prerogative insofar as it requested parliamentary sanction for foreign recruiting, which lay within the jurisdiction of the Crown. This attempt to revive an ancient and sensitive constitutional issue was not relished by the Lords. The act of 1804 constituted a precedent which damaged Ellenborough's case beyond repair, and expert legal opinion in the House offered him no support. Hence he did not reiterate his constitutional objection at the third reading of the bill on 18 December. But he prophesied darkly that the foreign force, with no sense of loyalty or devotion to the country, would stain the honour of the nation on the field of battle. He predicted also that the enlistment of foreign troops would check the momentum of domestic recruiting.13 Derby concentrated his oratorical fire on the fourth clause of the bill, which empowered the Crown to draft separate articles of war for the projected force.14 It was clearly undesirable that the regulations pertaining to military discipline in the foreign legion should differ from those which 50

The Foreign Enlistment Bill

prevailed in the regular army. Newcastle was prepared to yield on this issue, and the bill was accorded the consent of the Lords on the same day by an unimpressive majority of 55 votes to 43. Lord John Russell introduced the measure in the Commons on the following day (19 December). He pointed out that the country in the past had drawn heavily on the services of foreign troops, who had performed creditably under Marlborough and Wellington. If none participated in the present war, it would be the first occasion on which the nation had relied exclusively on domestic recruiting. He depicted the war, in terms which Napoleon III would have instantly recognized, as a great European crusade against a despotic and barbarous power. As participants in this glorious enterprise, the legionaries would be fighting for "the independence of Europe." The bill implied no distrust of the people's desire and ability to prosecute the war by their own efforts. It was inspired rather by the universal desire to press the Crimean campaign more effectively. Lastly, the proposed foreign legion would furnish seasoned and experienced troops for the Crimea instead of raw and hastily trained recruits, and would reduce the drain of manpower from British agriculture and industry. Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, who led off for the opposition, reminded the House of the widespread hostility generated by the formation of the German Legion in 1804, and suggested that a repetition of the experiment at the present juncture would gravely injure the popularity of the war. He warned that recruiting activities by the government in the German states would excite official resentment there, and would militate against the possibility of bringing them into the war as allies. There was no assurance, moreover, that the foreign force could be recruited and retrained with the necessary speed and dispatch. The speaker ridiculed the assumption that a nation of 28,000,000 people could not supply a sufficiency of recruits without dangerously depleting the supply of labour in agriculture and industry. In conclusion he drew a sombre and provocative word picture of the impact of the bill on public opinion in England and in Europe. He depicted the harassed and humiliated figure of Great Britain standing in humble guise at the portals of haughty European potentates, who would condescend to relinquish only the very dregs of society for service under the British flag.15 Disraeli embroidered the same theme with a resounding oration on the general public distaste at 51

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA the prospect of British troops being forced to fight shoulder to shoulder with "condottieri and mercenaries." He warned that the measure before the House would create the impression abroad that the country was on the verge of exhausting its military resources. Hence he urged the government to press forward with an intensified campaign of domestic recruiting. 16 The opposition had clearly decided that the controversial bill was sufficiently explosive to bring down the Aberdeen ministry, and the violence and unexpectedness of the assault took the government side of the House by surprise. Sidney Herbert, the secretary of war, assured a sceptical House that friction with the German states would be avoided by enlisting only those nationals who had completed their military service and were preparing to emigrate. This seasoned military material could withstand the rigours of the Crimea far better than English recruits, who were often raw and poorly fed youths taken direct from the field and the factory. The atmosphere of impending crisis deepened when at the close of his speech he demanded ominously whether the House intended to refuse the government the means to carry on the war. Palmerston followed, and with cheerful cynicism attempted to convince Richard Cobden and other businessmen on the other side of the House that Disraeli's proposed policy of concentration on domestic recruiting would curtail the supply of labour and raise wage rates in industry. The bill was sent forward for second reading by an unenthusiastic majority of 241 votes against 202.17 Russell pressed his advantage remorselessly, and on his motion the Commons agreed to consider the measure in committee of the whole on the following day. The opposition protested vainly through Disraeli, who wished to postpone further debate until the new year in order to allow public feeling against the bill to gather headway. Tempers grew hot in the committee stage, when opposition backbenchers rose in turn to question the need to enlist "hirelings, butchers, and murderers." Richard Cobden proceeded to pour oil on the flames by declaring that recruits from the back slums of Germany could not be fired with enthusiasm for a noble cause. Nor would the English troops in the Crimea welcome the presence of foreigners by their side. He believed that the government was hanging out a signal of distress by bringing forward the 52

The Foreign Enlistment Bill

bill, which would be interpreted by the neutral nations of Europe as a measure born of desperation. A lone voice in favour of conscription was raised by J. P. Murrough, M. P. for Bridport.18 But the vast majority of the opposition clung to the belief that a more energetic campaign of domestic recruiting would enable the government to meet the needs of the army without disturbing the existing system of voluntary enlistment.19 In reply Herbert pointed out that the War Office had been recently empowered to raise the enlistment bounty from £6 to £7, to reduce the minimum height qualification of intending recruits by half an inch to five feet four inches, and to increase the maximum age of enlistment from twenty-five to thirty years. But the government required an estimated 40,000 recruits immediately, and the speedy passage of the bill was a necessary contribution to this total objective. The blunt reference to saeva necessitas dissipated some of the patriotic illusions of the House, which proceeded to debate the bill clause by clause. At this vital stage the conflict intensified, and the government side was compelled to make a number of concessions. The House was given assurances that the projected force would not be employed for police purposes in the United Kingdom. It would not be billeted on private persons, nor would its effectives on English soil exceed 10,000 men at any time. The eloquent Locke King reminded the House that the grant of half-pay to foreign officers disbanded from English service after the Napoleonic Wars had cost the Treasury a sum of £300,000 in 1816, £140,000 in 1822, and £36,000 in the previous fiscal year. The House therefore hastened to adopt a further amendment which precluded the grant of half-pay to the officers of the foreign force after its dissolution. Herbert revealed that the government had contemplated the possibility of stimulating the recruitment of the force by providing legionaries with passage to the colonies at public expense when hostilities ceased. But he declined to commit himself to "a settled plan." He would not give positive assurances that the projected force would be officered by Englishmen, and was equally vague concerning the mode of its recruitment and the parts of Europe in which it was to be raised. Herbert doubtless foresaw that public disclosure of the government's plans for recruiting abroad would place neutral countries involved in a 53

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA difficult position, and would arouse Russia to vigorous diplomatic counter-action. Hence he appealed to the members to be reasonable, and to leave something to the discretion of the government. His reply intensified the general suspicion that the House was not being taken into the confidence of the cabinet, and Russell was forced in turn to apply pressure by declaring that the present issue was one of confidence in the government of the day. The opposition perceived the party disadvantage of precipitating an election during which they could be charged with obstructing the war effort. The danger that the bill might be killed by protracted debate in committee was avoided, and the measure was passed for third reading before the House rose on the evening of 22 December. The majority of 173 votes to 135 for third readingZ0 was not impressive in view of the heavy pressure exerted by the government whips. There was substance in the opposition's charge that if members had been allowed to vote freely the Aberdeen ministry would have fallen. The cabinet itself had tacitly acknowledged the dangerous political potential of the bill by omitting all reference to it from the Queen's speech on proposed legislation for the special session, and by introducing the measure in the more complacent Upper House in preference to the normal procedure of original submission to the Commons. The defensive attitude of the government naturally encouraged the opposition to launch a most spirited attack, which was given impetus by its conviction that some backbenchers on the other side of the House disliked the bill. The unfavourable reception of the measure by public opinion also raised Derby's hopes that the Liberals would split on the issue. To this end he countenanced the formidable offensive in both Houses against the bill, although he had previously assured the prince consort that the proposed legislation would be regarded by his party as noncontroversial by reason of the critical situation in the Crimea. Russell's mutation of the issue into one of confidence in the government forced his party to close its ranks, and sharply reminded the Conservatives that their attempt to kill the bill by protracted debate might not be to the ultimate advantage of their party or their country. In defence of his drastic action Russell and his colleagues were compelled to declare with brutal frankness that recruits were not forthcoming in sufficient numbers at home, and that in consequence they must 54

The Foreign Enlistment Bill

be obtained abroad. The opposition experienced real difficulty in digesting this unpalatable truth, and continued to assert that an increase in the enlistment bounty would solve the problem. Its objection that the multiple difficulties of recruiting in Europe would doom the bill to ineffectuality was necessarily somewhat speculative. Obviously much would depend upon the vigour of the Aberdeen ministry and the effectiveness of its recruiting agencies on the continent. The amended bill,2' which received royal assent on 23 December, authorized in Clause I the enlistment of foreigners as volunteers, to be formed into separate regiments, battalions, and corps. Clause II prohibited the employment of such forces in the United Kingdom save when they were being trained, arrayed, and formed into military units. No more than 10,000 legionaries were to be stationed in the kingdom at any one time, and they were not to be billeted in private households. Clause III enacted that intending recruits should be attested and sworn in as Her Majesty's government shall direct. The revised Clause IV declared the force to be amenable in matters of discipline to the British articles of war. Clause V was inserted under pressure from the House of Commons, and affirmed that legionary officers would not be entitled to half-pay when their period of active service expired. But pensions not exceeding half-pay in amount might be furnished to officers disabled by wounds or sickness, provided that Parliament consented to provide the necessary funds. Clause VI declared that the act was to remain in force for the duration of the war and for one year after its termination.

55

5 Press and Public Opinion on the Bill

The Foreign Enlistment Bill was greeted with surprise and hostility by the majority of the press and the general public, which had not been conditioned and prepared to accept the strong medicine prescribed so swiftly and unceremoniously by the legislature.' The influential Times of London, under the vigorous and aggressive guidance of John T. Delane, had occasionally sounded a subdued note of alarm and uncertainty over the sluggish rate of recruiting. But it had concluded with the soothing reflection that the "vast surplus" of labourers in agriculture would be forced ultimately to enlist when the operation of the iron law of wages had brought them closer to the brink of destitution. But the bounteous harvest of 1854 ensured a buoyant demand for agricultural labourers, who could earn twelve shillings a week in comparison with soldiers' pay of a shilling a day. Early in October 1854 The Times began to feature the celebrated series of dispatches from the Crimea of its correspondent W. H. Russell, who depicted with an unsparing hand the horrors of war and the inadequate care of the troops. Lord Clarendon complained in some irritation that this indecent publicity was adversely affecting the rate of enlistment. The Times began cautiously to make amends in a remarkable leading article published ten days after the battle of Inkerman. It expressed a robust confidence in the efficacy of the voluntary system, and declared that the martial spirit of the nation was fully aroused. The writer conceded, however, that recruiting for the regular army was sluggish. He explained somewhat unconvincingly that the root of the problem lay in Ireland, where potential recruits had been swept away by famine and emigration. This tactful prelude was followed by a series of thunderous leading

Press and Public Opinion on the Bill

articles which demanded the immediate dispatch of reinforcements to the Crimea and exhorted the government to recruit men from every available source. Recourse to conscription, however, was expressly disapproved by The Times, which recommended that large portions of the Ottoman army should be taken into British pay and retrained under British officers for service in the Crimea. But in early December this note of urgency in the editorial columns had sensibly declined. The Anglo-French treaty with Austria on 2 December was greeted by The Times as an indication that an Austrian force of half a million men would enter the war and reduce Russian pressure on the Crimea. The speedy dispatch of French troops to the Crimea by means of British transports was also reassuring. Thus the unheralded appearance of the Foreign Enlistment Bill on the floor of the House of Lords administered an unpleasant shock to The Times. A powerful editorial branded the bill as unprecedented, dangerous, and unnecessary. It denied that the employment of the German Legion under the British flag during the Napoleonic Wars created a valid precedent for the proposed measure. At that time the legion had fought for the liberation of its native soil, and George III had been a German potentate. But Germany was not at present an enemy-occupied country, nor did Queen Victoria rule in Hanover. The levying of a foreign legion from the submerged nationalities of Eastern Europe might conceivably create an organization capable of igniting at the end of the war a general uprising against established authority in Europe comparable to the explosions of 1848. The introduction of exiles and malcontents into the British armed forces would degrade the service and make it the refuge of immorality and rebellion. Lastly, the bill was superfluous because a modest instalment of army reform, including higher pay for recruits and promotion by merit, would impart the desired impetus to domestic enlistment.2 The Times returned to the charge next day. It observed editorially that 40,000 British recruits had been obtained by voluntary means since the outbreak of war, and questioned the necessity of applying to the Continental countries for mercenaries.3 It charged the government with failure to tap the available manpower of Ireland and Scotland, and of the British middle classes, "where all boys yearn to be soldiers." Reference was made to the notorious inability of the clergy to prevent their sons from entering the army by 57

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the offer of snug livings. But the government discouraged the military ardour of the middle class, and strove to confine it to shopkeeping. The obstacles to promotion were so formidable that all recruiting offices should bear on their portals the Dantesque warning to the aspiring recruit: "All hope abandon, ye who enter here." The Times continued to deploy these criticisms until the Aberdeen ministry announced its intention of staking its political existence on the bill. The decision impressed The Times, which abruptly abandoned its previous opposition and urged the speedy passage of the measure on the ground of necessity.4 The editorial anticipated, however, that the application of the enactment in practice would be attended by serious difficulties. The opposition of European governments to foreign enlistment had grown markedly since the Napoleonic Wars, and open recruiting was now generally prohibited by municipal law. International law regarded official toleration of such activities as a breach of neutrality. Finally, the sense of national pride and dignity of the European peoples was increasingly offended by the practice of foreign enlistment. The writer conceded that men might be raised sub silentio in Switzerland, but concluded that the main intent of the bill was to draw recruits from Germany and thus to break down by degrees the solid wall of neutrality hitherto presented by the German states.5 The Illustrated London News, which furnished weekend reading to a rapidly growing number of middle-class households, rebuked the Aberdeen ministry for its alleged mismanagement of the bill. The country had been taken aback by the sudden and unannounced appearance of the projected legislation and by its apparent inutility. The public had been assured that the rate of enlistment was improving, that the French possessed ample reserves of trained men, and that Austria was on the point of entering the war with half-a-million men. The deepening crisis in the Crimea had compelled the ministry to shatter this dangerous complacency, and the proposal had been reluctantly accepted under the lash of necessity. The News entreated its readers to guard against the illusion that a mercenary force would display patriotism and a sense of devotion to its adopted country. These qualities could be expected only in British recruits, who would be forthcoming in 58

Press and Public Opinion on the Bill

ample supply whenever the government was prepared to throw open the army to merit.6 Editorial opinion in the more stately periodicals and journals crystallized, predictably, along party lines. The Conservative Blackwood's Magazine complained bitterly that the bill was an open confession that the country could not carry on the war with its own resources. Austria and Prussia, potential allies, would be unfavourably impressed by this admission of weakness. The predictable opposition of the German states to open recruiting would make the foreign legion the resort of emigrants, outcasts, refugees, and deserters, who would take to their heels at the first volley. In any event, the force could not be recruited and organized with sufficient speed to relieve the current situation in the Crimea. Finally, the experiment would exercise an injurious effect on the morale of the army there and on the tempo of recruiting at home.? Fraser's Magazine, an organ of Liberal opinion, sharply attacked the hollow fears and unfounded criticism of the opponents of the bill. The measure had been denounced in extravagant terms as a disgrace to the nation. If this was the case, the disgrace was of long standing, since Britain had availed herself of the services of foreign troops in all her major wars. The parliamentary opposition had argued that the art of recruiting was an exercise in elementary economics, and that progressive increases in military pay would enable the army to satisy its needs from domestic enlistment. The editorial cautioned the country against a policy so heedless and prodigal. Soldier's' pay would rise to ruinous heights, agricultural and industrial wages would be forced upwards as the labour market was emptied by recruiting, and the consequent flight of capital would reduce the economy to stagnation. The drastic measures favoured by the opposition would be appropriate only if the existence of the nation was at stake; but the country has not yet come to that pass.8 The liberal Edinburgh Review invoked no such economic spectres to lend a semblance of credibility to governmental policy. It announced flatly that the bill had been sadly misrepresented and had excited extravagant and unmerited opposition. The fury of its enemies was absurd and inexplicable in the light of the regular employment of foreign mercenaries by Britain since 1688. Trained troops were required immediately, and these were to be found 59

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only in Europe. But the Review warned that the measure would produce only a thin dribble of foreign volunteers, unless the ministry's enlistment activities received some countenance from the European governments concerned.9 The Eclectic Review, which spoke for Protestant Dissent, agreed that the bill was highly unpopular, but could detect no objective grounds for the general hostility. It concluded that the government ought not to be checked in any practical project to obtain reinforcements for the Crimea_10 The military unleashed a slashing offensive against the bill in the columns of their organ, Colburn's United Services Magazine. A bristling editorial condemned foreign enlistment as inexpedient, unconstitutional, unnecessary, and impractical. Where, it asked, was the foreign legion to be raised? The government had not answered that question, because it had no idea. The writer remained fixed in the conviction that the militia was capable of supplying an adequate flow of volunteers to the regular army. But the army must introduce improved pay and a system of promotion by merit.11 A more drastic solution of the problem was advocated in the correspondence columns of the journal by Lt.-Col. C. F. Parkinson, of Eppleton Hall, county Durham.12 The writer suggested that the Foreign Enlistment Bill was a symptom of the failure of the voluntary system of army recruiting in Britain. As a substitute for the bill he proposed that the militia should be brought up to full strength by the use of the ballot, and that all militiamen after a year's training should be liable to compulsory transference to the regular army. The redoubtable Sir John Burgoyne did not believe, however, that the inadequacy of the current system had been conclusively demonstrated. In his view the need of a foreign legion could be eliminated by the application of the more intensive recruiting techniques developed during the Napoleonic Wars: an increase in the number of recruiting parties, and better coverage of the rural areas and small towns.13 The Conservative Quarterly Review, in an unusually subdued and gloomy editorial, ventured the prediction that the bill would cool the enthusiasm of prospective recruits at home. Their insular prejudice against the foreigner would be aroused, and as foreign recruits passed into the army domestic enlistment would contract.14 The logic on which the editorial prophecy was based was not, perhaps, over-impressive. The recruiting statistics had 60

Press and Public Opinion on the Bill

demonstrated before the passage of the bill that the working class was not enthusiastically in favour of direct and personal participation in the war. Indeed, this relative apathy was the Ions et origo of the bill itself. Thus it verged on the fantastic to suggest that the measure would "check the enthusiasm" of the British worker for enlistment. It may be surmised that the Russophobia of influential periodicals like the Review led them to exaggerate the eagerness of the lower orders to place themselves in the firing line in the Crimea. Punch certainly believed that the more solemn quarterlies had fallen into this error. It reported an imaginary conversation at the Ram Inn, during which the rural labourer was asked whether he intended to enlist: Said Dan is The Czar 1 defies, and his works, And does'nt fear the Rooshans no more than the Turks. What takes me aback is all that there distress, Cold, wet, rags, and sickness, starvation, and mess. The liberal Economist argued that massive domestic recruiting, coupled with the dwindling inflow of labour from Ireland and the steady increase in emigration, would create a scarcity of workers in agriculture and industry and a consequent upward spiral of wages. Hence it gave robust support to the bill. The periodical pointed out that Britain had always recruited foreign auxiliaries in time of need. The nation's forces in the Crimea were already fighting side by side with the French and the Turks. What reasonable grounds of objection could be adduced, therefore, against the enlistment of troops of other nationalities? It would be grossly irresponsible to neglect any opportunityy to reinforce "our gallant lads in the Crimea." The vigorous resistance to the bill in both Houses was politically understandable: it is the duty of the opposition to oppose. If the Conservatives had been in office, they would have been constrained to introduce a similar bill sooner or later. In their dull and gaseous orations they had attempted to portray the legislation as an affront to the pride and conscience of the nation. But in fact they regarded it merely as a cheval de bataille on which they had hoped to ride down and crush the government of the day.16 In the country at large, the violent movement of public opinion against the bill was indicated by protest meetings, inflammatory 61

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA orations, petitions to parliament, and a spate of critical letters to The Times. Charles Greville, moderately Liberal in sympathy, noted the upsurge of popular indignation in his diary and was sorely puzzled by it. He conceded that the parliamentary opposition had been markedly successful in fanning the flames of popular resentment outside the House of Commons. But he felt that the cabinet had played into the hands of the opposition by introducing the bill suddenly and without previous notice. The hostile movement of public opinion might have been prevented by a less precipitate approach. The cabinet ought to have attempted the experiment of raising a few regiments of foreign troops in Europe without applying to Parliament at all. The force could have been mustered and arrayed in Malta or Heligoland, and sent without delay to the Crimea. Its military quality could then have been tested under campaign conditions. If its performance under fire gave satisfaction, the Crimean command would assuredly have pressed for more troops from the same source. In that event neither the legislature nor the public would have felt justified in objecting to foreign recruiting on a more extensive scale.'' Greville's plan was ingenious but unconstitutional. The enabling act of 1837 had authorized the Crown to enlist foreigners for service in British regiments on condition that they did not exceed 2 per cent of the strength. Hence it was evident that neither the Crown nor its ministers could undertake foreign recruiting without the consent of the legislature. The uproar which attended the passage of the bill did not proceed unnoticed in France, where public opinion was displaying an increasing scepticism concerning the value of Great Britain as a military partner. W. H. Russell's disclosures of administrative incompetence in the Crimea had disquieted French opinion, which tended to judge the expeditionary force by the high standards achieved by the Wellingtonian army forty years previously. French disillusionment deepened after the adoption of the bill, which implied that Great Britain was unable or unwilling to match the war effort of her ally from her own manpower resources. The influential Revue des deux mondes expressed this uneasiness in studiously moderate language. It shared the general alarm over the unsatisfactory rate of army enlistment in Britain, but cautioned its readers against interpreting the bill as positive proof of the permanent military weakness of France's ally. The 62

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demand for reduction of public expenditure after 1815 had compelled successive governments to cut the military budget to the bone, and expansion of the armed forces after this period of stagnation could be neither swift nor easy. Nor had the military fibre of the British people degenerated during forty years of peace. The nation was simply experiencing a temporary difficulty in diverting to the war the energies which had been applied since 1815 to the arts of peace. But the writer could give no assurance that the transition would be rapid in the light of the overwhelming public objection to obligatory military service.18 The state of French opinion was outlined with less reserve by the prescient Alexis de Tocqueville in a series of private letters to his friend Nassau William Senior. De Tocqueville intimated that the difficulties in recruiting disclosed during the passage of the bill had convinced his fellow countrymen of the inability of Great Britain, even in the most pressing circumstances, to raise a large army. By European standards, he explained, a nation which could not raise all the troops it required was no longer considered to be either great or patriotic. Hence the belief had gained ground that the importance of Great Britain as a military power had been gravely over-estimated. He detected in France the rise of a "friendly contempt" for an ally which was increasingly dependent on the more powerful partner in the prosecution of the war. These opinions, he believed, would not disappear with the passage of time. They could be eradicated only by some signal and decisive triumph in the Crimea. But he warned that in any event the traditional power and prestige of Britain could not be maintained indefinitely under the voluntary system. Her recent difficulties in obtaining men by voluntary enlistment presented a sharp contrast to the ease with which European governments procured troops by conscription. He predicted that Britain would be constrained to follow the European example within the next fifty years in order to retain her high rank among the nations.19 De Tocqueville's long-term prediction was in his best prophetic vein. There was also much substance in his complaint that the voluntary system of recruitment tended to reduce British field armies to minuscular size in comparison with the military colossi of the European continent, and to depress the supply of trained reserves to a dangerously low level. French critics stood on more debatable ground, however, when they attempted to demonstrate 63

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA the military decline of Great Britain by comparing her great strength in 1815 with the relatively modest expedition to the Crimea. By 1815 the ranks of the army had been filled out by more than twenty years of steady recruiting at home and abroad. The enemy's power lay within sight of the English coast, and his economic blockade had been felt in the lowliest homes in the land. In late 1854 the sole theatre of war was the remote and distant Crimea, a peninsula with which the British public familiarized itself only after prodigal purchases of maps and topographical manuals. Despite their keen interest in the news from the seat of war, civilians in general naturally assumed the posture of spectators of a far-distant conflict. The recent small-scale wars along the imperial frontiers in Afghanistan, India, Burma, and Cape Colony had habituated the public to the spectacle of small British forces at grips with enemies vastly superior in numbers. Clearly the tsarist legions, which had enjoyed a high reputation since 1812, were vastly more formidable than the tribal forces which beset the fringes of the British Empire. By British standards, however, the original Crimean expeditionary force of 25,000 men was of respectable size, and it had been reinforced by 54,000 men before the close of 1854. Hence the British war effort could not be dismissed as wholly contemptible. French dissatisfaction with the bill sprang in large part from the suspicion that unwarlike and perfidious Albion was striving to reduce to minimal proportions the blood tax of war on her own citizens. But France herself had possessed a foreign legion since 1839, and was soon to embark upon a systematic round of foreign recruiting in the Swiss cantons. English criticism of the bill was possibly invigorated by the rise after 1815 of a new generation which was unaccustomed to the spectacle of foreign recruiting on the scale practised during the Napoleonic Wars. Russell's attempt to introduce the bill as a completely normal and traditional measure accurately reflected the opinion of his own generation. But the storm of hostility which it encountered justified his underlying suspicion that public opinion on the subject had become more sensitive after 1815. The act of 1837 which reduced the foreign element in British regiments to 2 percent afforded some indication that the legislature shared this prejudice. Between 1815 and 1854

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Great Britain had been involved in no major wars. Hence there was little need for foreign recruiting, which became increasingly unfamiliar and objectionable to the generation born after 1815. Lastly, a long-standing popular prejudice existed against the presence of foreign troops on English soil, and this latent animosity contributed to the roar of disapproval which greeted the bill. Finally, Karl Marx presented a challenging interpretation of the bill in a contribution to the Neue Oder-Zeitung of 2 January 1855.20 Both he and Engels had reached the conclusion that the "English aristocracy" was waging a war limited in scope and intensity in order to avoid inter alia the pressure for sweeping domestic reforms which a total war effort would inevitably generate. But the critical situation of the British forces in the Crimea and the snail-like pace of army recruiting had combined to bring the aristocracy under fierce fire from an alarmed and distrustful public opinion. One of their remedial measures was the Foreign Enlistment Act, around which the dust of controversy was still swirling. In Marx's view the bill embodied a deliberate attempt by the aristocracy to revive the spirit of the "good old times," when the services of troops were purchased in the cheapest market regardless of nationality. In choosing this solution the supporters of the status quo implicitly rejected the alternative: a thorough reform of the army. They could have recruited from British sources an army of adequate size and efficiency, but only at the cost of raising military pay, abolishing flogging, and granting promotion by merit. But the implementation of these reforms would have been the entering wedge of a liberalization, indeed of a democratization of the armed forces. The aristocracy, Marx concluded, had lost much power in domestic political affairs after the First Reform Act of 1832; but it was determined to defend its entrenched position in the spheres of war and foreign policy. There was much substance in Marx's belief that the army remained one of the main bastions of aristocratic privilege in England: the slow pace of army reform in the twenty years preceding the Crimean crisis offered strong evidence to this effect. But the Foreign Enlistment Act was not in essence a deliberate attempt by the government of the day to revive the spirit and atmosphere of the anden regime in England. It was dictated primarily by the urgent

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situation in the Crimea, which demanded the dispatch of seasoned reinforcements with a minimum of delay. The Aberdeen ministry staked its political existence on the passage of the bill, a development which suggested that the immediate crisis was its primary concern. In advocating army reform Marx stood on firmer ground, and his opinion was shared by a growing body of English opinion inside and outside Parliament. It was by no means certain, however, that better conditions of service would have ensured the massive inflow of recruits predicted by the reformers. Richard Cobden expressed his doubts in a characteristic passage: Man is too precious, and labour too valuable, to be easily purchased by the army recruiting sergeant. A vast accumulation of capital is bidding against him. Unless he raises his terms five or ten fold, he has no chance of raising large armies from an industrial population.... There is so great a disinclination to take a personal share in the war that, although the bounty has been twice raised, the standard as often lowered, and the time of service shortened, it has been found impossible to fill the ranks of the army or militia.21 In a subsequent dispatch to the New York Daily Tribune Marx conceded that improved terms of enlistment and service had failed to stimulate recruiting, impeded by economic prosperity, rising wages, and the indifference of workers in town and country.22 Thus he acknowledged in effect that the Foreign Enlistment Act was the child of necessity, and that it was not, therefore, the product of a deep conspiracy by the ruling oligarchy in England.

6 Preparations for Foreign Recruiting

Germany Immediately after the passage of the bill, the Foreign Office instructed Sir Alexander Malet, British minister plenipotentiary to the Germanic Confederation, to make unofficial inquiries among the representatives of the German states at Frankfurt concerning the possibility of recruiting troops in their territories. Malet reported on 29 December 1854 that the Diet would probably intervene to check open enlistment. But he was confident that some states would offer no objection to the enlistment of those subjects who had completed their term of obligatory military service and were therefore free to leave the country. He advised against a formal British request to the members of the Bund for permission to enrol recruits. It would be more fruitful, in his opinion, to approach them informally and to seek their tacit toleration of recruiting activities among their nationals.1 Newcastle acted on this advice without delay. On 30 December 1854 a War Office telegram invited Baron Richard von Stutterheim to London to discuss the practicability of forming a German Legion.2 Stutterheim, born in Helmstedt in 1815, had received a rigorous training in the Prussian Cadet School in Cologne. Between 1835 and 1838 he had served in the British Legion which, under the command of Gen. George de Lacy Evans, had supported the cause of Isabella II against the Carlist faction in Spain.' Ten years later he participated in the Schleswig-Holstein uprising against Denmark as staff officer of Maj. Ludwig von der Tann, the commander of a brigade of volunteers.4 Stutterheim's conduct during this ill-fated campaign excited the admiration of General Helmuth von Moltke, who was usually a merciless critic of Freikorps and of their leaders.s In 1853 Stutterheim was retained by the Mexican embassy in Paris to enlist stipendiary troops in north Germany on behalf of President Antonio Lopez de Santa

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA Anna, who was seeking to reinforce his army with reliable elements against an impending coup de main by disloyal sections of the armed forces. In August 1854 Santa Anna was deposed, and Stutterheim was free to place his undoubted talents at the disposal of the British government. He combined a strong sense of discipline with an almost paternal regard for the rank and file, and inspired in return the respect and confidence of his inferiors. His moral and professional qualities were impressive, and prevented him from being regarded merely as a footloose soldier of fortune. His Swiss counterpart was Colonel Paschal, a retired regular officer who came to London at the invitation of the War Office to discuss methods of recruiting his fellow countrymen for British service.6 On 1 January 1855 Newcastle in an original minute fixed the ultimate strength of the foreign legion at 30,000 men. He ordered the immediate provision of uniforms and equipment for 10,000 men, which was the maximum force permitted at any one time on British soil under the terms of the Foreign Enlistment Act. Stutterheim and Paschal, who were naturally anxious to appeal to all types of military specialists in their forthcoming recruiting campaigns, urged that the legion should be constituted of all arms: infantry, cavalry, and artillery.' But the project was brought temporarily to a stay by the fall of the Aberdeen ministry on 25 January 1855. Palmerston, the new prime minister, replaced Newcastle by Fox Maule, second Baron Panmure, who assumed the office of secretary of state for war. Panmure had served as under-secretary for home affairs between 1835 and 1841 and as secretary at war from 1846 to 1852. In the latter capacity his powers of invective, brusque manners, and reforming tendencies had rendered him obnoxious to conservative military opinion, which greeted his appointment with unconcealed disfavour.8 But he brought to his new office immense industry, a degree of administrative competence marred only by a certain impatience with detail, and a keen ear for the increasingly powerful voice of the public press. At his entry into office on 8 February 1855 he was far from convinced that an adequate force of foreign legionaries could be raised within the framework of the Foreign Enlistment Act. The measure did not provide half-pay for officers after demobilization, nor did it grant

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them pensions automatically in the event of disablement. It furnished no protection to any recruit against loss of citizenship or other penalties which his government might invoke by reason of his enlistment under the flag of a foreign power. The reception of the act abroad gave Panmure further cause for hesitation. Prussia inevitably construed the legislation as an attempt to circumvent German neutrality, and strove to give a strong lead to the policy of the Bund. On 28 December 1854 the civil governor of the Prussian province of Posen warned prospective recruiting agents that the criminal code required a prison sentence of from three months to three years and expulsion from the country as penalties for unauthorized recruiting activities. He disclosed that recruiting bureaux were to be opened in north Germany and the Free Cities, and urged the police in these localities to detain, imprison, and expel all recruiting agents in the service of foreign powers. The Senate of Hamburg complied on 5 January 1855 by a decree which utterly prohibited recruiting for foreign service. Citizens who disregarded the ordinance were liable to imprisonment. Foreign residents and agents who recruited on their behalf were liable to expulsion. All citizens, and more especially innkeepers, were instructed to report any suspicious activities to the police.9 Lübeck issued a proclamation to the same effect on 10 January 1855. Simultaneously Prussia introduced a resolution into the Federal Council at Frankfurt in favour of the application of Article XVIII of the Bund constitution, which barred the enlistment of Germans in other than German armies. The motion was obstructed by Austria, and did not pass into effect.10 The continued inactivity of Panmure lent colour to the widespread belief in Britain that the act was a dead letter and would be quietly interred by the new administration. This impression was strengthened by the renewed attempt of the cabinet to invigorate domestic recruiting. On 16 February 1855 Panmure submitted to the Lords an Army Service Amendment Bill which empowered the Crown to recruit subjects between twenty-four and thirtytwo years of age for short-term enlistments of three years." The opposition was tenacious, and Panmure, sometimes referred to as the rhinoceros of the ministry, strove to trample it down by declaring that he was prepared to use compulsion to obtain recruits if all other means failed.'Z The public outcry against this

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA hint of conscription was so enormous that Palmerston was obliged to explain away the words of his headstrong colleague in the Commons a few days later.13 After his ballon d'essai had been shot down, Panmure was forced to contemplate seriously the implementation of the Foreign Enlistment Act. Palmerston and Clarendon did not falter in their support of the project,14 The Times also began to train its powerful batteries upon Panmure, and protested against the undue delay in executing an act which had been pushed through Parliament as an urgent emergency measure. Panmure, hard pressed but still sceptical, instructed his able subordinate Capt. John Lefroy to draft a report on the present feasibility of the project. Lefroy considered in turn the advisability of abandoning the plan entirely, of asking Parliament to sanction a revised bill, and of proceeding to execute the bill as it stood. He gave his recommendation in favour of the last-named course.'s Panmure took the precaution of obtaining from Stutterheim, who had been awaiting a decision with some impatience, a positive assurance that a force of 5,000 men could be raised and adequately officered. He then empowered Stutterheim to proceed at once to recruit the stipulated contingent in association with British consular agents in the German states. The measures proposed by Panmure's predecessor Newcastle for the establishment of temporary barracks and huts on the island of Heligoland for the reception of recruits were applied on the basis of a favourable report from Sir John Hindmarsh, the lieutenant-governor of the island.16

Switzerland In the years immediately preceding the Crimean War the federal government of Switzerland had constructed formidable constitutional and legal barriers against foreign recruiting. Article XI of the federal constitution of 12 September 184817 forbade the individual cantons to sign military capitulations with foreign powers. Article 98 of the federal military code of 1851 prohibited the enlistment by foreign powers of all citizens who were included in

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the federal or cantonal lists of men liable to military service. Article 65 of the criminal code of 1853 imposed fine and imprisonment on all who solicited Swiss citizens to enter foreign service. The vital Article XI originated in a political conflict of extreme severity on the issue of foreign recruiting by capitulation. Most of the seven cantons which had seceded in 1843-44 to form the short-lived Sonderbund were bound by long-standing military agreements to provide mercenary troops to the reactionary King Ferdinand II of Naples and Sicily. It was the king's Swiss stipendiaries who stormed the barricades in the streets of Palermo on 15 May 1848 and thus broke the back of the popular uprising. The use of Swiss troops to buttress an odious despotism was highly distasteful to the liberal architects of the constitution of 1848, who were resolved to enforce Article XI at the first opportunity. The Swiss federal government insisted on the removal of the cantonal arms from the flags of the Swiss regiments in Neapolitan service. The attempt of the Bourbon government to enforce this ordinance occasioned a mutiny, and 6,000 Swiss were discharged by Ferdinand and repatriated in July 1850.18 The federal authorities were aware, however, that excessive pressure against the "capitulated" cantons would encourage separatist tendencies, which might culminate in the formation of another Sonderbund. Hence they sought to avoid an open collision. But the issue remained highly sensitive. The malcontent cantons, led by Uri, Unterwalden, and Appenzell, argued that Article XI injured the sovereignty of the constituent cantons, choked an invaluable outlet of surplus population, brushed aside a venerable custom, and diminished the supply of veterans fully trained and experienced in foreign service. The liberal opposition retorted that the system of recruiting for foreign powers benefited only a few patrician families who functioned as recruiting agents for private profit. The system inducted Swiss citizens into foreign wars, and thus placed Swiss neutrality in jeopardy.19 The continuous uproar over Article XI tended somewhat to obscure the fact that neither Britain nor France was seeking in 1854-55 to sign formal military capitulations with individual cantons in defiance of the constitution. The enactment which actually bore upon the recruiting question was Article 65 of the Criminal Code. But since its

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MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA enforcement rested with the cantonal police, it was cantonal policy which was decisive. The outbreak of the Crimean War entailed some readjustment of traditional party attitudes on the issue of foreign recruiting. The conservative patrician party, which had fought the passage of Article XI in 1848, could not defensibly change its course in 1854 and oppose foreign recruiting on the ground that it injured Russia, one of the main pillars of European conservatism. The ruling liberal party was disinclined to cry out against foreign recruiting when prohibition served the interest of Russia, the arch-foe of European liberalism. The less important Radical party was able to hold firm to its principles and to affirm the moral right of Swiss citizens to join the ranks of freedom everywhere. The Radicals had some strength in Bern, and here recruiting agents might expect a fairly free field for their activities. Among the lesser cantons, Uri, Solothurn, St. Gall, Appenzell, and others usually provided a happy hunting ground for the recruiting agent (Werber, embaucheur). These cantons had yielded an ample supply of recruits in the past, had naturally resisted the application of Article XI, and had frequently complained of rising unemployment and economic distress occasioned by the repatriation of citizens discharged from the military service of foreign powers. Lastly, officers and ex-officers, many of them highly influential political figures, could be relied upon to bend their efforts in favour of foreign recruiting when Britain opened her capacious purse. In the fall of 1854 Col. Johann Baumgartner, of the federal General Staff, approached Hon. Charles Murray, the British minister in Bern, with a project for raising Swiss recruits on behalf of Britain. A similar proposal was submitted to London in December 1854 by Maj. Frederick von Wattenwill, who had recently retired from Neapolitan service.20 But no action was taken by the British government until the Foreign Enlistment Act had been placed on the statute book. On 30 December Clarendon requested the new British minister to Bern, Hon. George Gordon, to send to London two Swiss officers experienced in methods of raising troops. Gordon made contact with Maj. August von Stürler, a former Neapolitan officer who was living in retirement at his country estate of Oberried, near Belp. Von Stürler proceeded to London and impressed upon Newcastle the absolute necessity of persuading the Swiss government to suspend Article XI. But Newcastle was 72

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reluctant to mount a diplomatic offensive against the federal constitution, and firmly adopted a policy of unofficial recruiting.21 This decision led Newcastle to place chief reliance on Colonel Baumgartner, an emigration and recruiting agent of wide and peculiar experience. Baumgartner's other qualifications included his long and cordial relationship with the federal chief of justice and police, Jakob Stämpfli. On Newcastle's instructions Gordon began an active search for a Swiss officer of eminence and prestige to head the future recruiting commission. He had the apparent temerity to approach Col. Ulrich Ochsenbein, who as a member of the Federal Council had been chiefly responsible for the introduction of Article XI into the constitution of 1848. The negotiations were ruptured when Ochsenbein announced on 13 January 1855 that the French government had commissioned him to form a Swiss Legion of 5,000 men which he was to command with the rank of brigadier genera1.22 Gordon informed London in high irritation of this totally unforeseen French competition, and next approached a federal officer on the active list, Col. Charles Bontems. Bontems cautiously referred the offer to the president of the Federal Council, Dr. Jonas Furrer. The president replied ambiguously that he could not officially encourage federal officers to quit the service.23 Gordon's misgivings were increased by an officially inspired item dated 31 January 1855 in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, the recognized organ of the president. The article suggested that the Federal Council was preparing to take action against all foreign recruiting. On 3 February Gordon obtained an audience with Dr. Furrer, and asked him point-blank whether he intended to take steps against agents engaged in foreign recruitment. Dr. Furrer replied that the patrician party had recently attempted to prevail upon the Federal Council to adopt vigorous measures. But the federal government possessed no police force. Under the constitution, the police power had been retained by the individual cantons. Certain cantons, he added, might enforce a prohibition of foreign recruiting by means of their own police. He saw no reason to suspect, however, that the resistance to recruiting would be more tenacious than formerly. Gordon received the distinct impression that the president "appeared to wish to know as little about such proceedings as possible."24 The complaisance of the president did not extend to the recruitment of active officers in 73

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA the federal forces. These were forbidden to resign their commissions after 31 January 1855. But they might apply for extended leave of absence if they wished to serve temporarily abroad. Gordon's spirits revived during this remarkable interview. But they drooped again when he contemplated the possibility that Ochsenbein, who had been director of the Department of Military Affairs in the federal government for the past seven years, might carry all the distinguished officers with him into French service and leave only the dregs for the British. Clarendon made strong representations on the subject to the French foreign minister, Drouyn de Lhuys. The French minister in Bern, Count Alfred de Salignac-Fenelon, was instructed to afford all possible aid to Gordon and to inform him that depots at Saarlouis, Colmar, Gex, and Besancon were available as assembly points for Swiss recruits of the British Foreign Legion. Gordon observed that the enigmatic Ochsenbein had established his headquarters at Besancon, and expressed the suspicion that Swiss recruits enlisted for British service and directed to Besancon would be diverted by Ochsenbein into his own brigade. After some deliberation he selected Schlettstadt in Alsace as the main staging point for the Swiss who preferred British service. French police and border guards received official instructions to open the frontier to intending recruits, who were to be carried by rail across France for embarkation to England.25 With these preparations in hand Gordon awaited with rising impatience the expected decision of the War Office to begin active recruiting in Switzerland. A lengthy delay would be most undesirable. Ochsenbein's agents were furiously active, their enticing advertisements for recruits were appearing widely in the cantonal newspapers, and the French brigade was growing rapidly. There was an evident danger that only the less desirable men would be available for British service when the hesitation at the War Office was overcome. Gordon protested as vigorously as diplomatic protocol permitted. But Panmure, who was awaiting the Lefroy report, refused to be rushed. The presentation of the report did not wholly remove Panmure's lingering doubts concerning the possibility of recruiting in Switzerland. On 28 March 1855 he instructed Capt. Charles Dickson to proceed to Bern to ascertain

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the state of public feeling on foreign recruitment and to provide information on the terms and conditions of service in the projected legion. He informed Dickson, however, that the mission was of a preparatory character and did not authorize him to undertake active recruiting. Dickson experienced little difficulty in satisfying himself that Swiss opinion was deeply divided on the issue of foreign recruiting, and that an enlistment campaign would not encounter a solid wall of opposition. But prudence required the exercise of a certain degree of restraint in the execution of the campaign. Recruiting activities conducted on a large scale among the federal and cantonal forces which were on an active footing might become so obtrusive that the federal government would be forced under pressure from the opposition to abandon its policy of benevolent inattention. Hence it seemed wiser to pursue recruiting activities among cantonal reservists and other citizens outside the framework of the active forces.26 Other trained recruits could be found among the mass of emigres who had flooded into Switzerland after the suppression of the European uprisings of 1848. Expediency also demanded that recruiting operations in Swiss territory should be as unostentatious as circumstances permitted. Recruiting agents in British pay would be instructed merely to communicate the place and terms of enlistment to men who would be formally inducted in depots outside Switzerland. The network of agents would function under the direction of a recruiting commission largely composed of senior Swiss officers on the retired list. Subject to these conditions and limitations, the project of a Swiss Legion impressed Dickson favourably. Panmure concurred, and cautiously authorized, on 1 May 1855, the enlistment of an initial force of 3,000 men.27

Sardinia British efforts to enlist Sardinian military aid took on fresh intensity after the savage mauling endured by the Army of the Crimea at Inkerman on 5 November 1854. On 24 November Clarendon

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MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA informed Hudson that voluntary recruitment in Britain was inadequate, and instructed him to resume cautious diplomatic soundings on the possibility of taking 10,000 Sardinian regulars into British pay. Hudson approached Foreign Minister Dabormida in tentative fashion, and was assured that 15,000 regulars could be made available under certain conditions. They were to be an independent force under Sardinian command. They were to remain in the pay of Sardinia, which was to receive a British loan of £2,000,000 at 3 per cent interest per annum. Austria must be persuaded to restore the sequestrated properties in Lombardy, and Sardinia must be guaranteed full and equal representation at the conference table when hostilities ceased. But neither Britain nor France could offer positive assurances that Austria would yield under their pressure on the thorny issue of the sequestrations.28 Nor would Austria view with composure any agreement which would enable Sardinia to insert the Lombard question into the proceedings of a future peace conference. The danger of a deadlock in the negotiations was averted by Cavour with the support of King Victor Emmanuel II. Both were convinced that the prospect of Anglo-French aid in the future unification of Italy ought not to be jeopardized by hard Sardinian bargaining at the present juncture. At their insistence the stipulations concerning the sequestrations and diplomatic representation for Sardinia at the peace table were dropped. Dabormida resigned on 10 January 1855, and the direction of foreign affairs was assumed by Cavour. The Anglo-French-Sardinian military convention of 26 January provided for an expeditionary force of 15,000 regulars under Sardinian command. The bulk of the cost was to be borne by Sardinia, but the immediate burden was diminished by a British loan of £1,000,000 at 3 per cent. Britain also undertook to furnish troop transports at her own expense to carry the force to the Crimea. Lastly, the integrity of Sardinian territory was ensured for the duration of the war by a specific Anglo-French guarantee. 29 In retrospect it appears that Cavour acted wisely in modifying the terms of the convention in order to preserve his bonne entente with France and Britain. The western powers were primarily interested in bringing the full military weight of Austria into the war against Russia. Hence they would conclude no military

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accord with Sardinia which contained clauses obnoxious to Austria. If Austrian military aid could be secured, it would be counted in terms of hundreds of thousands of men. The convention with Sardinia furnished no more than 15,000 troops. This modest accession of strength was scarcely an abundant reward for the persistent efforts of Anglo-French diplomacy in Sardinia. It brought only a degree of satisfaction to Britain, which had hoped to check the growing disparity in numerical strength between French and English forces in the Crimea by placing the Sardinian contingent under British command.3° The passage of the Foreign Enlistment Act, however, provided Britain with a further opportunity to tap Italian manpower and to bring it under direct British command. On 2 January 1855 the ever alert Hudson reported that a considerable number of Sardinian subjects and residents had requested information on the procedures for enlistment in the foreign legion, and asked Clarendon for instructions.31 Action was long delayed. The Lefroy report was submitted to Panmure in March, but no immediate steps were taken to extend recruiting activities to Italy. This passivity could not be maintained, however, in the face of increasingly violent French complaints concerning the relative size of the two allied armies in the Crimea. The proportion of effectives in May 1855 was approximately three to one in favour of the French. Lord Raglan and his staff repeatedly lamented the disequilibrium, which brought them into a "state of dependency"32 and prevented them from exerting adequate influence on the strategical planning and direction of the campaign. Nonetheless some senior officers disliked the prospect of receiving reinforcements in the form of a foreign legion. But Hudson, ever straining at the leash, was finally empowered to open preliminary conversations with Cavour. Cavour was hopeful that British recruiting in Sardinia would rid him of the more violent and unruly elements among the émigrés who had inundated the country in 1849 and 1853. He acquiesced at once, and the jubilant Hudson left for London to report on recruiting prospects.33 Palmerston suspected that official prejudice in the War Office had obstructed action hitherto, and he was not disposed to tolerate further delay. On 10 June 1855 he invited Panmure to consult with Hudson immediately on the measures necessary to enlist 5,000 volunteers in Sardinia for the

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MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA projected Italian Legion." Two days later the War Office confided the recruitment of the stipulated force to Hudson, who was to act in conjunction with a commanding officer to be appointed.35 Other Countries The response of other foreign governments to British advances on the subject of recruiting and recruiting facilities was highly discouraging. Austria remained evasive despite the most powerful diplomatic pressure. She flatly declined to permit British recruiting among her Italian subjects in Lombardy or among her Slav subjects in Serbia. King John of Saxony, guided and advised by his reactionary minister-president, Friedrich Beust, also prohibited enlistments for British service. Peter I, grand duke of Oldenburg, followed suit. The Prussian government remained immovably opposed, and was fully prepared to take the most drastic measures against violators. The prospect appeared less bleak in Hanover, which had retained its dynastic tie with Britain until 1837. King George V informed the Foreign Office that he would not oppose recruiting in his domain, but warned that few of his subjects would enlist unless half-pay on disbandment was guaranteed. From Madrid the British ambassador, Lord Howden, reported that the government of Isabella II would oppose recruiting among its noncommissioned officers and men, but would offer no objection to the enlistment of officers. The military establishment of Spain was notoriously top-heavy with officers, active and retired, and a regime so impecunious could hardly disregard the opportunity to curtail its expenditures. But the prospective Spanish Legion could not be instituted as an officers' corps. Hence Panmure plodded on to inquire into the possibility of obtaining recruits sub rosa through agents supervised and controlled by the British consulates in Bilbao and elsewhere. He was informed in due course that an initial force of 10,000 irregulars could be raised without difficulty. The reputation of the Spanish guerrilleros for insubordination and ill-discipline was so formidable, however, that Panmure recoiled and refrained from pursuing the project further. The final rebuff in this dismal round was administered by Sweden 78

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in summer 1855. Clarendon's superb optimism had been dimmed by his previous experiences, and his preliminary approach to Stockholm was of a highly tentative character. He inquired whether the Swedish government would respond favourably in the event that a formal request for permission to recruit its nationals should be presented by Britain. A negative reply was forthcoming ten weeks later. 36 The restriction of British recruiting activities in Europe mainly to Germany, Switzerland, and Italy could hardly have been totally unforeseeable, since these countries had been the main sources of supply of stipendiary troops for four hundred years. They were also areas in which governmental power had long been divided or fragmented. Hence each was incapable of presenting a solid front against foreign recruiting. But the possibility that the British recruiting drive might produce complications and embarrassing incidents could not be entirely discounted. As recruiting agents •became more active and obtrusive, political and administrative resistance to their efforts could conceivably develop. Further, the danger existed that indiscriminate recruiting by paid agents might ultimately bring into the foreign legion some elements of inferior quality. These unpleasant eventualities had to be disregarded, however, in the light of the continuing inadequacy of domestic enlistments, which had ebbed to such a degree by June 1855 that Panmure was proposing to an unreceptive Lord Raglan the dispatch of 300 convicts on ticket of leave as reinforcements to the Crimea.

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Germany When Stutterheim accepted his recruiting mission with the rank of lieutenant-colonel on 25 April 1855, the great revolutionary storm of 1848 had long since blown itself out. But many of the victims of political reaction, debarred by lack of means from joining the swelling stream of emigrants from Germany, continued to drag out a poverty-stricken existence in the great north German coastal cities to which they naturally gravitated.' In Kiel, Hamburg, and Altona a large proportion of the refugees was composed of ex-members of the Schleswig-Holstein army which had fought vainly for the independence of the two duchies from Denmark between 1848 and 1851.2 During its brief existence the constituent elements of the army had been highly diverse. The original nucleus of regular officers and men who supported the provisional government of the duchies in defiance of Frederick VII of Denmark was rapidly reinforced by bodies of volunteers (Freikorps) from Prussia and the Rhineland, where national and liberal opinion strongly sympathized with the anti-Danish movement. The Vorparlament at Frankfurt pressed the members of the Germanic Confederation to furnish all possible aid. The Prussian government agreed infer alia to grant leave of absence to regular officers who were prepared to organize and train the rapidly growing Schleswig-Holstein army. By spring 1849 it numbered 12,000 men under the command of a Prussian general, Eduard von Bonin. Bonin was checked by the Danes before Fredericia on 6 July 1849, and the Prussian government suspended hostilities four days later. The conservative reaction in Germany was gathering headway, and its influence was quickly felt in the duchies. Frederick William IV of Prussia gave secret assurances to the

Problems of Foreign Recruiting

Danish government that he would withdraw on request the Prussian officers previously seconded to the Schleswig-Holstein army. General von Bonin and thirty officers were duly recalled in March 1850. A minority ignored the summons, and consequently forfeited their commissions in the Prussian army. Bonin was replaced by Lt.-Gen. Karl von Willisen, a veteran of the Napoleonic Wars whose liberal views had brought him into disrepute with the Prussian government. The strength of his command was raised to 30,000 men by steady recruiting and by the absorption of the Freikorps into its ranks. But it was not yet a match for the more disciplined Danish regulars, who discomfited it after a brisk encounter at Idstedt on 25 July 1850. An eloquent appeal for recruits by the provisional government of the duchies attracted volunteers from all parts of Germany and increased the effective strength of the army to 40,000. But the renewal of the struggle for independence on a significant scale was inhibited by the joint intervention of Austria and Prussia. At the request of Frederick VII the two powers agreed at Olmütz on 29 November 1850 to dispatch a combined force of 50,000 men to Holstein. Under this military pressure the provisional government of the duchies was to be required to reduce its army to one-third of its current strength.3 The provisional regime in Kiel easily perceived the futility of resisting the triple alliance, and yielded to the ultimatum on 11 January 1851. It was generally understood that the demobilization of the Schleswig-Holstein army would not be halted with the release of two-thirds of its effectives. In fact the entire force was dissolved with the utmost rapidity in February and March 1851.4 The Austrian and Prussian commissioners who supervised the process expressed the bland expectation that the discharged men, drawn from all parts of Germany and the duchies, would return to their place of origin. But many of the rank and file were destitute. Others feared that their return to their native states would expose them to political persecution. Hence they flooded into Kiel, Lübeck, Altona, and Hamburg and clung to the hope that some transatlantic government would provide them with assisted passage and military employment in the New World. In 1852 a boatload of the more affluent veterans sailed for the United States, and

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MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA ultimately settled in Davenport, Iowa. But the majority of the discharged men, nailed down by penury, remained to haunt the waterfronts of the great north German ports. The officers who joined the drift to the coastal cities were in slightly better circumstances. But the pinch of poverty did not spare them entirely. The regular officers of Schleswig-Holstein origin who had deserted the Danish army to fight for the independence of the duchies were dismissed without pay or pension by Frederick VII. The Prussian officers who had continued to serve in the Schleswig-Holstein army in defiance of orders from Berlin were similarly deprived by the Prussian government. Both groups settled for the most part in Hamburg. The more fortunate found ill-paid positions as tutors, clerical assistants, and journalists. Others were relieved on the brink of starvation by the charity of the liberal-minded merchants of the city.5 In their desperation the Schleswig-Holstein officers renewed their demands on Frederick VII of Denmark for the payment of their pensions. Their purpose was to apply pressure on Denmark through the Germanic Confederation, of which Schleswig was a constituent member. Two of their representatives made the rounds of the German courts, and ultimately found a partisan in the person of Duke Ernest II of Saxe-Coburg. The duke shared the liberal views of his brother, the English prince consort, and had commanded a brigade of German volunteers against the Danes in the Schleswig-Holstein campaign of 1849. He placed the officers' petition before the Council of the Bund on 23 June 1854. But unanimity was required, and Denmark and Austria were firmly in opposition. The motion was defeated on 29 September 1854.6 The reverse epitomized the increasingly desperate situation of the Schleswig-Holstein veterans, who were apparently destined to be absorbed into the ranks of the white-collar workers and casual labourers of the counting houses and docks of Hamburg. But the passage of the Foreign Enlistment Bill on 23 December 1854 revived their drooping hopes of military employment. The Times correspondent in Kiel reported as early as 29 December that a number of the veterans had sought information from him concerning the procedures of enlistment in the projected foreign legion.'

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The long-awaited arrival of Stutterheim in Hamburg at the end of April 1855 was the prelude to a whirlwind of recruiting activity. Within three weeks Stutterheim was able to report to the War Office that he had appointed his agents and enrolled the full initial complement of 5,000 men.° Neither he nor his subordinates were excessively discreet in their methods of recruiting, and drew repeated admonitions from the War Office to the effect that they should operate unostentatiously and avoid unnecessary publicity. But the rising tempo and scale of recruiting could hardly escape the attention of the municipal authorities. On 22 May 1855, twenty-one recruits were removed from a sloop in Altona, the harbour of Hamburg, by the police and placed in custody. Seventeen others, posing as travelling artisans, were apprehended in a lodging house in Altona and detained. Next day the British sloop Otter appeared off Cuxhaven at the mouth of the Elbe and embarked in its cutters those intending recruits who had escaped the attentions of the police.9 An official Russian protest against the exploit of the Otter stirred the Hamburg Senate to renewed activity. Prussian police appeared in the city and, in cooperation with the local authorities, arrested a certain Rolfs, a recruiting agent. Rolfs confessed his activities, and his sentence of imprisonment for a month was later reduced to a fine. Four other agents, citizens of Hamburg, were imprisoned for a month. Two others, a Prussian and a Brunswicker respectively, were expelled from the city. The recruits arrested were released after periods of detention varying from four to fourteen days. At the request of the magistrates of Altona, the Hamburg Senate initiated an investigation of the recruiting operations imputed to the British consul, Col. George Hodges. Hodges denied that recruiting had been carried on at the consulate. His staff had merely informed inquirers that information concerning enlistment could be obtained at 86 Königsstrasse in Altona.10 In essence the uproar was not occasioned by the efforts to recruit the debris of the Schleswig-Holstein army. It arose primarily from the cupidity of recruiting agents, who were granted "bringing money" for each recruit forwarded by them to Altona. Hence they frequently accepted German nationals who had not yet begun their obligatory military training in their state of origin.

83

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA Emigration was not legally possible until the state government concerned issued a certificate which declared that the recipient had completed his term of military service. The well-informed Lord Clarendon reminded Hodges of this stipulation in a majestic letter of scarcely veiled reproof, and added that agents who disregarded it would receive no aid from Great Britain. The consul replied soothingly that open violations of the law would be sedulously avoided in the future. On this condition he was confident that the Senate would not interfere with the flow of recruits by sea to Heligoland. The Prussian police were no less vigilant in Cologne. Kray, the secretary of Curtis, the British consul, was arrested on 5 June 1855 on suspicion of raising and forwarding recruits to Heligoland. Curtis attempted to minimize the offence by applying for the release of his secretary on bail, but was refused. The consul himself was then charged with drawing Prussian subjects into British service and with influencing citizens to emigrate who had not performed their military training. Curtis was a Prussian citizen, and his claim to immunity by reason of his consular status was ignored. He received a sentence of three months' imprisonment. He appealed against the verdict, as did the public prosecutor, who considered it to be far too mild. Lord Bloomfield, the British ambassador in Berlin, made representations to Frederick William IV of Prussia, who pardoned Curtis early in December 1855.11 The king's gesture, however, did not conceal the determination of the Prussian government to deal firmly with illicit recruiting in its territory. The incidents in Hamburg and Cologne clearly resulted from an intensification of the recruiting campaign. Stutterheim proposed on 15 May 1855 the raising of a second contingent of 5,000 men for the German Legion. Panmure, encouraged by the pace of recruiting, consented at once. Panmure also yielded at the instance of George, duke of Cambridge, in the matter of the formation of a cavalry arm composed of three regiments of light dragoons. But he rescinded in June 1855 his previous decision to provide the force with four batteries of artillery.12 The initial force of 5,000 men was grouped into five battalions, each under the command of a British lieutenant-colonel. Each battalion comprised the customary ten companies, eight of which were destined for the Crimea, while the remaining two 84

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were held in Britain as reinforcements and recruiting cadres. Stutterheim, who had strongly urged that the legion should be composed of all arms, would have dearly loved a command position in this increasingly impressive force. But Panmure bluffly insisted that Stutterheim's vital function at the moment was to levy recruits. Stutterheim was so successful in this capacity that Panmure thriftily declined to increase the enhanced "bringing money" of £10 per head paid by the British government to its German agents for each recruit enlisted into the legion. The second contingent included Gustav Steinhart, whose occasional letters to his sister throw some light on the trials and tribulations of the new recruits.13 Steinhart, who had served his period of training in the Prussian army, reached Stettin after three weeks' journey on foot. From there he made his way westwards across Mecklenburg to Hamburg. He evaded the attentions of the police, who were exceedingly vigilant, by hiding in woods during the day and travelling only at night. He made contact with one of Stutterheim's agents in Hamburg and was furnished with food, drink, and lodging. The local police had been heavily reinforced by Prussian gendarmerie, who made every effort to intercept embarking recruits. Departures from Altona were under keen surveillance. Hence it was necessary for Steinhart and eight other recruits to take boat at Glückstadt, a small fishing centre 28 miles below Altona. After two days at sea they were picked up by the steamship Heligoland and deposited on the island on 22 September 1855. Steinhart was medically examined the next day, took the oath of allegiance to the queen, and was assigned to the Second Jäger Battalion. He was promoted to sergeant within a few days on the strength of his previous military experience.l" Steinhart was no crusader, and reported his new circumstances in prosaic material terms. The pay was good, the rations generous, and the huts erected for the accommodation of the legion were far superior to the flimsy and draught-ridden Prussian barracks which he had experienced as a raw and shivering recruit. Steinhart's odyssey illustrated the difficulties faced by recruits in finding maritime transportation to the assembly point in Heligoland. The regular steamship service from the mainland for tourists and excursionists did not open until midJune, and embarkation proceeded under police surveillance. 85

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA Hence recruits were compelled to find their own way, by fishing vessels putting out from Stade or Glückstadt,15 or by steamships which readjusted their normal routes and scheduled additional points of call to profit from the unaccustomed traffic.16 A high accumulation of recruits in the coastal cities was obviously undesirable, since it increased the danger that substantial numbers would be detected and detained by police patrols. Hence the War Office was obliged to proceed more briskly with the task of providing accommodation on the island for the new arrivals. The preparations had begun modestly on 11 February 1855, when the weekly steamer between London and Hamburg brought to Heligoland an engineering lieutenant, three carpenters, and material for the construction of thirty-four huts.17 The advance party then relapsed into inactivity while the advisability of forming the foreign legion was being weighed in London. The islanders assumed that the project had been dropped, and sent representatives to the mainland with assurances that Heligoland would be fully available as usual for the annual influx of summer visitors. The Times correspondent in Berlin reported acidly that the few huts already erected would serve to break the monotony of the turnip fields in which they stood.18 But Panmure, his resolution fortified by the Lefroy Report, authorized on 10 March 1855 the construction of huts to accommodate 2,000 men. The governor, Sir John Hindmarsh, then reminded the War Office that the island was completely dependent upon rainwater for drinking purposes in the summer season. Consequently, twelve stills were installed to produce 3,000 gallons of potable water daily from sea water. Fourteen British officers, including the inevitable paymaster, landed early in May 1855. 19 The supply of recruits during the summer showed little sign of dwindling. Panmure did not favour the retention of the depot for the coming winter of 1855-56, and consulted Stutterheim on the possibility of bringing future recruits directly to Britain. Stutterheim advocated continuous operation on the ground that recruiting during the winter was likely to produce more men than in the summer season, when employment was high.20 Panmure's thrift was overcome by the argument, and the huts were reinforced and refitted for the winter. A more solidly built hospital was erected in place of the previous tottering pavilion. Provisions were laid in 86

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for an estimated 1,000 new recruits expected during winter. But there were already certain indications that the quality of recruits was declining. A certain Dr. von Aschem, who applied for the position of staff surgeon on the island, was rebuffed by Stutterheim, who suspected that he was a Russian spy. On examination some of the recruits were found to be of unsound mind, and were immediately returned to their place of origin. Others who had not attained the age of eighteen years were released to paternal custody.21 Of the original contingent of 5,000 men 40 per cent possessed previous military training or experience. By occupation 42 per cent were artisans and craftsmen, and the rest were farm labourers, clerks, students, and sailors. Only 3.7 per cent were illiterate: the corresponding figure for British infantry regulars was 60 per cent. Their discipline was initially good. During the first year the monthly returns of offenders committed to military prison displayed an average of 1.7 per cent of total strength. The monthly sickness rate amounted to 4.1 per cent of strength.22 Conceivably the rigours of training weighed heavily on recruits drawn from sedentary occupations and on those veterans of the SchleswigHolstein campaign who had been living in penury and want before their enlistment in the legion.

United States In the meantime the British government had embarked upon an ill-starred attempt to open up in the United States a new field of recruiting for the expanding German Legion.23 On 16 December 1854, when the Foreign Enlistment Bill was under debate in the House of Lords, Clarendon and Sidney Herbert, the colonial secretary, instructed John Crampton, the British minister in Washington, to report on the possibility of raising recruits in the United States without infringing American neutrality. It was provisionally suggested that men raised by a discreetly conducted recruiting campaign should be forwarded to Halifax, Nova Scotia, for formal induction. The project may have been originally proposed by Stutterheim in terms of the possible availability of his fellow-veterans of the SchleswigHolstein campaign who had emigrated to the United States. 87

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Crampton duly reported that his preliminary soundings had evoked a number of letters offering service in the legion. Clarendon thereupon requested him to institute inquiries on recruiting prospects by the British consulates in the larger cities of the Atlantic seaboard. The various consuls reported that recruits could be drawn from the pool of urban unemployed. At the end of January 1855 Crampton, a novice in the field of clandestine recruiting, entrusted the direction of the forthcoming campaign to two principal agents. Henry Hertz, a Jew of Danish origin and doubtful reputation, was instructed to operate in conjunction with George B. Mathew, the British consul in Philadelphia. Max Ströbel, a Bavarian officer who had fought in Schleswig-Holstein, was similarly accredited to Anthony Barclay, the British consul in New York. Recruiting centres were established in rapid succession in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, and Cincinnati. In May the network was extended to Buffalo, Detroit, Chicago, and Cleveland. The assembly point for the attestation and induction of intending recruits was fixed at Halifax, Nova Scotia. A proclamation of 15 March by the lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia, Sir Gaspard Le Marchant, announced that he was empowered to accept recruits between nineteen and forty years of age. They were to receive a bounty of $30 on formal enlistment and pay at the rate of $8 monthly. Shipmasters who carried recruits from New York, Boston, or Philadelphia were guaranteed the cost of passage. Despite the brisk optimism of Clarendon, Crampton continued to entertain serious reservations concerning the legality of the enterprise. At the outbreak of war in Europe the government of the United States, in announcing its neutrality, had warned the belligerent powers against recruiting on American soil. Specifically, the Neutrality Act of 1818 forbade the powers involved "to hire or retain" any person to proceed beyond the territorial limits of the United States "with intent to be enlisted." Crampton, searching desperately for a loophole in the wording of the act, privately consulted expert legal opinion in Washington. The answer was uncompromising: any attempt at clandestine recruiting would lead to the prosecution of his agents. The minister therefore urged Clarendon to reconsider his decision to launch the

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project. But Clarendon did not waver in his determination to seek reinforcements wherever they could be found. When recruiting began on 22 March 1855 Crampton resorted to a dubious stratagem. He appeared before Secretary of State William Marcy with a recruiting poster which announced that a recruiting centre had been opened at 36 Pearl Street, New York, where men willing to enter British service would be provided with passage money to Halifax. He assured Marcy that the handbill was unauthorized, and that no agents had been empowered by Great Britain to raise recruits. By this device he officially dissociated his government and himself from the recruiting campaign at the cost of placing the American authorities on the alert. On the following day Marcy instructed the federal attorneys and their marshals in the seaboard states to take vigorous action. Ships in the harbours of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia were kept under keen surveillance, were regularly boarded, and recruits bearing travel vouchers to Halifax taken off and returned to shore. Only small groups were able to slip through the meshes of the security net, and arrivals at Halifax fell below British expectations. At this difficult stage in the campaign Le Marchant turned to his friend and confidant the irrepressible Joseph Howe, "the idol of Nova Scotia," and enlisted his aid at a cost of £2,000. In an unceasing round of activity Howe prodded the British consulates and recruiting depots to further effort. But the vigour of his campaign and the publicity given to it by his sub-agents excited protests in the New York and Philadelphia press. Undoubtedly Howe and his satellites failed to pay close attention to the instructions on enlistment laid down by Crampton in a carefully worded memorandum designed to reduce the risk of a collision with the Act of 1818. They were enjoined to make no promises or contracts, written or verbal, with prospective recruits. They must merely inform prospective recruits that facilities for formal enlistment were available at Halifax. They were cautioned against disseminating this information to assemblages of men in beerhouses and other places of entertainment, since the resulting publicity would attract the attention of the authorities. Any agent who disregarded these limitations was vulnerable to legal proceedings by the government of the United States, an eventuality which would seal the doom of the entire project. Agents who

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA neglected these precautions and were indicted for illegal recruiting could expect no aid from Great Britain, which would disavow their proceedings. Howe and his aides evaded a salient clause of the instructions by furnishing not only information but also travel vouchers to prospective recruits. The men who slipped unobtrusively into their recruiting centres were often without means. They included destitute veterans of the Schleswig-Holstein campaign and British emigrants who had not prospered and therefore grasped the opportunity to return to their native soil by enlisting. Needy Irish applicants accepted the vouchers, which were honoured by selected shipping agents in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, on receiving smooth assurances that they were being hired for "railroad construction work" in Nova Scotia. A group of sixty Irish labourers shipped from Boston to Halifax refused to enlist when the deception was revealed to them, and were left destitute on the Halifax waterfront. Their plight was observed by a customs gauger, William Condon, who was also the president of the local Charitable Irish Society. Condon telegraphed an exposé of the episode to the Irish newspapers in New York and requested them to give it maximum publicity. Howe. escaped the approaching storm by a hasty departure for Nova Scotia on 2 May 1855. But his lieutenant Henry Hertz and two sub-agents, Bucknell and Perkins, were arrested and held for trial before the circuit court in Philadelphia. The travel vouchers had played a key role in Howe's scheme of recruitment. But they exposed his agents to the charge that they were offering potential recruits a financial inducement with intent "to hire and retain" them. Judge John K. Kane determined on 22 May 1855 that the payment of passage to Halifax was not per se a breach of the Neutrality Act. But such payment constituted a violation of the act, in his opinion, when it formed part of a mutual agreement, of a bargain or contract, between the parties. He found evidence that Hertz and Perkins had given passage money to recruits with a stipulation of eventual enlistment, and remanded them in custody. The hearing, widely reported in the press, prompted angry questions in the House of Representatives. In the glare of publicity recruiting agents were forced to proceed with extreme caution. The dwindling flow of recruits disturbed and irritated Le Marchant, who summoned Ströbel to Halifax and 90

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roundly rebuked him for lack of zeal in the course of a stormy interview. Le Marchant had already abandoned recruiting in the cities south of the Great Lakes, where seven agents had failed to raise a single man in Buffalo, Detroit, Cleveland, and Chicago. At this juncture the recruiting issue threatened to explode into a dangerous diplomatic crisis. On 9 June Secretary of State Marcy instructed James Buchanan, the ambassador of the United States in London, to ask Clarendon whether the current recruiting activities in republican territory were countenanced by Her Majesty's government. Clarendon replied evasively that if any acts of illegal recruiting had occurred they were committed without the connivance and approval of the British government. He had consistently argued that the "hire and retain" clause of the Neutrality Act simply prohibited explicit contracts of enlistment on American soil. But he fully understood that Washington was issuing a warning at the highest diplomatic level. If he persisted in recruiting on the basis of his own favourable interpretation of the Neutrality Act, a further degeneration of relations was in prospect. Panmure agreed that the flagging recruiting drive did not justify the risk, and on 22 June 1855 Clarendon directed Crampton to stop recruiting. At Panmure's request, however, men already en route to Halifax were to be accepted and enlisted. The instructions were acknowledged by Crampton in a letter dated 10 July. But they arrived too late to prevent the arrest on the same day of the British consul in Cincinnati, Charles Rowcroft, on a charge of illegal recruiting. The incident clearly intimated that the repression of recruiting was assuming a more drastic form. Clarendon, under heavy pressure from Buchanan, finally ordered Crampton on 16 July to instruct Le Marchant to reject recruits already in transit when they reached Halifax. Crampton received the dispatch on 2 August and transmitted it without undue haste to Halifax, where it arrived on 17 August. The brief and harassed recruiting drive raised only 700 men for the German Legion. It was launched under stress of necessity in a distinctly unfavourable diplomatic climate. The Clayton-Bulwer treaty of 1850 had precluded both powers from colonizing or exercising dominion over any part of Central America with the exception of British Honduras. The United States contended that this clause of the treaty was retroactive, and that Britain in consequence should abandon her protectorate over the Mosquito Coast 91

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA and her claim to sovereignty over the strategical Bay Islands to the north of Honduras. Clarendon naturally wished to shelve the dispute for the duration of the Crimean War. But the growing outcry against British recruiting in the United States gave the State Department an opportunity to press Clarendon hard diplomatically, and thus to bring home to him by indirection the illwill created in Washington by the friction in Central America. Hence Clarendon's decision to bring recruiting to a close did not check the diplomatic offensive of the State Department. In the course of his trial and conviction at Philadelphia (22-28 September 1855) the resentful Hertz produced the memorandum on recruiting handed to him by Crampton at the beginning of the campaign. Ströbel, who had vainly attempted to extract money from Crampton under threat of exposure, was allowed to appear at the trial as a witness and furnished further evidence of Crampton's complicity. On 28 December Secretary of State Marcy instructed Buchanan to demand the withdrawal of Crampton and the removal of consuls Mathew, Rowcroft, and Barclay. Clarendon continued to deny that illegal recruiting had been carried on with the connivance of his government, and refused to recall any of the offenders. Thus he exculpated the British government at the cost of exposing the four defendents to more drastic action by Washington. On 27 May 1856 Marcy announced that President Pierce had dismissed Crampton and revoked the letters of recognition (erequaturs) of the three consuls. The summary dismissal of Crampton raised a storm of major proportions in the House of Commons, where the opposition was already in a restive and suspicious mood. Richard Cobden, always well informed on American affairs, set the pattern of attack by demanding on 5 and 8 February 1856 the tabling of the official correspondence on recruiting in the United States. Palmerston refused on the ground that the diplomatic exchanges were still in progress. A week later Arthur Roebuck, a tireless critic of the ministry, returned to the charge and communicated to the House a detailed account of the trial of Henry Hertz culled from reports in the American press. In his peroration he directed a deadly question to Palmerston: What instructions had the government of the day given to Crampton on the matter of recruiting? Palmerston evaded the question, complained that the decision to stop

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recruiting had not placated Washington, and still declined to submit the relevant papers to the scrutiny of the House. In an increasingly hostile atmosphere he was compelled to take refuge in compromise. He assured the Commons that the relevant papers would soon be forthcoming. Roebuck in return withdrew his motion of censure. In mid-April rumours of Crampton's impending dismissal gave rise to questions in both Lords and Commons. Palmerston replied reassuringly that the papers were in print and would be available within a week. The agitation created by the actual dismissal of Crampton on 27 May was so intense that further delay in publication was politically inadvisable. Palmerston laid the documents before the Commons a month later, but would not consent to an immediate debate. Possibly he hoped that a postponement would take some of the heat out of the enlistment issue. But the House, weary of his long rearguard action, was not to be denied, and a full dress debate was held on 30 June and 1 July 1856.24 Attorney General Cockburn led off for the government with the argument that the recent recruiting drive had been directed solely to British citizens and Schleswig-Holstein veterans who had emigrated to the United States. Since these groups were non-citizens of the republic, the jurisdictional and territorial sovereignty of the United States had not been infringed. He conveniently ignored Crampton's crucial instructions on recruiting, which had imposed no such restrictions on the activities of British agents. Sir George Grey, the home secretary, recorded his conviction that citizens or residents of the United States might properly leave the country with the object of entering foreign service on condition that they did not enlist or engage themselves within the territorial limits of the republic. But Milner Gibson, the opposition member for Manchester, rose to point out that the passage money paid to recruits established a tacit contract of enlistment. These niceties of legal interpretation were disregarded by Gladstone, who reached the heart of the matter in a brilliant and incisive analysis. He charged that Crampton, in disavowing the recruiting poster signed by Angus Macdonald, had deliberately attempted to delude Marcy and to dissociate the British government from the coming recruiting campaign. But

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MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA Gladstone also noted that Crampton, after taking legal opinion from an American expert, had advised Clarendon as strongly as diplomatic protocol allowed to drop the campaign. He concluded therefore that the minister had pressed recruiting against his better judgement on explicit instructions from Clarendon. The ultimate responsibility for the imbroglio rested with the British government, and "Mr. Crampton has been made a scapegoat." Gladstone was followed by the veteran parliamentarian Sir John Pakington, who pointed out that the government had been forced to abandon recruiting and to submit to the dismissal of Crampton. In his view the Palmerston ministry would not have accepted these rebuffs if they had not been conscious that their conduct was indefensible. In his rejoinder Palmerston asserted that the law of 1818 had been violated, not by the government or its diplomatic representatives, but by the unauthorized activities of recruiting agents. He rejected the accusations levelled by Hertz and Ströbel against Crampton on the ground that the testimony of men of low character was worthless. Finally, he urged that the government had stopped recruiting when it discovered that illegalities were being committed. His solid majority was unaffected by the unfavourable trend of the debate, and he was upheld by 274 votes to 80. But it was evident that a diplomatic humiliation at the hands of the United States was a heavy price to pay for a scanty harvest of 700 recruits.

Italy In Sardinia the formation of the projected Italian Legion proceeded at a deliberate tempo. As late as 15 July 1855 Lord Palmerston was still urging Panmure in the strongest terms to appoint a commanding officer to cooperate with Hudson in pressing forward with recruiting.25 Panmure responded by offering the command of the legion to a son of the Duke of Northumberland, Lt.—Col. the Honourable H. H. M. Percy of the Grenadier Guards, who was still in the Crimea recuperating from wounds received in action. Percy accepted the offer on 20 July, was raised to the local rank of brigadier-general, and proceeded directly to Turin to make contact with Hudson. The 94

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War Office authorized them on 25 July to initiate the formation of an Italian Legion in collaboration with Italian officers still to be appointed.26 The recruiting committee subsequently named by the two principals comprised M. R. Verta as civilian secretary, Col. Ignazio Ribotti, and Col. Paolo Cavanna.27 Hudson was aware that Cavour privately favoured the formation of an Italian Legion.28 Hence he did not await formal authorization by the War Office to begin a recruiting campaign, which opened on 10 July 1855. Hudson, always sanguine and frequently impetuous, asserted that a force of 5,000 men could be raised without the slightest difficulty.29 He detected a reservoir of recruits in the thousands of officers on the strength of the Sardinian army who had failed to obtain their discharge by reason of outstanding mess debts to their regimental paymasters. He also anticipated a heavy enlistment from the 50,000 Lombard exiles who had been granted political asylum in Sardinia after the abortive uprisings of 1848-49 and the more recent Milanese insurrection of 1853. He relied, further, on the impending disbandment of 3,000 men from the army of Parma, on the rising unemployment created by the suspension of railroad construction during the war, and on the notorious reluctance of the average peasant, after three years' army training, to return to agriculture.30 Hudson's sanguine expectations were somewhat falsified in the event. General Percy did not share his colleague's breezy disregard of red tape and legal formalities. He rejected recruits in the Sardinian service who could not display their discharge papers, and ignored Hudson's suggestion that the enlistment bounty might be used by these men to liquidate their mess bills. The rejected men thereupon spread the report that the inducements to enlist were inadequate. Percy further insisted that intensive recruiting was undesirable until sufficient barrack accommodation had been secured. Otherwise, a high rate of desertion was probable. The problem of barracks proved to be highly intractable. Cavour informed Hudson that barracks were available for the Italian Legion at Novara.31 Colonel Ribotti, who was sent by Percy to inspect the accommodation, reported that the larger barrack at Novara would hold 3,000 men when completed, but that it lacked a roof at present. The two smaller barracks owned by the municipality, which had constructed them with the object of attracting 95

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troops and thus stimulating local trade, would accommodate 300 and 200 respectively. Both required extensive repairs.32 Hudson confessed some remorse at his failure to ascertain beforehand the condition of the barracks, and the incident could scarcely have improved his relations with Percy. A barracks was hired at Chivasso near Turin, where Percy had established his headquarters; and the Novara barracks, after completion, were to be placed at the disposal of the legion. The situation was not improved by the uncooperative attitude of the Sardinian government. The use of the Novara barracks was for some time officially denied to Percy on the ground that it would soon be required for Sardinian troops. Other barracks offered by the government and rejected by Percy included a roofless monastery, unoccupied for fifty years, and a dilapidated cow house.33 On 4 September 1855 Clarendon wrote soothingly to Panmure to the effect that no resentment should be harboured against the Sardinian government over the expected loss of the Novara barracks, which, he thought, were in too close proximity to the Austrian frontier.34 But this consideration failed to impress the recruiting committee, which hoped to attract deserters from the Italian conscripts enrolled in the Austrian forces in Lombardy. Percy also disliked the instructions transmitted to him by Hudson for the treatment of deserters and other military offenders. They were to be arrested by the Sardinian police, and then released to the legion authorities for court-martial. Percy took vigorous exception to the necessity of consulting Hudson in each case on the desirability of handing over offenders to the civilian authorities before court-martia1.35 To his credit, he also opposed the severity of military penalties for relatively minor offences and proposed that lesser culprits should be brought to trial in the Sardinian civil courts. But the Sardinian government refused to consider this mode of action unless it received a specific request from London.36 Hence the problem remained unresolved, to Percy's increasing dissatisfaction. An additional complication was introduced by the activities of recruiting agents for the Swiss Legion in the vicinity of Novara and Domodossola.37 They succeeded in intercepting and enrolling considerable numbers of potential recruits for the Italian Legion by offering more attractive but wholly unauthorized terms of enlistment. These deceptive inducements included allotments of 96

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cultivable land in North America, fifteen months' pay to officers on disbandment, and two years' pay to noncommissioned officers and privates, with handsome bonuses for distinguished service. In reply to heated complaints from Hudson and Percy,38 Panmure reiterated that he had not authorized different terms of recruitment for the two legions, and forwarded official copies of the documents to substantiate his statement.39 He then ordained that the two depots should recruit both Italians and Swiss, on condition that no Swiss should be enrolled in the Italian Legion and no Italian in the Swiss Legion.40 By the fall of 1855 Percy was beginning to doubt the practicability of forming an Italian Legion. He wisely rejected Hudson's proposal that the trickle of recruits should be billeted on private families in Turin, and inquired desperately but fruitlessly into the availability of Malta as an assembly point. He was continually exasperated by the stipulation that he should approach the Sardinian government exclusively through Hudson. In the matter of military supplies Hudson carried Percy's requirement to the Sardinian Ministry of War, which in turn empowered its army contractors to furnish the necessary equipment. A minor error in wording or specification entailed the penalty of repeating the whole procedure. The supply problem reacted adversely on the tempo of recruiting. Percy declined absolutely to enlist substantial numbers of men until uniforms and equipment were fully available. Otherwise he foresaw a high rate of desertion by legionaries when they had received their enlistment bounty. His anxiety was shared by Panmure, who wrote menacingly, "If I hear of any extraordinary desertions, I shall extinguish the Corps."41 The uncertain future of the legion did not escape the attention of the ever alert Cavour. The project had met with a mixed reception in the Sardinian press, and it might well develop into a thorny political issue. He felt therefore that recruiting and the removal of the legion from Sardinian soil ought to proceed with the utmost speed. On 19 August 1855 he complained that Percy was organizing the force "with true British phlegm." On 11 October he informed Massimo D'Azeglio, the Sardinian ambassador in London, of the strained relations between Percy and Hudson, and observed: "Percy is a good fellow, but narrow minded; the least difficulty stops him, and he loses courage. He is a good soldier, 97

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA but a detestable organizer. Another man in his place would have recruited two regiments by now. But he has'nt got two companies together. If he goes on, there will be no foreign legion for ten years."42 In closing he requested the ambassador to convey his views to Palmerston and Clarendon. Percy's position was clearly becoming untenable. On 20 October he offered his resignation, which Panmure did not hesitate to accept.43 At this critical point Panmure gloomily sounded out Clarendon on the advisability of abandoning the whole project. He pointed out that only 351 men of all ranks had been enrolled, and complained bitterly of lack of cooperation from the Sardinian government.44 Clarendon replied soothingly, "I don't wonder at your being tired of the foreigners. I am so likewise, but we should have been spared most of the annoyance if the subordinate agents had been better selected, and if they had taken those measures of common precaution which they well knew were necessary." But he opposed the abandonment of the enterprise on the ground of the acute need for men in the Crimea, and advised Panmure to request a joint report on its present feasibility from Hudson and Col. Constantine Read, Percy's successor.45 The required report was rapidly drafted and completed on 2 November 1855.46 It favoured an energetic prosecution of the enterprise on the assumption that the current problems were soluble. The flogging of legionaries for minor breaches of discipline was abolished, and the desertion rate fell accordingly.47 Recruiting was stimulated when the Sardinian government, powerfully influenced by Hudson, agreed to specify the conditions under which its subjects could be enlisted.48 Intending recruits of Sardinian citizenship were required to obtain governmental permission to enter the legion. Otherwise they lost their civil rights by virtue of Article 35 of the Civil Code, which prohibited unauthorized enlistment in the service of a foreign power. In order to eliminate delay the government accepted lists of recruits and approved them en bloc. Finally, Read was empowered by the War Office to pay the mess debts of Sardinian officers prepared to join the legion.49 Read rapidly came to the conclusion, however, that the officer personnel, both of the recruiting committee and of the legion itself, was not of the highest quality. Before his resignation, Percy had requested that the recruiting agencies should be composed of 98

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British officers in order to ensure a more rigid selection of recruits. But Read did not press the issue, and the committee retained its Italian members. The decision to place British officers in command of the legion was delayed by Palmerston's suggestion that it should be led chiefly by Italians and attached to General La Marmora's expeditionary force of regular troops in the Crimea. But Clarendon objected that the higher rate of pay enjoyed by the legion would create friction between the two corps if they were brought together. On 12 January 1856 Panmure decided to employ British officers, whose seniority was to be determined by their date of appointment, not by previous rank or service. He also concluded that Palmerston's proposal to unite the legion with La Marmora's corps was "inopportune, at least for the moment."so Under the vigorous impulse furnished by Read, who was more enterprising and less scrupulous in his recruiting activities than his predecessor, enrolments in the legion began to climb steeply. In early December 1855 the strength stood at 900 men, and the total reached 1,977 by 19 January 1856.51 The eighteen subagents who contacted recruits and shepherded them to the nearest depot were paid 25 francs "bringing money" for each man. Hence they did not scrutinize too closely the proofs of origin, army discharge papers, and other documentation, often spurious, which were presented to them. Placards erected at entry points on the Sardinian frontiers offered free passage to all who wished to join the legion. Deceptive assurances were given that the legion would not be dissolved at the close of the war, but would be sent to India. The intensified recruiting campaign engendered numerous desertions by Italian conscripts from the Austrian imperial army in Lombardy, despite the increasing vigilance of the Austrian police. Some of the deserters accepted for service in the legion were officers, although Panmure had forbidden their enrolment unless they could display their discharge papers. Newly inducted legionaries did not relish the iron discipline imposed by Read, and began to slip away in small groups. The commander was determined to check this leakage by exemplary punishments, and on 4 December 1855 five deserters were court-martialled and shot at Chivasso.52 Shortly afterwards the legionaries stationed at Novara staged a violent demonstration against the quality of the bread supplied 99

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA by army contractors. They brought their grievance to the attention of the local commander, Major Pinelli, by piling the stonehard and coal-black loaves at his door. In the face of threats of violence Pinelli and his officers held the insurgents at bay with drawn swords while they dispatched a telegram to Vercelli to request the aid of a battery of artillery. The situation was finally restored by a supplementary allowance of four soldi per man to accompany the bread ration; but the quality of the bread itself did not improve. The malcontents openly declared that they would desert immediately if the announcement was made that the legion was to be directed to the Crimea. Their officers, fighting desperately for time in which to tighten the bonds of discipline, encouraged the belief that the men would be sent to England or Malta for further training.53 By early 1856 it was evident that Hudson had been unduly optimistic in his estimate of the eventual strength and effectiveness of the legion. Doubtless the Sardinian government had not been initially over-helpful. Doubtless also Percy's deliberate and cautious methods had given a slow start to recruiting. But the high-pressure campaign of his successor Read, while it had swiftly augmented the paper strength of the legion, had introduced a mass of political exiles and deserters who were not deeply concerned with the war against Russia. They regarded Austria, not Russia, as their capital enemy. Those who had tasted defeat at the hands of the Austrian armies in 1848-49 hoped that the training and experience acquired in the legion would enable them in the future to reverse the verdict of those years. In the meantime, harsh discipline and inferior victuals imposed a heavy strain on the slender bond of loyalty which attached them to the legion.

Switzerland In Switzerland the enrolment of the stipulated 3,000 men for the Swiss Legion proceeded more rapidly. On 3 May 1855 Panmure empowered Captain Dickson to form in consultation with Gordon a recruiting committee of three Swiss in whom they could repose confidence. The committee, operating from Schlettstadt, was to open subsidiary stations in the Tyrol, Savoy, and Piedmont under officers appointed by the committee. Recruits were to 100

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be entitled to a bounty of £10. Of this sum £6 was nominally payable on enlistment, but in accordance with British military practice one-half was withheld until disbandment in order to cover the cost of possible damage to barracks and equipment. Recruits must not be over thirty-five years of age, and must be at least five feet two inches in height. The committee was authorized to recruit officers up to, but not including, the rank of major.54 The selection of Swiss officers to serve on the committee presented certain difficulties. Gordon warned the War Office that Colonel Baumgartner was financially unreliable, but accepted the appointment on grounds of Baumgartner's wide experience in recruiting and valuable political contacts. Col. Johann Sulzberger, the instructor-in-chief of the Thurgau militia, would not join the committee unless he received a pension of £200 yearly on disbandment. His stipulation, which infringed the terms of the Foreign Enlistment Act, was rejected by Panmure. Gordon then informed the War Office that he had guaranteed the payment on his own authority. Panmure yielded, on condition that the concession remained strictly confidentia1.55 The third Swiss member of the committee was Karl Edward Funk, an artillery officer who held the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the Bernese militia. The pay assigned to each was £1 per diem. The subagents of the committee received £5 "bringing money" for each man whom they persuaded to enlist. Early in June 1855 the committee assembled in Schlettstadt, which, with Blamont, Jougne, and Hüningen constituted the four recruiting stations established on French soil. Other depots were situated in Sardinia at Domodossola and Evian. The Austrian government rejected a formal request for the use of Bregenz and Feldkirch as recruiting stations, and the Grand Duchy of Baden would not permit the installation of depots at Constance and Lörrach. A further station opened at Vaduz was subsequently abandoned under pressure from the Austrian police. Gordon lamented these diplomatic reverses, which slowed the rate of recruitment in northern and eastern Switzerland. He was also disturbed by the keen competition of French agents, who were concurrently enlisting men in Switzerland for the deuxieme legion etrangere. Dickson subsequently complained to the War Office that French agents were paying their recruiting officers "bringing money" in excess of £5, the standard rate paid to the recruiter for each man 101

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accepted by the Anglo-Swiss Legion. Panmure reluctantly authorized Dickson to increase the amount, but urged him to exercise the utmost economy. The French agents lost no time in raising their "bringing money," and this increase in turn inspired proposals from the recruiting committee for a further advance . Panmure prudently refrained from embarking upon an expensive round of competitive bidding with the French, and announced that "we will pause to see the effect of the French rise of bounty before we alter ours."56 The hot pace set by French recruiting agents evoked further protests to the War Office by Dickson, who alleged that many of his recruits were diverted into French service by tempting offers as they were approaching the assembly base at Schlettstadt.57 The British government made diplomatic representations on the subject through Lord Cowley in Paris, and received in return an offer from Marshal Jean Vaillant, the French minister of war, to transfer the Second Foreign Legion, under the command of Ochsenbein, to the British flag.58 Ochsenbein, who was persona non grata to the British, protested violently, and refused to sacrifice himself on the altar of Anglo-French amity. He was strongly supported by de Salignac-Fenelon, who argued that the projected transfer would be widely construed as a symptom of the decline of French influence in Switzerland. The French government agreed, and the offer was withdrawn. (Gordon hailed the decision with obvious relief, since acceptance of the Second Legion would have been a tacit admission of the relative failure of the British recruiting campaign in Switzerland. But he warned Clarendon that French recruiting, which had been allowed to slacken while the transfer was under consideration, would be resumed with fresh vigour. The French in fact opened several new depots, and their subagents assiduously spread the rumour that recruits would not be dispatched to the Crimea, but would remain in France to form a personal bodyguard for the emperor Napoleon III. They also continued to tap and to redirect into the Second Foreign Legion the flow of intending recruits for the Swiss Legion en route to the English depots in France. Gordon lodged a protest pro forma against this practice with de Salignac-Fenelon, but without effect. The unresponsiveness of the French minister was not surprising. It was an open secret in Switzerland that the agents of both powers indulged widely in this form of poaching on each other's preserves.59 102

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The slow growth of the Swiss Legion was evident in the figures transmitted by Gordon. Its strength stood at 1,042 on 21 July 1855, at 1,321 on 18 August, and at approximately 1,600 on 21 December. Gordon reported gloomily that the expected seasonal increase in enrolments during the winter had not in fact occurred.60 Hence he warmly advocated the enlistment of 600 men of the Bernese Regiment in the service of Ferdinand II of Naples who were due for discharge at the end of 1855. Sir William Temple, the energetic and persistent British ambassador in Naples, had drawn attention to this possibility as early as 25 July 1855.61 Further prodding by Temple, combined with the disappointing recruiting figures for the Swiss Legion, at length induced the Foreign Office on 13 October to authorize unofficial inquiries into the readiness of the Bernese Regiment to enter British service after discharge. The inferior rate of pay offered by the Swiss Legion was, however, a serious obstacle, and Panmure flatly declined to make special financial concessions. Nor would he agree to the dispatch of recruiting agents into the southern kingdom. The latter decision was taken on the advice of the Foreign Office, which had been disturbed by news from Temple of an abortive attempt by Swiss troops, misled by the inflated promises of unofficial agents, to desert their regiment at Palermo.62 Ferdinand II was highly incensed, and warned Temple that he would take drastic measures against foreign recruiting in his territories.63 His pronouncement was decisive, and the project was abandoned. In the meantime the recruiting committee, led with explosive energy by Baumgartner, redoubled its efforts in Switzerland. Their subagent in Bern, a former head gaoler named Michel, established his headquarters at the Cafe Vilette near the city gate. His recruiting wagons rolled daily through the city streets, and returned to the cafe in the evening well laden with men. Other agents in Basel engineered extensive desertions from the cantonal forces. The city police retaliated by arresting recruits as they were being forwarded to their depots. The Federal Council also invited the cantonal authorities to take more effective measures against desertion from their forces. The War Office itself, scenting danger, warned the recruiting committee to reject deserters. These pressures did nothing to check the flow of fugitives from the cantonal regiments of Bern, the remnants of which were formally disbanded in February 1856.69 103

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA As the pace of recruiting quickened, Gordon spread his net more widely to capture Swiss officers of high reputation for the command posts in the legion. He approached Col. Leopold Reding, the offspring of an illustrious military family in the canton of Schwyz, with the offer of a colonelcy. Reding had recently left the service of the papacy on half-pay, which he would forfeit by joining the legion. By way of compensation he demanded the sum of £2,000, which, invested at 3 per cent, would yield an annual income equal to his current half-pay from the papacy.65 Gordon urged Panmure repeatedly to authorize the bargain on the ground that the appointment of officers of Reding's prestige would lend further impetus to recruiting. But Panmure simply replied that the Foreign Enlistment Act prohibited the grant of pensions or half-pay to officers unless they had been wounded in action. Gordon next suggested that Reding should be appointed to the recruiting committee on the same terms; but Panmure remained inflexible. Gordon swallowed his irritation and opened negotiations with the brother of the Swiss ambassador to Paris, Col. Louis Barman, to whom he offered, subject to confirmation, the command of the legion with the rank of brigadier general. Barman's financial stipulations, which he presented in person to Dickson at Schlettstadt, were rejected as excessive, and he therefore declined the command.66 Gordon seized the occasion to complain once again that the financial terms of the Foreign Enlistment Act were manifestly inadequate. In reply he was curtly enjoined to cease his unseemly recommendations, which were contrary to the letter and spirit of the act. In a strongly worded reply to Panmure he took exception to the use of the word "unseemly," and proposed to take no further part in the organization of the legion. With elephantine diplomacy Panmure attenuated the offensiveness of the adjective, and Gordon withdrew his proposa1.67 Despite their difficulties, Gordon and the recruiting committee contrived to draw a number of distinguished officers into the legion. The staff officers included Olivier Gingins, baron of La Sarra, the descendant of a patrician family of the Canton de Vaud with long experience in the service of France and Naples. The First Regiment was commanded by Jakob Blarer, who had left French service at the fall of the July Monarchy in 1830 and had returned to Switzerland to rise to the rank of colonel in the federal army. The Second Regiment was led by Balthazar a Bundi (1783 — 104

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1869), a veteran of the Napoleonic Wars who had won the Legion of Honour for distinguished conduct in the Moscow campaign of 1812. Like Blarer, he had left French service when the Swiss Guard of Charles X was disbanded in 1830, and had returned to his native land to become a major on the federal general staff. His enrolment in the legion at the age of 72 gave some indication of the desperate nature of the recruiting committee's search for suitable officer material. The battalion commanders were Karl Häfelin of Aarau, Friedrich Ginsberg of Zürich, Ernst Martignoni of St. Gall, and Theodor Fornaro of Rapperswil, a versatile personality who had been lawyer, innkeeper, merchant, and soldier in succession. A company of sharpshooters (Jäger), raised at Gordon's suggestion, was placed under the command of Johann Spillmann of Zürich.68 Unfortunately the morale of the serving officers was injured by Panmure's decision, following the futile negotiations with Barman, to raise Dickson to the command of the legion. They joined Sulzberger, Funk, and Baumgartner in reminding Panmure that Article 12 of the convention regulating the recruitment of the legion had prescribed that it should be "wholly Swiss." Panmure ignored their objections, and Dickson attempted to silence them by threats to stop recruiting entirely. The officers retaliated by insinuating that the commander was incompetent and that he showed undue clemency to offenders placed on the charge sheet by their superiors.69 Dickson's difficulties with the rank and file of the legionaries assembled at Schlettstadt centred upon the full payment of the enlistment bounty of £6 payable to each recruit. The official terms of enlistment had omitted all reference to the retention by the British authorities of £3, the so-called "drawback" habitually employed in British recruiting. This amount was withheld to cover possible damage by the recruit to barracks and equipment, and was released only on disbandment. The recruiting committee and its agents made no mention of the drawback in the course of their campaign. Consequently the legionaries at Schlettstadt clamorously demanded the full amount of the bounty. Dickson combated the danger of mass desertion by a vague assurance that the balance would be forthcoming on the arrival of the men in England. In the ensuing dispute at Dover with the British military authorities70 the Swiss rank and file were supported by only two of their officers: Friedrich von Wattenwill, a Bernese patrician 105

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA whose family had served England in the Napoleonic Wars, and Rudolf Steiger, whose forebears had commanded Swiss troops in the armies of France and Naples. Convicted of mutiny, they were ignominiously dismissed on 16 June 1855." They returned to Switzerland, petitioned the Federal Council to prosecute the Swiss officers in the recruiting committee on charges of misrepresentation, and disclosed the Dover incident to the press. Gordon feared that the barbed comments of the newspapers would incite the Federal Council to advocate sterner measures against foreign recruiting. He maintained that Baumgartner bore sole responsibility for the deception practiced on the legionaries, and recommended his dismissal from the recruiting committee as a soothing gesture to Swiss opinion.72 In the upshot the Federal Council, keenly aware of the divisive nature of the dispute, adopted an innocuous resolution urging the cantons to proceed more stringently against recruiting agents. Gordon, somewhat reassured, did not persist in his attempt to sacrifice Baumgartner. Dickson, who had connived at Baumgartner's devious methods of recruiting, steadily refused to abandon his subordinate. In a carefully phrased letter to Panmure he professed complete ignorance of Baumgartner's dubious tactics, but added that the retention of his subordinate was essential to the success of the recruiting committee.73 It was evident, however, that Baumgartner's freewheeling technique of recruiting could not be tolerated in the future. Henceforth recruits reaching Schlettstadt were required to sign before witnesses an official copy of the terms of recruitment. If they objected to any of the conditions they were naturally rejected and returned to their place of residence.74 The procedure protected the recruiting committee against subsequent charges of deception by disillusioned legionaries. But subagents in the various parts of Switzerland were still free to embroider the terms of enlistment until intending recruits actually arrived in Schlettstadt, where they were exposed to maximum pressure and persuasion.

106

8 The Period of Training and Service

Preparations for the reception of the legions in Great Britain had been set in train with great urgency by Newcastle immediately after the passage of the Foreign Enlistment Act. On 28 December 1854 he was already inquiring into the availability of campsites at Bexhill in Sussex and Shorncliffe in Kent. Bexhill was originally selected, and 5,000 huts were ordered for construction there. The cost of the huts was estimated at £65,400, and the ordnance branch predicted that they could not be constructed and placed in location until 25 January 1855. Panmure therefore decided to provide 3,000 tents as temporary accommodation.' The progress of work in erecting the huts was checked by protests from the local clergy, at whose instance Sunday labour was discontinued in mid-June. When advance contingents of German and Swiss legionaries landed at Dover in May and June 1855, no arrangements had been made to feed them, and they were initially lodged in the casemates and other fortifications of Dover Castle.2 In view of the sharp hostility between the two contingents, the Swiss were then placed under canvas on the Western Heights overlooking Dover, while the Germans were stationed in Shorncliffe Camp. At the approach of winter the Swiss were ordered to return to the cramped and chilly quarters assigned to them in Dover Castle.3 The ensuing discontent among the Swiss was heightened by the continuing dispute with the British military authorities over the drawback. This device was contrary to European military practice, and the duke of Cambridge, "the soldier's friend," warned Panmure against the danger of applying it to the legionaries." His advice was ignored. The Swiss, relying upon the hollow assurances given by Dickson at Schlettstadt, expected that

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA the drawback would be paid in full on their arrival in England. When payment was refused the legionaries declined to take the oath of loyalty to the queen, and the situation became explosive. Panmure hastily appointed a reliable Swiss subordinate,. Lieutenant-Colonel Paschal, to the command of the Swiss depot at Dover, and instructed him to restore order without delay in conjunction with Dickson and Sulzberger, summoned from Schlettstadt by a telegraphic message. Paschal discovered to his dismay that the legionaries had not been informed of the drawback at the time of their enrolment, and asked the War Office for further instructions. Before Panmure could reply the initiative was seized by Sulzberger, who intimidated the assembled legionaries in his thunderous voice with charges of mutiny. After reducing them to a submissive frame of mind he offered indemnity for their recent behaviour and the immediate payment of £4 of the £6 bounty. The men accepted his proposals, but Paschal, convinced that they had been victimized, resigned his new command on 14 June.5 He was appointed, however, to the Swiss recruiting committee on 4 September 1855 at the urgent request of Dickson. The arrival of the German Legion in England was delayed by a bottleneck in transportation. The accumulation of recruits in Hamburg was clearly undesirable. Hence the Admiralty was persuaded to place the sloop Offer at the disposal of Stutterheim to carry enlisted men to Heligoland. Stutterheim then complained of the scanty facilities for transporting recruits from Heligoland to Britain. The Admiralty could provide only two small vessels, and it was necessary to charter the packet boat Hamburg, which could accommodate 600 men without difficulty. The Otter was transferred to the Heligoland-Folkestone route as winter approached. The Admiralty also agreed to make available the Alban and the Sprightly in the vain hope of clearing Heligoland of recruits before winter disrupted communications. The men remaining on the island were supplied with salt meat and vegetables in case they were isolated by storms and accumulations of ice.6 The first arrivals of the German Legion were equipped at Shorncliffe and proceeded to Aldershot for training on 10 July 1855.' Their period of training was not extensive. Panmure quickly assured Lord Raglan, and subsequently Raglan's successor in the Crimea, Gen. Sir James Simpson, that "these fine troops" would soon be in action.8 He communicated his enthusi108

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asm to the queen, who consented to review the German and Swiss Legions at Shorncliffe. Victoria and the prince consort reviewed the combined force of 3,048 men on 9 August 1855, and were favourably impressed.9 But the queen took exception to the term "Foreign Legions," and pressed successfully for the separate appellations of "British-German Legion," "British-Swiss Legion," and "British-Italian Legion."10 The level of discipline maintained by these early arrivals was passable. There were exceptions. The Ramsgate magistrates reported on 28 August that they were holding some deserters.'1 The desertions were possibly connected with the severe discipline and intensive training imposed on the legionaries immediately after their arrival in England. Disciplinary measures included the suppression by the military authorities of a private beershop which had been opened in the camp by Dr. Hartmann, the surgeon of the legion. The competition evoked a protest from the local innkeepers, and the establishment was ordered closed without delay.12 In the course of the summer cholera declared itself in the Shorncliffe camp. A board of health inspector found that responsibility lay with the troops themselves, who threw filth into the wells from which they drew their drinking water. The loss of life was limited to two officers and eleven men. Hence Panmure would not consent to the expenditure of £2,928 on the construction of a hospital.13 Despite the epidemic, Panmure was determined to order at least a portion of the legion to the Crimea. Stutterheim recommended in September that the First Jäger and the First Light Infantry Regiments should be transferred to Gibraltar and Corfu for further rifle practice. Panmure decided instead to combine the three Jäger regiments in a brigade of 2,700 men under Colonel (Acting Brigadier) Woolridge and to dispatch them, together with the First Swiss Regiment, directly to the Crimea.14 The intense public pressure for swift and massive reinforcements to the Crimea probably influenced Panmure's course of action.'5 On 8 October 1855 he wrote to Simpson: I have determined to send you my first regiments of the Foreign Legion. You will see their strength from the official despatch. They are fine-looking men, and will do more work 109

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA than your youngsters, and be more handy. You must keep the Germans under the Brigadier I send with them, and put them in any Division which has a good linguist or two in the superior command. Keep them away from the Swiss ... The Swiss and the Germans are not good friends ... but they will fight well, and you may rely on them.16 The brigade was reviewed by the duke of Cambridge on 25 October 1855, and embarkation began next day when the First German Regiment left Portsmouth." It was judged advisable, in view of the traditional hostility between the Swiss and the Germans, to embark the former on 17 November in a separate transport, the Great Britain. 18 The decision to rush the brigade to the theatre of war was bluntly criticized by General Simpson, who wrote; I did not think in this advanced season, and in our altered circumstances, that your Lordship would have sent the Swiss and the Germans to winter here. When they come I will do my best; but the winter cannot fail to be severe upon them under canvas, and without the comforts which our troops have been providing themselves with. These newcomers will arrive to pitch their tents either in snow or in eight inches of mud ... I think that it will save many lives to suffer them to winter in Malta.19 Panmure was sufficiently impressed by these observations to halt the force at Scutari, where General Storks, the commander of the British troops in Constantinople, undertook to furnish winter quarters.20 The First Regiment of the German Legion reached Scutari on 5 November 1855. Within two weeks cholera appeared among the men. The regiment was therefore hastily removed to Kulali, the site of a hospital and barracks recently established on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus.21 The Third Regiment reached its destination at Constantinople on 14 January 1856 and the Second Regiment arrived two weeks later.22 They were reviewed by General Storks, who extended the customary compliments to Brigadier Woolridge on the appearance and discipline of his command. Christmas was celebrated in the 110

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barracks in traditional army fashion with toasts to the queen and an abundance of orations professing fortitude in the face of coming hardships. The First Regiment of the Swiss Legion under Dickson's command had already arrived at Smyrna on 2 December.23 None of the contingents proceeded to the Crimea, since the recently enthroned Tsar Alexander II suspended hostilities on 1 February 1856. The prospect of a definitive peace imposed a policy of restraint on further recruiting for the legions. In the case of the Italian Legion, Clarendon enjoined Sir James Hudson by telegraph on 23 February 1856 to "pause ... and do not press your recruiting over-much." The warning "to put on the drag" was repeated on 10 March. Hudson responded by ordering the height of acceptable recruits to be raised from five feet two inches to five feet seven inches, and the rate of recruiting immediately dropped by onehalf. Five days later the Foreign Office instructed Hudson to stop recruiting entirely "on some pretext or other."24 The decision to check recruiting was also precipitated by the discovery of a political conspiracy in the ranks of the Italian Legion. On 22 February 1856 its commanding officer Sir Coutts Lindsay informed Rattazzi, the Sardinian minister of the interior, of the existence of a plot among the ardent Mazzinians of the legion at Novara to traverse the Ticino and to invade Lombardy with the object of igniting a general anti-Austrian insurrection in the province. The agitatory activities of the conspirators were heightened by the decision, taken in London in early February 1856, to move the entire force to Malta. The wilder spirits in the legion apparently concluded that a blow must be struck against Austria before they left Italian soil. Rattazzi, not wholly surprised by the news of the conspiracy, telegraphed Hudson at Genoa. Hudson raced to the scene and cooperated energetically with the Sardinian police in nipping the movement in the bud. The legionaries stationed at Novara were paraded for inspection, and the police authorities arrested twenty-one men of the First Regiment and five of the Second Regiment as ringleaders 25 Hudson, all his pro-Sardinian instincts aroused, methodically minimized the importance of the episode in his reports to Clarendon. He affirmed that "this hare-brained scheme" had been hatched by men deep in their cups who had talked wildly of the expedition but had no serious intention of putting it into effect. Clarendon 111

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA allowed himself to be reassured, and referred in reply to "the perfect discipline and good conduct of the First and Second Regiments."26 Cavour, however, was quick to realize that the incident was capable of exploitation by Austria, which had long been sensitive to the weaving of political conspiracies against her on Sardinian soil. He had supported the formation of the legion with such consistency that he feared a loss of personal and political credit unless prompt measures were taken. The presence of British-paid troops in Sardinian territory was a constant irritant, and provided ammunition for frequent sniping by the opposition press and political parties. He was further influenced by the representations of Colonel Lindsay, who admitted that the condition and discipline of the force left much to be desired. Lastly, Cavour was disturbed by current rumours of the entry into Sardinia of the extremist Felice Orsini, and doubtless feared that the disaffected regiments would provide him with a military following.27 In these unpleasant circumstances Cavour overrode Hudson, who wished to retain the legion in Sardinia, and urgently requested the immediate removal of the force. He instructed D'Azeglio to impress on Palmerston that the British officers themselves favoured the immediate passage of the legion to Malta. Palmerston responded instantly, and engaged to bring pressure to bear on Panmure.28 Cavour's insistence resulted in part from an interrogation of Rattazzi by deputies in the Sardinian chamber. Rattazzi assured a critical assembly that the importance of the incident had been exaggerated by the press, but failed to give a positive answer to repeated demands for the early departure of the legion from Sardinia.29 The arrests at Novara gave rise to questions in the British House of Commons also. Palmerston blandly informed the House on 4 March 1856 that "Nothing had been discovered to confirm the notion that any plot existed in any of the regiments, whose conduct, I am bound to say, from first to last has been most exemplary." He assured the members that the movement of the legion to Malta was already in progress, and that the discipline, order, and loyalty of the troops left nothing to be desired.30 In the meantime Cavour was considering the practicability of a bold, indeed reckless plan involving the deployment of the legion against the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. On 20 March 112

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1856 he solicited the opinion of D'Azeglio on the advisability

of his coming to London to enlist Palmerston's support and aid for an expedition by the legion against Palermo. After the military occupation of the capital the independence of Sicily was to be proclaimed, and subsequently its annexation to Sardinia. "L'idee est hardie, mais elle n'est pas absurde. Meditez-la, et si vous ne la jugez pas imprudent, låchez-en quelques mots å Palmerston."31 D'Azeglio reported in reply that Palmerston's attitude to the project was distinctly coo1.32 Palmerston pleaded the virtual certainty of opposition from Russell, a consistent architect of peace, and from Gladstone. D'Azeglio himself did not believe for a moment that Palmerston could be persuaded to give assurances of support for the enterprise. Palmerston was experiencing difficulty in living down the charge that he was the power behind the Sicilian liberals. And even if the project was crowned with success, European opinion would conclude that Sardinia was holding the island at the behest of Great Britain. Nor would Napoleon III contemplate the expedition with equanimity, since he regarded himself as the predestined liberator of Italy. These cautionary observations restrained Cavour, who was bitterly disappointed at the absence of tangible gains for Sardinia from the current negotiations at the Congress of Paris. His design on Sicily fructified in 1860, when Garibaldi and the Thousand successfully filled the role for which he had cast the Italian Legion. By early April 1856 the legion had been transferred to Malta, and had taken up quarters in Fort Manoel, in the hospital at Marsamuscetto, and in barracks and tents elsewhere.33 Its discipline was not improved by the lengthening period of inaction, punctuated by drill and rifle practice on .the shores of St. George's Bay. The populace, which quickly learned that some of the legionaries had participated in the anti-papal uprising at Rome in 1848- 49, dubbed the new arrivals "enemies of Christ, excommunicates" and so forth. On 5 May the police arrested two legionaries who chanted revolutionary songs, used blasphemous language, and assaulted a Carmelite friar on the streets of Valetta. A sergeant of the legion, sent to reclaim them, was beaten by the police and sent back to barracks with a bloody head. On the same day a soldier of the Third Regiment inadvertently stabbed a comrade in delivering 113

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a dagger thrust at a police constable. The culprits were arrested and confined in the Palace of Justice. Next day a hundred of their comrades attempted to release them by a raid on the edifice. The populace of Valetta, irritated by various incidents of petty thievery and by the anticlerical demonstrations of the legionaries, rallied to the support of the law. In the course of the subsequent street fighting in the Strada Santa Lucia a police inspector, Vincenzo Caruana, was killed by bayonet thrusts in the back. The legionaries involved belonged to the First Regiment, commanded by Col. E. S. Burnaby. In a conspiracy of silence they professed ignorance of the identity of Caruana's assailant. By general order all troops were confined to barracks. Burnaby then drew up his regiment on parade and demanded the name of the offender. Although the officers waved their swords and the men accorded him three hearty cheers, he failed to elicit from them the identity of the culprit. Further disorders occurred on 8 May, when a detachment of legionaries under three officers was sent out to purchase supplies. They were stoned in the streets by the civilian population and were forced to return, some with injuries, to barracks. Their comrades began to plan retaliation, and the spreading spirit of mutiny compelled the British officers to deprive the legionaries of their ammunition. Late in the afternoon the battleship Hannibal (Admiral Sir Houston Stewart) was towed into position close to Fort Manoel, and trained her guns on the inmates. On the following day the Hannibal was obliged to withdraw by stress of weather, and the steam corvette Spiteful was ordered to keep the fort under surveillance. These deterrent measures reduced the soldiery to sullen obedience, but the slayer of Caruana was never revealed. The temper of the civil population of Valetta remained inflamed, and Panmure urged Sir J. L. Pennefather, garrison commander of Malta, to keep civilians firmly in hand. He relieved the luckless Burnaby of his command and ordered out Col. Constantine Read from Turin to replace him. Read strove to placate the islanders by opening a subscription among the legionaries to the memory of Caruana, who left a widow and eight children. But the people of Valetta, heavily influenced by the clergy, did not relax their hostility.34 On 16 May Clarendon gloomily informed Hudson that the legion must leave Malta, and proposed its return to Sardinia for 114

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disbandment.35 Legionaries unacceptable to their respective governments were to be afforded free passage to the colony of their choice. The secretary of state for the colonies, Henry Labouchere, pressed by a restive House of Commons, favoured the earliest possible dispersal of the legion. But Panmure insisted that time was needed to consult the Sardinian government on its requirements concerning repatriation and to frame plans for the settlement of legionaries who desired to emigrate. Labouchere, challenged in debate, cautiously declined to table the official correspondence on the Valetta disturbances. But Frederick Peel, the under-secretary for war, subsequently assured the House that the legion would be disbanded as quickly as problems of repatriation would allow.36 On 16 November 1855 the first battalion of the First Regiment of the Swiss Legion proceeded via Canterbury to Portsmouth and embarked on the Great Britain. After a leisurely journey by way of Gibraltar and Malta the force reached Smyrna on 2 December. The newcomers were joined on 1 March 1856 by the first battalion of the Second Regiment under the command of Major Ginsberg. Typhus was rampant in Smyrna, and during their stay the Swiss lost fifty men by disease. Road building and gymnastic displays were undertaken to relieve the tedium of inaction. With the arrival of the news of the Treaty of Paris, concluded on 30 March 1856, martial ardour evaporated, and the legionaries began the bombard Colonel Dickson with questions concerning their future.37 Dickson returned evasive answers, and the men were already actively dissatisfied when they reembarked for England on 1 July 1856. They landed at Portsmouth on 26 July and entrained for Shorncliffe Camp. There they joined the second battalion of the Second Regiment (which had not left England) under the command of Maj. Ernst Martignoni and Capt. Balthazar a Bundi.38 Grievances were plentiful. Officers on detached duty, e.g. at shooting school, received only five shillings per diem expenses. Income tax was deducted from pay for a full year even when the officer had joined midway through the fiscal year. Quartermasters had deducted excessive amounts for the cost of equipment. Paymasters had charged heavily for table ware, and all complaints were countered with the threat of summary dismissal. In Smyrna ancient and decaying ship biscuit had been served twice weekly 115

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and the men had protested by piling the hard tack on the threshold of Dickson's hut.39 These more or less routine abuses were finally submerged, however, in a great dispute with the military authorities over the precise financial terms to be accorded to the officers on their disbandment.

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9 Disbandment

The formal termination of the Crimean War by the Peace of Paris of 30 March 1856 brought Panmure face to face with the thorny problem of disbanding the foreign legions. The government had every reason to proceed without delay. On 23 February 1856 the German legionaries in Shorncliffe Camp had attempted to rescue a comrade detained by the Folkestone police, and had become involved in an affray which excited unfavourable comment in the House of Commons. The opposition scented an opportunity, and on 14 April gave notice of a motion of censure which affirmed "that the course taken by the Ministers of the Crown in the employment of agents to enlist the citizens of foreign states into the armies of Her Majesty, in defiance of the laws of those countries, is inconsistent with the good faith and friendly conduct which ought to characterize all our relations with allied states, and has tended to lower the dignity, to endanger the peace, and to compromise the honour of the nation." The motion was dropped when Palmerston agreed to table all relevant papers.' But the obvious irritation of the House over the issue of foreign enlistments strengthened the desire of the government to dispose of the legions without delay. On 1 May 1856 Panmure privately approached R. Vernon Smith, M.P., a member of the Board of Control of the East India Company, with a proposal that the company should engage the full strength of the three foreign legions, in excess of 15,000 men. The regular forces in India had been seriously depleted by the demands of the Crimean War, and the company apparently suspected that Panmure was seeking to burden it with a larger share of the costs of Indian defence. The portents of the coming explosion in India were not yet sufficiently clear to alarm the company,

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and the offer was refused.2 The Foreign Office, under rising pressure from the House of Commons, then instituted a round of inquiries in the capitals of Europe concerning the conditions on which those legionaries who preferred repatriation would be readmitted by their respective governments. Most of the continental states, including Anhalt-Dessau, Brunswick, Bremen, Denmark, Hanover, Holland, Mecklenburg, Nassau, Oldenburg, and Switzerland were prepared to readmit their citizens if they would furnish proof of nationality and had received honourable discharge. The Austrian government would not permit legionaries who were politically compromised to return. The government of Louis II of Bavaria declined to promise immunity to Bavarians who had enlisted without royal permission. The Free City of Hamburg similarly reserved the right to impose penalties on returned legionaries. The Prussian government ominously replied that legionaries of Prussian origin would be required to report at the first police station on reaching Prussian territory, and would guarantee no immunity from the penalties of the law. King William I of Württemberg, whose realm had been a centre of liberal insurrection in 1848, bluntly assured the Foreign Office that no legionaries would be permitted to return, nor would they be allowed to traverse the kingdom.3 The response of the Belgian government was so completely ambiguous that Clarendon proposed to send home a few Belgian legionaries in order to test their reception by their government.4 If an official blind eye was turned on their entry, the rest might then be dispatched with confidence.

Swiss Legion The dissolution of the Swiss Legion proceeded smoothly enough in its initial stages. Recruiting in Switzerland had been suspended on 15 March 1856, and the central assembly point was moved from Schlettstadt to Strasbourg to facilitate disbandment.s Clarendon had hoped to avoid the problems and expense of disbandment by transferring the legion en bloc into French service to replace the French troops which had been garrisoning Rome since 1849. But the project fell through, and the complicated process of disbandment began. The men were permitted to retain their uniforms, but their arms and accoutrements were given up. 118

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An initial difficulty arose in connection with the remuneration of the Swiss recruiting committee. The War Office had agreed to recompense this body at the rate of £5 per recruit to a maximum of 5,000 men. But the strength of the Swiss Legion at disbandment stood at 3,108 men. The committee claimed full payment for 5,000 men; and after some acrimonious exchanges received payment in full, on condition that the committee paid the fare home of the recruits who still remained in Schlettstadt.6 These recent recruits, in view of the brevity of their period of service, received only one-half of the discharge gratuity of one year's pay.' The Swiss trainees at Dover were joined by July 1856 by their comrades returning from Smyrna, and the joint contingents were transported by way of Paris to Strasbourg, where preparations had been made to disband them in groups of thirty. The French railroads carried the recruits to Strasbourg for half-fare, and by the summer of 1856 the bulk had returned. On 27 August the Swiss Federal Government complained that many of the returned men were not Swiss subjects. The Foreign Office replied soothingly that there was no cause for alarm and that every precaution would be taken to ascertain the nationality of recruits before discharge. The Swiss government was not reassured, and requested that the place of origin of each recruit should be inscribed on his discharge papers. The Foreign Office replied regretfully that the request had come too late; most of the Swiss legionaries were already disbanded.8 There was some friction at Strasbourg on the eve of disbandment, since many officers had accepted on enlistment the assurance of Baumgartner to the effect that officers would receive fifteen months' severance pay. Col. Alexander Halkett reported from Strasbourg on 24 January 1856 that he was awaiting instructions on the matter. The solid front originally presented by the Swiss officers in London was broken when a battalion commander, Maj. Ernst Martignoni, accepted the three months' gratuity. The rest of the officers followed his example on receiving. written assurances from the War Office that their acquiescence would not prejudice any further claims for the larger gratuity which they might present to Parliament. By 20 February 1857 Halkett was able to report that the Strasbourg depot had been liquidated .9 The dispute over gratuities was carried a stage further on 13 119

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA July 1857, when the earl of Malmesbury introduced into the Lords a petition from forty-seven officers of the First Regiment of the Swiss Legion.10 The petitioners alleged that the stipulations of enlistment had entitled them to fifteen months' pay on disbandment, and that the War Office had allowed them only three months' pay. They requested the payment of the balance to the amount of £2,700. Panmure explained in reply that the devious Colonel Baumgartner had caused to be printed in May 1855 his own version of the articles of enlistment, which offered the more generous gratuity claimed by the petitioners. To this document Baumgartner had forged the signatures of his colleagues on the recruiting committee. Colonel Dickson had denied the authenticity of the Baumgartner version in the following month, and had inserted a notice to that effect in the Swiss newspapers. All officers, including the forty-seven claimants, had signed acknowledgements to the effect that they had received their gratuities and had no further claim on the government. Malmesbury in return reminded Panmure that the petitioners had accepted the smaller gratuity under protest, without prejudice to their future claims. In the ensuing debate the earls of Hardwicke and Clancarty verbally castigated Panmure for having recourse to foreign troops in the late war. They ascribed the lack of native recruits to the "stinginess" of the government, which had refused to make timely increases in army pay in the earlier stages of the war. The general temper of the House was decidedly unsympathetic toward the officers, and the petition was allowed to lie on the table.11

German Legion The disbandment of the Anglo-German Legion was attended with even greater difficulties. On 11 and 14 March 1856 the queen, possibly inspired by the prince consort, urged Panmure to treat the legionaries with generosity. She pointed out that those who might prefer to return to their native Germany would be deterred by the possibility of punitive measures by their governments. Those who had lost their nationality and were, therefore, obliged to emigrate to the colonies should be fairly treated both as a matter of honour and as a means of enhancing Great Britain's reputation on the Continent. Panmure replied cautiously that he 120

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would do all in his power.12 The queen's representations were reinforced by Lord Bloomfield, British minister to Prussia, who pointed out to Panmure that niggardly treatment of the German Legion would redouble the difficulties of recruitment if Great Britain was desirous of raising such a legion in any future emergency." On 26 April 1856 the officers of the German Legion presented a petition asking for compensation on ground of premature disbandment, since they had been originally informed that enlistment was for a five-year term. Panmure replied severely that whatever promises they had received to this effect were unauthorized. He could hold out no prospect of an additional gratuity above the stipulated three months' pay, save by the grace of the government." The reply was ill received by the German Legion. On 13 May 1856 The Times printed a communication from "an English officer" of the legion who strongly urged the permanent retention of the force. He argued that the majority of the officers had abandoned their civil or military employment in Germany to enter the legion, and were now to be cast adrift with only three months' pay. He contended that the notorious sobriety of the German soldier made him a perfect choice for service in tropical possessions, where indulgence in alcoholic beverages often caused lamentable gaps in the ranks of garrison troops.15 The letter did not weaken the obvious desire of the War Office to dissolve the legions as speedily as possible at minimum expense. As early as 19 April 1856 it was announced that any legionary who would accept half a year's pay, instead of the statutory full year's pay, would be discharged at once.'' The feeling among the officers of the German Legion was especially intense, since some had been assured on enrolment that their enlistment was for a three to five-year term.'' The complaints under this rubric were presented mainly by the Germans of the Third Jäger Battalion. They demanded a full year's pay in addition to free passage home and threatened legal proceeding in the absence of redress. Frederick Peel, under-secretary for war, threatened to stop the pay of any officers who instituted such proceedings. Lord Panmure added that the Third Jägers were "the least satisfactory" of the legion, and could be afforded no preferential treatment.18 The Second Jägers, who returned from Scutari to Aldershot in June 1856, became involved in a large-scale affray with British 121

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA troops on 17 July. The collision began in the Carpenter's Arms, a public house outside Aldershot, where British troops of the 41st and 93rd Regiments taunted legionaries with their failure to come to grips with the Russians in the Crimea. The resulting disturbance spread rapidly, and stones, bayonets, and firearms were freely used by both parties. The pickets of British camp police were called out to restore order, but preferred to throw themselves into the mêlée on the side of their fellow-nationals. The legionaries battered down the huts between the North and South Camps which housed the English troops, and Stutterheim's quarters were similarly demolished by the opposition. The Germans, vastly outnumbered, were the first to use their more lethal weapons, and the six fatal casualties were all British. A military court of inquiry completed its fruitless proceedings at Aldershot on 22 July. Both parties involved refused to identify their assailants or to make charges against them. Further encounters, similar in origin but less violent, occurred between the First Jägers and British forces in the Colchester camp.19 Sir James Ferguson, M.P. for Dumfries, raised the matter at question time in the House of Commons on 18 July. Under-Secretary Peel blandly replied that he had received no intelligence of any commotion among the military.20 He added reassuringly that the German Legion would soon be removed from English soil. But the House remained unimpressed by Palmerston's lament over "irresponsible questioning on this, that, and the other matter," and was not appeased by his promise that "what we are going to do with respect to the disposal of the German Legion will, when done, be found perfectly conformable with law and propriety. More than that I am not prepared to say."21 On 21 July 1856 J. P. Murrough, M.P. for Bridport, moved an adjournment of the House to debate the recent uproar at Aldershot. He complained of undue delay in the disbandment of the German Legion, and insinuated that "it was rumoured out of doors that a very high and distinguished person" had intervened in favour of the legion. The scarcely veiled reference to the prince consort evoked an interruption from Spencer Walpole, an ex-secretary of state for home affairs, who required Murrough to be more specific in framing his reasons for adjournment. But Murrough was not to be silenced, and roundly asserted that "these foreign troops are countenanced by those who sit in high places." 122

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He wished to know "by whose influence a band of German brigands are maintained in this country" while "English subjects are bleeding from the dirks of foreign hirelings." To this fiery outburst Palmerston replied soothingly that in no circumstances would the German legionaries be retained in the kingdom for garrison or other duties, and that they would be moved in the near future. 22 Outside the House complaints concerning the conduct of the legionaries increased in volume and intensity. The Bishop of Rochester appealed to the War Office to check the illegal and irregular marriages contracted by the legionaries stationed in Colchester.23 The Portsmouth Times and Naval Gazette asked impatiently on 30 August: How much longer, we would ask, does the Government intend to keep the Foreign Legion in the service of the country? The Legions, the foreign mercenaries, for they are nothing else, are still retained, but for what purpose we cannot divine. They are allowed to lounge idly about in the streets, with nothing better to amuse themselves than the getting up of an impromptu fight to the terror of the quiet inhabitants of the town, and using their knives upon their comrades... . It has become almost dangerous to pass through the streets unarmed at night. Thefts, robberies, and such offences, not to mention 'cutting and maiming' are becoming, we might say, a hourly occurrence, and the police sheet appears most days of an alarming size.... If these corps are not soon returned to their native country, or sent to the colonies, if they have accepted the offer of the government to that effect, many similar cases are likely to occur. For some time past their drunken behaviour has been a subject of complaint, but it has now reached such a height that it is felt by every inhabitant of the borough that some steps ought to be taken to remove the nuisance.24 The other side of the medal was revealed by a report of the same organ on 6 September: On Wednesday evening a disturbance took place in the town of Gosport between the Royal Marines and the Brit123

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA ish-German Legion, when the Marines, with their belts, assisted by a number of navvies, with sticks and stones very much ill-used the Legion and drove them out of town, and acted in a most un-English like manner towards many of the Legion, five or six of them beating and kicking them singly, unmercifully. The row originated in consequence of one of the marines stealing a purse and some money from one of the Legion, in the Princess Royal, and afterwards stealing the belt of another. The man reported the circumstances to the regimental police belonging to the Legion. When [sic] the corporal searched the marine, and ultimately took the belt from him. The marines then came in a body with the navvies and attacked the Legion as above described. Some of the men were severely wounded." The officers of the legion, British and German, could scarcely be depended upon to preserve strict discipline. They had profound grievances of their own. A letter to The Times of 15 September 1856 lamented the fate of the English officers of the German Legion who had resigned their commissions in the Austrian and Bavarian armies on the assurance of John, Lord Westmoreland, the British minister at Vienna, that "the government would take care of them." The German officers, similarly aggrieved, inundated the duke of Cambridge with letters and petitions. The duke relayed their complaints to Panmure. He pointed out that the stipulated three months' gratuity on discharge was insufficient to free the officers from debt, and that "the poor devils are literally starving." He proposed an increase in the gratuity." The Third Jägers, the first to demand improved terms of disbandment, were the first to be dissolved. The process began on 19 May 1856 and was completed with utmost dispatch. The men were allowed to retain their uniform trousers and greatcoats and were forwarded to Hamburg, or in the case of those who wished to proceed to North America, to Halifax. A considerable number of legionaries were pressed by Panmure, however, to settle in Cape Colony. On 1 April 1856 the War Office directed by Maj. John Grant, its representative, and Capt. Ernst Hoffman, the assistant quartermaster-general of the legion, to confer with the governor of the colony, Sir George Grey, on the reception and organization of the new settlers. The colonial legislature voted a 124

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sum of £40,000 to provide land and maintenance for the future emigrants, who were to function as frontier police against Kaffir raids.27 In the meantime the notoriously bad characters in the legion were discharged without delay. Panmure under pressure abandoned his original intention to deprive them of their discharge gratuities, and gave instructions that all debts must be discharged out of pay, leaving gratuities intact.28 The prospect of the arrival of a trained force of military settlers was hailed with jubilation in a letter to The Times of 10 August, signed "A Colonist."29 The writer deplored the habit of the British government of sending out "pensioners and worn-out tipplers" for the defence of the colony. He was equally averse to the importation of "striplings and inexperienced soldiers," and welcomed the seasoned legionaries as an ideal solution of the problem. The German Legion as a whole did not share his single-minded enthusiasm for the defence of the Empire. But those members who had defied the laws of their country in order to enlist could not safely return, and were obliged to contemplate the possibility of settlement at the Cape.30 Emigration to North America was not a practical alternative for many legionaries, who lacked the necessary funds to support themselves while they were seeking a position. In the enforced idleness preceding embarkation, unsettling influences prevented many legionaries from reaching a firm decision. Recruiting agents of the Latin American states appeared in the legionary camps at Browndown, Colchester, and Aldershot to urge the advantages of enlistment in the armies of the countries which they represented. In the camp at Colchester meetings were organized by Captains Grabowski and Mack who, expelled from the Austrian Empire after the uprisings of 1848-49, had fled to Hamburg and later joined the Anglo-German Legion. They sought to enlist support for the foundation of a republic (Freistaat) in North America.31 The ferment in the legion did not pass unnoticed by the queen and the prince consort. At their suggestion Panmure announced on 4 August 1856 that the ever-popular Stutterheim would accompany participating legionaries to the Cape to supervise their settlement.32 When Major Grant and Captain Hoffmann returned from the Cape in late August, Panmure appointed a tripartite 125

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committee drawn from the War Office, the Colonial Office, and the legion.33 The conditions of settlement drafted by this body were strongly influenced by Stutterheim, who fought hard for a maximum concessions to the legion. Clarendon also besought Panmure to deal generously with the legion. He feared that further disputes would provide inflammable material for parliamentary debate and might encourage the impression in Europe that Britain was failing to honour her commitments to the recruits "decoyed" into her service.34 In the meantime Captain Hoffmann was sent by the War Office to calm the rising storm in the camps of Colchester, Browndown, and Aldershot. On 7 September he addressed 5,200 legionaries at Colchester from the pulpit of the camp church, and painted the advantages of settlement at the Cape in the most glowing colours: "The soil was exceedingly fruitful, the climate was temperate and healthy, and the people lived to a good old age. The country was well known as the resort of individuals afflicted with chest disease. The supply of water was everywhere abundant and of the purest description." Hoffmann further reported that he had received assurances from the local Kaffir chieftains that on the arrival of the legion "they would give up everything to them and retire further back into the country."35 He regretted that he was not yet able to acquaint his audience with the terms of settlement offered by the British government, which were still under discussion in London. Heavily pressed by the queen and Prince Albert, the War Office did not prolong the discussions unduly. On 11 September 1856 the queen wrote forcibly to Panmure: "The great point to attend to will now be speed, and great care that the men shall not only thoroughly understand the proposal, but also have entire confidence in it being fully carried out. For this purpose the Queen thinks it absolutely necessary that their commanding officers, and particularly General /sic] Stutterheim, in whom they have absolute confidence, should accompany them, at least for a time."36 Panmure and Clarendon showed less concern for the "legionary plagues," whom they wished to dispose of at minimum cost. Clarendon regarded the settlement scheme as "rather expensive," but continued: I don't think that the money will be ill laid out, 1st by avoiding the bother we should have in Parliament if the for126

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eigners were retained here too long and 2nd, by sustaining our name and fame in Europe, which our press and 'patriots' have worked so hard to destroy. They have made Europe believe that we have neither Army nor Navy, and if they could now show we have cheated the men whom we have decoyed into our service, it would be a coup de grá cc to us.37 The terms of settlement drafted by the War Office committee received final form on 24 September 1856.38 Officers were required to enlist for a period of three years, and men for seven years, as military settlers. The government provided free transportation to all participants and their families. From the day of landing at the Cape the settlers were to be accorded half-pay, which was doubled during periods of active service against the Kaffirs. The sum of £5 was advanced to each man for the purchase of necessary tools and cooking utensils. Noncommissioned officers and privates were allowed a building lot in a "European inhabited town," with an additional acre of land if they chose to settle in frontier regions. NCOs were granted £20, and privates £18, to meet the cost of building their cottages. In the event of the death of a married settler his property descended i:o his widow, who also received a guinea for funeral expenses. In the absence of direct heirs the Cape government inherited. Officers were treated more generously. Their allotment of land for house and garden was double the area assigned to NCOs. They received a building subsidy of £200 for field officers, £150 for captains, and £100 for subalterns. They might also bring with them to the Cape "an unmarried female servant."39 All settlers who refused to renew their enlistment were to forfeit their house and land and any improvements effected on them. The terms encountered a mixed reception.40 The legionaries were unsettled by the continued activities of Argentinian, Dutch, French, and Neapolitan recruiting agents, who circulated quietly through the camps with offers of generous enlistment bounties. Some condemned the Cape project as an attempt by the British government to avoid the grant of severance pay and to "send them out as food for Kaffirs." Others nursed ancient grievances, and recalled with bitterness that a portion of their original bounty money had been withheld to pay for their kit. A further practice equally obnoxious to the European soldier was the British custom 127

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA of pay deductions for routine wear and damage to barrack furnishings. These variations from continental practice shook the faith of legionaries in the good faith of the British government, and led them to suspect that the conditions of settlement at the Cape would not be scrupulously observed.41 Their officers, who had received assurances from deceitful subagents during the recruiting campaign that they would be given twelve months' pay on disbandment, were deeply disillusioned by the revelation that the authorized terms of engagement allowed them only three months' wages as severance pay. On 31 October 1856 the duke of Cambridge wrote to Panmure: The German officers ... are inundating me with letters and petitions ... There can be no doubt that legally these men have no claim on the government, but certainly the whole thing has turned out most unfortunately for them ... Had the war lasted, I doubt not that the Legion would have done good service, and in that case the country would doubtless have done something permanent for the officers ... The three months' gratuity is not sufficient to draw many of them from debt and get them out of the country. Do you not think that this gratuity might be somewhat increased ... or would you give a larger proportion of these men free passage to the Cape, even though they cannot go out as military colonists ... I trust your gout is better.42 Panmure, shackled by the terms of the Foreign Enlistment Act and disinclined to increase demobilization costs, adopted neither suggestion. In the upshot 2,361 officers and men, accompanied by 378 women and 178 children, opted for Cape Colony.43 Some of the men went to Germany to bring out their wives and children. Others, informed of the critical shortage of white women at the Cape, contracted marriages in England. Steinhart himself weighed the desirability of an English wife, but concluded that the language difficulty and the reputed indolence of Englishwomen were insuperable obstacles.44 The first contingent of 1,000 settlers embarked at Gosport on the Culloden and Sultana on 9 November 1856.45 The remainder departed from Spithead ten days later in the Vulcan and the Covenanter. But the majority of the legion prefer-

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Disbandment red repatriation, with the exception of 500 men who elected to settle in Canada. 46

Italian Legion The disbandment of the Italian legionaries was a more complex and difficult transaction. The Sardinian government was willing to accept 1,700 men who had proved their Sardinian citizenship, on condition that they were shipped to Genoa at British expense and disbanded in small groups to avoid the danger of revolutionary commotions.47 The disposal of nearly 1,200 non-Sardinian members of the legion presented a sore problem to their British commanders, to the War Office, and to the Foreign Office. Colonel Burnaby proposed Cyrenaica as a place of settlement. But Lord Stratford de Redclyffe, the British ambassador in Constantinople, replied discouragingly that the Sublime Porte would throw open neither Cyrenaica nor Tripoli to the homeless legionaries.48 General Pennefather, in haste to remove the turbulent legion from Malta, ordered off twenty members to Alexandria, and was ready to dispatch 150 more if the Egyptian government was amenable, which was not the case.99 The possibility of placing the men in Algeria was considered by Clarendon, but Panmure rejected this solution. Panmure himself favoured Argentina, but would approve no formal approach to the Argentinian federal government.5o Amid these uncertainties the legionaries legally disqualified from returning to Italy embarked for England on 19 August 1856 in the transports Tudor, Simoon, City of London, and Charity . Two days later a conspiracy was hatched by the men aboard the Tudor. They planned to seize the vessel by a coup de main, to divert it to the Calabrian coast, and to land there with the object of kindling an insurrection against Ferdinand II of Naples. The selected leader of the revolutionaries was Carlo Pisacane, a Neapolitan exile of considerable reputation who had led a legion in defence of the shortlived Roman Republic in 1849. But Pisacane, an opponent of Mazzinian "brush-fire insurrections," dismissed the project as foolhardy and potentially ineffective.51 Leadership fell by default into the hands of Lt. Francesco Angherå, a young Calabrian

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MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA firebrand.52 He whipped up feeling among his fellow soldiers, still smarting from their recent experiences on Malta, by predicting that their respective governments would never allow them to return to Italian soil. Hence they would be compelled to accept the British offer to settle them in remote and uncivilized colonies. He urged them to make an effort to return to their homeland, where their compatriots were awaiting the signal of insurrection. A strong party of legionaries, inflamed by his discourses, seized and detained their commanding officer, Major de Horsey, and his aides, and made themselves masters of the vessel. But the Sardinian officers on board counselled caution, and persuaded the insurgents to listen to an appeal by de Horsey. At length the conspirators yielded, their prisoners were liberated, and Angherå was put in irons.53 He disembarked under heavy guard, and was taken to London to face a court-martial. After a brief period of detention in military prison at Plymouth he was granted domicile by the Sardinian government, and subsequently joined Garibaldi's Thousand in their celebrated expedition to Sicily in 1860. The returning legionaries from Malta who had successfully claimed Italian citizenship landed at Genoa in four contingents between 6 July and 18 August 1856.54 As each convoy arrived the Sardinian government observed elaborate precautions to prevent the men from falling under the influence of Mazzinian agents lurking in the city. The new arrivals were put ashore in the quarantine hospital at Foce di Bisagno and held incommunicado until they were put on the train to their respective destinations. Some proceeded unsuspectingly to their homes in Lombardy, Tuscany, and Parma on the strength of assurances by the Austrian consulate in Malta that they would not be officially molested. But thirty-one of the returned men were instantly arrested, confined, and courtmartialled at Mantua and elsewhere on charges of entering foreign service without permission of the ruling power. In the meantime the movement of the stateless legionaries, who numbered 37 officers and 1,147 other ranks,55 to England had been completed. The bulk of the force in the Tudor and City of London reached Liverpool early in September and were placed in barracks at York. Smaller contingents in the Simoon and Charity landed at Spithead and were lodged in Portsmouth Barracks. The newcomers gave lavish patronage to the beershops of Portsmouth. When their supply of ready money was exhausted they 130

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obtained credit from publicans and innkeepers in return for promises to discharge their debts out of the year's wages due to them at termination of service. The inspector-general of the legion, Colonel Hudson, countered these ingenious tactics by publicly disclosing that the men would not receive their discharge bounty until they reached the colony of their choice. Meanwhile affrays and stabbings occurred in the Fortune of War and other beerhouses, and the local press began to demand in clamorous terms that the legionaries should be shipped to their future homes immediately.56 Fortunately the Sardinian government, heavily pressed by Clarendon, finally agreed to give political asylum to those stateless legionaries who wished to return to Italy. The majority, who had contemplated emigration with distaste, took advantage of the offer and reached Sardinia by way of Paris and Lyons. The incidents at Portsmouth intensified the strong desire already evident in the War Office to move the legionaries without delay. On 6 September 1856 Panmure reported soothingly to the queen that the Italians "have conducted themselves very well at Portsmouth," and that he hoped to be able to announce their final disbandment in the near future. Clarendon was disturbed by the heavy cost of the process, but was equally anxious "to get rid of our legionary plagues." Your letters gave great satisfaction here, for there was a good deal of uneasiness in high quarters about the arrival of the Italians, and the Germans becoming unpopular by remaining here too long. I think that the Argentine Confederation is the place to look to for the Italians. They would meet there what is congenial to their tastes — fine climate, cheap provisions, abundance of land, and an unsettled government, and we would have the advantage of an unpassable ocean between them and England.S7 Clarendon's letter was related to negotiations conducted by Colonel Hudson with Jose de Buchenthal, agent of the Argentine president, General Urquiza, to plant the residue of the Italian Legion in Argentina as military colonists. The interest of the Argentinian government in encouraging reliable immigrants had been recently strengthened by the murder of the governor of the 131

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA Italian military colony in Bahia Blanca, General Olivieri, by his own soldier-colonists. Some of the offenders deserted, others were imprisoned as incorrigible.58 Buchenthal wished to engage the legionaries as replacements. A draft agreement was drawn up on 12 August 1856, by virtue of which the emigrants were to be employed on the land for three years at a nominal wage and a stipulated share of the annual yield. They were then to receive ten acres each, with farm tools, seed, and stock.S9 Panmure agreed with some reluctance to defray the cost of passage of the mens' wives. The advance contingent of the legionaries embarked at Plymouth on 27 September 1856 in the brigantine San Antonio, and reached their port of destination, La Rosario, on 4 December.eo The Acadia, transporting the balance of 158 officers and men, weighed anchor for Buenos Aires in the port of London on 22 December. As the vessel paused at Gravesend to take on ballast the former legionaries, who had been meticulously disarmed, swarmed ashore to re-equip themselves with appropriate weapons. They refused to surrender their private arsenals to their officers, who reported the impasse to Richard Spratley, the ship's captain. The captain ordered his ship to be towed within range of the 120-gun battleship Waterloo, commanded by Lord Frederick Kerr. The Acadia was boarded by a first lieutenant of the Waterloo, Edward Maunsell, at the head of a strong force of marines. He summoned the Italians to surrender their arms. They made no haste to comply, and a collision seemed imminent. At length an example was set by a private soldier of the Second Regiment, Giovanni Cavice, who discharged the contents of his revolver over the ship's side. He then handed the weapon and his remaining ammunition to the officers of the quarter-deck, and duly received a receipt in return. His comrades gave up a mass of bowie knives, sword sticks, and dirks, to which several items were added following a close search of the men's quarters. Maunsell sternly reminded the legionaries of the obligations imposed by military discipline, and was rewarded by a round of three hearty cheers from his audience.b' The Acadia reached Montevideo in February 1857. The "Crimean immigrants" were then shipped across the estuary of the River Plate to Buenos Aires, and from there by coastal vessel to Bahia Blanca. Their subsequent experiences gave rise to a question in the Commons on 8 June 1857 by Richard 132

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Monckton Milnes, M.P. for Pontefract.62 He charged that the Argentinian agents had misled the men by specious promises of "a beautiful climate, fruit, mutton at a penny a pound, women handsome, industrious, and in need of husbands." Sir John Ramsden, under-secretary for war, replied that some of the emigrants had deserted at Montevideo to take advantage of the current high wages in civilian employment. For the same reason the remainder had petitioned the Argentinian government for release from their contracts, and had received an affirmative answer. Ramsden concluded that, since wages were high and food was cheap, the situation of the men concerned was not intolerable. The House agreed, and turned to other business.

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10 Conclusion

The Crimean War marked the last occasion on which a British government attempted to raise forces of foreign recruits on a significant scale by means of recruiting stations located on the European continent. This method of raising trained personnel embodied a long and ancient tradition of British military policy, and had been extensively employed in the wars of the French Revolution. In that period Swiss, German, and Italian Legions had been added to the strength of the British Army, and this precedent had been vigorously exploited by the proponents of foreign recruiting in 1854. But the easy aristocratic view, typical of the eighteenth century, that armies could be recruited from all sources regardless of nationality and subsequently given coherence by strong discipline, was not so readily acceptable half a century later. The vigorously insular middle class of England, strongly self-confident but totally inexperienced in the conduct of war, reacted instinctively against all suggestion of reliance upon foreign "mercenaries." But the opposition, in and out of doors, to the Foreign Enlistment Bill could offer, despite its clamorous protests, no alternative proposal for raising a substantial force of trained and seasoned troops within a minimum period. The recruiting problem had suddenly become acute at the close of the year 1854, as a result of the heavy losses sustained at Balaclava and Inkerman, and the casualties occasioned by disease and inadequate hospital facilities. From this time onwards the recruiting problem possessed a twofold aspect. First, there was the standing difficulty of attracting new recruits of any sort. The deeper causes of this failure were variously explained. But there was a surprisingly general tendency to relate the inadequate inflow of recruits to

Conclusion

rural depopulation produced by enclosure, emigration, and excessive industrialization. Thus the "sturdy peasantry," the backbone of the army, had been forced to emigrate or to pass into the great industrial centres, where physical robustness and military spirit inevitably decayed. Such urban dwellers "are given to discontent, unruliness, scorn of property rights, whereas in the countryside order rules."1 In this order of ideas, the progress of depopulation in the Highlands following the expulsion of the crofter class and the mass exodus from Ireland, which had reached its peak in 1851-52, were referred to in strongly pathetic terms.2 This analysis was conducted in terms which smacked of the sixteenth rather than the nineteenth century. The actual economic influences which retarded recruiting were of an entirely different order. British agriculture was enjoying a booming period of war prosperity, stimulated by the virtual suspension of grain imports from Russia.3 The expansion of agricultural production fully absorbed the available supply of rural labour, since the mechanization of farm production had not yet become general. Wheat prices mounted steadily, reaching a peak of 74s.8d. per quarter in 1855, as compared with 53s.3d. in 1853, and agricultural wages rose in sympathy. The demand for labour in the basic industries, which had been heavy in 1854, fell off in 1855 in consequence of the celebrated "great frost" of that year. Bread riots were staged by the unemployed dockers of London and Liverpool in late February. The paralysis of water transport induced by the frost enforced a slow-down of production in the iron and textile trades, with a corresponding reduction in the demand for coal. Unemployment grew in the Birmingham, Staffordshire, and Newcastle areas, accompanied by wage-cutting, strikes, and agitation meetings directed against the excessive price of the quartern loaf, which had risen to one shilling. Unemployment and hard times in industry did not, however, provide the anticipated stimulus to army recruiting. The urban labourer, perhaps unfavourably impressed by the reports of bungling and mismanagement in the Crimea, seemed prepared to endure the seasonal stagnation as a passing economic phase. Enlistment in the army traditionally 135

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA involved a term of service of ten years, and no separate financial provision was made by the army authorities for the support of the wives and families of married men. Industrial wages, though low, were steadily rising, and compared favourably with army pay of one shilling per diem. The deterrent influence of the low wage scales offered by the armed forces was a factor of some importance," since no difficulty was experienced in enrolling civilian labourers for the Crimea when the rates of pay were sufficiently attractive. The prominent railroad construction concern Peto, Brassey, and Betts offered five shillings per day and rations to the labourers who built the celebrated Balaclava Railway in 1855. Their London offices in Waterloo Road were besieged by "masses of fine stalwart men eager to be engaged," "the very élite of England as to physical power." More than 3,000 of these impressive specimens were selected and enrolled without the slightest difficulty.5 Lastly, employers in general feared that vigorous and intensive recruiting for the army would curtail the supply of industrial manpower, enhance the cost of labour, and bring on an economic crisis. If the price of a soldier were to be raised ... to twice its present value, and consequently the value of wages to be raised in the same proportion, the result would be, sooner or later, that the war would be terminated, not by success in arms, but either by the departure of capital or by a combination of interests to put down such an intolerable burden. ... We might, by emptying the home market of a portion of labour, raise 50,000 or even 100,000 men. But we could not go on year after year recruiting forces on such a scale from the very sources of that power and wealth which constitute our strength. When our existence as a nation is at stake, we may then task our utmost efforts; but we have not yet come to that pass.6 At the governmental level Panmure did not give evidence of unqualified enthusiasm for the Foreign Enlistment Act, which he had inherited, with a host of other distracting problems, from the previous administration. Moreover, the prospect of successful foreign recruiting had been clouded when he took office by the 136

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active counter-measures of the Prussian government and by the adroitness of Russian agents, who had carefully collected and widely publicized the remarks on "foreign guttersnipes, cutthroats and condottieri" indulged in by the parliamentary opposition and the press. But Panmure did not allow his private doubts and hesitations to mitigate the severity of his attack on the opposition. He charged that the relentless criticism of the act inside and outside Parliament had gravely discouraged recruiting in Germany and elsewhere for the projected foreign legion. Despite its lukewarm support of the bill, the House displayed considerable restiveness over the alleged delay of the ministry in setting its provisions in motion. On 4 May 1855 H. Baillie, M.P. for Inverness, pointed out that the army was still 41,000 men below strength, and added pointedly that the Foreign Enlistment Act had already been in force for five months. He was followed by G. W. P. Bentinck, M.P. for Norfolk, who angrily demanded an explanation of the "unaccountable delay" in giving effect to the act. Frederick Peel, under-secretary for war, replied that the legislation was being implemented. Several officers were already raising men in Germany, he said, and depots would soon be prepared for the recruits in Heligoland and England.? The House was far from satisfied with these observations, which were considered over-optimistic. On 18 May the issue was again raised, and Peel conceded that great initial difficulties had been experienced in raising recruits abroad; but "more active measures" had been instrumental in raising a current total of between 3,000 and 4,000 recruits.8 The critics were not yet disarmed, and suggested on 15 June that the offer of land in Canada for settlement might exercise a favourable effect on the rate of recruitment. Peel responded that no direct guarantees that land would be provided had been furnished by the government. But it had been informally suggested to Sir Edmund Head, the governor general of Canada, that enlistments would be encouraged if such an offer of land in Canada were made. Here Lord John Russell interjected the observation that his predecessor as secretary of state for the colonies, Sir George Grey, had submitted the proposal to the colonial legislature, which had adjourned without taking action.9 Incontestably the time lost in opening the recruiting campaign for the foreign legions was a weighty cause of the disrepute into which the whole plan subsequently fell. The delay prevented any 137

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA of the effectives of the three legions from coming to grips with the enemy. Hence the whole scheme could be readily and eloquently condemned from the standpoint of its barrenness in positive results. Since the legionaries saw no actual service in the Crimea, they could establish little or no claim on the sympathy of the British parliament and public. The responsibility for the ultimately fatal delay in enrolling recruits must be divided between the critics of the design inside and outside Parliament, whose violent strictures contributed to the initial paralysis of recruiting on the Continent, and Panmure himself, who failed to push with adequate vigour a measure inherited from his predecessor in office. The delay in implementing the Foreign Enlistment Act was matched by the delay occasioned by the difficult conditions under which recruiting was carried on. The extent and complexity of these difficulties, notably in Sardinia, had not been fully foreseen by the War Office.10 On a superficial view, the prospects of rapid and large scale recruitment of legionaries in Sardinia seemed to be reasonably favourable. Anglo-Sardinian relations were friendly. The Sardinian system of military training provided a large reservoir of trained men as potential recruits for the legion. The lengthy pension list of Sardinian officers retired on half-pay constituted a pool of experienced commanders which the government, from motives of economy, might encourage to take service in the projected legion. Lastly, the War Office anticipated a heavy enrolment in the legion from the Italian liberal émigrés who, expelled from Lombardy and deprived of their property after the risings of 1848 and 1853, had taken refuge in Sardinia. The anticipation of a successful recruiting campaign was falsified by a complex and wholly unforeseen sequence of events. The Sardinian government was rapidly made aware that the establishment of recruiting stations on Italian soil was widely regarded as offensive both in Sardinia itself and in the neighbouring states. It appears that the Cavour ministry had not at first contemplated the possibility that the legionaries would be retained and trained on Sardinian soil. Thus it became a matter of public notoriety and comment that the Anglo-Italian Legion was better fed, better clothed, and better paid than the Sardinian regulars themselves. The issue provided considerable political leverage to the conservative-clerical opposition in Sardinia, and to the Mazzinians who 138

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would have preferred to divert Italian manpower to an assault upon Austria. Diplomatically, the presence of the legion on Italian soil furnished Austria with a further argument in favour of her continued neutrality, namely, that the menace of the legion to her Lombard frontier prevented her from diverting forces against Russia in alliance with Britain and France. In these difficult circumstances, it was perhaps strange that the War Office did not simply recruit prospective legionaries in Sardinia and convey them immediately out of the country for embodying and training. The initial refusal of the Sardinian government to recognize the legal existence of the legion, the failure of Cavour promptly to execute his promise to provide barrack accommodation, and the cumbrous procedures requisite for obtaining military stores and supplies for the legion all demonstrated the unwisdom of retaining the force on Sardinian soil. In addition, costs were greatly increased by the necessity of completing the construction of the Novara barracks, and by the expense of hiring otherwise unobtainable items of equipment from the Sardinian army. The control of these rising costs in the interests of economy was complicated by the absence of a responsible chief accountant, whose duties were performed in a rather haphazard manner by the harried commander himself. The paymasters sent by the War Office were new to the work and fell frequently into error. The quality of the officer personnel of the legion was highly diverse. The Sardinian War Ministry, which relaxed its attitude of official aloofness when La Marmora's contingent was being assembled for the Crimea, took care to recommend only those officers whose services were dispensable. Sardinian cabinet ministers, ambassadors, and other dignitaries readily furnished testimonials to applicants of notoriously bad character. The terms of enlistment were not sufficiently generous to attract Italian officers of high calibre, who saw no personal advantage in temporarily transferring their services to this unpopular and untried force. Hence the higher ranks from major upwards remained exclusively British. The Italian rank and file and junior officers were unhappy under this foreign leadership, all the more so because some of the British officers seconded to the legion were not of superior age and rank. Finally, the expense of the legion was greatly enhanced by poor administration and control of the issue of military supplies and 139

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA equipment. No centralized control of issue, and of the accounts thereof, was maintained. These matters were confided to temporary barrack-masters and quartermasters of Sardinian origin. These junior officers had no previous experience of their duties, since the office was unknown in the Sardinian army. The appointees possessed little authority and received scanty support from their British colleagues. Thus disputes with the rank and file were frequent, and the settlement of accounts fell grievously into arrears. Problems of discipline and administration were initially less acute in the case of the German Legion, which possessed a solid nucleus of officers and men who had served together in the Schleswig-Holstein campaign, and a resolute and influential guiding spirit in the person of Stutterheim. His emphatic liberal views, evidenced by his long service in the anti-Carlist cause of Spain, happily reflected the political convictions of many of the legionaries. Moreover, many of the recruits from the German states had completed their period of obligatory military training. Thus when the legion reached the height of its strength 40 per cent of its effectives were men with basic training or campaign experience. The officer personnel was markedly stable in its composition. Of nine field officers, only one resigned. Of 112 officers of lesser rank, only eight resigned." Hence the mosaic of principalities and nationalities represented in the legion did not apparently operate as a divisive influence. The failure to bring the force into contact with the enemy was occasioned in part by the extended period of training required to familiarize the legionaries with the use of the new Minie rifle, and by the reluctance of Panmure to furnish the legion with a cavalry and artillery arm. Stutterheim, supported by Cambridge, finally prevailed upon him to sanction the formation of a mere two squadrons of light cavalry, but he was inflexible on the issue of artillery. No contingent of the legions was set in motion towards the Crimea until October 1855, when Sevastopol had already fallen. Their deployment against the enemy in the succeeding operations was effectually prevented by the armistice of February 1856. Panmure was conscious that the failure to bring the legions into contact with the enemy would give a keener edge to domestic criticism of foreign recruiting. He wrote ruefully at this time to Sir

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William Codrington: "The principal regret that I feel in this sudden peace is that our foreign levies have had no trial in the field, but it cannot be helped."12 The process of raising a Swiss Legion met serious obstacles from the outset. French recruiting for the Second Foreign Legion began in January 1855, four months before the British campaign was set in motion. Adverse reports on the prospect of recruiting regular troops reached Panmure from Gordon and Dickson in April 1855. Panmure was therefore obliged, if he wished to persevere with the project, to accept the prospect of enlisting a considerable proportion of relatively unseasoned recruits. Active recruiting proceeded from May 1855 under somewhat unfavourable conditions. The terms of enlistment precluded the engagement of officers of outstanding reputation. In their absence the legion lacked prestige and power of attraction. The rising desperation of the recruiting committee led them to promise officers fifteen months' pay at disbandment, with a bonus for distinguished service. Rankers received assurances of an "allotment of cultivable land" in Cape Colony or North America and two years' pay.13 Even these unauthorized inducements did not greatly accelerate the rate of enlistment. Possibly the offer of a colonial homestead held little appeal for pasture farmers and artisans. The recruits, as citizens of a liberal republic, were not political malcontents, and were prepared to return to a country which was willing to receive them without imposing punitive measures in retaliation for their period of foreign enlistment. The growing official scepticism over the feasibility and desirability of employing foreign volunteers in separate formations was faithfully reflected in an exchange of views between Cambridge and Panmure during the critical phase of the Indian Mutiny, when the numerical inferiority of the regular forces there was being severely felt. Cambridge proposed to raise two or three foreign regiments in England by enrolling alien recruits on English soil. He was now definitely opposed to the establishment on the Continent of recruiting agencies for foreign legions in the British army. He favoured composite multinational battalions under the command of British officers, disciplined and controlled in full conformity with standard army regulations.14 Panmure, who was evidently prepared to profit from recent experience, failed to

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MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA share the duke's enthusiasm. He replied that foreign troops could be raised only by sanction of Parliament, which had already displayed a strong distaste for foreign recruits. He objected further on the ground of expense, and pointed out that a lengthy period of training would be required to instruct foreigners in army drill and the standard formulae of command. On these grounds, Panmure concluded, the cabinet had decided against raising foreign legionaries "for the present."15 This formal rejection by the cabinet of the proposals of the commander-in-chief in a moment of extreme military crisis was eloquent of the rising degree of prejudice against the further employment of foreign troops. The adverse verdict of the cabinet in 1857 reflected the extent to which official opinion had evolved since the introduction of the Foreign Enlistment Bill in 1854. The decision to introduce the bill, precipitated by the desperate shortage of "seasoned" troops, was apparently favoured by diverse groups and schools of thought. To the aging generation of military conservatives who were imbued with the Wellingtonian tradition, there was nothing shameful or objectionable in drawing upon Continental manpower for army purposes. Secondly, the influence of the Court, notably that of the duke of Cambridge, Prince Albert, and the queen herself, was discreetly exercised in favour of foreign recruiting, particularly in Germany. Thirdly, liberal internationalists like Lord John Russell nourished the hope of inciting a joint crusade of all the "constitutional powers" of the West against Tsarist Russia, a bastion of European conservatism. This aspiration fitted neatly into the diplomacy of Clarendon, who may have hoped that a successful recruiting campaign would make some impression on the stubborn neutralist policy of the Austrian and German states vis-a-vis Russia. The adverse reception afforded to the plan for foreign enlistments undoubtedly surprised the Aberdeen ministry. But by the close of 1854 its current unpopularity had reached such a high pitch that any legislative measure which it sponsored would inevitably have been subjected to sharp and, indeed, merciless scrutiny by an irritated public opinion. Moreover, the rising demand for administrative reform, evidenced in the Trevelyan-Northcote Report of 1853, had already rendered public opinion sensitive to the spectacle of bungling and inefficiency in any part of the governmental machine. The "aristocratic spirit" which, according to 142

Conclusion

reformers, still pervaded the organs of government, could see little objection to the use of foreign recruits, which had been a standard practice for many centuries. Liberal middle-class opinion in England, however, regarded foreign enlistments as a practice typical of reactionary governments intent upon finding military tools for the destruction of liberty at home and abroad. But the conviction that the war was a national enterprise was by no means carried to its logical conclusion by middle-class opinion. It was unalterably opposed to conscription, of course. It clung with surprising tenacity to the traditional view that the raw material for the army should be drawn by voluntary recruitment from the upper class, which supplied the officers, and from those elements of the lower classes which were incapable of, or disinclined towards, useful and productive activity in civil life. The conviction remained firmly rooted that military service ruined the habits of sobriety and industry which the middle class looked for in its employees. The spokesmen of the middle class, notably Richard Cobden, warned the nation of the awful consequences which would ensue if the delicate mechanisms of industrial production were injured by massive transferences of manpower from industry to the army. The middle class itself, dedicated to the arts of peace, and contemplating the operations in the Crimea as a fascinating but remote spectacle, felt no strong compulsion to become personally involved in the hostilities. "Hitherto," wrote Cobden early in 1856, "the British public appear to have regarded the army as an abstraction — as something which the Government and Parliament can provide from some source apart from themselves."16 It was precisely this attitude which had driven the government to grasp the nettle of foreign enlistment. The move was rewarded with a storm of criticism from a middle class whose chauvinism was sorely irritated by the implication that Great Britain could not fight her own battles.

143

Appendix A

Foreign Recruiting in the British Isles, 1815-35 The enlistment of British Legions on British soil by various foreign regimes after 1815 contributed to preserve the conviction that these military formations were normal and acceptable. The degree of success attained by foreign recruiting among the population of the United Kingdom during this period originated in the exceptional military, political, and economic conditions created by the abrupt transition from war to peace in 1815. Officers of long experience did not uniformly welcome the prospect of disbandment on half-pay, nor had they all rejected the deeply rooted professional tradition that service with a foreign power had no dishonorable implications. In Spain and elsewhere they had fought side by side with the insurgent nationalities which had finally thrown off the intolerable weight of the Napoleonic imperium. Hence after 1815 the struggle of the Greek people and of the Spanish-American colonies for independence touched a responsive chord in officers of national and liberal sympathies. The rank and file who followed them were often hastily disbanded regulars or militiamen who had passed directly out of the armed forces on to parish relief, or victims of the postwar depression engendered in part by the abrupt slackening of military demands on the economy. Despite the apparently favourable conditions, foreign recruiting in the British Isles after 1815 was not dramatically successful. Bolivar's agent Luis Mendez began recruiting in London on behalf of the insurgent South American colonies of Spain in 1817. He offered a generous bounty, double the daily pay of the British regular, and a gratuity with a land allotment at the close of service. British officers recently disbanded on half-pay contracted 145

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA with him to raise contingents of stipulated strength. The nucleus of their following was usually composed of veterans of the French wars, attracted by the terms of service and the prospect of free passage to the fabled riches of Spanish America. Between 1817 and 1819 about 4,000 recruits were raised. But the Foreign Enlistment Act of 1819, enacted under pressure from Spain, prohibited recruiting on behalf of colonies in a state of insurgency against the metropolitan power. Clandestine enlistments raised the total to between 5,000 and 6,000 men by 1826, when recruiting ceased. British recruiting for the War of Greek Independence lay in the hands of the Greek Committee which, formed in London in 1823, was headed by Joseph Hume, John Bowring, and David Ricardo. Philhellenic sentiment was strong, and the committee was extraordinarily successful in mobilizing loans and credits for the hard-pressed Greeks. Byron advised the committee to spend up to half a million pounds in recruiting on British soil an army of liberation, to be commanded by his newly found friend Col. Charles Napier. But the committee wisely preferred to extend naval aid, and decided in 1824 to expend a loan of £800,000 in the construction of warships. Hence volunteers for the land war in Greece were not actively sought. Britain provided the Greek cause with a rather unsuccessful general, Sir Richard Church, a veteran of the Peninsular War. But among the rank and file the German, and more specifically the Bavarian, contribution far outweighed the British. In 1831 the ci-devant emperor of Brazil, Dom Pedro, appeared in London and began recruiting an expeditionary force in support of his daughter Maria, whose Portuguese throne had been usurped in 1828 by her odious uncle Dom Miguel. The officers on half-pay who contracted with him to raise men for the expedition experienced serious difficulty in filling their respective quotas. Ensign (later Sir) Charles Shaw, a red-haired Scot of awesome energy, conducted a peripatetic recruiting campaign from a succession of dilapidated houses in the East End of London, moving his headquarters when the neighbours became inquisitive and keeping the back doors open as an avenue of escape in the event of a police raid. Yet he raised only 300 men of his full quota of 1,200. They included ex-soldiers and unemployed, a few clergymen, lawyers, and medical students, an artisan group of carpenters, weavers,

146

Appendix A

and cobblers, and one or two superannuated prize fighters. The men, recruited as "labourers for Brazil," received sixpence on enlistment and were drafted into a "British battalion" commanded by Col. Lloyd Hodges, a veteran of the Peninsular war. Shaw, his second-in-command, contrived to raise a contingent of "Scotch Fusiliers" from the unemployed handloom weavers of Glasgow, and subsequently succeeded Hodges when his superior resigned in disgust. Dom Pedro and his chief aide, the inscrutable Mendizabal, superintended recruiting operations from an obscure eating house in Threadneedle Street, and drew into their net a mixed bag of 550 French, German, Dutch, and Polish recruits. Indeed, British recruits constituted only a minority of the celebrated Seven Thousand who disembarked near Oporto on 8 July 1832 to measure strength with the Miguelists. The formation of a British Legion in 1835 to defend Isabella II of Spain against the pretensions of her wicked uncle Don Carlos was undertaken by the mercurial General de Lacy Evans under far more favourable conditions. After two attempts to repeal the Foreign Enlistment Act in Parliament had failed, Palmerston suspended temporarily the operation of the act by an order-in-council. Clandestine methods of enlistment were therefore unnecessary, and main recruiting stations were opened in London, Glasgow, and Dublin. Subagents thirsty for "bringing money" occasionally overstepped the bounds of strict legality: an ancillary recruiting station at Portsmouth was closed down by government order when agents attempted to recruit the regular troops of the Portsmouth garrison. The Spanish minister to London, General de Alava, had stipulated a maximum strength of 10,000 for the legion. But no more than 8,000 men answered the call, although the initial term of service was fixed temptingly at one year with the option of renewal for the same period. Even this strength was attained only by enlisting men with gross physical defects, who were placed on the muster rolls by unscrupulous collaboration between "bringers" and recruiting officers intent upon filling their contractual quotas. The surgeon of the legion, Rutherford Alcock, examined the men on their arrival at San Sebastian in October 1835. He discovered that one thousand legionaries were physically unfit for active service. Among them were men

147

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA

broken with age, hunchbacks, and cases of club foot. Foreign recruiting in the United Kingdom was obviously attended by special difficulties and problems to which domestic recruiting for the regular army was not subject. Nevertheless the foregoing examples of foreign recruiting may furnish some tentative indications of the habitual reaction of the British manpower market to military demands in general. The raising of a few thousand men for foreign causes, even if the recruiting was clandestine, presented no insuperable difficulties. After reaching its modest peak the quantitative curve of enlisted men tended to dip steadily as the stock of easily accessible volunteers in urban centres was depleted by the process of recruitment. It remained to be seen whether the same curve would appear, naturally on a much greater scale, in the event of heavy emergency demands for manpower by the regular army The emergency did not arise until the Crimean War. In the meantime the recruiting requirements of the army could be met by relatively moderate calls upon the manpower of the three kingdoms, not yet seriously depleted for recruiting purposes by the policy of "shovelling out paupers" through assisted emigration.

148

Appendix B

Return of officers, NCOs and men enlisted in each of the Foreign Legions during the late war (HOUSE OF COMMONS SESSIONAL PAPERS, XXVII, 151)

Germans Swiss Italians

Officers

NCOs

Men

441 136 160

539 165 195

8,702 2,993 3,226

EXPENSES

(a) Recruiting, embodying and concentrating £ 96,380 Germans 22,820 Swiss 6,840 Italians (b) For clothing Germans Swiss Italians

30,135 9,525 13,751

(c) For bounty, including kit 57,378 Germans 18,960 Swiss 20,526 Italians

149

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA (d) Pay of officers

German 76,408 Swiss 25,715 Italians 56,401 (officers, NCOs, men) (e) Pay of NCOs and men

Germans Swiss

190,717 61,133

(f) Subsistence

Germans Swiss Italians

27,470 9,112 11,567

(g) Gratuities on joining and discharge

i. Officers Germans 47,672 Swiss 16,591 Italians 78,069 (officers, NCOs, men) ii. NCOs and men Germans Swiss

138,800 63,200

GO For conveyance home

Germans Swiss Italians

22,820 8,430 8,501

Grand total

Germans Swiss Italians

687,800 235,486 195,855 1,119,141

150

Appendix C

The Officers of the German Legion (H. Müller. Biographische Notizen über die Offiziere, Militärärzte und Beamte der ehemaligen Schleswig-holsteinischen Armee und Marine [Kiel, 1886], pp. 36-77). The success of Stutterheim in recruiting his former comrades in arms in the Schleswig-Holstein campaign may be illustrated by brief biographical sketches of some officers of the German Legion. Major von Aller, a Dane by birth, entered Turkish service after the Schleswig-Holstein campaign as aide to Omar Pasha. He returned to take command of the Second Infantry Regiment of the legion in 1855. Major von Clasen, a native of Schleswig, was expelled in 1851 and took refuge in Hamburg. He found employment later in the Bavarian state telegraph service, but in 1855 entered the legion as major in the Fourth Jägers. He accompanied part of his regiment to the Cape after disbandment, but returned in 1864 to settle in Wiesbaden. Maj. Adolf von Hake, a Prussian officer with estates near Berlin, served as adjutant to Field-Marshal Blücher at Jena (1806), where he rescued the colours of his regiment. He was decorated with the Iron Cross for his bravery at Waterloo in 1815. During the Schleswig-Holstein campaign he acted as staff captain to the Fourth Freikorps under General von der Tann. As lieutenant-colonel in the German Legion he won the affection of his men, who dubbed him der alte Dauerlauf by reason of his liking for long forced marches as a method of training. During the disturbances in the legion at Browndown in October 1856 he intervened on behalf of the legionaries, was charged with disobedience by his superior 151

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA Colonel Woolridge, and placed under arrest. His men attempted to rescue him by force, with the result that five of them were tried by court-martial and publicly flogged. Panmure was inclined to order his dimissal, but was dissuaded by Stutterheim, who argued that von Hake's aid was essential in settling the legionaries in Cape Colony. The military colony founded by von Hake and his men near King William's Town in 1857 was known as Berlin, from the location of the commander's Prussian estate. It was here, on the pleasant headwaters of the Tschabo River, that von Hake died on 1 August 1858. Major von Schroer emigrated to the United States after the collapse of the Schleswig-Holstein uprising, but soon returned to accept a position on the Prussian state railways. He subsequently resigned in order to accept the command of the Fourth Jägers of the legion. After disbandment he returned to the United States, and served in the American Civil War as a Confederate officer. After the close of the war in 1865 he settled in Germany, and died at Wiesbaden ten years later. Major von Wenck, also a veteran of the Schleswig-Holstein campaign, sought asylum in Hamburg and found employment as secretary of a mercantile firm. In 1855 he enlisted in the Fifth Regiment of the legion, returned to Germany on disbandment, and became an inspector of gas installations in Rundsburg. Captain Ginestous, a Prussian officer, took up residence in Lübeck in 1851 after the collapse of the Schleswig-Holstein uprising. He lived there in utter poverty until 1855, when he entered the legion with the rank of captain. Captain von Gönner, excluded like Ginestous from the amnesty of 1851, lived in obscure circumstances until 1855, when he joined the legion. He took advantage of the British offer of emigration to the Cape in 1857, but returned to Germany in 1868. Captain Hake, an officer of the Austrian army, emigrated to North America after the Schleswig-Holstein campaign, but returned in 1855 to enter the legion. He died en route to the Crimea, and was buried at sea. Captain Husarczewski was a Prussian officer who joined one of the Freikorps in the Schleswig-Holstein campaign. In 1855 he became a captain of Jägers in the legion. After disbandment he taught languages briefly in Blackpool and Margate before emigrating to the Cape. 152

Appendix C

Captain von Jess, an engineering officer, served with Stutterheim on the staff of the Schleswig-Holstein army and was wounded at the battle of Idstedt during the Schleswig-Holstein campaign. On recovery he found employment in Baden as a civil engineer. In 1854 he vainly attempted, in concert with Captain Dann, to obtain from the Bund the payment of the pensions of the German officers who had participated in the Schleswig-Holstein campaign without official permission. He left civilian employment to enlist in the legion in 1855. Captain La Croix, who fought with the Holstein Bundeskontingent between 1848 and 1851, entered the legion in 1855 with the rank of captain. He accepted the British offer of emigration to the Cape, where he died in 1857. Captain Schneider, after being compelled to resign his commission for his participation in the Schleswig-Holstein hostilities, secured a position as inspector of railways on the Hamburg-Berlin Line. He entered the legion early in 1855, and after its disbandment emigrated to the Cape and settled on a farm near Grahamstown.

153

Appendix D

The Officers of the Italian Legion (A. Savelli, Scoria di Malta [Milan, 1943], pp. 388-91) The muster roll of the officers of the Italian Legion during its stay on Malta revealed a wide variety of lieux de provenance, as the following table suggests: NAME Cavanna, Paolo Ribotti, Ignazio Pinelli, Ferdinando Fontana, Giuseppe Corte, Clemente Angherå, Francesco Beaufort, Virgilio De Cristoferis, Carlo Pisacane, Carlo

RANK Colonel Colonel Lt.-Colonel Major Major Lieutenant Lieutenant Lieutenant Lieutenant

PLACE OF ORIGIN Romagna Nice Piedmont Modena Piedmont Calabria Mantua Lombardy Naples

All had participated in the Italian uprisings of 1848-49. De Cristoferis took part also in the Milan insurrection against Austria in 1853, and returned from exile in Switzerland to join the legion. Carlo Pisacane had acquired military experience as a lieutenant of engineers in the kingdom of Naples and as an officer in the French Foreign Legion. After the disbandment of the legion he attempted to kindle an insurrection in the kingdom of Naples, and lost his life at Sapri on 2 July 1857. De Cristoferis met the same fate during the assault on San Fermo by Garibaldi and his Thousand on 27 May 1859. Ironically, both officers in their extensive writings 154

Appendix D on military affairs had condemned the Mazzinian theory that successful insurrections could be ignited by small bands of devoted revolutionaries. Cp. Carlo Pisacane, Guerra combattuta in Italia negli anni 1848-49 (Genoa, 1851), p. 354. Carlo De Cristoferis, Che cosa sia laguerra (Milan, 1860), pp. 49, 51.

155

Appendix E

The Officers of the Swiss Legion (J. J. Romang, Die englische Schweizerlegion und ihr Aufenthalt im Orient [Langnan, 1857], p. 117) BRIGADE STAFF

Col. Charles Dickson Maj. E. A. de Winton Capt. Baron Olivier de Gingins Maj. Adolf Wäber, chaplain FIRST LIGHT INFANTRY REGIMENT

Lt.-Col. Jakob Blarer Capt. Karl Ludwig Häfelin Capt. Theodor Fornaro SECOND LIGHT INFANTRY REGIMENT

Lt.-Col. Balthasar a Bundi Capt. Friedrich Ginsberg Ernst Martignoni SHARPSHOOTER COMPANY

Capt. Johann Spillmann

156

Appendix F

The Geographical Composition of the German and Italian Legions (E. B. de Fonblanque, Treatise on the administration and organization of the British army [London, 1858], p. 434) GERMAN LEGION

Number 2,544 1,048 816

700 548 488 472 464 412 356 324 284 264 180 136 126 92 56

Place of origin Prussia Bavaria Hanover Germans from U.S.A. Baden Schleswig-Holstein Austria and Switzerland Hesse Belgium Saxony Hamburg Mecklenburg Luxemburg Brunswick Württemberg Gotha and Saxe-Weimar Holland Nassau

9,310

157

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA ITALIAN LEGION 1,719 837 218 114 85 59 27 25

3,084

158

Piedmont Lombardy Parma Modena Tuscany Rome Hungary Naples

Notes

Chapter One (pp.1- 25) 1. The statute was reenacted with amendments in 1703: 2 and 3 Anne, cap. 10. Statutes of the Realm, Henry ///to Anne, 9 vols. (London, 1816-21), vut, 271.

2.1 Anne, cap. 19. Ibid., p. 71. 3. 3 and 4 Anne, cap. 10. [bid, pp. 356-58. 4. The impressment of farm labourers at harvest time (1 June-25 September) was prohibited by statute in 1706. The preamble complained that many farm workers had absconded in fear of forcible enlistment, and that those who remained had demanded extravagant rates of wages. 6 Anne, cap. 17. Ibid., p. 588. 5. The amended bill dropped the clause requiring 16,000 men, and applied compulsory enlistment only against persons without visible means of subsistence. CommonsJournals, xv, 508. 6. 7 Anne, cap. 2. Statutes of the Realm, ix, 40. 7.5 and 6 William and Mary, cap. 15. Ibid., vii, 479-80. 8. Commons Journals, xi, 108, 110, 117, 118, 130, 132. The traditional privileges of the House of Commons were involved in the incident, since one of Tooley's prisoners was a member's servant. The immunity of members' servants from arrest was not rescinded until 1770. 9. W. Cobbett, Parliamentary history of England, 36 vols. (London, 1806-20), ix, cols. 849-51. The reinstatement of the clause was opposed by Gen. George Wade and other senior officers in the Commons. 10.The procedure was described at length in a report of 1746 by a parliamentary committee of inquiry into the state of the armed forces. Parliamentary Reports, n (London, 1803), 120-29. 11. Manuscripts of the House of Lords, 1695-1697 (Historical Manuscripts Commission Report 58), n (London, 1903), 134. 12. Cobbett, Parliamentary history, xiv, col. 1283. 13. 17 Geo. u, cap. 5. Statutes at large, ed. D. Pickering, 109 vols. (Cambridge and London, 1762-1869), xvm, 150. 14. Cobbett, Parliamentary history, xxm, col. 650. 15.Ibid., xxiv, col. 111.

159

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA 16. Ibid., xvm, cols. 1156 ff. Lord Barrington supported the subsidy treaties because "recruits could not be procured on any terms" at home. 17. Ibid., xx, cols. 113-24. The practice of raising troops by public subscription, introduced during the Seven Years' War, was resumed in 1778. The funds collected by public subscription in the cities of London, Liverpool, and Manchester were placed at the disposal of the Crown for use as enlistment bounties. Ibid., cols. 614 ff. 18. General Oglethorpe had raised the issue in the House of Commons as early as 1756, without effect. Ibid., xiv, cols. 723-60. 19.23 Geo. ni, cap. 50. Statutes at large, xxxiv, 292-93. 20.Commons Journals, xux, 67. 21. Cobbett, Parliamentary history, xxxi, cols. 374-433. Strong opposition in the Commons compelled the government to accept the various limitations imposed to ensure the passage of the bill, which was finally adopted without a division. 22. Expenditure on enlistment bounties was estimated at £440,000 for the year 1795. Commons Journals, L, 43. 23. Journals and correspondence of Sir Harry Calvert, ed. H. Verney (London, 1853), p. 52. 24. Annual Register, 1794, pp. 24-25. Scots Magazine, LVI, (1794), 646-48. 25. 38 Geo. m, cap. 17. Stabiles at large, xu, 581-82. 26. 39 Geo. in, cap. 1. Ibid., xui, 465-73. House of Lords Sessional Papers, 1796-1797, ed. F. W. Torrington, 2 vols. (New York, 1974), i, 1-12. 27. As recently as 1796 the minimum height for recruits under eighteen years of age had been fixed at five feet three inches. 37 Geo. m, cap. 24. Statutes at large, xu, 179 ff. 28. The history of the foreign regiments in British service during the French war has been traced by R. Bittard des Portes, L "exil et la guerre: Les émigrés å cocarde noire en Angleterre, dans les provinces beiges, en Hollande el å Quiberon (Paris, 1908); by Vicomte Grouvel, Le corps de troupe de 1 emigration francaise (1789-1815), I: Service de la Grande Bretagne et des Pays Bas (Paris, 1957); and by C. T. Atkinson, "Foreign regiments in the British army," Society for Army Historical Research Journal, xxi (1942), 175-81, xxii (194344), 2-14, 45-52, 107-15, 132-42, 187-97, 234-50, 265-76, 313-24. 29. Commons Journals, Lxv, 638. The total was composed of 133, 554 British troops and 17,039 foreign and colonial effectives. 30.43 Geo. m, cap. 82. Statutes at large, xi.v, 479-97. 31.44 Geo. in, cap. 56. Ibid., xLV, 230-47. 32. Speeches in parliament of the Right Honourable William Windham, 3 vols. (London, 1812), n, 385 ff., 333 ff.; in 30 ff. 33. Memoirs and correspondence of Viscount Castlereagh, ed. G. W. Vane, 12 vols. (London, 1848-53), vin, 16 ff. 34. Ibid., pp. 62 ff. The enlistment rate was disappointing because, in pursuance of Castlereagh's proposals, the number of recruiting parties had been doubled from 500 to 1,000 in 1806-1807 in order to intensify recruiting activities in the rural areas, which had been inadequately covered hitherto.

160

Notes 35. 47 Geo. ni, cap. 57. Statutes at large, xLVU, 405-406. i.xux, 635. 37. 54 Geo. in, cap. 1. Statutes at large, un, 1-7. 38. 48 Geo. m, cap. 15. Ibid., xLVm, 46. Masters could reclaim only those apprentices bound to them by indenture for a full seven-year term. 39.49 Geo. ni, caps. 12, 18. Ibid., xux, 34-35. 40. R. E. F. G. North, "The raising and organizing of the King's German Legion," Society for Army Historical Research Journal, xxxix (1961), 167-92. The subsequent history of the legion is surveyed by B. Schwertfeger, Geschichte der königlich•deutschen Legion, 1803-1816, 2 vols. (Hanover, 1907). 41. Parl. Debates, 3rd ser., xxiv, col. 345. 42. Philip Henry, fifth earl of Stanhope, Notes of conversations with the Duke of Wellington, 1831-1851 (London, 1889), p. 18. 43. Edinburgh Review, v (1804-1805), 1-22, at pp. 12-13. 44. Ibid., xI (1807-1808), 171-82. 45. Commons Journals, Lxv, 612. 46. Parl. Debates, 1st ser., xxxvI, cols. 516-30. 47. The Black Dwarf no. 10, 2 April 1817. Cp. ibid., no. 46, 10 Dec. 1817. 48. Commons Journals, Lxxvi, 632; Lxxvu, 654. 49. Ibid., Lxxtx, 552-53; Lxxxfi, 622-23; LXXXIII, 570-71. 50. Ibid., Lxxxiv, 428-29. 51. Ibid., Lxxxvi, 965. 52. The exact total of effectives provided for in the Mutiny Act of that year was 95,628. 5 and 6 Vic., cap. 17. Statutes al large, Lxxxn, 34. 53. Parl. Debates, 3rd ser., Lxvi, col. 1370. 54. Ibid., Lxxxi, cols. 1388-89. 55. Ibid., xcL, col. 650. 56. Punch, ix (1845), 237. 57. Ibid., vii (1844), 233. 58. John Mitchell, Thoughts on tactics and military organization (London, 1838), pp. 242, 256-57. The author, a veteran of the French war, was better known to the reading public under his nom de plume of Captain Orlando Sabretache. 59. Henry Marshall, Military Miscellany, comprehending a history of the recruiting of the army, military punishments, etc. (London, 1845). Marshall, a regimental doctor during the Napoleonic Wars, was one of the pioneers of military medicine. His celebrated report (1846) on the health and mortality rate of the West Indies garrisons had led to immense improvements in treatment and sanitation conditions in the "charnel house" of Jamaica. 60. G. R. Gleig, Sketch of the military history of Great Britain (London, 1844); Robert Jackson, View of the formation, discipline, and economy of armies (London, 1845). 61. "The moral discipline of the army," Quarterly Review, Lxxvi (1845), 387-424. The criticism of recruiting is extracted from an article on "Education and lodging of the soldier," ibid., Lxxvii (1845-46), 526-63. 36. Commons Journals,

161

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA 62. Parl. Debates, 3rd ser., txxxiv, cols. 1046-47. 63. Ibid., cols. 864-65, 870 ff. 64. John Stevenson, A soldier in time of war (London, 1841), p. 153. 65. James McMullen, Camp and barrack room, or the British army as it is (London, 1846), pp. 17 ff. The more respectable recruits may have enlisted in the army on impulse, or as the result of a fortuitous chain of events. John Pearman, a railway guard, enlisted after a violent dispute with his superintendent, with whom he nearly came to blows. Sergeant Pearman's Memoirs, ed. Marquess of Anglesey (London, 1968), pp. 21-22. Robert Waterfield intended to enlist in the navy, but was diverted to the 32nd Foot by a chance encounter with an old school friend in the regiment. The memoirs of Private Waterfield, ed. A. Swinson and D. Scott (London, 1968), pp. 2-4. 66. Part Debates, 3rd ser., xcvi, cols. 900-35. 67. Ibid., cols. 1392-1415. 68. Sir Robert Peel from his private papers, ed. C. S. Parker, 3 vols. (London, 1899), m, 205. Peel agreed that Parliament would not accept a steep increase in military expenditures, since the national debt amounted to £787 millions and the annual debt charge was £28 millions. Ibid., p. 209. 69. G. R. Gleig, Personal reminiscences of the first Duke of Wellington (Edinburgh and London, 1904), pp. 337-38. 70. Life and correspondence of Field Marsha!! Sir John Burgoyne, ed. G. Wrottesley, 2 vols. (London, 1873), ii, 486-87. For Lady Shelley's role in publicizing Burgoyne's criticisms, see Diary of Francis, Lady Shelley, 1818-1873, ed. R. Edgcumbe, 2 vols. (London, 1913), n, 272 ff. Burgoyne's alarmist views were warmly supported by Gen. Sir Francis Head, who demanded an increase of 100,000 regulars at an estimated cost of £3,670,000 annually. Sir Francis B. Head, The defenceless slate of Great Britain (London,1850), pp. 187 ff. 71. Parl. Debates, 3rd ser., cxix, col. 1305. 72. Ibid., cxxi, cols. 205, 222, 337. Earl Grey pointed out that the £6 bounty for militia volunteers, compared with the current enlistment bounty of £4 for volunteers into the regular army, would impede recruiting for the regulars. Ibid., cxxii, col. 736. 73. G. R. Gleig, Essays biographical, historical, and miscellaneous, 2 vols. (London, 1858), t, 209-11. The essay was written in July 1852. 74. Parl. Debates, 3rd ser., cxxiv, cols. 654-55. 75. Ibid., col. 358. The Society for the Promotion of Permanent and Universal Peace had extended its activities after 1848 under the influence of its newly appointed secretary, Henry Richard, a Congregationalist minister. Cp. C. S. Miall, Henry Richard, M. P.: A biography (London, 1888). The society, which contained a large Quaker element, gave strong support to the projects of Cobden and Bright for the settlement of disputes by international arbitration. The related conviction that the army in its present form was superfluous and economically nonproductive was reflected in a petition to the House of Lords by the mayor, aldermen, and citizens of Sheffield. They requested the total disbandment of the army by degrees, beginning with the immediate discharge of 10,000 men. In the meantime, measures

162

Notes were to be taken to employ officers and soldiers on works of public utility. Lords txxxv, 159. The petition, dated 11 April 1852, was allowed to lie on the table. 76. Parl. Debates, 3rd ser., cxxiv, col. 689. 77. Times, 14 April 1854, p. 6.

Journals,

Chapter Two (pp. 26 — 34) 1.K. Bornes, Preussen im Krimkreig, 1853-1856, p. 130; Wilma Hocker, Der Gesandte Bunsen als Vermittler zwischen Deutschland und England (Göttingen, 1951),

pp. 54 ff. ed. G.P. Gooch, tt, 163; Lady Frances Balfour, The Life of George, Fourth Earl of Aberdeen, 2 vols. (London, n.d.) tt, 214, 216. Russell's demand for 50,000 Swedes was an interesting reflection of his estimate of the scale of military effort required. At the height of the Napoleonic Wars Britain had subsidized only 30,000 Swedish troops (Treaty of Stockholm, 3 March 1813). 3. He was known as "Hurry" Hudson to his colleagues. 4. F. Curato, ed., Le relazioni diplomatici ira la Gran Bretagna ed il regno di Sardegna: Il carteggia diplomatiche di Sir James Hudson, 1852-1856, II, no. 511, pp. 170-71. (henceforth cited as Relazioni diplomatiche); Diario politico di Margherita Provana di Collegno, 1852-1856, ed. A. Malvezzi, pp. 184-85. 5. Relazioni diplomaliche, it, no. 509, p. 169. 6. A. Cullberg, La politique du roi Oscar I pendant la guerre de Crimie, 2 vols., i, 77 ff.; C. Hallendorff, Oscar 1, Napoleon und Nikolaus (Stockholm, 1918), pp. 44 ff.; P. Knaplund, "Finmark in,British diplomacy," American Historical Review, xxx (1924-25), 478-502. 7. H. Ritter von Poschinger, ed., Preussen im Bundestag, 1851 bis 1859, i, no. 243, p. 379; it, no. 33, p. 55, nos. 76-78, pp. 135-41, no. 80, p. 145, no. 83, p. 151. 8. H. Friedjung, Der Krimkrieg und die österreichische Politik, pp. 104 ff. 9. L. Bittner, ed., Chronologisches Verzeichnis der österreichischen Staatsverträge, in, no. 3003, p. 57, no. 3006, p. 58. 10. Von Poschinger, Preussen im Bundestag, tt, no. 76, p. 135. 11. Ibid., no. 78, p. 141; J. von Jasmund, ed., Aktenstücke zur orientalischen Frage, i, 413 ff. 12.Von Jasmund, Aktenstücke zur orientalischen Frage, t, 432 ff. 13. Von Poschinger, Preussen im Bundestag, ti, no. 119, p. 216. 2. The Later Correspondence of Lord John Russel, 1840-1878,

Chapter Three (pp. 35 — 43) 1. Secrets of the Second Empire, ed. F. A. Wellesley, p. 50: "We must recruit as fast as we can, but there are no men to be had — emigration and high wages beat us." 2. Later Correspondence of Lord John Russell, tt, 159-60, 163. 3.15 and 16 Vic., cap. 50.

163

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA 3rd ser., cxxxvii, cols. 546 ff, 1173 f. 5. Ibid., col. 550. 6. Ibid., cxxxiii, col. 312. 7. Ibid., cxxxvt, cols. 689 ff. 8. By the close of the was the militia had provided only 33,000 recruits to the regular army. Annual Register, 1856, p. 55. 9. Parl. Debates, 3rd ser., cxxvt, cols. 693-94. 10. Sir J. D. Astley, Fifty years of my life, p. 126. 11. Parl. Debates, 3rd ser., cxxxvi, cols. 698 ff. 12. Ibid., col. 697. The steady increase in the bounty given to recruits on enlistment reflected the serious nature of the problem. The bounty stood at £4 at the beginning of the war. It was raised to £6 in the autumn of 1854 and to £8 in January 1855. Ibid., col. 1548. 13. Ibid., xci, col. 273. 14. The pace of economic recovery is emphasized by J. R. T. Hughes, Fluctuations in trade, industry and finance: A study of British economic development, 1850-1860 (Oxford, 1960). 15. Trines, 14 May 1854, p. 8. 16. Par!. Debates, cxxxvi, col. 247. 17. Cp. The political writings of Richard Cobden, ed. E. W. Chesson, tt, 516-17. Lp. also letter from Prince Albert to his brother Ernest, 16 May 1854: "Unser Noth ist unser Prosperität: wir können keine Soldaten, Seeleute, Schiffe bekommen. So enorm geht der Handel, die Industrie, and die Auswanderung ... Der Krieg wird kein schneller sein können, wenn die deutschen Mächte nicht beitreten." Ernst II Herzog von Sachsen -Coburg-Gotha, Aus meinem Leben und aus meiner Zeit, n, 181. 4. Par!. Debates,

Chapter Four (pp. 44 - 55) 1. Royal Archives (henceforth cited as RA), G 19/1: Albert to Aberdeen, 11 Nov. 1854; Sir Theodore Martin, Life of the Prince Consort, in, 127-28. Albert's conviction that Austria would not adhere to the Anglo-French alliance in the foreseeable future was expressed to Clarendon. The Conservative and Radical press in England had recently charged the prince with undue interference in military affairs. Hence he felt that his authorship of the plan for a foreign legion should remain confidential. 2. Later Correspondence of Lord John Russell, n, 172.

3. Foreign Office (henceforth cited as FO), 30/168, 153: Malet to Clarendon, 6 Dec. 1854. 4. Annual Register 1794, pp. 241 ff. 5. L. Hertslet, ed., A complete collection of the treaties between Great Britain and foreign x, 182-84. 6. Parl. Debates, 1st ser., tt, cols. 934-37, 944-45. 7. Ibid., xxty, col. 858. 8. Ibid., 3rd ser., cxxxvi, cols. 254-60. 9. Ibid., cols. 260-63.

powers,

164

10.Ibid., cols. 264-65. 11.Ibid., cols. 344-45. 12.Ibid., cols. 351-53. 13.Ibid., cols. 429 ff. 14.Ibid., cols. 442 ff. 15.Ibid., cols. 509-18. 16.Ibid., cols. 590-602. 17.Ibid., col. 618. 18.Ibid., col. 761. 19.The proposals included an increase in the enlistment bounty and the shipment of Sepoys from India to the Crimea. Ibid., col. 797. 20.Ibid., col. 893. 21. The amendments were approved by the Lords on Sunday 23 December at a special session and without debate. Only twenty-three peers put in an appearance. Lords Journals, t.xxxvtt, 17-18. The text of the act (18-19 Vic. cap. 2) is in Statutes of the Realm, xcv, 7-8.

Chapter Five (pp. 56 - 66) 1. C.C.F. Greville, A journal of the reign of Queen Victoria from 1852 to 1860, ed. H. Reeve, ttt, 180-83. 2. Times, 15 Dec. 1854, p. 6: "To introduce into the army foreigners, adventurers, outcasts, nameless, unknown people, who may or may not be exiles for their crimes, is the very way to degrade the service and make it the refuge of immorality and rebellion." 3. Ibid., 16 Dec. 1854, p. 9. 4. Ibid, 21 Dec. 1854, p. 8. 5. Ibid., 22 Dec. 1854, p. 7. 6. Illustrated London News, xxv (1854), 637. The periodical later deplored the "ungenerous outcry" against the Foreign Enlistment Act, but suspected that it would prove to be ineffective in raising troops. Ibid., xxvt (1855), p. 6. 7. Blackwood's Magazine, Lxxvtl (1855), 16 ff. 8. Fraser 's Magazine, Lt (1855), 122 ff. 9. Edinburgh Review, ct (1855), 283. 10.Eclectic Review, ix (1855), 124-26. 11.Colburn's United Services Magazine, xxvtt, pt. 1 (1855), 111. 12.Ibid., xxvn, pt. 2 (1855), 275-76. 13. Times, 28 Dec. 1854, p. 7. 14.Quarterly Review, XCVt (1854), 297. 15.Punch, xxvl (1854), 29. 16.Economist, xtt (1854), 1413-14. 165

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA 17. Greville, pp. 180-83. 18. J. Lemoinne, "L'Angleterre et la guerre," pp. 1250-69. 19. Correspondence and conversation of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, ed. M. C. M. Simpson, ii, 292 ff. 20. Werke von K. Marx und F. Engels, ed. Institut für Marxismus-Leninismus, Berlin, 39 vols. (Berlin, 1959-68), x, 589-90. 21. Political writings of Richard Cobden, ii, 515, 518. 22. Werke von K. Marx und F. Engels, xi, 181-82.

Chapter Six (pp. 67 - 79) 1. FO, 30/168, 153: Malet to Clarendon, 29. Dec. 1854. 2. War Office (henceforth cited as WO), 2/65, 357: War Department to Stutterheim, 30 Dec. 1854. 3. R. von Stutterheim, Kriegszüge in Spanien, a modest and rather impersonal chronicle. 4. H. Müller, Biographische Notizen über die Ofiziere, Militärårzte and Beamten der ehemaligen Schleswig-Holsteinischen Armee and Marine, pp. 42, 163. 5. H. von Moltke, Gesammelte Schriften, 8 vols. (Berlin, 1892-93), vii, pp. 269-70. 6. WO 2/65, 269: Paschal to War Department, 1 Jan. 1855: Memorandum on the formation of a foreign legion. 7. WO 2/65, 260. 8. Colburn .c United Services Magazine, xxvii, pt. 1 (1855), p. 451: "There was scarcely a department connected with the military administration which had not just and reasonable cause to complain of his peremptory language, his officious intermeddling, and his insolent demeanour." Cp. the strongly coloured portrait by A. W. Kinglake, The invasion of the Crimea, iv, 225: "The Scotch Hercules.... mighty in curses, rough tongued and rough mannered... more the rhinoceros than the tiger of Palmerston's Cabinet... He received his marching orders submissively from the sheets of the Times, proceeded at once to obey them, and so trudged doggedly on, without giving other vent to his savageness than a comfortable oath and a growl. Whilst he trudged he would even explain to any less docile fellow-prisoner how vain and foolish it was to dream of attempting resistance." 9. Times, 11 Jan. 1855, p. 7. 10. Ibid., 20 Jan. 1855, p. 9. 11. The Panmure Papers, ed. G. B. Douglas and G. D. Dalhousie, 1, 65. 12. Parl. Debates, 3rd ser., cxxxvi, col. 1613: "Means must be found, if not gentle, then they must be found by compulsion, for recruiting the ranks of Her Majesty's service." 13. Ibid., col. 1735. 14. Both feared that the major military honours of the campaign would be reaped by the numerically superior French army unless the British forces in the

166

Notes Crimea were rapidly expanded. Sir Herbert Maxwell, The Life and Letters of George ti, 72-73. 15. WO 2/65, 125. 16. WO 2/65, 165: War Department to Stutterheim, 24 April 1855. 17. Text in W. E. Rappard, La constitution federale de la Suisse, pp. 391 ff. Article xi was ratified by sixteen of the twenty-two cantons. 18. P. de Vallivre, Honneur et fideliti: Histoire des Suisses au service etranger, p. 729. 19. J. J. Aellig, Die Au/hebung der schweizerischen Stildnerdiensie im Meinungskampf des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, pp. 84 ff. 20. FO 100/91,1: Gordon to Clarendon, 1. Jan. 55. 21. On the advice of Gordon and Clarendon. FO 100/91, 7. 22. FO 100/91, 19: Gordon to Clarendon, 15. Jan. 1855. 23. FO 100/91, 35: Gordon to Clarendon, 26 Jan. 1855. 24. FO 100/91, 43: Gordon to Clarendon, 8 Feb. 1855. 25. FO 100/91, 33, 37: Gordon to Clarendon, 23 and 27 Jan. 1855. 25. WO 2/65, 326: Dickson to Panmure, 3 April 1855. 27. FO 566, 137, 162: Panmure to Gordon, 1 and 2 May 1855. 28. Relazioni diplomatirhe, it, no. 490, p. 147; no. 493, p. 152; no. 494, pp. 152-153. 29. ibid., no. 518, pp. 177 f. 30. Panmure Papers, t, 87. On 20 April 1855 the French and British forces before Sevastopol were respectively 80,000 and 25,000 strong. Ibid., p. 158. 31. Relazioni diplomatic/re, It, no. 512, p. 172. 32. Life and correspondence of Sir John Burgoyne, ti, p. 242. 33. Relazioni diplomatirhe, ii, no. 617, p. 271. 34. Panmure Papers, 1, 232. 35. WO 2/65, 178: Panmure to Hudson, 12 June 1855. 36. WO 2/65, 265, 309, 317: Clarendon to Panmure, 31 Jan., 13 Aug., 30 Oct. 1855. William Frederick, Fourth fart of Clarendon,

Chapter Seven (pp. 80 -106) 22 Jan. 1851, p. 6. 2. The impact of war on the duchies is treated at length by Holger Hjelholt,

1. Times,

SOnderjylland under treårskrigen.

3. A. Baudissin, Geschichte des Schleswig-holsteinischen Kriegs, p. 733. Maj. -Gen. Count Baudissin was commanding officer of the First Infantry Brigade of the SchleswigHolstein army. 4. Ibid., p. 739. 5. Lebenserinnerungen des Schleswig-holsteinischen Oberstes Johann Nikolaus von Färsen Bachmann, ed. O. Fürsen, pp. 161, 172.

6. Von Poschinger, Preussen im Bundestag, tt, no. 48, p. 84.

167

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA 30 Dec. 1854, p. 7. 8. WO 2/65, 130. Bismarck, who had not taken the Foreign Enlistment Act seriously, was surprised by the sudden burst of activity. Die gesammelten Werke, 15 vols. (Nendela, 1972), XIV, pt 1, 402. 9. FO 33/148, 35. Hodges to Clarendon, 23 May 1855. 10.FO 33/148 (unnumbered), 2, 8, 19 June 1855. 11. Times, 15 June 1855, p. 8; 26 June 1855, p. 9; 26 Oct. 1855, p. 8; 8 Dec. 1855, P. 5. 12. WO 2/65, 260, 261: Panmure to Colonel Kinloch, 1 and 4 June 1855. 13.Gustav Steinhart, Briefe aus Helgoland. 14. Ibid., pp. 2-4. 15. Times, 30 May 1855, p. 9. 16. The steamship Hamburg, which plied weekly between Hamburg and London, put in regularly at Heligoland from 25 April 1855. WO 2/65, 240. 17. The leader of the party, Lt. A. R. Lempriere, reported on arrival that the island had been isolated by accumulations of ice for the past five weeks, and that the inhabitants, lacking bread and meat, had been on the verge of starvation. Colonel Mundy of the War Office minuted: "A wretched place, I fear." WO 2/65, 167. 18. Times, 4 May 1855, p. 10. 19. WO 2/65, 240, 241. 20.. WO 2/65, 242, 243. 21. WO 2/65, 11, 88. 22. WO 2/65, 244: Report of Lieutenant Steinbach to the War Office, 22 May 1856. 23. The most valuable source of British information on the enlistment question is House of Commons, Sessional Papers, Lx: Papers relating to recruiting in the United States, pp. 1 ff. The diplomatic aspects have been treated by H.B. Learned in The American Secretaries of Slate and their diplomacy, ed. S. F. Bemis, vi (New York, 1928), 237-62, and more calmly by R. W. van Alstyne, "John F. Crampton, conspirator or dupe?", American Historical Review, xLt (1936), 492-502. The activities of Joseph Howe have been traced by J. B. Brebner, "Joseph Howe and the Crimean War controversy between Great Britain and the United States," Canadian Historical Review, xi (1930), 300-27. 24. Parl. Debates, 3rd ser., cam, cols. 14-109, 120-206. 25. Panmure Papers. t, 292. 26. WO 2/65, 218. 27. WO 2/65, 180. Ribotti had participated in the Calabrian uprising of 1848 against the Bourbon dynasty. He was captured, condemned to the penal galleys, and released after six years through the diplomatic efforts of the Sardinian, French, and British governments. A. Monaco, 1galeolti politici napoletani dopo it 1848, t, 182-83. Cavanna had commanded a corps of volunteers in defence of the short-lived Roman Republic of 1848-49. After its suppression he had taken refuge in Switzerland. 7. Times,

168

Notes 28. Cavour e l %nghilterra: Carteggio con V. E. d Azeglio, ed. Commissione reale editrice, 1, no. 147, p. 111. C. Cavour, Letten edite e indite, ed. L. Chiala, u, 333: "Nous verrons avec plaisir la formation d'un corps qui nous delivrerait probablement de la portion la plus turbulente de l'emigration." 29. He subsequently increased his estimate to 20,000 men. Relazioni diplomatiche, ii, no. 619, p. 271. 30. FO 67/208, 183, 184; Relazioni diplomahrhe, n, no. 759, p. 383. 31. WO 2/65, 81. 32. FO 67/208,18, 19, 20; Relazioni diplomatiche, u, no. 707, p. 337. 33. WO 33/3, 837. Cavour had expected that legionary recruits would be sent out of Italy for training immediately after enrolment. Hence he was reluctant to place the Novara barracks at the disposal of the British, since he foresaw that the other Italian states would protest against the presence of "British garrisons" on Italian soil. 34. Panmure Papers, 1, 375. 35. FO 67/208,192. 36. FO 67/208,191. 37. WO 2/65, 81. 38. FO 67/207, 365. 39. Relazioni diplomatiche, II, no. 701, p. 328. 40. Ibid., no. 808, p. 429. 41. WO 2/65, 312. 42. Cavour e l7nghilterra, i, no. 171, pp. 127-28. 43. FO 67/214, 96; WO 2/65, 279, 280, 311. 44. Relazioni diplomatiche, u, no. 739, p. 367. 45. Ibid., no. 741, p. 369; Panmure Papers, i, 436-37. 46. FO 67/208,183, 184; WO 2/65, 181. 47. FO 67/208, 197. 48. Relazioni diplomatiche, n, no. 724, p. 350. 49. Ibid., no. 816, p. 438. 50. WO 2/65, 182; FO 67/222, 34, 259; Relazioni diplomatiche, II, nos. 816, 822, pp. 438, 446. 51. Relazioni diplomatiche, u, no. 843, p. 458. 52. F. Valsecchi, ed., Le relazioni diplomatiche fra 1 Austria ed il regno di Sardegna, IV, no. 159, pp. 229-30: Report by Ludwig Paar, Austrian chargé d'affaires in Turin, 6 Dec. 1855. 53. Ibid., no. 163, pp. 223 ff. 54. Relazioni diplomatiche, II, no. 677, pp. 306 ff. 55. WO 2/65, 349: Panmure to Gordon, 1 June 1855. 56. WO 2/65, 299: Panmure to Dickson, 15 Jan. 1856. 57. WO 2/65, 328: Dickson to Panmure, 4 July 1855. 58. FO 566, 351: Gordon to Panmure, 10 Nov. 1855.

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA 59. On 4 July 1855 the War Office warned Dickson against any interference by his agents in French recruiting in Switzerland. Dickson denied the imputation, and affirmed that French agents were raiding his recruits. WO 2/65, 328. 60. FO 100/94, 199: Gordon to Clarendon, 21 Dec. 1855. 61. FO 70/280, 42: Temple to War Department, 25 July 1855. 62. FO 165/125, 5: Goodwin (British agent in Palermo) to Temple, 16 Oct. 1855. 63. WO 2/65, 328, 329: Temple to War Department, 19 Sept. and 23 Oct. 1855. 64. WO 2/65, 329: Gordon to Clarendon, 26 Feb. 1856. 65. FO 100/92, 100: Gordon to Panmure, 21 June 1855. 66. FO 566, 123: Gordon to Clarendon, 8 Aug. 1855. 67. FO 566,146, 256, 271: Gordon to Panmure, 27 July, 10 Sept., 8 Oct. 1855. 68. Johann Jakob Romang, Die englische Schweizerlegion and ihr Aufenthalt im Orient, p. 117. The author, a lawyer, poet, and man of letters, was a lieutenant in the legion. His account of its internal history, though inaccurate in some details, is valuable. 69. Ibid., pp. 79, 98 f. 70. For the Dover affair, see p.p. 134-35. 71. Romang, p. 16. 72. FO 100/93, 119: Gordon to Clarendon, 26 July 1855. 73. It appeared that Baumgartner had made an "extract" from the official conditions of enlistment which offered more favourable terms than those set forth in the original version. He submitted the extract to Dickson, who handed it back to him for circulation but did not sign it. Thus Dickson unofficially encouraged deception, but protected himself against possible complications in the future by refusing to sign the document. Part. Debates, 3rd ser., cxLvi, cols. 1335-42; Romang, p. 100. 74. The revised procedure was reported in the Oberländer Anzeiger, 22 Aug. 1855, p.4.

Chapter Eight (pp. 107 - 116) 1.WO 2/65, 346, 347: War Office to Ordnance, 3 Feb. and 31 March 1855. 2. WO 2/65, 92: War Office to Colonel Kinloch, 9 June 1855. Kinloch was appointed inspector-general of the legions on 1 May 1855. WO 2/65, 211. 3. WO 2/65, 93: War Office to Colonel Kinloch, 4 Sept. 1855. 4. Panmure Papers, 1, 235. Cambridge, the queen's cousin, offered his services as colonel-in-chief of the German Legion, and was accepted by Panmure. Ibid., p. 132. 5. Romang, Die englische Schweizerlegion, pp. 16-17; WO 2/65, 269. 6. WO 2/65, 364, 366. 7. WO 2/65, 273: Colonel Kinloch to War Office, 10 July 1855. 8. Panmure Papers, 1, 233, 273.

170

Notes 9.Ibid., p. 339; Letters of the Prince Consort, ed. K. Jagow, p. 231.

10. Panmure Papers, 1, 372. 11. WO 2/65, 295. The civil police were remunerated by the War Office for apprehending deserters from the legions. WO 2/65,132. 12.WO 2/65, 286. 13. WO 2/65, 385, 386: War Office to Colonel Kinloch, 13 Oct. 1855. 14. WO 2/65, 130: Panmure to the queen, 28 Sept. 1855. 15. On 23 July 1855 L. Palk, M.P. for Devonshire, complained in the House that no foreign legionaries had been sent to aid the British in the Crimea. Parl. Debates, 3rd ser., cxu, cols. 1313 ff.

16. Panmure Papers, t, 433. 17. WO 2/65, 385. The First Regiment consisted of two battalions of 25 officers and 678 men each. WO 2/65, 328.

18. Panmure Papers, 1, 491. 19.Ibid., p. 460. 20.Ibid., p. 469. 21. Lady Alice Blackwood, A narrative of residence on the Bosphorus throughout the Cri-

mean War, pp. 210, 216. 22. WO 2/65, 131, 132, 359: Woolridge to the War Office, 14 and 28 Jan. 1856. 23.Romang, p. 29. 24. FO 67/215, 207; Relazioni diplomatiche, II, no. 885, p. 499: War Office to Hudson,15 March 1856.

25. Relazii ni diplomatiche, n, nos. 871-72, pp. 483-84: Hudson to Clarendon, 23 and 26 Feb. 1856; Cavour e !%nghilferra, I, no. 257, p. 200. It transpired that the men placed under arrest had criminal records and had enlisted under assumed names. 26.FO 62/217, 104: Clarendon to Hudson, 1 March 1856.

27. Cavour e 1 %nghilterra, I, no. 258, p. 201; no. 286, pp. 224-25; no. 287, p. 225. 28.Ibid., no. 292, pp. 228-29. 29. U. Rattazzi, Discorsi parlementari, ed. G. Scorazzi, iv, 142-46. 30. Par!. Debates, 3rd

ser., cm, cols. 1790 f.

31. Cavour e 1 %nghilferra, I, no. 427, p. 355. 32. Ibid., no. 429, p. 357. On 10 Aug. 1855 George Bowyer, M.P. for Dundalk, expressed the suspicion in the House of Commons that Palmerston intended to use the Italian Legion after the end of the war to assist the Sardinian government in acts of aggression against the conservative regimes in Italy. Palmerston replied that the legion was too small in numbers to endanger the peace of Italy. Further, it would be disbanded before repatriation, and would not therefore return to Italy as an organized entity. Part Debates, 3rd ser., cxu, cols. 2105-111. His subsequent rejection of Cavour's scheme may have been influenced by this parliamentary incident.

33. Relazioni diplomatiche, u, no. 889, p. 503; no. 899, p. 511. On the eve of embarkation the legion comprised 3,436 men of all ranks. Ibid., no. 883, p. 497.

171

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA 34. Times, 14 May 1856, p. 7; 24 May 1856, p. 12. The gravity of the disturbance is underestimated by A.V. Laferia, British Malta, I, pp. 224-25. Cp. Agostino Savelli, Scoria di Malta, pp. 388-91. For Panmure's anxiety see WO 196/6, 38. 35. Relazioni diplomatiche, iI, no. 929, pp. 527-28: Clarendon to Hudson, 16 May 1856. Caaour e ! %nghilterra, I, no. 929, p. 527. 36. Pail. Debates, 3rd ser., CXLII, col. 1401. 37. Romang, 83-85. 38. Ibid., p. 86. 39. Ibid., pp. 96-98.

Chapter Nine (pp. 117 - 133) 1. Parl. Debates, 3rd ser., cxtl, col. 999. 2. WO 6/196, 11, 13. 3. WO 6/196, 86. 4. Panmure Papers, ii, 292. 5. WO 2/65, 330, 331. 6. WO 2/65, 322, 323. 7. WO 6/196, 3. 8. WO 2/65, 334. On 29 Nov. 1856 the Swiss government disavowed as citizens twenty-two of a list of twenty-nine legionaries tardily submitted to it by the Foreign Office with a view to ensuring their repatriation. WO 2/65, 188. 9. WO 2/65, 277, 336. 10. Part Debates, 3rd ser., cxLVi, cols. 1335 ff. 11. After the rejection of the petition by the House of Lords the queen, possibly at the instigation of the prince consort, made a gift to the officers from the privy purse of a sum equal and in addition to the three months' severance pay to which they were officially entitled. The officers made repeated attempts between 1857 and 1864 to bring pressure to bear on the British government by petitioning the Swiss Federal Council to make representations on their behalf, but the Council declined to take action. 12. Panmure Papers, ii, pp. 150, 153. Clarendon was equally emphatic in urging Panmure to treat the legions with generosity. "Our name and fame in Europe depend on it. If war breaks out again, we may want foreigners." Ibid., p. 166. 13. WO 2/65, 89: Bloomfield to Panmure, 11 April 1856. 14. WO 2/65, 132. 15. Times, 13 May 1856, p. 11. 16. WO 2/65, 183. 17. WO 2/65, 135: Sir Gaspard Le Marchant, lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia, to the War Office, 14 Aug. 1856. 18. WO 2/65, 134.

172

Notes 19. WO 2/65, 12; Times, 19 July 1856, p. 9; 23 July 1856, p. 5. The disorders did not die down until 2,000 German legionaries were transferred from Aldershot. George Duke of Cambridge: A memoir of his private life, ed. E. Sheppard, t, 180. 20. Parl. Debates, 3rd ser., cxun, col. 1034. 21. Ibid., col. 1035. 22. Ibid., cols. 1108-111. 23. WO 2/65, 136. 30 Aug. 1856. 24. Portsmouth Times and Naval Gazette, 30

Aug. 1856, p. 4.

25. Ibid., 6 Sept. 1856, p. 4. 26. Panmure Papers, it, 313-14. 27. Ibid., pp. 275 ff.: Panmure to the queen, 26 July 1856. The year's wages payable on disbandment would be sacrificed by those rankers who accepted Panmure's offer. 28. WO 2/65,135. 29. Times, 15 Aug. 1856, p. 8. 30. Steinhart, Briefe aus Helgoland, p. 11. 31. Ibid., pp. 12-14. 32. WO 2/65, 382; Panmure Papers, ii, p. 287. 33. Panmure Papers, n, p. 292. 6 Sept. 1856. 34. Ibid., p. 295. Sept. 1856, p. 9. 36. Panmure Papers, n, 298. 35. Times, 13

37. Ibid., p. 295. 38. Text in The Times, 27 Sept. 1856, p. 12. The Times later observed: "We know that an outcry may be raised against this proposition as emanating from the Court. But it is the best possible. Where shall we find Englishmen who will emigrate to the Cape and fight for 6d. a day?" Times, 2 Oct. 1856, p. 6. 39. Panmure permitted legionaries with wives in Germany and elsewhere to proceed to their domiciles and to bring the women back to England for emigration. But he insisted that the men concerned should bear the whole cost of the preliminary journey. WO 6/196, 140. The wives and fiancées, British and foreign, were accommodated pending their departure in a dismasted naval vessel, the Britannia, in Portsmouth harbour, and in various lodging-houses in the city. Steinhart, p.14. 40. The duke of Cambridge unjustly blamed Stutterheim for the cool reception of the terms by the legionaries. He complained to Panmure that Stutterheim had "made a mess of things," and that the legion was "daily becoming more turbulent and disagreeable." Panmure Papers, n, 312. 25 Oct. 1856. 41. Times, 1 Oct. 1856, p. 7; 2 Oct. 1856, p. 6. 42. Panmure Papers, n, 313. 43. E. B. de Fonblanque, Treatise on the administration and organization of the British army, pp. 125, 434. The author was assistant commissary of the Italian Legion. 44. Steinhart, p. 14.

173

MERCENARIES FOR THE CRIMEA 45. WO 2/65, 136; Panmure Papers, u, 319. Panmure assured the queen that the embarkation had proceeded "in good order." 46. WO 2/65,184. The residue of the legion remained in England after disbandment and took employment as language teachers, secretaries, and so forth. 47. WO 2/65,184; FO 67/233, 5; Relazioni diplomatiche, u, no. 958, p. 563. 48. WO 2/65, 185, 186. 49. WO 2/65,185. 50. WO 2/65, 187; Relazioni diplomatiche, u, no. 981, pp. 577-78. 51. G. Falco, "Note e documenti intorno a Carlo Pisacane", pp. 241-302, at p. 261; N. Roselli, Carlo Pisacane net risorgimento italiano (Turin, 1932), pp. 275, 297. 52. The Angherå family had been leading carbonari since the 1820s. Domenico Angherå, the so-called "archpriest," fled from Calabria in 1848 under sentence of death, but retained close relationships with an underground network of partisans. G. Berti, l democratici e 1 iniziativa meridionale net risorgimento, pp. 132, 201-203. Francesco was imprisoned, but escaped to Genoa in 1850. Roselli, Carlo Pisacane, p. 397. 53. De Horsey was an officer of the Grenadier Guards, and his adventures aboard the Tudor were duly chronicled by Sir F. W. Hamilton, The origin and history of the first or Grenadier Guards, m, 288. The episode receives passing mention in the work of Primo Levi, Luigi Orlando e i suoi frate/li per la patria e per 1 industria italiana, p. 98. 54. WO 2/65, 185, 186; Relazioni diplomatiche, it, no. 958, p. 563. 55. Ibid., no. 995, pp. 587-88. 56. Hampshire Telegraph and Susses Chronicle, 23 Aug. 1856, p. 5, and 30 Aug. 1856, Ix 5. 57. Panmure Papers, u, 295. 58. J. Alsina, La immigration europea en la republica argentina, p. 35. 59. WO 2/65, 186; Panmure Papers, t[, 290. The legionaries were to be settled at Parana on the River Plate. WO 2/65,188. 60. WO 2/65, 187. The emigrants numbered 4 officers and 261 men. WO 2/65, 190. 61. WO 2/65,188. 62. Parl. Debates, 3rd ser., cxt.vi, cols.1338 ff.

Chapter Ten (pp. 134 - 143) 1. The quotations are extracted from an unsigned article, "Our rural population and the war," Blackwood's Magazine, LXXVIII (1855), 734-56, at p. 746. 2. Times, 6 Jan. 1855, p. 8. 3. The journal of the Quaker farmer William Lucas offers ample evidence to this effect. A Quaker journal: being the diary and reminiscences of William Lucas of Hitchin (18041861), ed. G. E. Bryant and G. P. Baker, n, 482, 489. For the increase in wheat prices, see Hasbach, A history of the English agricultural labourer, p. 249. For the rise in farm wages, see Sir John Clapham, An economic history of modern Britain, n, p. 286. The

174

Notes slow tempo of mechanization in agriculture and the consequent high demand for labour during the harvesting season are surveyed by E. J. T. Collins, "Harvest technology and labour supply in Britain, 1790-1870," Economic History Review, xxii (1969), 453 — 73. 4. Illustrated London News, xxvii (1855), 690. 5. Ibid., xxv (1854), 575. London dock labourers discharging supplies in the Crimea received four shillings daily in wages. Ibid., xxvi (1855), 79. 6."The ten days' session," Fraser's Magazine, Li (1855), 122-23. 7. Parl. Debates, 3rd ser., cxxxvm, cols. 116-29. 8. Ibid., col. 765. 9. Ibid., col. 2034. 10. E. B. de Fonblanque made this point in a report prepared for Panmure in October 1856. WO 33/3, 837. 11.Steinhart, Bri%aus Helgoland, p. 11. 12. Panmure Papers, n, 146. 13.FO 67/207, 365, 366. 14. Panmure Papers, ii, 439-40. 15.Ibid., pp. 444-45. 16. Political writings of Richard Cobden, u, 519.

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185

Index

Aberdeen, George Hamilton Gordon, 4th earl of: heads new ministry, 24; opposes Swedish alliance, 27; and project of foreign legion, 44-45; drafts Enlistment of Foreigners Bill, 46; attacked by parliamentary opposition, 54, 142; criticized by Karl Marx, 65; fall of, 68 Acadia (troopship), 132 Addington, Henry, ministry of, 10,11 Adolphus Frederick, duke of Cambridge, 12, 47 Aland islands, 27, 29 Alava, Gen. Miguel de, Spanish ambassador in London, 147 Alban (troopship), 108 Albanian Corps, 10 Albert, prince consort: proposes raising foreign legion (1854), 44; reviews German Legion, 109; presses for better terms of disbandment for German Legion, 120, 125, 126; reference to in Commons, 122; Alcock, Rutherford, surgeon of British Legion in Spain, 147 Aldershot, 108, 121-22,125, 126 Alexander II, tsar, 111 Alexandria, 129 Algeria, 129 Aller, Maj. von, 151 Altona, 80, 83, 85 Amiens, Peace of, 10, 12 Angherå, Lt. Francesco, 129, 154 Anglo-Corsican Corps, 10 Anhalt-Dessau, 118

Argentina, 131-33 Army Service Amendment Bill (1855), 69 Aschem, Dr. von, 87 Astley, Sir John Dugd ale, 38-39 Austria, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 69, 76, 77, 78, 81, 100, 101, 118, 139, 157 Bach, Alexander, Freiherr von, 31 Baden, 157 Bahia Blanca, 133 Baillie, H., M.P., 137 Balaclava, 134 Balaclava Railway, 136 Bamberg, Conference of (1854), 30; declaration of, 45 Barclay, Anthony, British consul in New York, 88, 92 Barman, Col. Louis, 104 Baumgartner, Col. Johann, 72, 100, 104, 119, 120 Bavaria, 157 Bay Islands, 92 Beaufort, Lt. Virgilio, 154 Belgium, 118, 157 Bentinck, G.W.P., M.P., 137 Bern, 103 Bernese Regiment, 103 Besancon, 74 Bexhill, 107 Bilbao, 78 Bismarck, Otto von, 27, 33 Black Dwarf The, 16 Blackwood 's Magazine, 59 Blamont, 101 Blarer, Col. Jakob, 104, 156 187

Bloomfield, John Arthur Douglas, 2nd baron, British ambassador in Berlin, 84, 121 Boldero, Capt. G.H., 16 Bomarsund, 29 Bonin, Gen. Eduard von, 80 Bontems, Col. Charles, 73 Bowring, John, 146 Bregenz, 101 Bremen, 46, 118 Browndown Camp, 126, 151 Brunswick, 6,118, 157 Brunswick, Frederick William, duke of, 13 Buchanan, James, U.S. ambassador to London, 91 Buchenthal, Jose de, 131-32 Bucknall, Ralph, J.P., 3 Bucknell, recruiting subagent, 90 Bundi, Col. Balthazar a, 104, 115, 156 Bunsen, Baron Christian von, 27 Buol-Schauenstein, Karl Ferdinand, Graf von, 31, 32, 34 Burgoyne, Gen. Sir John, 22, 60 Burke, Edmund, 7 Burnaby, Col. E.S., 114, 129 Byron, Lord, 146

Calabrian Free Corps, 10 Cambridge, George, 2nd duke of, 84,107, 110,128, 140, 142 Canada, 129, 137, 151, 152 Cape Colony, 124, 125, 127, 128, 141 Caruana, Vincenzo, police inspector, 114 Castlereagh, Robert Stewart, Viscount, 11 Catherine the Great, 5 Cavanna, Col. Paolo, 95,154 Cavice, Giovanni, 132 188

Camillo: Cavour, Count supports British request for Sardinian regulars, 27-28; favours formation of Italian Legion, 95; complains of slow rate of recruiting, 97; presses for removal of Italian Legion from Sardinia, 112-13; plans to turn legion against Sicily, 113 Charity (troopship), 129, 130 Chartism, 16 Chårtre, comte de la, 10 Chasseurs britanniques, 10, 12 Chivasso, 96 Church, Gen. Sir Richard, 146 Cibrario, Luigi, Sardinian finance minister, 28 City of London (troopship), 129, 130 Clancarty, 3rd earl of, 120 Clarendon, George Villiers, 4th earl of: requests Sardinian military aid, 28; negotiates with Austria on sequestrations, 28; Cowley's letter to, 35; fears catastrophe in Crimea, 45; supports Foreign Enlistment Act, 70; measures for recruiting in Switzerland, 72; resists French recruiting in Switzerland, 74; presses for recruiting in Sardinia, 75-76; rebuffed by Sweden, 79; recommends caution in recruiting in Hamburg, 84; launches recruiting campaign in U.S., 87-89; yields to pressure from U.S., 91; views on barracks problems at Novara, 96; opposes discontinuance of recruiting in Italy, 98; objects to fusion of Italian Legion with La Marmora's Corps, 99; checks recruiting for Italian

Legion, 111; minimizes conspiracy in Italian Legion, 112; on disbandment of Italian Legion, 114; on repatriation of Belgian legionaries, 118; hopes to place Swiss Legion in French service, ibid.; urges generous treatment of German Legion, 126; desires to remove legions from Britain, 131; efforts to influence Austria and Prussia, 142 Clasen, Maj. von, 151 Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (1850), 91 Cobden, Richard, M.P., 52, 66, 92, 143 Cockburn, Gen. Sir Alexander, 93 Codrington, Gen. Sir William, 141 Colburn's United Services Magazine, 60 Colchester Camp, disturbances at, 122, 126 Colmar, 74 Cologne, 84 Conde, Louis Joseph de Bourbon, Prince de, 10 Condon, William, customs officer, 90 Constantinople, 26,110, 129 Corfu, 109 Corn Laws, repeal of, 41 Corsican Corps, 10 Corte, Maj. Clemente, 154 Covenanter (troopship), 128 Cowley, Henry Wellesley, 1st earl, British ambassador in Paris, 35, 102 Crampton, John, British minister in Washington, 87-89, 91-94 Crimea, 30, 32, 38, 44, 50, 52, 54, 62, 63, 64, 65-76, 77, 79, 84, 98, 100, 102, 109, 111, 135, 136, 138, 140, 143

Cronstadt, 35 Culloden (troopship), 128 Curtis, British consul in Cologne, 84 Cuxhaven, 83 Cyrenaica, 129 Dabormida, Gen. Giuseppe, Sardinian foreign minister, 27, 76 Daily Tribune (New York), 66 Dann, Capt., 153 Davenport, Iowa, 82 Davis, Robert, deputy provost marshal, 3 D'Azeglio, Massimo, Sardinian ambassador in London, 97, 112, 113 De Cristoferis, Lt. Carlo, 154, 155 Delane, John T., editor of The Times, 56 Denmark, 80, 82,118 Derby, Edward Stanley, 14th earl of, 23, 49, 54 Dickson, Capt. Charles, 74, 75, 100, 101, 102, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 111, 116, 141, 156 Dillon, Col. Edward, 10 Disraeli, Benjamin, 52 Domodossola, 96, 101 Dover, 105, 107, 119 Drouyn de Lhuys, Edouard, French foreign minister, 74 East India Company, 8, 117 Eclectic Review, 60 Economist, 61 Edinburgh Review, 14, 59 Egmont, Perceval, 2nd earl, 4 Ellenborough, Edward Law, 1st earl of, 49, 50 Emigration, 17 Eupatoria, 30 Evans, Gen. Sir George de Lacy, 67, 147 189

Evian, 101 Feldkirch, 101 Ferdinand II, king of Naples and Sicily, 71, 103, 129 Ferguson, Sir James, M.P., 122 Finland, 27, 29, 30 Foce di Bisagno, 130 Follenius, Lt. G., 45 Fontana, Maj. Giuseppe, 154 Foreign Enlistment Act (1794), 46-47 Foreign Enlistment Act (1804), 12, 46, 50 Foreign Enlistment Act (1819), 146, 147 Foreign Enlistment Act (1854): drafted, 46; debated, 48-55; clauses of, 55; reception of, 5666; Marx on, 66; Panmure doubts practicability of, 68; reception abroad, 69; referred to, 72, 87, 101, 104, 107, 134, 136, 137, 138, 142 Fornaro, Capt. Theodor, 105, 156 France, 5, 7, 12, 21, 22, 23, 24-25, 26, 32-33, 35, 63, 76; recruits deuxieme legion etrangere, 101, 102 Franz Joseph I, emperor of Austria, 31 Fraser 's Magazine, 59 Fredericia, battle of, 80 Frederick VII, king of Denmark, 80, 82 Frederick William IV, king of Prussia, 33, 80, 84 Freikorps, 67, 80 Funk, Col. Karl Eduard, 101, 105 Furrer, Jonas, president of the Swiss Federal Council, 73 Garibaldi, Giuseppe, 113, 130, 154 Genoa, 129, 130 190

George III, king of England, 5, 6, 47, 57 George V, king of Hanover, 78 German Legion: projected, 45; debated, 48-55; initial strength fixed, 68; makeup of, 87; recruiting in U.S. for, 87-94; advance parties in England, 107; training in England, 108109; at Scutari, 110; encounter with Folkestone police, 117; disbandment of, 120-29; evaluation of, 140 Germanic Confederation, 29, 31, 33, 44, 45, 67, 69, 80, 82 Gex, 74 Gibraltar, 5, 115 Gibson, Milner, M.P., 93 Ginestous, Capt. 152 Gingins, Olivier, baron of La Sarra, 104,156 Ginsberg, Capt. Friedrich, 105, 115 Gladstone, W.E., 94,113 Gleig, G. R., chaplain-general of British army, 18, 23 Glückstadt, 85-86 Gönner, Capt. von, 152 Gordon, George, British minister in Bern, 72, 73-74, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 106,141 Gosport, 123,128 Gotha, 157 Grabowski, Capt., 125 Grant, Maj. John, 124-25 Granville, Granville LevesonGower, 2nd earl, chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, 39-40 Gravesend, 132 Great Britain (troopship), 110,115 Greek War of Independence, 146 Greville, Charles, 62 Grey, Sir George, 93, 124, 137

Häfelin, Capt. Karl, 105, 156 Hake, Capt., 152 Hake, Maj. Adolf von, 151 Halifax, N.S.; 88, 89, 90, 91, 124 Halkett, Col. Alexander, 119 Hamburg, 44, 46, 69, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 108, 118, 124, 125, 151, 157 Hamburg (packet boat), 108 Hannibal (battleship), 114 Hanover, electorate and kingdom of, 12, 47, 57, 78, 118 Hardwicke, Charles Philip Yorke, 4th earl of, 120 Hartmann, Dr., 109 Head, Sir Edmund, 137 Heligoland, island of, 46, 47, 62, 63, 70, 84, 85, 86, 108, 137 Heligoland (steamship), 85 Herbert, Sidney, secretary at war: introduces army estimates, 24; defends Foreign Enlistment Bill, 53-54; promotes recruiting campaign in U.S., 87 Hertz, Henry, recruiting agent, 88, 90, 92 Hess, Gen. Heinrich von, 31, 32 Hesse, 6,157 Hindmarsh, Sir John, governor of Heligoland, 70, 86 Hodges, Col. George Lloyd, British consul, 83,147 Hoffmann, Capt. Ernst, 124, 125, 126 Holland, 118, 157 Honduras, 92 Horsey, Maj. W.H.B. de, 130 Howden, John, 2nd baron, British ambassador in Madrid, 78 Howe, George, 8 Howe, Joseph, 89, 90 Hudson, Sir James, British ambassador in Turin: proposes

to take Sardinian regulars into British pay, 27; advocates enlistment of Sardinian citizens and residents, 77, 78; encounters recruiting problems, 95-100; plays down conspiracy in Italian Legion, 111; ordered to disband Italian Legion, 114 Hudson, Col., inspector-general of Italian Legion, 131 Hüningen, 101 Hume, Joseph, M.P., 17, 146 Husarczewski, Capt., 152 Idstedt, battle of, 81 Illustrated London News, 58

India, 117, 141 Inkerman, battle of, 30, 37, 44, 75, 134 Ionian Islands, 39 Ireland, 5, 17, 18 Isabella II, queen of Spain, 67, 78, 147 Italian Legion: recruiting and organization, 94-100; problems of organization, 138-40; recruiting stopped, 111; in Malta, 113-15; proposed disbandment, 115; disbandment, 129-33 Jackson, Robert, inspector-general of army hospitals, 19 Jacobite uprising, 4 Jess, Capt. von, 153 John I, king of Saxony, 78 Jougne, 101 Kane, John K., 90 Kerr, Lord Frederick, 132 Kiel, 81, 82 King, Peter John Locke, M.P., 53 191

King's German Legion, 12, 47, 51, 57 Kray, secretary in British consulate at Cologne, 84 Kulali, 110 Labouchere, Henry, secretary of state for the colonies, 115 La Croix, Capt., 153 La Marmora, Gen. Eduardo, 99, 139 La Rosario, Argentina, 132 Layard, Capt. A.H., 17 Le Marchant, Sir John Gaspard, lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia, 88, 90, 91 Lefroy, Capt. John Henry, 70, 74, 77 Lindsay, Sir Coutts, 112 Louis II, king of Bavaria, 118 Louis Napoleon. See Napoleon III Loyal Emigrant Regiment, 10 Luddites, 16 Lübeck, 44, 69, 81 Luxemburg, 157 Lytton, Sir Edward Bulwer, M.P., 51 Macdonald, Angus, recruiting agent, 93 Mack, Capt., 125 McMullen, Sgt. James, 21 Malet, Sir Alexander, British minister to the German Confederation, 45, 67 Malmesbury, James Howard Harris, 3rd earl of, 120 Malta, 100, 110, 111, 112, 113, 115, 130 Manteuffel, Otto Freiherr von, Prussian foreign minister, 32 Marcy, William, U.S. secretary of state, 89, 91, 92, 93 192

Martignoni, Capt. Ernst, 105, 115, 119, 156 Marshall, Henry, deputy inspector of army hospitals, 18 Marx, Karl, 65-66 Mathew, George B., British consul in Philadelphia, 88, 92 Maunsell, Lt. Edward, 132 Mecklenburg, 118, 157 Mendizabal, Juan, financial agent, 147 Menschikov, Prince Alexander, 31 Meuron, Count Charles-Daniel de, 10, 12 Miguel I, king of Portugal, 146 Milanese uprising, 28, 154 Militia, 5, 9-10, 11-12, 15, 24-25, 35-39 Militia Acts (1852 and 1854), 36 Militia (Service Abroad) Act (1854), 39-40 Milnes, Richard Monckton, M.P., 133 Minorca, 5 Minorca Regiment, 10,12 Mitchell, Maj.-Gen. John, 18 Moldavia and Wallachia, 29, 42 Moltke, Gen. Helmuth von, 67 Morning Chronicle, 22 Mosquito Coast, 91 Murray, Charles Augustus, British minister in Bern, 72 Murrough, J.P., M.P., 53,122 Mutiny Act, 2, 3,19 Napier, Col. Charles, 146 Napoleon III, 23, 26, 51; 102, 113 Nassau, 118,157 Neue Oder-Zeitung, 65 Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 73 Newcastle, Henry Clinton, 5th duke of, secretary for war, 37,

38, 40, 48, 49, 50, 67, 68, 70, 73, 107 Nicholas I, tsar, 30 North, Frederick, Lord, 6 Nova Scotia, 89 Novara, 95, 96, 99, 111, 112 Ochsenbein, Col. Ulrich, 73, 74, 102 Odessa, 42 Oldenburg, Peter I, grand duke of, 118 Olivieri, Gen., military governor of Bahia Blanca, 132 Olmütz, Convention of, 81 Omar Pasha, 151 Orsini, Felice, 112 Oscar I, king of Sweden, 27, 29 Otter (sloop), 83, 108,113 Pakington, Sir John, 94 Palermo, 71, 103 Palk, L., M.P., 42 Palmerston, Henry John Temple, 3rd viscount: on disbandment of regulars, 15; on possible partition of Russia, 27; favours project of foreign legion, 44; learns of Russian reinforcements to Crimea, 45; his defence of German Legion, 48; defence of Enlistment of Foreigners Bill, 52; becomes prime minister, 68; supports implementation of Foreign Enlistment Act, 70; on issue of recruitment in U.S., 93-94; urges Panmure to press recruitment in Italy, 94; recommends Italian Legion be placed under La Marmora, 99; favours removal of Italian Legion to Malta, 112; denies conspiracy

in Italian Legion, 112; rejects Cavour's plan for invasion of Sicily, 113; resents Commons' interrogation on disposal of German Legion, 122; assures Commons of early departure of German Legion, 122-23; suspends Foreign Enlistment Act of 1819, 147 Panmure, Henry Fox Maule, 2nd baron, secretary for war: on effects of recruiting system, 40, 41; appointed secretary of state for war, 68; attempts to stimulate domestic recruiting, 69-70; hesitates in implementation of Foreign Enlistment Act, 70-74; authorizes recruiting in Switzerland, 74-75; proposes to enlist convicts, 79; agrees to further recruiting for German Legion, 84; prepares Heligoland for reception of legionaries, 86; discontinues recruiting in U.S., 91; appoints commander of Italian Legion, 94; on terms of enlistment in Italian and Swiss Legions, 97; appoints recruiting committee for Swiss Legion, 100; yields on military pension for Sulzberger, 102; authorizes higher bringing money for agents in Switzerland, 102; refuses further financial concessions, 103104; appoints commander of Swiss Legion, 105; arranges camp accommodation for legions, 107; financial dispute with Swiss Legion, 107-108; predicts early active service for German Legion, 109; declines hospital for German Legion, 193

109; decides to send elements of German and Swiss Legion direct to Crimea, 109; measures after disturbance in Malta, 114; on repatriation of Italian Legion, 115; attemps to transfer legions to service of East India Company, 117; opposes increased severance pay for German officers, 120; resists improved conditions of disbandment of German Legion, 121; dissatisfied with discipline of 3rd Jägers, 121; urges German legionaries to settle in Cape Colony, 124; all debts of German legionaries to be discharged out of pay, 125; appoints committee to decide terms of settlement of legionaries at Cape, 125-26, 128; favours settlement of Italian legionaries in Argentina, 129, 132; reports to Queen Victoria on disbandment of legions, 131; coolness toward Foreign Enlistment Act, 136-37; refuses to supply artillery to German Legion, 140; regrets failure of foreign legions to reach Crimea, 140-41; difficulties in recruiting Swiss Legion, 141; rejects proposal to recruit foreign legions during Indian Mutiny, ibid, Papineau Rebellion, 16 Parkinson, Lt.-Col. C.F., 60 Paschal, Col., 68,108 Paskevich, Prince Ivan, 31 Peace Society, 24 Pechell, Sir George, M.P., 24 Pedro I, emperor of Brazil, 146 Peel, Frederick, under-secretary for War, 115, 121, 122, 137 194

Pennefather, Sir John Lysacht, governor of Malta, 114, 129 Percy, Col. H.H., commander of the Italian Legion, 94;98, 100 Perkins, recruiting subagent, 90 Peto, Brassey and Betts, engineering firm, 136 Pierce, Franklin, U.S. president, 92 Pinelli, Maj. Ferdinando, 100, 154 Pisacane, Lt. Carlo, 129, 154, 155 Pitt, William, the younger, 7, 10, 11 Plymouth, 130, 132 Portsmouth, 110, 115, 130,131 Portsmouth Times and Naval Gazette, 123 Posen, 69 Prussia, 26, 32, 41, 46, 69, 80, 81, 82,118,157 Punch, 18, 61 Quarterly Review, 60 Radetzky, Marshal Johann Joseph, 28, 31, 32 Raglan, Fitzroy James Somerset, 1st baron, 45, 77, 79, 108 Ramsden, Sir John, under-secretary for war, 133 Ramsgate, 109 Rattazzi, Urbano, Sardinian minister of the interior, 111, 112 Read, Col. Constantine, 98, 99, 100, 114 Recruiting: payment of bounty, 2-8, 17, 53; attestation, 2, 3; "crimping," 3, 8-9; enlistment of foreigners before 1815, 4-5, 7, 9, 10, 12-13; in Seven Years' War, 5-6; in War of American Independence, 6; in wars of French Revolution, 10, 12, 13; Edinburgh Review on, 14-15; after 1815, 15-18; Punch on, 18;

irregularities, 19; criticisms of system, 18-21; for regular army from militia, 37-38; Panmure's observations on, 40; opposition of landowners to, 42-43; shortfall in, 53; Charles Greville on, 62; Revue des deux mondes on, 63-64; public opinion on, 56, 66; foreign recruiting in Britain, 145-47 Reding, Col. Leopold, 104 Revue des deux mondes, 63-64 Ribotti, Col. Ignazio, 95,154 Ricardo, David, 146 Rich, Henry, M.P., 24, 40 Rochester, bishop of, 123 Roebuck, John Arthur, M.P.,92 Rolfs, recruiting agent, 83 Roll, Baron de, 10, 12 Rowcroft, Charles, British consul in Cincinnati, 91, 92 Russell, Lord John: on recruiting reform, 20; proposes increasing armed forces, 21; resigns over Militia Bill, 23; suggests alliance with Sweden, 27; proposes foreign service for militia, 35-36; doubts value of foreign legion, 44; introduces Foreign Enlistment Bill in Commons, 51; presses bill through Commons, 52, 54; presumed opposition to invasion of Sicily by Italian Legion, 85; on offer of land in Canada to legionaries, 137; favours crusade of liberal powers against Russia, 142 Russell, W.H., Times correspondent in the Crimea, 62 Russia, 5, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 83, 142 Saarlouis, 74

Salamanca, 48 Salignac-Fenelon, Alfred de, French minister in Bern, 74, 102 San Antonio (brigantine), 132 Santa Anna, Antonio Lopez, president of Mexico, 67-68 Sardinia: recruiting in, 75-78, 94100, 111, 138-40; accepts disbanded legionaries, 130-31 Saxe-Coburg, Ernest II, duke of, 82 Saxe-Weimar, 157 Schleswig, 63 campaign, Schleswig-Holstein 67, 80-81, 82, 87, 140, 151 Schlettstadt, 74, 100, 101, 105, 106, 107, 118 Schneider, Capt., 153 Schroer, Maj. von, 152 Scutari, 110 Senior, Nassau William, 62 Serbia, 78 Sevastopol, 35, 140 Shaw, Charles, 146 Shorncliffe Camp, 107, 108, 115, 117 Sicily, 112-23 Simoon (troopship), 129,130 Simpson, Gen. Sir James, 108, 109,110 Smith, R. Vernon, 117 Smyrna, 111, 115, 119 Sonderbund, Swiss, 71 Spanish America, 146 Spanish Legion, projected, 78 Spillmann, Capt. Johann, 105, 156 Spiteful (corvette), 114 Spithead, 130 Spratley, Capt. Richard, 132 Sprightly (troopship), 108 Stade, 66 195

Stämpfli, Jakob, Swiss federal chief of justice and police, 73 Steiger, Capt. Rudolf, 106 Steinhart, Gustav, 85, 128 Stevenson, Sgt. John, 20 Stewart, Adm. Sir Houston, 114 Storks, Gen. Henry, 110 Strasbourg, 46,119 Stratford de Redclyffe, Stratford Canning, 1st baron, British ambassador in Constantinople, 129 Ströbel, Max, recruiting agent, 88, 90, 92, 94 Stuart, Brig. John, 10 Stürler, Maj. August von, 72 Stutterheim, Lt.-Col. Richard von: invited to form German Legion, 67; character, 68; empowered to raise German Legion, 70; commissioned, 80; recruiting in Germany, 83-86; proposes recruiting in U.S., 87; on difficulties of bringing legion to Britain, 108; quarters at Aldershot demolished, 122; ordered to proceed to Cape with legionaries, 125-26; liberal views, 140 Sulingen, Convention of, 12 Sultana (troopship), 128 Sulzberger, Col. Johann, 101, 105, 108 Swiss Legion: recruitment of, 100-106; conditions of service, 101; appointment of recruiting committee, 101-102; difficulty of recruiting, 103;-104, 141; slow growth of, 103; difficulty of officering, 104; disputes over bounty, 105-106, 107-108; first arrivals in Britain, 107; First Regiment sent to Crimea, 109; reaches Smyrna, 111; returns to 196

Britain, 115; problems of disbandment, 118-20 Switzerland: problems of recruiting in, 70-75, 100-106; agrees to repatriation of citizen legionaries, 118 Tann, Maj. Ludwig von der, 67, 151 Temple, Sir William, British ambassador in Naples, 103 Times, The: optimism on recruiting, 24; complaints on slow rate of recruiting, 56; reacts to Foreign Enlistment Bill, 57-58; protests delay in executing Foreign Enlistment Act, 70; report by Kiel correspondent, 82; report by Berlin correspondent, 86; controversy on disbandment of German Legion, 121, 124, 125 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 62 Tooley, Michael, 3 Trevelyan-Northcote Report, 142 Tripoli, 129 Tudor (troopship), 129, 130 Turin, 94, 96 Turkey, 29 United States: recruiting in, 87-94; Neutrality Act of 1818, 88; vigorous measures against recruitment, 89-90 Urquiza, Gen. Justo Jose, president of Argentina, 131 Vaduz, 101 Vaillant, Marshal Jean-BaptistePhilibert, 102 Valetta, disturbances in, 113-14 Vercelli, 100 Verta, M.R., 95

Victoria, Queen, 109, 120-21, 126, 131 Vorparlament at Frankfurt, 80 Vulcan (troopship), 128 Wäber, Maj. Adolf, 156 Walcheren expedition, 12-13 Waldeck, 6 Walpole, Spencer Horatio, M.P., 122 Waterloo, 48, 151 Waterloo (warship), 132 Watteville, Frederic de, 10, 12 Wattenwill, Maj. Friedrich von, 72,105-106 Wellington, 1st duke of, 13, 2122

Wenck, Maj. von, 152 West Indies, 5, 9 Westmoreland, John Fane, 11th earl of, British minister in Vienna, 124 William I, king of Württemberg, 118 William, crown prince of Prussia, 33 Willisen, Lt.-Gen. Karl von, 81 Windham, William, secretary for war, 11 Winton, Maj. E.A.D., 156 Wodehouse, Lord John, undersecretary for foreign affairs, 50 Woolridge, Col., 109, 110, 152 Württemberg, 157

197