sh army had been intrusted to Lord Raglan, once
known as Lord Fitzroy Somerset, who lost an arm at the battle of
Waterloo while on the staff of Wellington; a wise and experienced
commander, but too old for such service as was now expected of him in an
untried field of warfare. Besides, it was a long time since he had seen
active service. When appointed to the command he was sixty-six years
old. From 1827 to 1852 he was military secretary at the Horse
Guards,--the English War Office,--where he was made master-general of
the Ordnance, and soon after became a full general. He was taciturn but
accessible, and had the power of attracting everybody to him; averse to
all show and parade; with an uncommon power for writing both good
English and French,--an accomplished man, from whom much was expected.

The command of the French forces was given to Marshal Saint-Arnaud, a
bold, gay, reckless, enterprising man, who had distinguished himself in
Algeria as much for his indifference to human life as for his
administrative talents,--ruthless, but not bloodthirsty. He was only
colonel when Fleury, the arch-conspirator and friend of Louis Napoleon,
was sent to Algeria to find some officer of ability who could be bribed
to join in the meditated _coup d'etat_. Saint-Arnaud listened to his
proposals, and was promised the post of minister of war, which would
place the army under his control, for all commanders would receive
orders from him. He was brought to Paris and made minister of war, with
a view to the great plot of the 2d of December, and later was created a
Marshal of France. His poor health (the result of his excesses) made him
unfit to be intrusted with the forces for the invasion of the Crimea;
but his military reputation was better than his moral, and in spite of
his unfitness the emperor--desirous still further to reward his partisan
services--put him in command of the French Crimean forces.

The first military operations took place on the Danube. The Russians
then occupied the Danubian principalities, and had undertaken the siege
of Silistria, which was gallantly defended by the Turks, before the
allied French and English armies could advance to its relief; but it was
not till the middle of May that the allied armies were in full force,
and took up their position at Varna.

Nicholas was now obliged to yield. He could not afford to go to war with
Prussia, Austria, France, England, and Turkey together. It had become
impossib