John Sweetman's Raglan tries to rehabilitate a much-maligned personage. The Crimean War commander has his share of defenders, including Christopher Hibbert (The Destruction of Lord Raglan) and Trevor Royle (Crimea: The Great Crimean War, 1854-1856), but never previously earned a full-length biography. Sweetman shows Raglan as a good man and honest soldier. He doesn't succeed in proving him "a better general than his critics allow" (348).
Sweetman helpfully explores Raglan's life and background. Born Fitzroy Somerset, he was the son of the Duke of Beaufort and brother to Lord Edward Somerset, a distinguished general in his own right. He showed commendable courage in Wellington's Peninsular Campaign, earning particular distinction for his role in the Battle of Badajoz. He earned a place on Wellington's staff, and a diplomatic posting to Paris after Napoleon's downfall. During the One Hundred Days, the Iron Duke demanded Raglan's appointment as his military secretary. Losing an arm at Waterloo, Raglan coolly asked a surgeon to "bring my arm back. There's a ring my wife gave me on the finger" (65-66).
After the war, Raglan remained Wellington's intimate protege. Wellington moved in and out of government, leaving Raglan as Secretary to the Horse Guards and later Master-General of the Ordnance. Raglan handled various difficulties with considerable skill: the Chartist unrest of the 1830s, deployment of troops to Afghanistan and Canada, modernization of coastal defenses, adaptation of rifle muskets, streamlining Army bureaucracy. Sweetman shows that Raglan "closely though not slavishly followed the Duke" (340) both in command style and cultural Toryism. He was hardly unique among his peers: Sir George Brown, a division commander in the Crimea, told Raglan "you and I are accustomed... to ask ourselves how the Great Duke would have acted...under similar circumstances" (202).
Sweetman notes that "tact in dealing with allies... figured high on the list of [Raglan's] attributes
(169). The Allies had no overall commander-in-chief, leaving Raglan, French Marshall St. Arnaud and Turkey's Omar Pasha to operate independently and often fractiously. Raglan smoothed over relations with the prickly St. Arnaud, who "had not... abandoned hopes of acquiring the chief command" (185), convincing him to shift the war from Bulgaria to the Crimea and coordinating the Anglo-French advance on Sevastopol. Arnaud's successor, General Pelissier, declared him "a companion in arms... with whom he had always found a loyal and affectionate empathy" (321).
Raglan's personal character appears beyond reproach. He married Lady Emily Wellesley-Pole, a niece of Wellington, remaining devoted even as she suffered a psychosomatic illness. He doted on his daughters but had a strained relationship with his eldest son Arthur, later killed fighting in the Anglo-Sikh Wars. Raglan's paternalism carried over to his military career, viewing his staff as an extended family. If Raglan hated being publicly cheered by his soldiers, he nonetheless earned their respect by fearlessly exposing himself to danger: one claimed that "there was never a General better liked by his soldiers than Lord Raglan" (279).
But Sweetman falters in assessing Raglan's military skill. At the Alma, Raglan left the battle's conduct to his subordinate officers, launching uncoordinated attacks that forced the British to capture the same Russian redoubts twice. At Balaclava Raglan was taken by surprise and initiated the Charge of the Light Brigade through incomprehensible orders. At Inkerman, Raglan ignored a preliminary Russian sortie and left his lines dangerously under-fortified; only the tenacity of his men (and timely French reinforcements) saved the day. Whatever his personal bravery, as a field commander Raglan posted an abysmal record.
Sweetman feebly attempts to rebut these charges. At the Alma, Raglan positioned himself dangerously close to the Russian lines, presumably to get an unobstructed view of the fighting. Sweetman leaves unsaid whether this impaired Raglan's ability to manage the battle, or whether he just didn't care to manage it. He blames Captain Nolan and Lord Lucan for the Light Brigade's destruction, though an order that a) took into account Balaclava's topographical situation, b) used sensible military reference points (say, north and south instead of left and right) would have avoided catastrophe. Raglan faced a daunting task navigating red tape and inadequate supplies, but doesn't absolve him of failure to overcome them.
Sweetman inevitably elides his subject's less appealing traits. He avoids mentioning that Raglan ignored warnings from scouts and deserters about Russian intentions to assault Balaclava. Nor does he note that Raglan shared the common prejudice against "Indian" officers, though both his mentor Wellington and son Arthur served on the Subcontinent. Sweetman does acknowledge Raglan's deep-rooted conservatism and resistance to military reform as a staff officer. Yet later, he blames the Crimean commissary problems on an antiquated military system. Sweetman somehow fails to draw the obvious connection.
As Raglan's troops suffered in the Russian winter, public adoration turned to loathing. His Lordship despised "the hell-hounds of the press" (96), restricting the access of war correspondents to the front. It's indisputable that this engendered bitterness amongst journalists like William Howard Russell. Raglan also fell victim to military rivals like the Duke of Cambridge, who sniffed that Raglan "as a general was a non-entity" (278), and politicians like Lord Palmerston who found Raglan a convenient scapegoat for their own failures. Sweetman shows the taciturn Raglan reduced to bleak despair at such vicious attacks. He concludes that Raglan's death, ostensibly caused by cholera, was exacerbated by "a broken heart" (322).
In sum, Sweetman provides a well-written, meticulous portrait of an honest soldier out of his depth leading an army. Florence Nightingale's assessment that Raglan "was not a very great general... but a very good man" seems an apt epitaph.
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- peter mcallisterReviewed in the United Kingdom on July 16, 2015
exellent work on mid 19century British military history,ignore above reviewers tirade.
