Struggle in Russia

Not only are the two armies very different in terms of clothing and housing, but the treatment of the two armies is even more different in terms of food.

In a letter to Lord Penmour, General Simpson of the British Army said: "I am very distressed by the comparison of the British army in the camp with the French army. The equipment of our allies is wonderful, and I see a continuous flow of well-equipped carts and Caravans are transporting supplies and supplies...In the French army, everything the army needs is running well, they even bake bread every day, everything is carried out disciplined under the control of the army. And we are short of nothing and everything It's a mess!"

Each regiment of the French army had its own baker and cook, as well as female assistants and cooks, who in modified uniforms were responsible for selling food and drinks to the troops from the mobile kitchen.

The French army concentrated on preparing food and serving meals collectively. The British army's rations were distributed directly to individuals, and each soldier had to cook for himself. Therefore, even if the French army's rations are only half of the British army's, and the meat is only one-third of the British army's, their health status can beat the theoretically more adequate British army.

It was not until December that the British army began to learn the French army to prepare food intensively, but the level of cooking was too poor, and the things they made were often dark dishes.

Not only is the food rationing system more scientific, but the French army's logistics system is far better than the British army. After the siege of Sevastopol, the French army first began to build roads and repair Kashmi, which was destroyed by Kornilov. port.

Soon a steady stream of supplies came ashore from Kashmi, and various warehouses, slaughterhouses, and private stores sprang up like mushrooms. Even in just one month of Kung Fu Kashmi has a new look even more than before the war.

The pier is full of bars, hotels and restaurants, and even a women's branch. One of the restaurants even provides one-stop service from eating, sleeping and playing with girls for a fee.

The balaclava controlled by the British army is different. There are ruins everywhere, and sewage is flowing everywhere. The British themselves said:

"Balaklava is the most disgusting and filthy village in the world. Once it rains, the whole place becomes ankle-deep mud. Find more than a thousand Turks with plague and throw them in the village. burying the bodies with only a little soil to allow them to slowly decay—note that fresh bodies are filled in every day.”

"Then drive all the exhausted ponies, dying cows, dying camels to a corner of the beach and let them starve to death. Usually this lasts up to three days, and then the bodies quickly decompose and emit The strong smell filled the water of the port with the internal organs of various animals, some from nearby ships, some from animals eaten by the people in the town, and from time to time a few corpses were added. That's normal, and at the end there's the wreck debris that's all over the place - all of which add up to the whole of the balaclava."

The problem that the British army has to face is not only the poor infrastructure and environment, but also the terrible bureaucracy. All supplies to leave Balaclava Port must be approved by the Logistic Department paperwork.

This is an extremely complex procedure involving various forms and authorizations, and all documents must be in triplicate.

Boxes of food may be sitting on the shore for weeks, rotten by the time it officially begins shipping to the front lines.

And the British didn't even think about repairing the road between Balaclava and Sevastopol, so every box of bullets, every blanket, every biscuit had to be pulled by a horse or mule along a cart. The steep dirt road was sent to the camp more than ten kilometers away.

And in the first two or three months, most of the supplies had to be transported by hand, because the British army's livestock starved to death because there was no grass to eat.

And the British army is not only poor in logistics organization, but the soldiers themselves also lack the most basic survivability. Most of the British soldiers came from the landless class, or simply criminals and poor people. Unlike the soldiers from the French countryside, they had all kinds of hunting skills, and they could not even boil the most basic water.

Conrobel said: "British soldiers have developed a habit, they just go to war, and every meal has to be packed in front of them before eating. What's worse is that they would rather starve to death than change!"

Without the most basic living ability, the British troops had to rely on a large army of family members to cook for them, do laundry, or do trivial chores that French soldiers could handle at their fingertips.

For example, Marianne Young of the 28th Infantry Regiment complained that British soldiers "will starve to death with allotted rations in their hands. There are three stones and a tin can, but they are unable to make the rations edible. The French are different. As long as it is edible, there is nothing that the French dislike. They catch frogs and turtles, cook them according to their own taste, and eat them. They also dig turtle eggs. It can even turn mice into delicacy!"

Of course, although it is good to be able to eat, eating indiscriminately will not have good results. Soon, cholera broke out among the coalition forces. Thousands of soldiers fell ill and died in agony. The British army was even worse in this regard, not to mention curing the sick and saving people, and even the death statistics could not be counted.

Most of the dead soldiers seemed to disappear out of thin air, one by one they became non-existent. Many family members waited a full year or two to receive news of their death from their surviving comrades~www.readwn.com~ At this time, the relevant British authorities did not know anything.

As a result, the morale of the British army was collapsed by the naked eye, and even the officers began to criticize the military authorities for their incompetence.

It was only through The Times that the British public knew that the treatment of the British army was so bad, and this indirect contact made progress in medical security work, including Nightingale who went to Croatia after seeing the shocking facts. rimia.

It can be said that the organizational level shown by Britain in the Crimean War is really unworthy of its status as the world's No. 1 industrial power.

Of course, the most important thing is not the problem of insufficient industrial capacity, but that the British did not pay attention to this problem at all and did not think about it at all. Naturally, it was a mess.

Not to mention France, or even the more backward Russia, their level of attention cannot be compared.

In short, this is not a problem of ability, but a problem of thinking. Probably, the British elites did not regard the poor-dominated army as a human being, but as an animal. For them, consuming this batch of livestock or social garbage is a kind of purification, after all, the social instability is directly removed physically!