Macmillans Magazine 1896 Classic Reprint

Excerpt from Macmillan's Magazine, 1896 Officers cry loudly for reform in the Military Magazines, but in vain when suddenly the peace of forty years breaks up, and we are face to face with the Crimean War. Our regiment is ordered to embark on foreign service, but, being through no fault of its own unprepared, is obliged to leave two of its six troops behind to form a depot, and, finally sails, even after reinforcement by the usual drafts, with the miserable strength of two hundred and fifty men. Before it reaches the Crimean peninsula these numbers have been reduced by sickness to less than two hundred, and it goes into action at Balaklava, even so not the weakest regiment of its brigade, with less than one hundred and fifty men in the ranks. Having been practically anni hilated in the battle, its establishment is raised to eight troops, and it comes home four hundred strong. There upon it is at once reduced to six troops, and the process Of diminution is in full swing, when it receives orders to prepare for service against the mutineers in India. Up goes the establishment again to ten troops no less than five regiments are drained to bring it up to strength; and thus reinforced by a hundred and thirty-two men, strangers to their officers and to each other, the regi ment sails for Bombay four hundred and fifty strong. There for the pres ent let us leave it. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.