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 also very different in terms of food.

The British General Simpson said in a letter to Lord Panmure: "The comparison between the British army in the camp and the French army makes me very sad. The equipment of our allies is really wonderful. I saw a continuous stream of well-equipped carts and Caravans are transporting materials and supplies... In the French army, everything the army needs is running well. They even bake bread every day. Everything is carried out in a disciplined manner under the control of the army. And we lack everything and have everything. It’s a mess!”

Each regiment of the French army had its own bakers and cooks, as well as female auxiliaries and cooks, who wore modified military uniforms and were responsible for selling food and drinks to the troops from mobile kitchens.

The French army concentrated on preparing food and had a meal together. The British army's rations were distributed directly to individuals, and each soldier had to cook his own meals. Therefore, even if the French army's rations are only half of those of the British army, and their meat is only one-third of those of the British army, their health status can beat the British army who theoretically have more adequate rations.

It wasn't until December that the British army began to learn from the French army's centralized food preparation, but their cooking skills were really poor, and the food they cooked was often dark cuisine.

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

Soon a steady stream of supplies arrived from Kashmi, and various warehouses, slaughterhouses and private shops sprung up like mushrooms after a rain. Even in just one month, Kashmi took on a new look, even better than before the war.

The pier is full of bars, hotels and restaurants, and even a women's hospital. One of the restaurants even provides one-stop services from eating, sleeping to playing with girls as long as you pay a fee.

Balaklava, controlled by the British army, looked different. There were ruins everywhere and sewage flowing everywhere. The British themselves said:

"Balaclava is the most disgusting and filthy village in the world. When it rains, the whole place turns into ankle-deep mud. Find more than a thousand plague-ridden Turks and throw them into the village." They serve as laborers, and then a hundred of them die every day... When the corpses are buried, they are only covered with a little soil to let them rot slowly - note that there will be fresh corpses filled in every day."

"Then drive all the exhausted ponies, dying cows, and almost exhausted camels to a corner of the beach, and let them starve to death. This usually takes up to three days, and then the bodies quickly decompose and emit... The strong smell filled the water surface of the harbor with the entrails of various animals, some from nearby ships, some from animals eaten by people in the town, and a few corpses were added from time to time, including those with missing arms and legs. That’s normal, and then there are the fragments of shipwrecks that can be seen here and there – and that adds up to Balaclava.”

The problems the British army has to face are not only poor infrastructure and environment, but the most important problem is terrible bureaucracy. All supplies leaving the Port of Balaclava must be approved by Logistics Department paperwork.

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

Boxes of food could sit on shore for weeks, rotting by the time they were shipped to the front lines.

Moreover, the British army never thought about repairing the road between Balaclava and Sevastopol, so every box of bullets, every blanket, and every biscuit had to be pulled by horses or mules along a cart. The steep dirt road leads to the camp more than ten kilometers away.

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

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

Canrobert said: "The British soldiers have developed a habit. They just fight and eat every meal before they eat it. What's worse is that they would rather starve to death than change!"

Because they do not have the most basic living abilities, the British troops must rely on a large team of military family members to cook for them, wash clothes, or do some trivial tasks that French soldiers can handle easily.

For example, Marianne Young of the 28th Infantry Regiment complained that British soldiers "will starve to death even if they hold the allocated rations in their hands. They have three stones and a tin can, but they have no ability to turn the rations into something edible." But the French are different. As long as it is edible, the French don't like anything. They catch frogs and turtles and cook them according to their own taste. They also dig up turtle eggs. It can even turn mice into delicious food!”

Of course, although it is a good thing to be able to eat well, eating randomly will not have good results. Soon cholera broke out among the coalition forces. Thousands of soldiers fell ill and died in pain. The British army was even worse. Not to mention curing the disease and saving lives, they could not even make death statistics.

Most of the dead soldiers seemed to disappear out of thin air, one by one they became non-existent. Many family members waited for a year or two to receive death news from their surviving comrades, and at this time, the relevant British authorities knew nothing.

As a result, the morale of the British army visibly collapsed, and even the officers began to criticize the military authorities for their extreme incompetence.

It was through The Times that the British public learned about the poor treatment of British soldiers, and it was only through this indirect contact that progress was made in the medical security work. Nightingale later went to Croton after seeing those shocking facts. rimea.

It can be said that the organizational level displayed by Britain during the Crimean War is really unworthy of its status as the world's number one industrial power.

Of course, the most important thing is not the lack of industrial capacity, but the fact that the British simply don't pay attention to it or think about it. Naturally, it's a mess.

Not to mention compared with France, even compared with Russia, which was even more backward, their level of attention could not be compared.

In short, this is not a question of ability, but a question of thinking. Probably the British elites do not regard the army, which is mainly composed of poor people, as human beings, but as cattle. For them, consuming this batch of livestock or social garbage is a kind of purification. After all, the unstable factors of society are directly removed physically!