ДИСКУССИЯ О СНАБЖЕНИИ БРИТАНСКИХ ВОЙСК В КРЫМУ ЗИМОЙ 1854–55 ГГ. В БРИТАНСКОЙ ПУБЛИЦИСТИКЕ В ПЕРИОД КРЫМСКОЙ ВОЙНЫ (ПО МАТЕРИАЛАМ ПАМФЛЕТА «WHOM SHALL WE HANG»)

Abstract

The purpose of the article is the analyses of the discussion about supply of the British army in Crimea during the winter of 1854–1855 in the British press according to the pamphlet «Whom shall we hang». Due to the analyses of the text of this pamphlet and other journalistic texts devoted to the problem of the effectiveness of the quartermaster system of the British during the Crimean War, it was managed to clarify the question of the authorship and the reason for the creation of this historical source. As part of the public discussion caused by the problems of the British army in the Crimea in the winter of 1854-1855, a number of explanations of the causes of these problems were proposed. One authors claimed that these problems had been caused by mistakes of the government, but another journalists thought that high causalities during the winter had been caused by the difficulties, that where unavoidable in case of supplying the army at a great distance from the metropolis. The research shows that the British lawyer Peter Benson Maxwell (who held a pro-government position and who was a former member of the Hospital (Cunning-Maxwell) Commission that began its work in Scutari in November 1854) criticized through this pamphlet the results of the investigation of the parliamentary «Sebastopol Committee» (chaired by John Roebuck), that began its work in March 1855. This commission laid the main blame for the sufferings of the British troops during the winter on the government of Lord Aberdeen, and Peter Benson Maxwell was disagree with this interpretation of events and tried to rebut it.