Big place, ain't it?

From Flashman at the Charge by George MacDonald Fraser.  An excellent read, as comedy, as adventure, and as history.  Flashman's description of the British planning for the campaign in Russia during the Crimean War in 1853.  

While all these important events in my personal affairs were taking place—Willy and Elspeth and Cardigan and so forth—you may wonder how the war was progressing. The truth is, of course, that it wasn't, for it's a singular fact of the Great Conflict against Russia that no one—certainly no one on the Allied side—had any clear notion of how to go about it. You will think that's one of these smart remarks, but it's not; I was as close to the conduct of the war in the summer of '54 as anyone, and I can tell you truthfully that the official view of the whole thing was:

"Well, here we are, the French and ourselves, at war with Russia, in order to protect Turkey. Ve-ry good. What shall we do, then? Better attack Russia, eh? H'm, yes. (Pause). Big place, ain't it?"

That's the passage which has stuck with me all these years since I first read the book some thirty-five years ago.  

Fraser is generally quite interesting about the psychology of war and the paragraphs following this humorous one hint at the role of a nation's psychology towards war.

So they decided to concentrate our army, and the Froggies, in Bulgaria, where they might help the Turks fight the Ruskis on the Danube. But the Turks flayed the life out of the Russians without anyone's help, and neither Raglan, who was now out in Varna in command of the allies, nor our chiefs at home, could think what we might usefully do next. I had secret hopes that the whole thing might be called off; Willy and I were still at home, for Raglan had sent word that for safety's sake his highness should not come out until the fighting started—there was so much fever about in Bulgaria, it would not be healthy for him.

But there was never any hope of a peace being patched up, not with the mood abroad in England that summer. They were savage—they had seen their army and navy sail away with drums beating and fifes tootling, and "Rule Britannia" playing, and the press promising swift and condign punishment for the Muscovite tyrant, and street-corner orators raving about how British steel would strike oppression down, and they were like a crowd come to a prize-fight where the two pugs don't fight, but spar and weave and never come to grips. They wanted blood, gallons of it, and to read of grape-shot smashing great lanes through Russian ranks, and stern and noble Britons skewering Cossacks, and Russian towns in flames—and they would be able to shake their heads over the losses of our gallant fellows, sacrificed to stern duty, and wolf down their kidneys and muffins in their warm breakfast rooms, saying: "Dreadful work this, but by George, England never shirked yet, whatever the price. Pass the marmalade, Amelia; I'm proud to be a Briton this day, let me tell you."

And all they got that summer, was—nothing. It drove them mad, and they raved at the Government, and the army, and each other, lusting for butchery, and suddenly there was a cry on every lip, a word that ran from tongue to tongue and was in every leading article —"Sevastopol!" God knows why, but suddenly that was the place. Why were we not attacking Sevastopol, to show the Russians what was what, eh? It struck me then, and still does, that attacking Sevastopol would be rather like an enemy of England investing Penzance, and then shouting towards London: "There, you insolent bastard, that'll teach you!" But because it was said to be a great base, and The Times was full of it, an assault on Sevastopol became the talk of the hour.

And the government dithered, the British and Russian armies rotted away in Bulgaria with dysentery and cholera, the public became hysterical, and Willy and I waited, with our traps packed, for word to sail.