The command of the English army had been intrusted to Lord Raglan, once known as Lord Fitzroy Somerset, who lost an arm at the battle of Waterloo while on the staff of Wellington; a wise and experienced commander, but too old for such service as was now expected of him in an untried field of warfare.  Besides, it was a long time since he had seen active service.  When appointed to the command he was sixty-six years old.  From 1827 to 1852 he was military secretary at the Horse Guards,—­the English War Office,—­where he was made master-general of the Ordnance, and soon after became a full general.  He was taciturn but accessible, and had the power of attracting everybody to him; averse to all show and parade; with an uncommon power for writing both good English and French,—­an accomplished man, from whom much was expected.

The command of the French forces was given to Marshal Saint-Arnaud, a bold, gay, reckless, enterprising man, who had distinguished himself in Algeria as much for his indifference to human life as for his administrative talents,—­ruthless, but not bloodthirsty.  He was only colonel when Fleury, the arch-conspirator and friend of Louis Napoleon, was sent to Algeria to find some officer of ability who could be bribed to join in the meditated coup d’etat.  Saint-Arnaud listened to his proposals, and was promised the post of minister of war, which would place the army under his control, for all commanders would receive orders from him.  He was brought to Paris and made minister of war, with a view to the great plot of the 2d of December, and later was created a Marshal of France.  His poor health (the result of his excesses) made him unfit to be intrusted with the forces for the invasion of the Crimea; but his military reputation was better than his moral, and in spite of his unfitness the emperor—­desirous still further to reward his partisan services—­put him in command of the French Crimean forces.

The first military operations took place on the Danube.  The Russians then occupied the Danubian principalities, and had undertaken the siege of Silistria, which was gallantly defended by the Turks, before the allied French and English armies could advance to its relief; but it was not till the middle of May that the allied armies were in full force, and took up their position at Varna.

Nicholas was now obliged to yield.  He could not afford to go to war with Prussia, Austria, France, England, and Turkey together.  It had become impossible for him to invade European Turkey by the accustomed route.  So, under pressure of their assembling forces, he withdrew his troops from the Danubian provinces, which removed all cause of hostilities from Prussia and Austria.  These two great Powers now left France and England to support all the burdens of the war.  If Prussia and Austria had not withdrawn from the alliance, the Crimean war would not have taken place, for Russia would have made peace with Turkey.  It was on the 2d of August, 1854, that the Russians recrossed the Pruth, and the Austrians took possession of the principalities.