How the Russian cat of the British army did it
Hunger
After a series of bloody battles, the British and French managed to occupy Sevastopol, abandoned by the defenders in September 1855. The city lay in ruins, and it was impossible to use the remnants of food available there. And there was simply no delivery of much-needed food - despite the presence of the railway, there was practically no food on it.
Board of Ordnance - government agency responsible for supplying weapons and ammunition, used the railway exclusively for their own needs (after the Crimean War, this office was disbanded due to its complete inability to function effectively).
Food was supplied on a leftover basis. Its supplies were controlled by the Commissariat, a civilian body of the Treasury (in December 1854, however, the Commissariat transferred the functions of supplying the military to the War Office, the predecessor of the Ministry of Defense).
It is not hard to imagine the amazing disorder that reigned in the supply of the belligerent British army. In practice, the army relied on the provision of food by civilian contractors on the ground and on the seizure of enemy warehouses.
When Lieutenant of the 6th Dragoon Guards, William Geir, with his soldiers entered Sevastopol on September 6, 9, his duties as Assistant Commissioner for Supply included finding an opportunity to purchase (more precisely, to get) food for his soldiers.
Tailed Supplier
In this difficult matter, he found an unexpected assistant - a cat discovered in the ruins of a civilian dwelling.
The lieutenant immediately drew attention to the fatness of the cat, but did not let him go to the roast (mostly the French dabbled in dishes from the "city rabbit"), and guessed that the cat was fishing for mice. But the mice are clearly eating up the remains of some supplies in the rubble.
Kota Geir took with him (he did not resist). He was fed in the officers' quarters, and then they followed where he went every time for luxurious food.
The cat led him and a detachment of soldiers to the ruins of a shop. And, dismantling the blockage, in the basement they found quite a decent supply of cereals and flour. Subsequently, a search party led by Tom (as the officers called the collaborationist cat) regularly found supplies in the rubble that practically saved the British from starvation.
Soon after the capture of Sevastopol, William Geir left for England. He took the unprincipled Tom with him, and on December 31, 1856, already in England, the cat went beyond the rainbow.
The adventures of Crimean Tom, as journalists of Victorian England called him, became known to the general public, so the tailed traitor was taxidermized by his owner, and Geir donated the stuffed animal to the Naval and Military Museum.
In 1860, the museum was transformed into the Royal United Services Institution. And the scarecrow that had become unnecessary ended up in one of the junk shops on Portobello Road, where it was bought (in the 50s) by Lady Faith Compton McKenzie. It was she who donated the stuffed Russian cat to the National Army Museum in 1958, where the mortal remains of the Crimean Tom are to this day.
And after numerous reforms and shake-ups, all the supplies of the British Army were in the hands of the Royal Logistics Corps, created on April 5, 1993, - the Royal Logistics Corps, which became the largest corps in the British army.
And the need for tailed collaborators has disappeared ...
- Alex "Boltorez" Sviridov
- Own photo.
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