Unlike the French, the British could not seem to work out a system for collecting firewood. They allowed the men a ration of charcoal for burning in their fires but, because of the shortage of forage for the draught animals, it proved too difficult to haul the charcoal up from Balaklava to the heights, so the soldiers went without, though officers of course could send their servants down on their own horses to collect the fuel for them. The men suffered terribly from the freezing temperatures of December and January, with thousands of reported cases of frostbite, especially among the new
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