LESSONS FROM THE WAR.
The glimpse of peace just afforded us is almost as startling as the news of battle, so general has been the impression that the war must inevitably continue. Peace on such satisfactory grounds as are probable will descend on the heated nation like dew. Those who, after sending forth their sons, brothers, lovers, to the war, have been steeling themselves in the Spartan school, scarcely daring to hope again to see their soldier alive and unwounded, trying to believe that if they see him no more they will lament for him only with the chastened grief due to him who falls in arms, will have all their sternness melted in their breasts to warm soft hope. The soldier himself, shivering on those desolate Crimean plains before an invisible foe, and casting many a prolonged mental glance to the homes of England, will see the red glories of the anticipated campaign contrasted vividly with the cool fresh tints of peace—peace, a word to him suggestive hitherto of dim and dubious delights, once his, but perhaps to be his no more, and only to be dwelt on for a few short moments when some echo from England had quenched the ever-present din of arms. And, to touch on lower though yet more wide-spreading interests, there are many to whom the sordid thought, that they will no more be called on to contribute the share of expense which, in one form or another, was exacted from them by the war, will bring more pleasure than any accession of glory to England. For ourselves, peace on the basis of unconditional acceptance by Russia of the terms dictated by Austria, will leave us nothing to regret. But, turning for a space from this newer topic, let us glance at the position in which these chances of peace have found us, and speak, as it is still sound policy to speak, as though there were certain to be war in the coming year.
Like one who struggles in a fog through a quagmire, England has passed through the late campaign. Advancing a few paces, plunging waist deep, pausing in bewilderment, tenfold increased by the clamour of the volunteer guides who throng officiously to the brink, and, if often supported, yet also sometimes encumbered, by the companion-hand linked in hers, she has attained a temporary halting-place. Myriad-voiced instructions, mostly resolving themselves into the simple and valuable injunction to “go in and win,” were, up to Russia’s acceptance of the proposals, still echoing from all points of the compass—many a lantern, trustworthy as anignis fatuus, glimmered through the surrounding mist. Disregarding for a time the well-meant attentions of these numerous advisers, we may attempt to throw on the devious track of the past some light uncoloured by the tints of party-spirit or of popular feeling, and so try to obtain some guidance for the future.
Glancing at the past year, we see the British army in new and strange alliance with its foe of centuries. Its leaders were either untried men, or men from whom, as previous trial had shown, nothing very remarkable was to be expected. Under such circumstances, the army was required to satisfy the expectations, not merely of a sovereign or a government, but a people. Accepting it as inevitable that the people will, in the absence of a strong government, virtually charge themselves with the conduct of the war, let us at least attempt to infuse into the collective wisdom of the nation the elements of deliberation, wholesome doubt, and self-restraint. To speak either of the pity or the scorn with which the more thoughtful and comprehensive order of spirits view a whole people, who claim to be the heirs of vast experience and civilisation, blindly clamouring after some blind leader at every turn of affairs, might answer no other purpose than to excite popular hostility. Yet to know that many of those to whom the nation cannot refuse its respect view with contempt, regret, or compassion the ordinary expression of popular opinion—to know that its most positive enunciations are held as akin to the sagacity of Dogberry and Verges—to know that the angels may well be deemed to weep at the consequences of its fantasies—might excite, even in the most determined advocate of the might, majesty, and power of the people, some obscure sensation of self-distrust and shame.
After for many years regarding their army either with indifference or dislike, and systematically confining it within the narrowest limits possible, the English people, at the outbreak of the war, dismissed their troops to the scene of action with such boastful applause as would have been unbecoming if offered by a nation which had made military glory its chief aim, to a veteran army habituated to victory. Anticipations were raised which it would be nearly impossible to realise, and to fall short of which would be disgrace. Forty years before, a small English army, composed of marvellous troops led by a marvellous man, had stemmed the progress of Napoleon, achieving exploits which, though meeting at the time with much detraction, eventually raised our soldiers to the first rank in the estimation of the world. Since then, public attention had been turned to totally different matters with great success; and we had distinguished ourselves by so many achievements in science and art, and had become so accustomed to lead the way in the pursuits of peace, that for any power to presume to dispute our supremacy was regarded as an impertinence calling for a chastisement, the promptness and weight of which it would be absurd to doubt.
Hitherto our object had been to attain a military establishment which should offer no shadow of offence to the most enthusiastic admirer of liberty, or the most ardent votary of progress. When with this object it was found desirable to combine the totally different one of possessing an irresistible force in war, some error was apparent in the result of the process; and the first impulse of our philosophic and reasoning nation was anger—at first directed on no one in particular, but after a time on all concerned in the conduct of the war, without any other distinction of persons than that arising from the respective shares borne in its administration, and consequent amount of presumed criminality. By some unknown process of logic, it was concluded that a sweeping change in the conductors of the war would restore our credit as a military power, and that a general and minister or two officially buried would be as the dragon’s teeth, from whence heroes would spring. Accordingly, some were dismissed, and some abused,pour encourager les autres.
Public attention was now riveted closely on the war, to the absolute exclusion of all other topics. Intelligence of all kinds was eagerly demanded; and those whose business it is to supply the want, could, with all their efforts, scarcely write up to the demand. Private correspondence from the seat of war was eagerly sought and extensively published, and columns set apart for “Letters from the Camp;” the special correspondence of the daily press was copied into other journals; leading articles in periodicals daily, weekly, and monthly, were founded on the information thus received, and the exaggerated statements were sometimes coloured still more highly; and popular opinion, thus originated and formed, began to exercise so powerful a pressure on the Parliament and the Government, that a glance at its sources becomes especially important.
It is useless to argue the question of whether it is on the whole more advantageous to publish or to suppress intelligence of the projected operations, or the state of the army, since the public curiosity on these heads will continue to be gratified at all hazards. The best means were adopted for obtaining intelligence, and conveying it in a pleasant form. The special correspondents of the newspapers are of course men of great ability. No expense or trouble would be spared to secure writers capable of satisfying the high requirements of the daily press; and their letters from the camp display great literary power. As pictures of life in the field, their correspondence is of the greatest value; as a guide to public opinion on the progress of the war, we may, without offence, consider it far less satisfactory. No one pretends that these gentlemen possessed either any exclusive means of obtaining information, or any aptitude for judging of the nature, progress, and success of the operations they witnessed, beyond that which any intelligent spectator might claim. The language in which they talk of the operations of the campaign is rather a military slang than the technical expression of military art, and resembles the latter only as the work of a poetaster resembles that of a poet. Nothing would be easier than to make a collection of leading articles founded on the information thus derived, and show them to be a mere jumble of absurdity. Yet this was the kind of writing which, by appealing to a circle of readers sufficiently large to constitute the public, exercised an important effect on the administration of the war. Very different was the style of an article which appeared in theMoniteur, descriptive of the conduct of the campaign, the facts of which were supplied apparently from public documents, and which was evidently written by a man of military attainments.
It would be scarcely fair to criticise closely the letters of officers, which, intended only for the perusal of their friends at home, were often, by the indiscretion of those friends, and to the annoyance of the writers, made public. It is a very common and excusable weakness for a man to avail himself, perhaps unconsciously, of a little exaggeration in the incidents he describes, when by so doing he may become a greater hero to the domestic circle; an exaltation which, far from doing harm to any one, forms one of the cases where it is delightful to be imposed on. Each family that has a member serving with the army, sees but one figure in the foreground of every scene of the campaign. In success the figure is a hero, in time of suffering a martyr. Every one likes to appear in the former character; but there were some who, during the most trying period of the campaign, too solicitous for sympathy, gave vent to lamentations which, if fortitude under privation be a virtue, must be considered unsoldierlike and unmanly.
Upon such correspondence were founded the lucubrations of those writers at home who undertook to instruct us on the war; and if military science be necessary to a right understanding of military affairs, they must be admitted to be deficient in an important element. We put the case hypothetically, because, if military science be necessary to a right understanding of military affairs, many of our self-constituted teachers must be convicted of presumptuous absurdity. Men who would never think of interfering with the most obscure country doctor in his treatment of their sick friend—who would trust blindly to their legal adviser in a question threatening character or property—who employ architects to plan their houses, and masons to build them, and, if the structure do not answer their expectations, never think of insinuating that they could have done it better themselves, are all ready to originate or amend the plan of a campaign, to censure those intrusted with its conduct, and to interfere in its most technical particulars. Clergymen, whose warfare has hitherto been waged only with the enemy of mankind, expatiate largely on the best mode of annoying our material foe; doctors abandon the study of the nervous for that of the military system; and Satan’s occupation of finding mischief for idle hands is for the present gone; for every idler thinks himself competent to discuss and advise in a military question. Modest men, diffident of giving opinions even on subjects open to general discussion, may be heard in all companies, praising and condemning with the confidence of the most accomplished critics. All are ready to quote in support of their views the opinions of the most celebrated generals; yet, while mentioning them with the greatest respect, seem to think that excellence in the profession in which they earned their reputation is attainable by the lowest capacity. A certain degree of reserve is generally practised by those who undertake to instruct the public on topics of popular interest, but no man seems to doubt the genuineness of his inspiration on any present, past, or future phase of the war; and in pamphlet, letter, or leader, he hastens to impart his light.
While regarding the pretensions of these tacticians and strategists as about as respectable as those of barber-surgeons in pharmacy, inspired cobblers in religion, or gypsies in divination, we do not think that any amount of study or previous training renders a man’s opinions really valuable, unless he has personally visited the scene of war, and is acquainted with the topographical features of the theatre of operations. Such an acquaintance as we speak of, neither descriptions nor maps can adequately afford. We have known instances where military men of great ability or experience, whose attention had been closely riveted on the conduct of the war, entertained ideas respecting the feasibility of certain operations, which an hour’s glance at the ground would at once have convinced them were erroneous, and which they relinquished after conversing with officers from the Crimea.
Having thus glanced at the unsatisfactory nature of the grounds on which the public form opinions on the war, we may point out some of the errors most strongly persisted in. Up to the present time, referring to the Russian attack on the Turkish outposts before Balaklava, it is constantly asserted that the loss of the Woronzoff road, which the presence of the Russians on the neighbouring ridge of hills rendered too precarious for the transport of convoys, was a principal cause of the subsequent disasters and sufferings of the army. Now the Woronzoff road is nowhere less distant than between three or four miles from Balaklava; and the intervening space is as badly adapted for the construction of a road as any part of the plains or heights,—worse indeed than most; so that, until it is shown that we possessed the means of uniting Balaklava with the Woronzoff road by a practicable road, we cannot be proved to have suffered materially by the presence of the Russians there. Liprandi’s movement, in occupying these hills, is generally regarded as a stroke of generalship, creditable to him, and damaging to the Allies; but it would be difficult to point to any commensurate effect resulting from his movement; while many officers—General Bosquet, we believe, among the rest—considered he had laid himself open to a defeat; and on a subsequent view of the ground, at the reconnaissance made by Omer Pasha in April, regrets were loudly expressed by both French and English that Liprandi should have been permitted to decamp unmolested.[16]
Another delusion which took complete possession of the public was, that Balaklava was constantly in peril, and that the Russians could easily attack it. The map showed a road from thence along the coast towards Yalta, and it was supposed the enemy could approach it in that direction. But this road, narrow, stony, and broken, was naturally very difficult even for field-artillery, and was easily to be rendered totally impracticable; while the right of the intrenchments surrounding Balaklava, crossing this road, with two advanced stockades looking upon a deep and narrow glen on one side, and the sea-cliffs on the other, along which the path wound precariously, rendered a successful attack impossible. Thus Balaklava could only be attacked in front directly down the valley; on entering which, supposing the intrenchments to be won, the enemy would have found themselves in a defile, with steep rocky sides; in their front the harbour, and in their rear the plain stretching to the Tchernaya, across which the Allies, descending in superior force from the plateau, might throw themselves, and so enclose the assailants.
More lately, the public has been persuaded that a direct advance against the Russian position was practicable; and that, if it were deemed unadvisable so to attack the position, it might easily be turned. Consequently, the advance of the French to the Belbek, after the conclusion of the siege, was watched with extreme interest at home, and great disappointment was felt when no result was attained. Yet those on the spot who had viewed the ground could have entertained no expectation of any success—must rather, indeed, have felt satisfaction that the French right, after being so extended, was withdrawn without disaster within the range surrounding the valley of Baidar. For if the reader, taking his map, will trace the line of heights extending from Inkermann by Mackenzie’s Farm to the Belbek, and will then imagine them to terminate at top in a steep perpendicular wall of chalky cliff, supporting the large plateau extending all round to the Belbek valley, on which the Russians were encamped—and will also observe that the one path up the plateau is guarded by the enemy, and the few narrow defiles which penetrate the heights are also held by them—he will have no difficulty in perceiving that to extend the Allied right was to give the enemy an opportunity, instantly perceived from their exalted point of view, of concentrating at the required point a superior force, marching through the defiles, and cutting off, or directly attacking, the French corps operating in advance.
These errors, although mortifying, and rendering the public unreasonably dissatisfied, produced no other ill consequences. But there have been other delusions, as obstinately maintained, the unfortunate results of which are but too visible. Such is the constant comparison to our disadvantage drawn between ourselves and the French. This is obviously a delicate subject to deal with, when an endeavour to be just to ourselves must almost necessarily offend our allies, whose own tact and good feeling have prevented them from adopting even the faintest echo of the depreciatory clamour raised by our countrymen, and would be ill repaid by invidious remarks. Yet surely we may be allowed to remind our readers that, in all the actions in the field during the earlier stage of the campaign, the English bore the brunt of the battle. Without offence, too, we may point to the records of the siege to prove that the French suffered repulses, on more than one occasion, no less sanguinary and discouraging than ours from the Redan: such, for instance, as the attack on the hills known afterwards as the White Works, east of Careening Bay, where our allies were defeated with slaughter, and did not renew the attack. Nor do we see any impolicy in asking what would have been the feeling in England, judging from its expression since, if it had been our batteries, instead of those of the French, which were silenced after a few hours’ fire at the commencement of the siege on the 17th of October? What indignation! what sarcasm! what abuse of our generals, engineers, and artillery! what glowing caustic eulogies of our gallant allies, depicted as maintaining the contest single-handed, and generously continuing their own fire to save their crushed and discomfited coadjutors from total ruin, though the ammunition, so scarce then in the trenches, and so painfully accumulated, was thereby expended without hope of success! Had the reverse of this picture at that time been drawn, it would have been highly impolitic, but perfectly true. And let us also allude to the report, which we believe to be an arrant falsehood, of English soldiers being protected from the first rigours of winter by French uniforms—and to the utter and apparently systematic disregard of all aid conferred by us on our allies—to show the important nature of which, we need only remind our readers of the number of powerful guns, and the vast quantities of ammunition, with which we, at various periods of the siege, furnished the French batteries. Too little stress has also been laid on the superiority we may venture to claim for the fire of our artillery throughout the siege: a superiority always apparent to those who watched the practice of the batteries from commanding points. That the services of our siege-artillery were appreciated by the French, is evident from the published despatch of Sir Richard Dacres, where it is stated that the assistance rendered by our fire was often warmly acknowledged by the French commanders. But where, in press or people, are we to expect the echoes of applause?
Again, to pass from particular instances to a wider field, let us inquire into the grounds of the preference so invariably and strenuously shown for the French military system, as having proved itself very superior to our own. Where, we would ask, is the evidence of this superiority? Has it appeared in the production of great generals? We really believe the French army would be as much puzzled as the English to select a man, young, enterprising, experienced, scientific, and sagacious, to be to it a tower of strength, and an assurance of victory. We know the English regimental officers to be younger than the French, whose system entails the existence of old subalterns and venerable captains: we know that ours are no less gallant than theirs: nor can an instance be pointed out where our discipline has appeared to disadvantage beside theirs. Let us at once record our opinion that no troops in Europe are more subordinate, better disciplined, or better led, than ours—and we will not do the gallant gentlemen who lead them the wrong to suppose that a different education, or a larger infusion from the ranks, would tend to exalt the valour or the morale of our army.
While we at once grant that our commanders have failed to display any great genius in the war, we think the treatment of them by the public altogether unreasonable. Gentlemen stricken in years, who have never in their lives been distinguished for anything in particular, and who have spent half a century in the world without impressing their nearest relations or most intimate friends with the idea that they possess remarkable capacity, far less genius, are suddenly placed in a position demanding a rare union of high qualities. This sudden elevation of course fails to elicit what they never claimed to possess—and men who would have passed most respectably through the more sequestered walks of life, are suddenly covered with obloquy, because they do not exhibit, on their giddy eminence, that mastery over men and circumstances of which few examples are vouchsafed to the world in a century.
To point out how the public has been as indiscriminate and unreasonable in its praise as its censure, would be a more invidious task. But it has frequently happened, that the eulogies showered on some fortunate individual have not been endorsed by the opinion of the army. Reputations, beginning nobody knows how, have taken shape and substance. The mischief of this is, that these will be the men selected for trust in a future emergency. Where there is so little opportunity for individuals to distinguish themselves, chance confers a small prominence on some who, thus lifted from the level of the crowd, become marked men—and to be marked where there is so little competition is to be famous. To us who note this, all history grows a chapter of accidents: we have an uneasy doubt whether Horatius really did keep the bridge, or Leonidas the pass—how much of his fame Coriolanus may owe to aristocratic connection, Scipio to his relation with a forgotten war-minister, or Alcibiades to private interest at the Athenian Horse Guards. Still, it is well to find that the public, with all its disposition to censure, retains the desire to praise; and we are the less disposed to except against its encomiums, because we should be puzzled to show how they might be better directed. The campaign has been singularly barren of opportunity for showing capacity. In most cases some divisions of an invading army possess a certain independence of movement, and their commanders have a field for showing their powers. Advanced guards from these and from the main body are commanded by officers of lower rank, who, in the attack or defence of a farm or a village, in the passage of a difficult stream, in the surprise of a convoy, or the collection of information, have an opportunity of displaying their qualities. But in the advance from Old Fort, the army marched entire across wide open plains, seeing only the retiring skirmishers of the enemy, entering abandoned villages, and passing the different natural obstacles unmolested, except at the Alma. None of the sense of enterprise, and of being engaged in scientific operations, which lends such glow and interest to civilised warfare, animated the troops traversing these desolate regions. Extensive plains, vast fields of coppice, or tumbled masses of hills, unbrightened by spots of culture or signs of human habitation, almost destitute even of roads, spread round the army, which dwindled to insignificance in the large sweep of the monotonous horizon. Then came the eleven months’ siege, when the prescribed daily duty of the trenches left no field open for invention, resource, or sagacity. In such circumstances, military genius remained latent in the army. That it exists we have no doubt; and we should expect in the course of another campaign to see brows, now perchance obscure, wreathed with merited laurels; but whether any truly great general, such as Wellington, Marlborough, or Napoleon is to be found in either army, is a point of which we may well doubt, when we remember how rare such beings are—how happy must be the combination of circumstances which lifts them to the point where they are recognised, and that we live, moreover, in an age when those pre-eminent spirits, which become landmarks for time, seem almost to have ceased their visits to earth.
Meantime it is curious to observe how the nation, uneasy at being baulked of its desire for a leader, proposes to make good the deficiency. Besides the somewhat arbitrary and unpromising plan already alluded to, of seizing upon ordinary men and commanding them to become great by virtue of their position and responsibility, other methods are proposed for eliciting the sparks of genius. The most favourite scheme at present is the education of our officers. Masters are appointed to examine candidates for commissions in different branches of science and literature; and, from the specimens we have seen of the examination papers, we may expect, supposing a reasonable proportion of the questions to be answered, shortly to see some very erudite men in the army, for it appears to us that the heart of the Admirable Crichton would have broke before he had got through a tithe of them. What shadow of a chance would the most accomplished Russian officer have, if opposed to a man who could, offhand, “write a short life of Milton, with dates,” “perform the eudiometric analysis of atmospheric air,” “tell what smoky quartz is,” “give a summary of Cousin’s argument against the philosophy of Locke,” and “draw a map of Britain in the time of the Roman occupation:” which are a few of the achievements demanded of the candidates in August 1855. “What is the origin of Roman satire?” is asked of the military aspirant by the Rev. G. Butler, one of the examiners, who, we should think, possibly became, on the occasion, the origin of some English satire. “Compose,” says another of them, the Rev. C. Trench, “an essay which shall not exceed thirty lines, on the following subject: In what way may England hope to avoid such a conflict with her colonies as led to the American War of Independence?” We hope Mr Labouchere will at once see the propriety of resigning his post to the author of the prize essay on this subject, whose faculty of compendiously settling such knotty points, in thirty lines, would be invaluable in the colonial, or any other department of State. “What is the object,” asks J. D. Morell, Esq., “which Kant proposed to himself in writing theCritick of Pure Reason?” to point out which might possibly have been acceptable to Kant himself. The Rev. R. W. Browne, after demanding an explanation of the terms, “Rhapsodist,” and “Cyclian Poet,” asks, “What are the conditions most favourable to the growth of epic poetry?” the best answer to which we shall be happy to accept as an article for the Magazine, as also the reply to the demand of A. H. Clough, Esq., for “a history of translations into English,” which we will publish in parts. Under these new conditions we are certainly likely to get commanders such as the world never saw before. Fancy the bewilderment of poor old Jomini, prince of strategists, at being required to tell the Rev. G. Butler what he knew “of the military organisation of the Samnites,”—or the perplexity of the Duke of Wellington, when requested by the Rev. Mr Browne to “illustrate from Homer the respect paid to the rites of hospitality.”
The fact is, we do not anticipate from the educational plan, the happy results which seem to be generally looked for, the reasons for which have been given fully in the well-considered article “On the State of the British Army,” in our last Number. We fear that the best of the candidates might still be a poor creature or a prig, perfectly inoffensive, but no more capable of infusing confidence into an army than his grandmother. The spell which is to evoke the coming leader has not yet been framed—he will appear, as heretofore, when time and the hour shall bring him. While we are seeking him with spectacles and lantern, now in this corner, now in that, grasping what we think to be him, but which turns out to be a post, we shall hear in the distance his strong clear voice, dispelling doubt. And O that he were come! What order out of chaos, what confidence out of confusion, what reverential silence out of senseless clamour, what strength, hope, and trust, would attend his victorious steps! Now we know what gratitude is due to him who can wield firmly and gloriously the might of England,—now we know that dukedoms, Strathfieldsayes, garters, and uncounted honours, are all too little to acknowledge our debt to the bold sagacious spirit which can animate and direct our powers, else blind, diffused, and enervate.
We choose this juncture to attempt to instil into the public mind some doubt of its own cherished convictions, because those convictions may at present lead to consequences we would gladly avert. There is an idea abroad that the past campaign leaves us failures to be retrieved, glory to be recovered, and influence to be restored, and that another is necessary to set us once more on our accustomed pinnacle. In vain have we written, if it be not clear that we cannot share the popular feeling of discontent, either at the course of the war, or the prospects of peace. While Russia was stubborn, haughty, and repellant, none raised their voices more loudly than we, for prompt, vigorous, and sustained efforts against the foe. Now that she is willing to treat on bases which will insure to the Allies all the objects they took up arms to attain, we should be false to our own policy and convictions did we desire to continue the war upon the new ground, that fresh victory is necessary to our reputation. There is a vile savour of defeat about the sentiment, ill becoming a nation which has just borne its share in a great and successful feat of arms; and we repudiate it the more scornfully, because we can trace so clearly any loss of prestige we may have sustained, to the false and self-depreciatory outcries of our own ill-informed and ill-judging countrymen.
The plans of that coming campaign, if haply it is still to be, are now being settled by the council sitting in Paris. On the alternatives which present themselves to that council we have cast many an attentive and eager glance. First, with regard to the present theatre of operations, we have long considered an advance from our present position before Sebastopol impossible, partly for reasons already given in speaking of the expectations raised after the capture of the town. To advance from Eupatoria in great force is also probably impracticable, from the want of water in supply sufficiently frequent and copious to satisfy the requirements of a large army. There remains, then, only the Kertch peninsula as a base of operations, to which we must shift the mass of our army. That a campaign from thence would result in the conquest of the Crimean peninsula, we do not doubt. But two considerations arise: First, supposing the Crimea in the hands of the Allies, will not its disposal be a source of embarrassment, far from compensated for by the advantage of possessing it? Secondly, with Sebastopol wrested from her, her fleet destroyed, and her coasts blockaded, is not the Crimea already virtually lost to Russia? As to the first question, often discussed as we have heard it, we have never yet caught even a glimpse of a satisfactory solution. Joint occupation, possession granted to any one of the different powers, all expedients that present themselves, contain difficulties which would render any advantage accruing to us from its being so held, small in the balance. And what would that advantage be, beyond what the footing we have there already gives us? We can maintain a force as easily at Kamiesch as at Perekop, thus preventing Russia from re-occupying the great prize of the campaign, the “standing menace to Turkey;” and as to the loss to our enemy in being deprived of the Crimea, we have frequently expressed our opinion that, in holding territory so distant and difficult of access, she incurs loss far heavier than that of the prestige or dominion which would fall from her with the peninsula. The vast and ruinous efforts which she made before the fall of the city were indeed justified rather by the importance which the possession of Sebastopol had obtained in the negotiations than by its real value; those efforts may have had no small effect in inducing her present concessions; and to continue them would, in our view, be a draining and exhaustive policy.
The war in Asia offers a more alluring field of enterprise and achievement. None of those difficulties beset us at the outset which render the Crimean campaign such an uphill game. To recover Kars, to match our troops against the enemy in the open field, and to force them struggling back upon the Caucasus, forms a brilliant and attractive programme. But has France a sufficient interest in a campaign in Asia to induce her to join in it? Will she not say that British interests are mainly at stake here, and that, to her, Russian progress in Asia is comparatively a matter of indifference? And, if she takes this view, will it suit her to sit idly by, while the British army engrosses all the interest and glory which have such powerful allurements for the soldiers and people of France? But, whether our allies join us in such a campaign, or permit us to prosecute it alone, it is worth while to consider whether the advantages to be gained, either in the shape of positive successes or losses suffered by our adversary, are such as to compensate for the drain our army will suffer in a year of the most favourable and triumphant warfare in Asia.
The third important point open to attack is the fortress of Nicolaieff, the great naval arsenal and dockyard of Russia in the Black Sea. And if we had a voice in the Allied councils, on no point should we speak with more confidence and decision than in positively objecting to another great siege, jointly undertaken. In the first place, the French will always so far outnumber us as to be able to lay claim, and to establish their claim, to a far greater share of the weight, the conduct, and the glory of the enterprise. Then, as before, the English people, growing impatient, probably, at the necessarily slow progress of siege operations, filled, with the wildest expectations, and often doomed to find them disappointed, will once more give vent to their chagrin, by depreciating the exertions of their army; and they will again be suicidally successful in lowering their own military prestige, which this second campaign was to restore.
Having thus reviewed the possible theatres of operation, and weighed the successes to be gained against the sacrifices in achieving them, we have acquired the conviction that there is a method by which we shall more damage our adversary with less injury to ourselves than by any of these enterprises. Leaving an Allied garrison within the lines of Kamiesch, watching and harassing the coasts of the Euxine and the Sea of Azoff with a squadron of light vessels, and aiding the Turks with a large contingent, we would gladly see the Allied powers agreeing to withdraw their forces simultaneously from that distant and now unsatisfactory scene of operations, and to convert the war into a blockade. Deprived of all exercise for her military strength, which would then become to her an encumbrance, debarred from commerce, and incapable of injuring her adversaries, Russia would lie like a huge corpse rotting on the face of Europe—or a Titan chained to a rock, unable to scare away the assailant that rent his vitals.
Already we are beginning to lose sight of the objects with which we commenced the war: not for territorial aggrandisement, not for glory, not for augmentation of influence or prestige, not even for that which seems now to be so generally regarded as desirable, the ruin or deep injury of Russia, but for the security of Turkey against an act of oppression. Surely a war may be carried on fully in earnest without desiring the utter destruction of the foe; and there has been nothing in the course of hostilities to justify such deadly exasperation. Our object, always plain and direct, is not to destroy, but to coerce Russia. If she is now ready to make the required concessions, we can see no just or politic reason for continuing the war; if she be not ready to do so, we think the course we have pointed out the best and safest for obliging her to submit. In either case, we should welcome with joy the gallant army of the Crimea. With such a force ready in these islands for defence or aggression, what power would then dare to act on the presumption that England’s prestige has diminished? Come what come may, though fear of change should perplex the monarchs of Europe, and the elements of discord be loosed, our power would be founded as the rock. Girt by such a fleet as never before floated, and guarded by the best appointed army we ever possessed, we might bid defiance to the world in arms.
And in either case, also, we trust the sharp and heavy lessons of the war will not be lost upon us. To speak at present with due contempt of those advocates of peace and utility, once so loud and confident, now so downcast and bedraggled, would be like painting the lily, or heaping ridicule on Pantaloon. Yet let the present fever once pass, and we fear, unless stimulants are applied, the old lethargy will return. And therefore we say, whether there be peace, or war to obtain peace, let our military power be not only maintained, but augmented. Let us not again be caught asleep, and with our quiver empty. Let those who so strongly insist on placing our army in depreciatory comparison with that of France, study the comparative circumstances of the two armies before the war began. They will find among our neighbours no skeleton of an army, no weak sketch or outline of what should be a cavalry, no neglected or half-equipped artillery, no insufficient medical staff, and no defunct commissariat. Let men who cheerfully pay the premium of fire insurance, to secure themselves against the chance of conflagration, learn to regard as equally thrifty the maintenance of a safeguard against the explosive elements so rife in Europe. Let our army be so modelled and provided in peace, that it may readily assume the proportions of war. And, above all, let us devise some means, more efficient than any we now possess, for recruiting our regiments, and rendering military service more alluring to our population.
Let us also, when peace returns, think and speak of our national achievements during the war, in a tone equally removed from the vainglorious outcry which heralded imaginary successes, and the sullen whimperings which are now heard for a presumed discomfiture. “We may find in these achievements ample reason for congratulation. That the army was few and ill-provided, only augments the glories of Alma and Inkermann. At three thousand miles from home we landed that army on the territory of the greatest military power in Europe, and laid siege to his naval stronghold. Amid the snows of winter and the heats of summer the siege advanced: not for a day, since the army landed, have our guns been silent; not for a day have the waters of the enemy’s coasts been unfurrowed by our keels, bearing ammunition to the batteries and supplies to our troops. On a spot separated from us by the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and the Euxine, we have maintained our army, more than supplied its losses, poured into the country the largest ordnance and projectiles in steady and enormous profusion. And when these had done their work, when the town for which the Czar disputed with desperate and exhaustive efforts was abandoned in ruins and ashes, a larger force than England ever before possessed, rested for the winter amid those distant regions in comfort and plenty. Such, broadly stated, are among the marvellous exploits which England has achieved in the war.