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    November 25, 1854.] THE LEADER. 1115

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    WHERE TO GET REINFORCEMENTS. There is no...

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    Conduct Of The War. The Impression Is Ga...

    la the public feeling in regard to the war , there seeing at this moment some contradictory emotion . The nation ig ardently warlike , and yet there is none of the historic rejoicing over the " great victories . " But this may he accounted for . It is felt as a sin to glory in a struggle to which our army should never have teen exposed j there is deep , desperate disgust -with the men to > whose lordly incapacity and high-bred imbecility England has trusted a contest the most momentous in which she has ever been engaged .

    Errors are being repaired ; that is to say the two Governments are doing now what they were told to do when the troops were being embarked for Varna . The Emperor of the French is sending an army to the Danube ; and , simultaneously , a vast increase of force is being supplied to Lord Raglan for the work which , he undertook with a grossly insufficient strength . In the glory which will cover the army and the nation , after the surrender , or burning- and desertion of Sebastopol , many Ministerial errors will be forgotten and pai * -

    doned ; and as we shall pass a winter talking of the exploits we intend for the spring , the Government is safe . But it will have to be remembered that it is not the army we sent to Varna which will conquer in the Crimea : it is the army which , during the last ten days , has been sailing from Toulon , Marseilles , and Portsmouth ; also that -the miscalculation of the French and English Governments about Sebastopol would , even in the end , be fatal to us , but that Menschikoff , cut off from the sea , cannot provide food for his troops .

    The Russian soldiers who fought on that memorable Sunday , the 5 th of November , were troops from Bessarabia and Moldavia . It is contended that these reinforcements could never have reached Menschikoff , but that the Austrians , occupj'ing the Principalities , and " paralysing the Turks , " set the Russian army free . Such is the view now popularly taken ; and it is with ominous effect that these words of Kosstith , uttered four months ago in Glasgow , are being reproduced . Referring to the Austrian , occupation of the Principalities , he said : —

    " Your Government calls that alliance , but I call it treason ; and so mil history call it . By this trick of Austrian perfidy , the Czar being roll eved from danger in that quarter , his right wing secured , ho can aud will now detach such numbers of his army hence as ho likes , and concentrate them thither where yon choose to attaclt him . Ho is at home , you thousands of miles off . You shall be heatou . Remember my word To take a fortress , accessible by trenches , and having but a garrison to defend it , that is but a mere matter of art and of comparative sacrifices—it can bo calculated to the hour ; but to take aw intronchcd camp ,

    linked by terrible fortresses , and an army for garrison in it , and now armies pouring upon your Hank and roar , and you in the plains of tho Crimea , with almost no cavalry to resist them , —that is such an inulcrtnlcing 1 , to succeed in which more- forces aro nocesaary than England and Franco can over unite in that quarter for such an aim . And in . that position is Sebastopol , thanks to your Austrian allinneo , which , having interposed herself toetweon you and your enemy in Wallachia , made the C / . ar freo to send such numbers to Sevastopol as no likes . You ¦ will bo beaten . Romomlior my word . Your braves will fall in vain under Russian bullets and

    Crimean air , as tho RuaHians foil undor Turkish bullets and Dannbinn fovor . Not ono out of live of your braves , immolated in vain , ahull boo Albion or Qallia again . " Now , to call this prophecy , appoars to vis to indicate confusion in tho popular notion of tho war . Tho Governments liavo lihindered hug-oly ; but those who reproduce theso words of Kossuth do not hit the point .

    Austria camo into the Principalities at tho invitation of tho Western Powers . Tho "Western Powors wanted to go to the Crimea : Austria undortook to block out Russia : tho

    Western Powers did go to the Crimea : the Austrians did block out fche Russians . Austria entered the Principalities as a , neutral power , her position fully understood and fully acceded to by the other Governments ; and she never said that she would attack Russia , while she did say that if Russia attacked her , she would depart from her neutrality . Now it is not disputed that Sebastopol was a proper point of attack : the Russians driven out of the Crimea , would lose the Black Sea ; and the question to

    be put is—would it have been better fop the Allies to have left the Principalities to the Turks themselves ? Would it have been wise to leave Austria on one flank , as a suspected enemy , and Russia on the other flank , of Omar Pasha ' s army ? It is pleasing to believe in the soldiers of Turkey ; but ifc is not practical . St . Arnaud and Lord Raglan did not believe in them ; and when they sailed from Varna they never calculated on the Russians being driven completely out of Moldavia , either by the Austrians or by the

    Turks . Why has not Omar Pasha , with the array we have heard so much of , pursued the Russians , advanced to Ismail ? Because Omar Pasha knew his army would fly like chaff in the field before such troops as were hurled at the English at Inkerman . The generals , then , sailed for the Crimea , with a full knowledge that the Russians would be able to concentrate

    their forces in tile Crimea . The Governments knew all the chances . The blunder therefore is , simply , in sending to the Crimea a force too small for the work it had to do . Grantedand this is urged in defence of the blunderthat the error of miscalculation was one in which the whole nation participated . But is there no difference as to information between a Government and a mob ? Such a vindication

    is ruinous to the pretensions of cabinet councils . It is , however , a very different question , whether we ought not to have had one arm y on the Danube at the same time that we were sending another to the Crimea . In other words , whether the two divisions of French troops being sent for Christmas ought not to have been sent for Midsummer ? That the two Governments should have forced Austria out of her neutrality- —that is to say , should have forced Austria to join Russia—we entirely disbelieve . By-and-by , it may be good policy

    to insist on her taking sides . But , so far , we see , on the Austrian side of our diplomacy , no error . Our business is to conquer Russia , to save Constantinople ; and precisely the reasons which justify the French alliance justify the Austrian alliance . Those liberal politicians who would have the war a war for human freedoij ) , and would do the whole work at once , overlook the fact that we have to deal with Governments , aristocratic and despotic , and that it is only by gradual influences these Governments can be forced into shaping the war to the popular wishes .

    Wo regard Louis Napoleon as responsible , in an equal degrco with our Government , for the conduct , hitherto , of the war . The potty , olerky conception of the war is the conception of a council as much French as English . Aud wo consequently apprehend that Louis Napoleon has this year effectually exploded his pretensions to genius .

    November 25, 1854.] The Leader. 1115

    November 25 , 1854 . ] THE LEADER . 1115

    Where To Get Reinforcements. There Is No...

    WHERE TO GET REINFORCEMENTS . There is no sign that Russia will give in , no sign that tho German Powers will hurry themselves to assist us . Wo have not yet gone to tho length of suspecting tlint our Government intonds to surrender . Franco "will probably Btand with us so long as wo have the moans of obtaining present suoccss . Mcnnwhilo , tho war oats up the human fuel with which wo supply it ; wliilo more is demanded by our Government , and cheerfully given by tho

    people . Still the conflict most proceed . A further demand for the same kind of costly fuel will soon presa upon us , and abeady tho recruiting-officer is beginning to raise hard upon the primary rock of the people . He always begins with those who , as Voltaire says , have " nothing to gefc ^ and nothing to lose , " who are willing to have tneir coats bound with the coarse white worsted used in the army , and to be marched away "to glory . " Buft when that first " acum of the people is used up , it is necessary to dip into the veiy body of the nation , and that U what the

    recruitingofficer is at this moment actually doing . Young men who were induced to enter the militia , on the supposition that they would only be called upon to serve locally—in their own county , or at most to defend some neighbouring part of the United Kingdom—now find that the militia regiments are gradually being embodied , that is , converted into a force under the liabilities of the regular forces , except that it cannot be taken beyond the four seas . The private

    citizen , therefore , who thought that the militia bounty only rendered him liable for a few days ' drill in the year , unless the Russians should actually come , now finds himself turned into a regular soldier , taken away from his homo , and ordered to the most distant quarters of his own country . The recruiting - sergeant is further instructed by Mr . Sidney Herbert to visit these militia depots , and draw forth recruits for the regulars ..

    But if drafts be made from the militia at one hand , it will be necessary to make a newdraft upon the people for the recruiting of the rjnilitia , unless we are to be left with reduced garrisons at home . We have already the elements of the progress that Government is making in this direction . The Allies landed at Eupatoria in the middle of September ; two months of the actual war "beevrsen the Allies and Russia have scarcely passed 3 before we have such a demand for reinforcements as

    requires a doubling of our army in that quarter . Now , supposing the increase were to proceed at that ratio , we should very soon be obliged > to match the continental states in the magnitude of our forces . The winter , of course , will occasion a short relaxation in this increase ; but with spring it will have a new impulse . The task of our Government at present is , to showthat they are augmenting the forces fast enough and they will have to persevere in that augmentation as the field of their operations

    widens . Part of the fleet -will winter at Kiel , and strongest impatience exists for action in that quarter ; but we believe we are correct in saying that there cannot be any very important naval results , unless , as we cannot expecb , the Russian licet should come forth to be conquered , or unless our fleet should he reinforced by an army to act on shore . We shall want , therefore , an army of the Baltic to balance an army

    of tho Crimea . If the German Governments should prove faithloss , wo then aliall want an army of observation on the Rhine , and perhaps up the Rhino . To talk , therefore , simply of doubling , is to take tho very lowest estimate of tho increase that we already perceive to bo necessary ; whereas , every one of us knows that there must commence a new series of events in tho spring , calling for now armios and new

    increase . Some evidence of tho strong- sense which theso necessities aro forcing- upon Ministers and ministerial peoplo appears in more than ono side . Our genial but moderate contemporary , tho Examiner , is arguing stoutly for tho enrolment of a Polish corps ; a , very proper auxiliary . But need wo stop there ? Is Austria a friend or foe ? Ifc is «» question that can only bo answered practically . If she is our frioud where nvo liar armies , to act on tho Pruth , on the Tchoruaya , on the Nova , and on tho Rhino ?

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 25, 1854, page 11, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_25111854/page/11/