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    In the public feeling in . regard to the war , there seems at this moment some contradictory emotion . The nation is ardently warlike , and yet there is none of the historic rejoicing over the " great victories . " But this may be accounted for . It is felt as a sin to glory in a struggle to which our array should never have been exposed ; 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 Sevastopol , many Ministerial errors will be forgotten and

    pardoned ; 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 MenschikofP , but that the Austrians , occupying 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 Kossuth , uttered four months ago in Glasgow , are being- reproduced . Referring to the Austrian occupation of the Principalities , he said :-

    —" Your Government calls that alliance , Init I will it treason ; and so will history call it . By this trick of Austrian perfidy , the Czar being relieved from danger in that quarter , his right wing secured , ho can and Tvill now detach such numbers of his army hence as he likes , and concentrate thorn thither where yon chooso to attack him . He is at home , you thousands of miles off . You shall be beaten . 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 tako an intrenched camp ,

    linked by terrible fortrossos , and an army for ynrrison iu it , and now armies poi » - -. g upon your ilunlc and rear , and you in the plaii ' -. of the Crimea , with almost no cavalry to resist them , —that is such fin undertaking , to succeed in -which moro forces nro neeuHsnry than England and Franco can ever unite in that quarter for such an itfm . And in Unit position is Scbiuvtopol , thanks to your Austrian alliance , whioh , h jiving interposed herself between you and your oiiomy in Wallnoliiii , mndo tho Czar free to send mieli nutnliorn ( o Solmstopol n . s ho likes . You -will bo beaten . Itfinoinbor my word . Your braves will fall in vain under Uiirwhui bullets nnd

    Crimean nir , m tho Rusftliuirt full under Turkinh bullets and Daaubinn lover . Not ono out of live of your bmvo . s , immolatod in vain , shall * oe Albion or Cmlliu again . " Now , to call this prophecy , appears to us to indicate confusion in tho popular notion o the war . Tho Governments Imvo blundered hugely ; but thoso who reproduce ) those words of Kossuth do not hit the point .

    Austria camo into the Principalities at tho invitation of tho Western Power ? . Tho Western Powers wanted to g-o to the Crimea Austria undortook to block out Russia : tho

    Western Powers did go to the Crimea-: the Austrians did block out the 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 attach 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 for 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 it 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 army we have heard so much of , pursued the Russians , advanced to Ismail ? Because Omar

    Pasha knew his army would fl y like chaff iu the field before such troops as were hurled at the English at Inkerman . The generals , then , sailed for tlie Crimea , with a full knowledge that the Russians "would be able to concentrate their forces in the 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 . Granted—rand 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 net to have had one army 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 1 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 ontixely disbelieve . By-and-by , it may be good policy to insist on her taking sides . But , so far , we see , on the Austrian sido of our diplomacy , no error . Our business is to conquer Russia , to save Constantinople ; and precisely tho reasons Arhich justify the French alliance

    justify the Austrian alliance . Those liberal politicians who would have the war a wav for human freedom , 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 those Governments can be forced into shaping the war to the popular wishes .

    Wo reg-nrd Louis Napoleon as responsible , in an equal degree with our Government , for the conduct , hitherto , of the war . Tho petty , clcrky conception of tho war is tho conception of a council as much French as English . And wo consequently apprehend that Louis Napoleon has this year ofteetuall y exploded his protonsioua to genius .

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    WHERE TO GET REINFORCEMENTS . Tiikkk is no . sig-n that Russia will give in , no sig-u that tho German Powers will hurry themselves to assist us . Wo have not yet gone to tlio Iong-th of suspecting that our Government intends to surrender . Franco will probably stand with us so long- as wo have tho meuufl of obtaining present success . Meanwlillo , tho war cats up the human fuel with which wo . supp ly it ; while more is doninnded l > y our Government , aud cheerfully given by tho

    people . Still the conflict must proceed . A further demand for the same kind of costly fuel will soon press upon us , and already the recruiting-officer is beginning to rake hard upon the primary rock of the people . He always begins with those who , as Voltaire says , have " nothing to g&b and nothing" to lose . " who are willing to have their coats bound with the coarse white worsted used in the army , and to be marched away " to glory . " Bufe when that first " scum" of the people ia used

    up , it is necessary to dip into the very body of the nation , and that ia what the recruitingofficer is at this moment actually doing 1 . Young men who were induced to enter the militia , on the supposition that they would only he called upon to serve locally—in their own county , or at most to defend some neighbouring part o £ the United Kingdom—now find tha-t the militia regiments are gradually being embodied , thafe 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 home , 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 new draft upon the people for the recruiting of the militia , 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 between the Allies and Russia have scarcely passed , before we have such a demand fox 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 tho 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 show that 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 , aud strongest impatience exists for action in that quarter ; but we belicvo wo are correct in saying that there cannot be any very important naval results , unless , jis we caunot expect , tho Russian fleet should come forth to be conquered , or unless our fleet should be reinforced by an army to net on shore We shall want , thorefore , an army of tho Baltic to balance an army of the Crimea . If tlie German Governments

    should prove faithloss , wo then ahull want au army of observation on the Rhino , and perhaps up the Rhino . To talk , therefore , simply of doubling , is to take tho very lowest estimate of the increase that wo already perceive to be necessary ; whereas , every ono of us knows that there must commence a now scries of events in . the spring , calling 1 for now armies and new

    increase Some evidence of fho strong sense which these necessities are forcing upon Ministers and ministerial people appears in more than ono side . Our genial but moderate contemporary , tho F .: v ( t . mi ) i <> t \ is aiguiing atontly for tho enrolment of a Polish corps ; a very proper auxiliary . But need wo stop thorn ? Is Austria a friend or foe ? It is u question thut can only bo uiiMvenxl practically . If she is our friend where are her armioj , to net on the Prutli , on the Tchernaya , on tho Neva , « ud on tho Rhine ?

    Untitled Article

    November 25 , 1854 . ] THE LEADER . 1115

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 25, 1854, page 1115, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2066/page/11/