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1164 THE LEADEB. [Saturday,
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SIEGE BY CONTRACT. Although we boast Ter...
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THE RIFLE CONTRACTS. If anything could p...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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What Would Make The War Heal. A Ficw Day...
ence . It may be natural for Austria to dread that day—for we all dread the first return to virtue . But what could England dread in such a result ? If political n « cessity obliged the Austrian Government to renew the Stadion policy , what could English ministers find to regret in aa extension of constitutional Government to the Empire ? They can only regret it by being- traitors to English principles ; they can only seek to spare Austria the necessity , because they themselves are untrue to English standards .
But if so , they are doubly and trebly traitors . They are seeking to avoid the emancipation of the subject nations under Austria ; they are sacrificing our own countrymen in vain ; and they are frustrating the war that costs us so much . As well enter into a single combat with a Russian on the principle of striking gently , as carry on a wai of forbearance with
Russia . We cannot really conquer her , save by striking home . Those who administer the war . ¦ in . the idea that they can spare her , forbid a real victory , and waste blood for nothing . They side with Russia against our own army . They perpetuate the mistake under which our enemy was suffered to be bred , born , and reared into greatness , and they seek a result which involves the ruin and enslavement of our land .
Hitherto , in . maintaining Russia , Europe has kept a Goth , to hold down the civilised nations ; a few years more , and that Goth would effectually have mastered those who have sustained him ; and even now our Government is temporising and compromising . There is only one test of their sincerity—the adoption , frankly and absolutely , of the declaration that Russia must be destroyed .
1164 The Leadeb. [Saturday,
1164 THE LEADEB . [ Saturday ,
Siege By Contract. Although We Boast Ter...
SIEGE BY CONTRACT . Although we boast Tery loudly of our supexiority in science and mechanics , it is a curious phenomenon that , now we are at war , we seem loth to take the vantage ground offered us by our discoveries in the destructive sciences . It is a fact that we began to sit down before Sebastopol in the same formula and with very nearly the same machinery that Wellington employed in the reduction of Badajos , more
than forty years ago . The pick and the spade suffice to scoop out our trenches ; the heavy guns and materiel were dragged up steeps and along rough roads by horses and men j with the exception of the Lancaster gun , our artillery was constructed upon the oldest principle , and , with the exceptions of the Minie rifle and Colt ' s revolver ( botlx dealt out with the most niggard hand ) , the bayonet and " Brown Bess " were the most effective of our small arms . In
all these matters our enemies were quite equal to ourselves . Their guns as heavy in metal , and certainly with range quite as extensive as our own . In order to attempt an impression upon the stone walls of the fortress ( up to this time apparently an unsuccessful attempt ) we have had to approach our range so close to the walls that the loss of artillerymen by musketry
alone has been serious ; and yet the comparatively small pieces of iron with which we continue to batter away are reported to do little more than just " spot" the white exterior of the , walla . Recent accounts load us to the disagreeable conclusion that we have expended all our Ammunition in vain , —or , at any rate , with no more sorious e ( Fect ; s than what the
Russians can repair within the space of a single night . Yet we have not boon stationary since the time of the Peninsular war . On tho contrary , our scientific men liave been remarkably active in devising" tho most formidably destructive forces . There was a Captain Warner , for instance , possessed of a power capable of hurling into atoms tho largest man-of-war . Where is ho now?—dead ; arid where his
invention ?—lost . Officials laughed at the idea for no better reason than that they could not comprehend it ; yet every chemist knows that there are substances ( chloride of nitrogen , for instance ) a very small quantity of which would be the destruction of a city . Then again , there was Perkins ' s steam-gun ; a death-dealing tube , capable of pouring four or five hundred bullets against an advancing column , in a minute , and
with , all the power and accuracy of a rifle ; an implement that might be played upon battalions with as much facility as tlie hose of a fireengine , with such effect as may be easily imagined . Yet that has never risen beyond the dignity of being ; a toy at the Adelaide Gallery . James Nasmyth , of Patricroft—no speculative man , but one of * the first practical mechanics in the kingdom—declares that by means of his steam-hammer he can make a
gun capable of throwing a ball upon the Mini <§ principle weighing three hundredweight . "Why not three tons—for as George Stephenson said , impossibilities are only matters of money ? Mr . Perkins , son to the inventor of the steam-gun , declares that he can propel a ball of one ton weight against the walls of a , place , at the distance of five miles . Conceive for one moment the effect of such enormously destructive missiles- upon a place like Sebastopol , and compare it with the spattering hail of bullets , the most enormous of which does not exceed eighty-four pounds .
The idea has several times been thrown out in these columns , why not have these undertakings * executed on the same terms as other great undertakings are executed upon — by contract . A siege is admitted to be a mechanical operation , and , in the case of Sebastopol in particular , immense natural difficulties have to be overcome . Suppose , by way of putting 1
the case , that any one of our great contractors had undertaken the 30 b , and let us picture the manner in which he would have proceeded . Of course his estimate would have been a very large one , and his command of men and money unlimited . He would have required an armament , probably not inferior iri extent to that actually sent out , but liow differently provided and constructed ! No want of medical
stores there , or of ambulance-corps to econO ' mise the lives of his workmen—our contractor would have known better than that ; the surplus profit would have pleaded eloquently for the lives of those who were to assist him in executing the task . Arrived before the fortress to be taken , a swarm of stalwart " navvies , " armed with the rock-cutting machine , which has effected such wonders in America , would have hollowed out the trenches with ten times
the celerity of the best Sappers and Miners . A tramroad and machinery would have brought up the heavy material from Balaklava to the trenches with scarcely any expenditure of human or even equine labour . The position of the forces would have been defended on all sides by defences which no enemy could approach , far less overcome . Well housed , and warmed , and fed ( economy would have taught all this to our contractor ) , the troops -would have awaited in
their impregnable camp the moment when they would be required to rush forward to complete tho conquest of the fortress , already pounded to atoms by machines of irresistible power which would have been brought to boar upon tho enemy from a distance far oufc of reach of their puny artillery . This , as it soema to us , would bo the way in which a great contractor would avail himself of English alcill and English science if pitted against the ignorant hordes who havo hitherto had to send to Manchester
or Birmingham for the meanest piece of mechanism used to spin them a hank of yarn . But then , to bo sure , this would put an end to all prestige of military glory , and would reduce war to a mere mechanical operation .
Is this an evil ? Is war , then , so much of a pastime that we love to hear of our bravest gentlemen falling in the execution of what could be better done at less sacrifice of life ? It is true that the employment of a contractor might have the effect of upsetting Vauban , as well as of stultifying 1 the memory of some very glorious sieges . But what then—if the work were better done ?
Government has already adopted one or two of these notions—in part . The contractor idea , for instance , has been reduced into hiring Messrs . Brassey and Peto to make a railway from Balaklava to the trenches . The navvies have been hired for the purpose , and are all of good character ( out of compliment , it is presumed , to Lord Aberdeen ) . The railway will probably be finished by next March , by which
time it will not be wanted , or ought not ; although , to be sure , it may then serve to carry MenschikofF and his luggage down to the Agamemnon . Nasmyth ' s idea , too , has been taken up by Government , to the extent of " empowering him to proceed in carrying out his designs . " But all this is terribly tittleby-tittleish , and lacks the grasp and power of men who foreknow and . foresee . The fact is
patent : the science of warfare , like that of Government , wants development . To gain that , both must be performed by men whose heads are equal to their purposes .
The Rifle Contracts. If Anything Could P...
THE RIFLE CONTRACTS . If anything could prove how slowly .. the nature and magnitude of the war into which we have drifted had opened upon the mind of the Ministry , it would be the small supply of improved small arms furnished to the troops . It is reckoned that about 45 , 000 stand of rifles and carbines on improved plans have fceen delivered in by makers ; to allow a store of 50 per cent , on the arms in use is a very small allowancej so that now , at the end of 1854 , we have efficient fire-arms for 30 , 000 men to go against the Czar . Do not let it be pretended tha , t the force was always to have been larger : who would believe you , if you averred that you intended to have thirty people to dinner , and you only laid knives and forks for ten ? Do not let it be said that no time has been allowed for getting the supply : it was in 1851 that the Duke of Wellington affirmed the necessity of substituting the Minie rifle for the old musket , and it was in the lifetime of the late Duke of Orleans , if we remember rightly , certainly before 1848 , that Sir Charles Shaw witnessed those feats with the Minie
which he publicly described iu this country . The Lancaster gun may have been tried but recently , tho Minio has been known and iu use for eight years at least , and to this day some of our troops are sent out with old " brown Bess" to fire salutes of honour to the Russians . It cannot ^ originally at least , have been intended to shoot the Russians . In the admirable romance of Amadis de
Gaul , the great King Lisuarte is going forth to meet a mortal enemy , and he is encountered by a beautiful lady who makes him a present of a fine sword : the King is led into an ambush , and his sword breaks off at the hilt . In excuse , tho Government accuses the contractors , and tho contractors accuse Government . Tho contractors , says the right honourable the Times , prevented tho establishment of
tho Government factory at Woolwich , which would have furnished tho supply wanted ; and now tho contractors cannot make fu 9 t enough . The contractors reply through thoir local organs , that they can muko at tho rate of 300 O a week in Birmingham alone ; but that Government first paralysed them by threatening to establish tho factory ; then gave contracts only to four principal iiras in Birmingham ; and to this day
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 9, 1854, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_09121854/page/12/
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