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§00 THE LEAD15 B. [SUrarBPAY,
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THE "MONITEUR" ON THE WAR. The document ...
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OUR FAMILIES AGAIN. Again " the families...
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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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Exclusion Of The Middle Classes. The Mid...
" ^ wgHm ^ P ^ BHHH ^^^^^^^^^ MTi ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ the association with themselves so little palatable erem to themselves , that those of their body who do obtain power and influence cut the connexion and use it for the behefijb of other classes . '
§00 The Lead15 B. [Surarbpay,
§ 00 THE LEAD 15 B . [ SUrarBPAY ,
The "Moniteur" On The War. The Document ...
THE " MONITEUR" ON THE WAR . The document published in Wednesday ' s Monileur may be regarded from several points of view—^ as a tardy homage to the force of public dissatisfaction j as a simple compte rendu and substitute for the " debates" of a free Parliament ; as an indirect mode of showing the share which the late Marshal St . Arnaud had
in the expedition to the Crimea j as a contribution to the history of the war . It is from the last point of view that we propose to look at the document , and to subject it to impartial criticism ^ dismissing for the moment all political considerations , and without any precon ceived desire to uphold or to depress the reputation of this man or that , whether he be General or Emperor .
In order to appreciate the beginning of the campaign , we must recal the situation of affairs in the spring of 1854 . When war was declared , the Russians had already begun offensive operations . Their troops had crossed the Danube and mastered the Dobrudscha , and the main body of the army was drawing down to Kalarasch with the view of besieging Silistria . The Turks held the line of the Danube
from Silistria to Widin , but the line of operations starting from the Dobrudscha was open to them . The single , strong , offensive position held by the Turks was . the entrenched lines at Kalafat , which effectually barred the Russians from any attempt to penetrate into Servia , or to turn the Balkan by Sophia . It was therefore on the cards that
a daring Russian general , acting with decision and rapidity , might have masked the fortresses , and have penetrated , with a strong body of troops , through the Balkan . The writer in the Moniteur tells us that in April , when the expedition was about to leave France , " inquiries were anxiously made whether our military forces would arrive in time to cover
Constantinople . " "~~ miis ~~ fac ~ t ~ Ts ~* tlie key to the earlier proceedings of the Allies . Their first object was to cover Constantinople . How should this be done ? The best military authorities have pointed out the way— -the occupation- of the peninsula of Gallipofi . It is not clear that the public have ever understood the importance of this position ; certainly it was not understood at the time . The peninsula of Gallipoli lies at the entrance of the Dardanelles , which ¦ washes its southern , as the Gulf of Enos washes
its northern , shores . At a certain point , near Boulair , the neck of land communicating with the interior is easily defended . Therefore , an army posted at Gallipoli would command the Dardanelles , —a point of great importance , — would be easily supplied with provisions , stores , and munitions of war , would occupy a position almost impregnable on the land side , and hold in its hands the means of
retreat by sea in case of rovorses . But more than all , a strong army entrenched at Gallipoli would flank any force approaching Constantinople from the Balkan , and most certainly stop its progress further south than Adrianople . These considerations , developed in tho Moniteur , and previously sustained by eminent military men , dictated the first step taken by the Allies in the wnr . So far , therefore , the reasoning of tho organ of the French . Government rests on a solid technical basis .
But by the time the Allies had mustpred at Gallipoli , the design of the enemy had been tested by difficulties . The Russian campaign , bo brilliantly begun , did not proceed with tho Bame ratio of success . Silistria seemed likely
to stop the way * and the difficulty of moving through the Dobrudscha had greatly retarded the march of the corps of Luders to perform its share of the siege . There \ vas , therefore , not only time to cover Constantinople , but possibly to save Silistria , certainly to defend the Balkan . Hence the movement of the troops by sea to Varna , as soon as they had assembled in numbers sufficient to form a respectable army . The probability of this movement also was foreseen by the Allied
Governments . In his instructions to Marshal St . AenauDj the French Emperor directs him to come to an understanding with Lord Raglan and Omar Pacha respecting the adoption of one of three plans—an advance to the Balkan , the seizure of the Crimea , or a landing ' at Odessa . But in case they made choice of the line of the Balkan as a first position , they were naturally directed upon Varna . Yet even up to this point the Allied Governmentsit would appear , only calculated
, on a defensive war in Bulgaria . " In no case " was the army ever to remove too far from the Black Sea . " There was , as we know , another reason , equally strong as the Imperial instructions—the almost total want of land transport . The Allies could not have moved upon Silistria , even if it had been necessary , and this was surely a grave defect in the expedition . But there was no necessity . Omar Pacha looked
upon the fall of Silistria as " ineiptable ; he was agreeably deceived ; Butler and Na-Smtth made the Turks fight ; Silistria held out ; and , as the Moniteur observes , the courage of the Turks and " the presence of the Allies" caused Prince Gortschakofp to raise the siege and retire to the left bank of the Danube—and shortly afterwards , for strategic reasons , from the Principalities . the
The next point for consideration is , why Allies did not pursue the Russians into Bessarabia . The reasons given by the Moniteur against this project are mostly sound , but all of them are not creditable . It is clear that it would have been madness to have crossed the Danube without the active co-operation of Austria—and Austria was not in a position , even had she been willing , to give the cooperation required ; Nor ~ would it have been I- _ J- _ — « - a . i with
wise to have entered a devastated country no conceivable object , especially as the allied army had no transport , no reserves of artillery , no magazines , nay , no army of reserve ! The army would have receded from its resources , as the enemy fell back upon well-filled magazines ; and , if not beaten in battle , the Allies would have perished by disease and wantand all for nothing . The Russians were driven from the Principalities without battles , by the mere dynamic pressure of concentrating
. The Allies had , therefore , fulfilled the first part of their mission ; they had secured the defence of Samboul at Galliooli ; they had ensured the evacuation of tho Principalities at Varna . But they were then placed in a dilemma . Inactivity for an object is possible to an army ; but objectless inactivity is quite impossible—nay , unsafe .
The political interests ( which we do not here discuss ) of the alliance concurred with military necessities j the Allies determined upon action , and the expedition to tho Crimea was chosen as the most likely to be fruitful in its political offects upon tho Avar . It is where a defensive changes into an offensive war , that we find plenty of room for doubting the wisdom ' of the course pursued .
And here wo remark that the , language of the Moniteur becomes unsatisfactory . Nothing may have been more fitting than an expedition to the Crimea ; nothing so likely to produce decisive results j but if done at all it required to bo well done . It was one thing , to decide upon the expedition ; it was another to
execute it , The plan was matter for deliberation ; it was warmly debated } and referred home . The home authorities declined to send instructions , but they sent advicej : and . that advice was not taken . There were two modes of ; attaining the desired results-possession of Sebastopol . T ! he one was to land as near as convenient to the fortress , march directly upon it , and seize it by a coup de main ; the other was to land at the point most convenient and most easily secured ,
to operate from that , and to look forward to the capture of Sebastopol as the reward of a campaign . The former plan was the empirical one ; and it was adopted , there is reason to believe , mainly through the influence of St . Arnaud— -a man trained in the Algerian school of warfare , a general of razzias and streetifights . St . Arnaud knew that his death was at hand ; he burned to die in Sebastopol ; he dreamed that the crowning expiation of his life would be the reward of a
coup de main in the Crimea . But the latter plan we are told was the plan which the Cabinets of London and Paris recommended to their generals . It was proposed that the troops should occupy Kaffa , and thus block out' reinforcements from the Caucasus and the Sea of Azof ; that after securing Kaffa as a base of operations , they should advance on Simpheropol , the strategic and administrative centre of the peninsula , engage the Russian army in the field , and
invest Sebastopol . This was at least a scheme in accordance with military principles ; and why it was not adopted the Moniteur fails to explain . We may Supply , perhaps , ^ a few reasons : Marshal St . Arnaud was in a hurry , and must pluck the fruit ripe or unripe ; the army was top small , as then constituted ; it had no means ef land transport—of itself a
conclusive reason . The expedition embarked just in the season for a coup de main , but too late for " a regular campaign , which would have brought the army before Sebastopol . Empiricism carried it over sound principle . " Unhappily , " says the Moniteur , "the advice from Paris and London was not taken "—why , it does not say . But it would have been far better to have wintered .. near . Kaffa , and _
collected a great force for the spring , than to winter over above Sebastopol . This is the weak side in the justification of the Moniteur . Whether , taking facts as we find them , the generals pursued , not the most correct course theoretically , but the best practically , when they turned the harbour and fell upon the south side , is another question . We have no means of judging whether tho north should have been stormed at once , or , failing
that , the south stormed at once ; but prudence cried loudly against anything so hazardous as an . assault ; and it soon became obvious that Sebastopol could only be taken after a hard struggle , and a reparation of the fault of 1854 . That struggle is not over j we have yet to learn the result ; and wo shall probably see an active army operating against the enemy in the field , in order that the damage done by tho ^ empiricism of 1854 may bo corrected in 1855 .
Our Families Again. Again " The Families...
OUR FAMILIES AGAIN . Again " the families" are before the public , under charges that subject them to tho penal law . It has now been publicly announced that tho Honourable Fuanois Villiers , fourth son ot tho Earl of Jersey , member for Rochester , and a steward of tho Jockey Club , has failed to make good his engagements . His constituents , it has been reported , hold a meeting tor tlio purposo of calling upon him to resign Ins scat ; but thoy were prevented from presenting taeir memorial by ' the . important previous questionw / tcre was Mr . Viluers ? He has not only m-
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), April 14, 1855, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_14041855/page/14/
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