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and Iiombardy ; advances would be ready for her in the coffers of London ; she might laugh at Russia , ride over Prussia , and bail Francis Joseph Emperor with the new crown of a united Empire , perchance more enduring than that which has already lasted for nearly six hundred years .
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WAR . AS A SANITARY EXERCISE . The war has " been a magnificent rally for the English people . We were getting sunk in a quietude which we had begun to regard as immortal , and war Kas ~ at a blow told us mercifully how senseless was that reliance . It has called upon numbers of us to become familiar with active life , and with the hardships that attend upon it—hardships , indeed , severe for the unfamiliar frame
but spott to frames which are " hardened " against them . IsTapoleon tells us what we want in England -when he describes the object of the camp at Boulogne . "It has been created , " he said , "to accustom you to military exercises—to marches , to fatigues ; and believe me , there is for the soldier nothing equal to this life in the open air , which enables him to know himself and to resist the inclemency of the seasons . "
There is no race of men that cannot harden themselves this way ; no race more capable than the English ; none which has neglected the exercise so much . " We have amongst us , indeed , sailors , sportsmen , soldiers , who are as much at home under the bare sky as any other men ; but in proportion to the multitude of our countrymen , the number is small compared -with that in other countries . Xou would find a larger per centage of ! Frenchxnen . Take the facts as in an Englishman ' s description of his first acquaintance with bivouac :- ^ -
" Few of va" writes the civil correspondent of the Times , ¦ will ever forget last night . Seldom were 27 , 000 Englishmen more miserable . The b
bivouac—a hard trial enough , in all conscience , worao than all their experiences of Bulgaria or Gallipoli , for there they had their tents , and now they learned to value their canvas coverings at their true worth . Imagine all these old generals and young lords and gentlemen exposed hour after hour to the violence of pitiless storms , with no bed but the recking puddle under the saturated blankets or bits of useless waterproof wrappers , and the twenty odd thousand of poor fellows who could not get ' dry bits' of ground , and had to sleep , or try to sleep , in little lochs and watercourses—no file to cheer them , no hot grog , and the prospect of no breakfast 5—l
imagine this , and add to it that the nice change of linen' had become a wot abomination , which weighed the poor men ' s kits down , and you will admit that tins ' seasoning- ' wns of a rather violent character—particularly aa It came af tor 4 II the luxuries of dry ship stowage . Sir Georgo Brown slept under a cart tilted over . The Duke had some similar contrivanco . Sir De Lacy Evans was the only General whoso staff had boon careful enough to provide him with « tont . In one Aspect the rhin was of service ; it gave them a temporary supply of water , but then it put a fire out of the question , oven- If the men could have scraped up wood to make it . TUo country is , however , quite destitute of timber . "
Here 19 an officer ' s view of the same hard fate , described to the Morning Post : — " Camp , Orhnoa , 2 nd Div ., G Miles from Landing-place , September 16 . " I nm now stretched on tho ground in the open air , 3 n order to continuo my journal . Yesterday morning wo disembarked . I will not attempt to < Io « cribo it , feir It was bo truly wonderful thnt it . exceeded nil that I had anticipated , T < l <> wot wish my friends to bo unonny ftbowt me , « a I am a » well off « b most of ua , and content mynolf , BGoing many others \ yomo off thaix myself . Wo wore ordorod to diaombark with nothing but what -wo could cany—our conta on our bnokw , and three days '
provisions in our haversacks . Last -night I slept with my cocked hat for a pillow , and my cloak for a covering , and , barring the rain , got on tolerably well . In fact , I was never more jolly , notwithstanding so great a contrast to everything like comfort or a comfortable home . My greatest discomfort is not having been able to wash my hands since we landed . Indeed , it is very difficult to get water at all . Fortunately , I have not quite finished a bottle of cold tea that 1 brought on shore yesterday , or should have been punished for want of something to allay occasional -thirst . "
The Camp of Boulogne , too , had another object— " it was to show to Europe that , without leaving any points of the interior unguarded , 100 , 000 men could be easily concentrated between Cherbourg and St . Omer . " Could we do the lite ? Certainly not ! In the United States , indeed , where their standing army barely exceeds 10 , 000 men , something like 2 , 000 , 000 of soldiers , really practised with the best of weapons , will answer
to the muster call ; while we could barely muster , 100 , 000 , militia and all . ! Five years ago we could not have done so much , yet we were really as much exposed to aggression from without as we are now— -perhaps more so It is in truth a blessing for this country that the peace which some of us expected never to see infringed has broken down at a distance from our shores , and has taught us to prepare for hazards which we presumptuously believed ourselves to have outgrown .
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Ai"ter Sebastopol ., what ? "What shall we do with it all , now we have got it ?— -if we have or when we have . The common idea is to give it to Turkey . " Would that be the best plan . P Sebastopol is the key to the back-door of the Black Sea ; whoever has it takes in the rear the Power possessing the front-door , the Dardanelles . Russia of course cannot keep it . Shall any Power be
per-INYESTMENT OF SEBASTOPOL , COMMERCIALLY .
initted to > take it , and so to override Constantinople ? There was a notion once of offering (?) Byzantium to the Yankees , as a collateral Power , who would thus acquire a locus stnndi in Europe , and be able to antagonise the vagaries of the circumjacent barbarians . Indeed , we do not know a Power which could more effectually preserve its stand in those districts than the Yankee
rifle . But there might he diplomatic difficulties in the way of establishing brother Jonathan on the Black Sea ; and if not brother Jonathan , who ? Austria already possesses Trieste , and our friendship with her is too new for us quite to trust her future good faith . If she should not become mistress of the Euxine latchkey , is it necessary thai anybody should become tenant of the dispossessed Port ? That is by no means certain . One enterpi'ising wag suggests that
tho fort itself should be abolished , that the whole , as it stands , should be advertised as old materials and sold off by public auction . The sale might be held both in London and Paris—the bids carried on by electric telegraph . And what , then , to do with the Crimea—a fine country indifferently farmed ? Give it to the Turks again is the general idon . Are tho Turks tho best farmers in the world P Turkey , under gentlo compulsion , threatens to become ono of tho most liberal nnd
promising Governments in the world ; but its subjects hsivo comparatively little capacity in the farming line . \ V " o havo a new idea , which is , amongst tho divers provinces that Turkey rules , to establish a British province . VVhy not set emigration going in that direction , np well aa any other ? Undoubtedly it would " pay . " It would suit all parties . There is splendid land , and there aro splendid markets to command ; exactly the thing for a groat colonising , land-jobbing , and export-dealing association of merchants
with a magnificent directory somewhere on Cornhill . "W ~ e bespeak a handsome present from the directors on their election , —an honorarium to which the secretary of the intended company should contribute largely , in gratitude for our throwing out the idea . " We offer to be the organ of the " Crimea [ Emigration , Land-Farming , and General Orientallmprovetnent Association . " Splendid profits might be got on the purchase and sale of land ; the emigrants would find plenty of employment ; and by an easy compromise
they might enjoy the light taxation of Turkey —for , ib not Turkish taxation light as compared with British ?—while they would astonish the Sultan with the prodigious taxproducing industry . The Sultan , therefore ,, would recognise in the Crimea his favourite province ; and feeling the sweet conviction steal upon his soul , through the purse , would learn to appreciate at its full the delights of a British constitution . For your Briton is the man to be tamely governed and swingeingly taxed . Thus we have disposed of the Crimea ,
What to do "with the fleet and army ? The fleet might be excellently employed in the proposed emigration ; nay , it might be sold on mutually advantageous terms to the intended company . As to the Kussiaiis , they might be brought over here ; undergo a twelvemonth's schooling in the British language , customs , and constitution , and be turned loose throughout the Russian empire —free missionaries for the emancipation of that benighted land . This is a way to turn a despot ' s army upon himself . But the grand Russian ! tJie great prize of Sebastopol—Menschikoff—what to do with Mm ? He is the finest Russian of them
alla Tartar , a wit , a Croesus , a general , a prince , a diplomat , a despot , a slave—everything in one . He has , indeed , admirably defined the limits of Russian intellect , as St . Arnaud says ; he committed the double fault of getting himself into a hole and letting the subjects of his master see him there , reduced to impotency . Mensehikoff is , by special appointment , the cleverest , ablest , and most trustworthy Russian of the whole ; for to him has been allotted the most difficult post , and we find what Russian capacity can do when it is tried . Wo know but of one story to equal the tale of Mensehikoff , and that is in the region of fairy-land .
A princess , seated upon her throne , was threatened with a great calamity , unless , to absolve herself from the punishment for having committed some unintentional fault , she could tell the name of tho threatening unknown mis-shapen pigmy that stood before her and announced her future doom . The name could not be discovered far or wide ; there was no directory to the hand of the princess ; eminent as the individual was , he was anonymous . But he was defeated , as we often are , by his own foible . He was too confident as to the doom of tho princess ; just aB Menochikoff was as to the doom of tho " sick
man . " The dwarf could not contain , his exultation . The princess wandered forth in search of his name ; and one evening , unperceived , she came upon him dancing around a firo that lie had lighted , and ox claim ing how she never would lind out that " llumpleBtiltskin is my name "—just as Nicholas believed thnt tho sick man and his friends would never find him put . —He presontod
himself to the doomed pr incess on tho appointed day , and eho politely welcomed him by his name . The little dwarf vros furious wilih rage—still quito in tho RuBaiim fashion ; ami in his rage—liko Monschikoft' - — ho stamped upon tho ground with such fury that his little foot went in , and there it stuck . The shabby , wealthy , barbarous , malignant old gentleman who iniaultod tUo
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946 THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 7, 1854, page 946, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2059/page/10/
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