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the association with themselves so little palatable . even to themselves , that those of their body who do obtain power and influence cut the connexion and use it for the benefit of other classes .
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THE " MOXCTEUR" ON THE WAR . The document published in Wednesday ' s Mpniteur may be regarded from several points of view—as . a . tardy homage to the force of public dissatisfaction ; 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 . Abnaud had
in the expedition to the Crimea ; 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 polit ical considerations , and without any preconceived 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 jingle , 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 decisfon 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 wouldarrivein ~ t lme ~ to ' c 6 ver"C 6 Ttfstanti- '
nople . " This fact is the 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 Gallipoli . 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 reverses . 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 the Moniteur , and previously sustained by eminent military men , dictatod the first step taken by the Allies in tho war . So far , therefore , the roasoning of tho organ of tho French Government rests on a solid technical basis . But by tho time the Allies had mustered at Gallipoli , the design of the enemy had been tested by difficulties . ¦ The Russian campaign , so brilliantly begun , did not proceed with tho same 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 was , therefore , not only time to cover Constantinople , but possibly to save Silistria , certainly to defend the Balkan . Hence the movement of the troops hy 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 . Arnaujd , the French Empekor 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 " inevitable ; " he was agreeably deceived ; Butler and Nasmyth made the Turks fight ; Silistria held out _ j and , as the Jifoniteuf observes , the courage of the Turks and " the presence of the Allies" caused Prince Gortschakoff to raise the siege and retire to the left bank of the Danube- —and shortly afterwards , for strategic reasons , from the Principalities *
The next point for consideration is , why the 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 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 Gallipoli ; they had ensured the evacuation of the 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 . Tho political interests ( which wo do not hero discuss ) of the alliance concurred with military necessities ; the Allies determined upon action , and the expedition to the Crimea was chosen
as tho most likely to be fruitful in its political effects upon the war . It is whero a defensive cbanges 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 tho Moniteur becomes unsatisfactory . Nothing may have boon more fitting than an expedition to tho Crimea ; nothing so likely to produce decisive results ; but if done at all it required to bo well done . It was one thing to decide upon tho 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 advice ; and that advice was not taken . There were two modes of attaining the desired result—possession of Sebastopol . The 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 street-fights . St . Arnaui > 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 , arid must pluck the fruit ripe or unripe ; the army was too small , ~ . ' -as then constituted ; it had no means of 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 . Butjit . 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 , rbut the best practically , when they turned the harbour and fell upon the south side , is another question . We have no means of judging whether the 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 ; we have yet to learn the result ; and we shall probably see an active army operating against the enemy in the field , in order that the damage done by the empiricism of 1854 may be corrected in 1855 .
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OUR FAMILIES AGAIN . Again "tho families" are bofore tho public , under charges that subject them to tho penal law . It has now beon publicly announced that the Honourable Francis Villieus , fourth son o tho Earl of Jersey , member for Rochester , ana a steward of tho Jockey Club , has failed to make good his engagements . Hid constituents , it has been reported , held a mooting tor tuo purpose of calling upon him to resign Ins scat ; but they wore prevented from presenting tlieir memorial by the important previous questionwherewas Mr . Viixiers ? He has not only m-
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$ 6 $ __ . THE LEAP B ft . [ Satubday
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), April 14, 1855, page 350, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2086/page/14/
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