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A SWEEP OF THE POLITICAL HORIZON.

THE fleet has returned from the Baltic, leaving the dark billows of that inhospitable sea to winter and the Czar. The army has gone or is going into quarters. Christmas is at hand. There is no sign of an extraordinary session of Parliament. In a word, there is a lull in the storm, and the time seems favourable for sweeping the political horizon with an eye observant of indications of coming events or dangers, as, under analogous circumstances, the cautious mariner would turn his glass to every point around from whence a favouring gale might spring, or where peril of fog or shoal might lurk. In commencing such a survey, our glance is naturally first directed to the seat of actual war, and there, notwithstanding some haziness in the atmosphere, it is not difficult to discern many signs of improvement in the weather. There is, at all events, a vast change for the better observable, upon a comparison between the circumstances of our fleets and armies as they were this time last year and as they are now. But we are not bent upon raking up bygone errors or misfortunes; nor is it our intention to serve up to our readers a stale hash of the history of the campaign, which they have already had, fresh and fresh, in the daily journals. Every one who sees a newspaper, or who hears the common talk upon every occasion when men congregate, knows the actual amount of success obtained by the allied arms, and to what extent our standards have been advanced at Kertch, Sebastopol, Eupatoria, and Kinburn. It would be a work of supererogation to recapitulate the military events of the last month or two, and no less unprofitable to add our notions as to what might have been or remains to be done, to those strategic speculations as rife (and pace Sir George Brown, as sound) in every coffee-room in the kingdom as in the Cabinet or the camp. It is over this field of conjecture, in fact, that the haze to which we have alluded rests heavily, and we do not pretend to be able to enlighten the thick obscure. Neither we nor our readers are better,

or, we believe, worse informed than Lord Panmure or Sir William Codrington; there is a singular uniformity of ignorance in camp, council, and coffee-room, as to the position, strength, resources, and probable tactics of the enemy in the field. We can, none of

us, form a plausible guess as to whether Prince Gortschakoff will fight, fly, or capitulate; but we all know that whereas, in December, 1854, no more than 12,000 effective British bayonets could be mustered in the trenches before Sebastopol, our active contingent in the allied army, solidly established in the Crimea in this corresponding month of 1855, exceeds 50,000 men. The poor remnant of the heroes of Alma, Balaklava, and Inkermann was, at the former period, a miserable mob of armed men, perishing under disease and disorganisation, or starving amid supplies which, with order and military skill, would have given abundance. That skeleton has now grown into a healthy, numerous, and well-equipped army, doing its part in an allied host of 200,000 soldiers, pressing upon the enemy from whose overwhelming numbers it was saved, on the day of Inkermann, only by the energy of desperation. It would seem, in short, that whatever difference of opinion may exist with respect to the original strategical advantages of the invasion of the Crimea, or as to the conduct of the two campaigns, the progress of the Allies has been sure, and so considerable as to leave no room for a reasonable doubt that a complete subjection of the peninsula will, sooner or later, be the reward of their perseverance. Already the capture and occupation of Kertch and Kinburn have closed up the great Russian river-highways of the Don, the Dnieper, the Bug, and the Ingul. Upon the whole northern littoral of the Euxine, which, eighteen months ago, was indisputably Russian, from west to east, the Czar holds possession of the mouths of two rivers only- albeit these are the highly important commercial outlets of the Dniester and the Danube. This is the actual position of affairs; and, divested of all specu

lation as to what more might have been accomplished, or as to the probable future results of what has been done, we find that, during the eighteen months that have elapsed since the allied troops disembarked in the East, the Russians have been forced to retreat from the Principalities behind their own frontier line of the Pruth; their naval power in the Black Sea has been demolished; the Crimea has been solidly occupied by the Allies; and the coasts of the Transcaucasian provinces have been entirely cleared of Russian troops. From first to last, jointly and severally, English, French, and Turks have uniformly, and with strangely corresponding equality of military prowess, prevailed over the common enemy; and the separate glories of Oltenitza, Silistria, Balaklava, Inkermann, the Malakoff, Kars, and the Ingour, were worthily emulated by the Sardinians, in their participation in the work and the honour of the Tchernaya.

It is assuredly in no spirit of empty gasconading that we sum up these triumphs; they seem to us, in truth, to be but practical illustrations of the scope and significance of the great conflict that is going on, and material and moral guarantees that still harder work remains to be and will be done. The strength of Sebastopol, the furnishing of its arsenal, the amount of shipping sunk in its harbour, the exploits and fame of the redoubtable Vladimirreproachful as the latter are to the vigilance and enterprise of the allied fleets are all so many justifications of the war, which the instinct of the English and French people have not been slow to apprehend. It was time to take account of that vast magazine of offence, and the inventory proves to all ordinary understandings that its aecumulation portended a course of aggression not to be limited by the straits of the Dardanelles. The blow struck at Sinope was but a type of that which might any day, and assuredly would, some day, have been struck at Constantinople, had not the popular instinct of France and England outrun the sagacity of their Governments, and anticipated the action of the Czar, by forcing on the military promenade to the East, which it is now admitted was only undertaken for the satisfaction of the public mind. In delaying to strike when all was prepared, Muscovite craft

as much over-reached itself as it subsequently did in hoping to outbrag the feeble diplomacy that set all its trust in a demonstration. Had the Menschikoff mission to pick a quarrel with the Sublime Porte been supported by the forcing of the Bosphorus by the Russian fleet, and the landing of twenty thousand men at Constantinople, what operations of the Western Powers, from a basis two or three thousand miles distant, could have frustrated that movement? Luckily, however, the Czar was timid, when his design required boldness. He might then, in all human probability, have dealt with the sick man quietly in his bed; and with full command of the Euxine, and his basis at Galatz, Odessa, Nicholaieff, Kherson, Sebastopol, and Taganrog, at what point was he assailable by the Western Powers? How long would the Turkish armies on the Danube or in Asia, with their communications effectually cut, have been able to maintain the unequal contest? The popular instinct of France and England discovered the dangers indicated in these questions, and the promenades of the fleets to Besikea and Beicos were undertaken, in obedience to the popular clamour, in time to profit by Russian caution. The inoffensive character of the demonstration was not changed soon enough to forestall that outbreak of Russian rashness at Sinope, which rendered war inevitable, and subsequent events have cleared away many and various misapprehensions as to the strength and designs of Russia. She has been found to be not irresistible, or unconquerable: but so strong, as to be at present very dangerous, and growing stronger, at such a rate of progress as cannot be observed without alarm. The accumulated resources, the military skill, and the brute force that held Sebastopol for eleven months, and still hold its citadel against the united forces of France, England, Turkey, and Sardinia, favoured by the immense advantage of a complete command of the sea, would be able to hold Constantinople against the world; and, acting from that frontier post, could sweep the Mediterranean, and dictate terms to the Eastern and the Western hemispheres. That the designs of Russia extended so far, is proved by the fact of the accumulation of that inordinate store of materiel of war at

the particular point of Sebastopol: it could have been required for no peaceful or merely defensive purpose. Its discovery demonstrated the uses it was really designed to subserve, and the demonstration makes it a matter of life or death with the Allies to strive to prevent its ever being so used. Were peace to be made now, leaving to Russia any footing on the shores of the Black Sea, whatever might be the verbal terms of the treaty, it would be a practical confession that a full know. fedge of her designs and strength had convinced the Western Powers of the hopelessness of attempting to resist them. The very fierceness of the struggle, the irritation of defeats that af fronted, but did not crush, the languid recollection of barren victories, would impress upon the minds of both parties the firm conviction that the original design must be prosecuted, and would be ultimately successful. successes of the Allies, in a word, are pledges to the world that a return to the status quo would be a calamitous defeat, and that the object of the war is now to weaken and humiliate Russia. The difficulty that has been encountered in obtaining a slight footing within provinces made Russian only by comparatively recent acts of force or fraud, binds the Allies to the alternative of retiring confessedly beaten, or of reconquering the Crimea and the Transcaucasian provinces, and so reducing Russia within a frontier which could be defended against her aggressions.

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Thus a consideration of the position of the belligerents, as they stand face to face in the Eastern seat of war, seems to us to warrant no other conclusion than that they are all bound to fight it out to the end. There are, however, other parties whose influence must be taken into account. The course of events has, for example, at length brought matters nearly to the point at which Austria will be forced to take her place upon one side or the other. Rumours are rife that an allied army will be collected upon the Danube, it is to be presumed for operations in Bessarabia, during the spring, and the statement is countenanced by the fact, that a portion of the Turkish contingent, under British officers, was transferred to Varna two or three months since. It is true these troops were

subsequently countermanded and sent to Kertch, but the rumours still continue, and they at least show that a general impression exists that an attempt to open the Danube cannot be long deferred. Both strategical and commercial considerations, indeed,point to the probability that such an enterprise will be undertaken as a part of the next campaign. It would seem to be very obviously prudent, in a military sense, to provide some employment for the Russian troops, which should interrupt the incessant reinforcement of the army of the Crimea ; and the price of bread already proclaims that the corn-trade of the Danube, free to all the rest of the world, must not be closed to France and England. The war, in fact, can scarcely be carried on in earnest without driving the Russians from the mouth and left bank of the Lower Danube, and that cannot be done without contact between the allied troops and the Austrians occupying the Principalities. There must, then, be either a collision; or a junction; or the Austrians must retire behind their frontier. Among these courses there is for Austria, under present circumstances, but a choice of evils, and her selection will very probably be determined by accident. The casual brutality of a drunken trooper may finally decide the question which bewilders the craftiest of the diplomatists of Vienna. At all events, it is to be hoped, that experience has taught France and England that their safest course is one of straightforward action. As there is nearly equal danger for Austria, so there is nearly equal chance of advantage for the Allies in her adhesion to them, or to the enemy. A coalition of Austria with Russia would involve a disruption of the political bonds of Italy that could scarcely fail to strengthen Sardinia, as it would surely weaken Austrian military power. On the other hand, were Austria to take an active part with the Allies, the engagement thereby contracted for the maintenance of that effete despotism, with all its ricketty machinery of concordats, passports, and police-spies, would still further diminish that general sympathy of the world with the justice of the war which has already waned before the manifest disinclination of French and English statesmen to disturb the

arrangements of the old Holy Alliance. If, in entering the League, Austria would incur the enmity of Russiaher ablest, and hitherto her only protector against the vengeance of her oppressed provinces she would at the same time engage the less sure and ready support of the Western Powers. They, in receiving her, would gain an unsteady and crippled ally, and throw off from their cause that element of bitter determination to secure, at all hazards, the independence of Europe, which is its most significant characteristic. The conclusion to which these considerations seem to us inevitably to lead, is again the necessity of an active prosecution of the war. The progress of events tends to force Austria to take her side, and as there is little possibility of interrupting their course, so there is no ground for attempting to do so. The bold step taken by Sardinia, in casting in her lot with the Western Powers, has virtually stripped from Austria all the importance supposed to belong to her as a mediator, and has rendered the question of her choice of sides infinitely more difficult and important to herself than to the Western Powers.

For Italy, however, the conduct of Austria involves considerations of rapidly increasing gravity and interest. The Casati quarrel was a feather thrown into the air, and it has shown that Austria perceives the wind so far to set against her. She has withdrawn from the attempt to outlaw refugees from her provinces, and Sardinia, in resenting that attempt, has established her own territory as a political sanctuary for all Italy. It will soon be known throughout all the states of the peninsula, that the Austrian Bourbon who reigns in Tuscany, obedient to the policy of his house, ejected from his court a member of the Sardinian legation, on the ground that he was the son of a Lombard emigrant, and therefore obnoxious to the court of Vienna; and that Sardinia promptly met the insult by at once breaking off diplomatic relations between Turin and Florence, thus announcing to the world her contempt for Duke and Emperor. The lesson will not be lost; and, doubtless, the knowledge that a city of refuge is at hand will not tend to appease the ardour of Tuscan, Neapolitan, Roman, or Lombard malcon

tents. That their hopes and ther efforts may be restrained within the limits of constitutional liberty, must be the earnest wish of every Italian patriot, and of every sincere friend of bumanity. "Sardinia," to use the noble words of her king, in his late address to his parliament, "offers the noble example of a monarch and his people united by indissoluble ties of mutual love and confidence — maintaining inviolate the bases of public welfare, order, and liberty." It is a moral impossibility that despotism can long endure in presence of that grand spectacle, which can now scarcely be da maged by any but parricidal Italian hands. During the year of "heartrending and cruel visitations," through which the King of Sardinia has passed, he and his people have together braved the excommunication of the Church, the intrigues of despotism, and the fury of social revolutionists. The union they formed with the "powers who are struggling in the cause of justice, in behalf of the civilisation and independence of nations," has been wisely cemented and drawn closer by Charles Albert's visit to Paris and London, and it now stands before the world a League of France, England, and Sardinia, in defence of the fortress of Italian constitutional freedom. Whether or not it shall become a league of offence against foreign domination in Italy, depends, as we have already intimated, upon the part Austria may take, and for the reasons we have mentioned, her decision cannot, we imagine, be very much longer delayed.

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Let us now turn our glance to the Baltic the other seat, if not of actual war, at least of the semblance of it— where also, we think, the prospect brighter than it was at the close of the last campaign, although less material injury has been inflicted upon the enemy during the present, than during the past summer. We need not here repeat opinions formerly expressed, and now generally acquiesced in, as to the nature of the cautious performance of the allied fleets before Sweaborg. It would appear, however, that the noise of the bombardment, strengthened, perhaps, by sounds from Sebastopol, has had some effect in arousing the northern nations to a sense of their own deep interest in the great game that is going

on. The young men of a nation are commonly true exponents of its sentiments, and if the students of Upsala have spoken truly, the hearts of the Swedish people are with the Allies. Nor did the shouts of those youths, exulting in the triumphs of France and England, long want an echo in the highest place. Sweden, King and people, would be more or less than human, if she did not ardently desire to be freed from the fear of Russian aggression; and her feelings, expressed in the University, by hurras and serenades, were made known by the Court in the decoration of Louis Napoleon with the Order of the Seraphim. How much or how little of significance may lie in the return of this compliment by the transmission of the Grand Cordon of the Legion of Honour to King Oscar, by the hands of General Canrobert, we are not in a condition to determine; but that it is the interest of both parties to draw together, and that they both know it to be so, can scarcely be doubted. During a long series of years, it has been the business or the pastime of Russia to encroach upon Swedish territory, and that abundant facilities for gratifying this inclination exist, experience too fully proves. Russian troops, profiting by the hard winter of 1809, marched across the Gulf of Bothnia, on the ice, and imposed a treaty by which Finland was formally annexed to the crown of the autocrat. Even so late as 1852, the foundation of a boundary dispute, and no doubt of a prospective occupation of Norway of which the Czar, among his many titles, styles himself" heir -was laid, by a sudden abrogation of the boundary treaty of 1751, which permitted the periodical migration of the Norse and Finnish Laps across the border; so that in future the ramblings of those poor Nomads and their reindeer-a matter of absolute necessity to them will be dealt with as a violation of Russian territory. This, of course, will be seen to be a mere picking of a quarrel · -a device for the North analogous to the Greek protectorate for the South. As such it must be understood and appreciated by the Swedish and Norwegian nations, and must seem to them the prelude of an aggressive attack, which, by their own unaided force, they could not hope to be able to resist. On the other hand, it

VOL. XLVI.-NO. CCLXXVI.

is no less manifest, after the experience of two campaigns, that the, Western Powers want some condition to the success of their operations against Russia in the Baltic. They have fired away some tons of projectiles for the satisfaction of the people at home; but they have, in the exercise of a perfectly sound discretion, carefully avoided knocking their ships against the stone walls of Sweaborg, Revel, or Cronstadt. They have, too, been foiled to a great extent, in their blockade, by the neutrality of Sweden and Prussia, and by the freedom of the ports of the latter kingdom for Russian purposes. The active co-operation of Sweden would afford to them the means both of carrying on war, and of interrupting commerce, to the detriment of the enemy. It would bring to their side in the struggle an army of 60,000 men and 200 gun-boats, and it would remove one difficulty that now stands in the way of their prosecution of the most effectual warfare against Russia, by a bona fide closure of the Baltic ports. Thus the way would seem to be open for the incorporation of Sweden in the anti-Russian league; although it is not to be expected that it can be conclusively effected without the arrangement of specific terms for the future protection of that barrier state. The league with Sweden must include a guarantee by the Western Powers against all future encroachments of Russia, and, perhaps, an undertaking to restore to her her conquered provinces. This, too, is one of those exceptional cases in which the grant of a subsidy upon strictly defined conditions would be justifiable, and without it no important active assistance could be well expected. By the treaty of Orebro, concluded in 1813, Sweden contributed a force of 30,000 men to the grand alliance, and opened the harbours of Gottenburg, Carlsham, and Stralsund to British ships; she received in return, from England, a cession of the island of Guadeloupe, and a subsidy of a million a year. Here is a sufficient precedent for the principles of a new treaty of offence and defence with our Scandinavian kinsmen; the devising of details suited to present circumstances would not seem to be a very difficult task. For useful negociations with the other Baltic states, the time does not appear to have yet

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