"THE gunner to his linstock" is a maxim approved by the common sense of mankind; and the English branch of the family has, we venture to assert, acted in strict accordance with it, in connexion with the great conflict in which the country is engaged, even somewhat beyond the extremest limits prudence would have prescribed. The gunner has been left in quiet possession of his linstock until he has shown, in many instances, that he scarcely knew the difference between the breech and the muzzle of his gun, and too often until all could see that his fire did more damage to himself and his comrades than to the enemy. The public only abandoned their veneration for the proverb when the horrible details of the sufferings of the troops during the last winter showed that there was no choice between a quiet submission to the total destruction of the army, by disease and starvation, or a violent interference with the profes sional routine of the commissariat, medical, and transport departments. The intervention has been so far successful. Abundance reigns in the camp; the hospitals are well provided; the corps healthy and numerically strong; the communications regular and sufficient. All this ought to have been effected by the action of the ordinary machinery of the naval and military services. It should never have been necessary to take the linstock out of the hands of the gunner; and as both parliament and people fully recognised the general obligation of the maxim, intervention was carried no further than was absolutely necessary to bring about an amendment in what is absurdly considered the civil branch of our military administration. Extreme

VOL. XLVI.-NO. CCLXXIV.

reserve was still maintained in respect to the political and strategic plan of the war; and if at any time Lord Ellenborough indulged in strictures upon the tactics of the campaign, or Lord Shaftesbury ventured to hint at the political wisdom of securing the support of the natural enemies of Russia in a European league against her ag gressive despotism, the public sympa thy with such views was at once checked, by a suggestion that these were matters of high State policy, or of professional nicety, which ought not to be discussed in a popular assembly, and which were above the comprehension of the uninitiated. The appeal was never made in vain; and it is to the credit of the national prudence that the people have as yet refrained from an open expression of the dissatisfaction felt in every quarter at the mode in which our military operations have been conducted, as well as from a pub. lic rehearsal of discussions upon the plan of the war, which form the staple of conversation in every society, great and small, throughout the kingdom. Nevertheless, every maxim has a limit to its application: to leave the linstock quietly in the hands of a man who calls himself a gunner, but whose ig. norance of his art is manifest to every eye, and is attested by long-continued failure, would be to strain proverbial philosophy to a use it was never designed to fulfil. Where would the army now be, had the delicacy which so long prevented the public interference still respected the mysteries of the commissariat branch of the Treasury, and of the medical and transport boards? And since one or two arinies have unquestionably been rescued from annihilation by profane meddling with the

2 D

proper linstocks of Sir C. Trevelyan and of Dr. Andrew Smith, and of the junior lord who was the transport board, it scarcely seems unreasonable, at the present moment, when a first act has, as it were, been closed by the events of last month, to inquire, with a view to the future, whether the plan of the war has been such as should have warranted expectations of more important results, or whether it might not be wise to reconstruct it with a view to existing circumstances, and to the promotion of a clear understanding, at home and throughout Europe, of the objects it is designed to attain. For ourselves, we find a justification in freely stating our views now, in the circumstance of their harmony with those we entertained and expressed fourteen months since, the general correctness of which has been established by subsequent events.

It would be an idle waste of time to employ it in a critical examination of the earlier military movements of the Allies, from the first entrance of the fleets into the Euxine to the descent upon Varna. They were guided by no strategic principles, for no war was then contemplated by the Western Governments. The absence of any hostile design has indeed been urged by our own ministers as an excuse for the grave defects of arrangement which, when the feint was turned into a reality, occasioned the disastrous results of the winter campaign of 1854-5. A parade of arms was all that was intended, they said; and thinking a demonstration would bring the Czar to reason, they provided no commissariat, no hospital or wagon trains, no reserve, no plan of a campaign. These facts were, doubtless, as well known in St. Petersburgh as in London; and, accordingly, the demonstration assumed, in the eyes of the Czar, the appearance of what it really was—an empty sham. His own operations had, indeed, been, at the outset, somewhat analogous in their character-designed to intimidate, rather than undertaken with a serious conviction that they would lead to the reality of war. practical-joking of nations as of individuals, however, seldom fails to end in downright blows; and so it was in regard to both Eastern and Western de

The

monstrations. When Prince Gortschakoff crossed the Pruth, in the spring of 1853, with a force of 70,000 men, his movements showed plainly enough, to a military eye, that he apprehended no resistance. In the face of Omar Pasha, at the head of 90,000 regular and 30,000 irregular troops, the Russian General scattered his army in weak detachments over the whole river frontier of Wallachia, from Kalafat to Galatz, fixing his own quarters at Bucharest, with an easy indifference which plainly bespoke the contempt he entertained for the Turkish power. The heavy blow struck at Sinope showed, it is true, that the Russian demonstration was no mere firing over the heads of a mob, but an energetic attempt to frighten the intended victim from a fruitless resistance; and it was played to in the most effectual manner by the counter-demonstration of the Allies. The French and English fleets rode quietly at anchor in Besika Bay; while the ambassadors of the two nations professed their willingness to order the respective admirals to pursue and chastise the Russians, if only one of them would consent to lead the way. Whatever may have been the motive of this policy of the Western Powers, its obvious and natural effect was to impress the Czar with the idea that an exaggerated estimate of his own strength was entertained by England and France, and that he consequently ran but little risk in resolutely prosecuting his designs. That impression was greatly strengthened, when, upon the declaration of war, Gallipoli was selected as the basis of operations; and the selection was known to have been made upon the recommendation of English and French engineers of high rank, and as the result of their examination of the condition and prospects of the Turkish army on the Danube. Sir John Burgoyne and Colonel Ardent reported unfavourably upon these points, and under the apprehension, encouraged by them, that the Russians would find little difficulty in the way of their advance to the Balkan, it was determined to provide for the defence of the Turkish capital, by disembarking the Allied armies at Gallipoli, and constructing a fortified line in front of Constantinople. This was

at once to invite the Russian commanders to a vigorous prosecution of their operations on the Danube, and to declare to the Turks that, in the opinion of the military authorities most trusted by their Allies, their further resistance to the overwhelming power of the enemy was vain and hopeless. The dominant idea of the Western statesmen was, that they were sitting down to a losing game, and there is no hiding such an idea from the adversary it encourages, or the friend it disheartens.

Throughout the Emperor Napoleon's instructions to Marshal St. Arnaud,* the probability of a forced retreat seems ever-present to the mind of the writer :

"The peninsula of Gallipoli (he says) is adopted as the principal point of disembarkation, because it must be, as a strategical point, the basis of our operations whence we may, with facility, either advance or re-embark. If, perchance, after having advanced towards the Balkans, you should be constrained to beat a retreat, it would be much more advantageous to regain the coast of Gallipoli than that of Constantinople; for the Russians would never venture to advance from Adrianople upon Constantinople, leaving 60,000 good troops on their right."

At that time, it is to be recollected, the seat of the war was on the banks of the Danube; two lines of fortresses lay untouched between the enemy's position and the passes of the Balkan; and the events of the autumn and winter campaigns had been favourable to Omar Pasha. The experience of the campaigns of 1828-9 was also altogether at variance with the views of MM. Burgoyne and Ardent, which seem to us (and we but concur in opinion with perhaps the highest military authority of these days) to have been, upon strategic principles, manifestly erroneous.

"Varna (says General Klapka, in his lucid Historico-critical Sketch of the War in the East') would have offered all the conditions attributed to Gallipoli. There the army, on landing, would have been equally sheltered from the enemy's attacks, the fortress, at the outbreak of the war, having been put into an excellent state of defence; there also provisioning would have been easy; and there, too, if compelled, the army

would have found shelter behind the walls of the fortress; and in case of failure, on board the fleet. Whereas the position of the army at Gallipoli had, for one thing, the great disadvantage of being too distant to exercise any influence over the warlike events on the Danube; while at Varna the Allies would have come into direct communication with Omar Pasha, and by their appearance alone, have produced a considerable moral effect upon the Turkish army.

"At the time of the disembarkation of the allied troops, no great perspicacity was any longer required to discern the object as well as the bearing of the Russian operations on the Danube. The latter had already recalled their left wing from Lower Wallachia, and thus abandoned that line of operationsthe road to Sophia-which would have served them both to evade the Turkish defences on the Danube and the Balkan, and to penetrate into the interior of the Ottoman Empire. Moreover, for an advance by way of Sophia, the co-operation of the Serbians and Bulgarians would be necessary; from that they were, however, cut off, owing to weighty reasons touching Austria. The bulk of their army was thus concentrated opposite the Turkish centre; and here, if they were determined to push forward, they must needs have previously besieged the strongly-garrisoned fortress of Silistria, and subsequently encountered the Turkish army, already inured to war, in the fortified camp at Shumla. Omar Pasha expressed his determination not to hazard a battle in open field before the arrival of the Allies, but, on the other hand, to take good care to oppose the most strenuous resistance to an advance of the Russians, both along the Danube and in the passes of the Balkan. At this juncture no misgivings could have been felt as to the possibility of the Russians forcing the Balkan, and still less of their strength to descend upon Constantinople."

Nor can it be fairly alleged that thi is wisdom after the event, for the opinion of military men at the time was loudly echoed through the public press, and was unanimous in tracing, in the demonstration at Gallipoli, not the indications of a plan of a campaign, but a fixed intention to maintain peace at all hazards. Such we know to have been the opinion of many officers of rank engaged in the expedition; and the design has since been, as we have already said, openly avowed by members of the Aberdeen ministry, in plea of excuse for the shortcomings of their management of the war when it did actually supervene. The course of

events did not, however, suffer the Allies to maintain the neutral position they had assumed for any long period. The Russian answer to the declaration of war by France and England was an order to Prince Gortschakoff to cross the Danube, and to attack the Turks in Bulgaria; and the order was promptly executed by the occupation of the Dobrudscha in the end of March, and by the commencement of the siege of Silistria on the 17th of the ensuing month. In the interval the tide of war had turned against the Turks. The Russian army in the Principalities had been raised, by reinforcements, to 120,000 men, and Omar Pasha had fallen back before them, removing his head-quarters from Rustschuk to Shumla, the centre of the second line of defence between the Danube and the slopes of the Balkans.

"At this critical juncture (says General Klapka) the Wallachians again made an offer to insurrectionise their land in the rear of the Russians. Such a rising, assisted by the Turkish corps in Lesser Wallachia, would, beyond doubt, have been of paramount advantage to the defences of the Danube. But diplomacy again counterbalanced the advice of energetic men, by its subserviency towards Austria, who denounced such a movement as revolutionary, and highly detrimental to the conservative interests of Europe. The offer was, therefore, not only rejected, but the infatuation carried so far as to order the Wallachian militia, who had deserted from the Russians to the Turkish camp, to be disarmed and sent back to their homes, which was tantamount to a death-warrant, for on returning to their villages they generally fell victims to Russian courts-martial."

If this statement be correct, an imputation somewhat graver than that of the want of a definite plan is chargeable against the diplomatic advisers and managers of the allied Governments, and it is certainly supported by the incomprehensible delay of the armies at Gallipoli, occupied in reviews and military shows, while the gallant struggle at Silistria was becoming every day more exciting, and the danger of its noble defenders from hour to hour more and more imminent, At length the impatience and growing indignation of the people of England and France became too strong for the diplomatists. It was thought necessary to do something in order to obviate an explosion of popular feel

ing, and, accordingly, about the middle of June, an advance of the allied armies to Varna was determined upon and partially executed. This movement, it is now apparent, was adopted in accordance with the instructions of the Emperor Napoleon, to which we have already referred, which pointed out an occupation of Varna as one of three plans of operations, to the choice among which he limited the discretion of his generals. It was carried out in the feeblest and most imperfect manner; and while the armies lingered on the coast, waiting, it was said, for the means of transport to advance to the succour of Silistria, the siege was raised by the Russians on the 21st of June. The reason for this retreat at the moment when the besieged were reduced to the last extremity was, doubtless, the apprehension entertained by the Russians of the immediate advance of the Allies upon their left, while their right flank was threatened by 30,000 Turks, who had crossed the Danube at Kalafat and were marching upon Bucharest. They did not, we may presume, reckon upon a chance of being secured from the attack of an Anglo-French army of 50,000 men, encamped within a few miles of their position, by its want of the means of transport. Omar Pasha, strongly reinforced, was preparing to march upon them from Shumla; and under this combination of hostile circumstances, it would have been madness to have awaited an attack, with the Danube in their rear, and the certainty before them of a desperate resistance from the garrison, had they determined upon hastening the assault. For strategical reasons, therefore, as they subsequently stated, the Russians not only raised the siege of Silistria but evacuated the Principalities; while a treaty was hastily concluded between Austria and Turkey, by which the former power was permitted to occupy Moldavia and Wallachia, and thus interpose an effectual barrier between the belligerents.

In the whole of the blundering in diplomacy and war that has pervaded the transactions of the last two years, no greater mistake, if mistake it was, was committed than the conclusion of this convention of the 14th of June, 1854. By the admission of the Austrians into the Principalities, a new complication was introduced into the

Eastern question, the difficulty of which was then visible enough to lookers on, although it is only now that statesmen are beginning to consider how they are to get rid of that host of armed mediators, and the consideration is already found to be fraught with perplexity. During the fifteen months of the Austrian occupation, the Russians, protected upon their flank, have been able to employ their strength in that marvellous defence of Sebastopol which has cost the Allies so dear, while they were enabled, at small cost or hazard, to retain their position on the lower Danube, and with it a complete control over the navigation of that river. Omar Pasha was a second time held back, at the moment when the fortune of war was turning in his favour, and the army he had so ably trained and handled was scattered and disorganised. The Western armies, numbering 54,000 men, were, by the same stroke of a pen, consigned, in the full freshness of their strength and vigour, to an inaction which soon became more fatal than actual collision in the field. For more than two months fever and cholera ravaged the camps of the Valley of Death, the monotony of which was only diversified by a deadly reconnaisance into the Dobrudscha, where the French perish. ed like flies without seeing an enemy. At length the public indignation at home began again to show itself in a formidable shape; the troops looking upon themselves as doomed to destruction, became uneasy, and it was discovered, in the words of the Moniteur, that "neither military honour nor political interest" longer permitted inactivity. The opportunity for striking a blow at the Russians, during their retreat from Silistria, had been lost, and the Austro-Turkish convention had, in fact, closed the campaign upon the Danube :

"Let us say it at once (said the Moniteur, in the number we have already cited); without the consent of Austria, our army was forbidden, under penalty of the most dreadful catastrophe, to advance on the Danube. ...To make a campaign beyond the Danube and on the Pruth possible, we repeat it, the co-operation of Austria was necessary."

This was unquestionably true, after the Russians had regained their busis in Bessarabia, and the Austrians, acting upon the Convention of June 14,

had pushed in between the bellige rents in the Principalities, and restricted the field of hostile operations to the short line of the Lower Danube sepa rating the Dobrudscha from the Russian province. It became necessary, therefore, at last, to fix upon a plan for the campaign to fill up the remainder of the autumn of 1854, and two of those laid down by the French Emperor remained to choose from. These were, "to seize upon the Cri mea; or to land at Odessa, or any other point of the Russian coast of the Black Sea;" and the first was decided upon by the commanders. The wisdom of this decision has been impugned by Sir Howard Douglas and General Klapka, the only military critics of any note who have expressed an opinion respecting it. Without presuming to dispute the authority of these eminent oflicers, we would, however, venture to suggest, that at the time when the expedition to the Crimea was determined upon, it was absolutely necessary, for the moral and physical safety of the army, to undertake some military operation; and we doubt much if Klapka's counterproposition of a short campaign in Caucasia and Georgia, combined with preparations for offensive operations on the Danube in the spring of the present year, would have been found free from perils and diffi. culties similar to those which the plan actually adopted entailed upon the armies. The invasion of the Crimea was unquestionably a bold, perhaps a rash, measure; but to us it seems that the mode in which it was undertaken is a fitter subject for stricture than the undertaking itself. Upon this topic General Klapka affords some curious information, the probable authenticity of which would seem to be supported by known facts. The plan of the expedition was, he says, drawn up at the Tuilleries, and sanctioned both by England and Austria: by the former, to flatter the vanity of the Emperor, and, in case of failure, to throw the whole of the responsibility upon him; by the latter, with the view of removing the war from the borders of Hungary and Transylvania, and of leaving Austria master of the situation in the Principalities:

"Lord Raglan," he proceeds, "appears by no means to have approved of the scheme. He reported to his Government on the in