The Press. — London, England, 1854-12-16 00:00:00

DECEMBER 16, 1854. ttorrtsponliture. [lr must be understood that the PRESB is not identified with the opinions of its Correspondents, thow4h we insert no ootuniunic.ation which does not appear in sows way deserving or publicity. The letters of our Correspondents are open to reply. We require only that the language of fair discussion be e mployed, and that due attention be paid to the facts stated. We beg that no mention may be made of our " ability, in. flueuce," Lc., as we unhesitatingly strike our pen through every allueitin of the kind.] EMPLOYMENT OF GERMAN TROOPS. TO THE EDITOR OF "THE PRESS." Sir,—Lord Aberdeen—Lord Aberdeen!—attempts to justify the raising a foreign legion by the example of the first Mr. Pitt, the greatest War Minister this country ever had. Why, sir, it is notorious that Mr. Pitt strongly objected to the employment of foreign mercenaries, though he did when in office consent to German troops being employed in the service of England for carrying on the war in Germany. I have Almon's edition of his speeches before me at this moment, and I find that when, in 1750, the King and his Government proposed to bring over twelve batta lions of Hessian and Hanoverian troops to England, Mr. Pitt declared his disapprobation of the measure. " That state alone," he said "is a sovereign state, qui suit stat viribus non alien° pendet arbitrio, which subsists by its own strength and not by the courtesy of its neighbours." And what was the result of bringing over these mercenaries ? Were the people of England encouraged at seeing that they had such defenders ? Did their spirits revive when this powerful aid arrived? The reverse was the case, as everyone in the slightest degree acquainted with the history of that period well knows. We are told "The people hearing their danger from authority and seeing these foreigners brought over to defend them, were panic struck, and gave themselves up to despair."—Almon Anec. i. 209." So unpopular was this measure, that the merce naries were speedily sent, out of the country, and the first act of Mr. Pitt's Administration in the autumn of 1750, after getting rid of these German aids, was to establish a national militia, and to raise two thousand Highlanders; a measure equivalent at that time to what the raising a Canadian legion would be now. " Nothing is so rash as fear !" Memorable words, confirmed by experience as often as narrow minds and craven hearts find themselves in a position to which they are unequal. From one extreme our ministers have rushed into another. A few months ago an insignificant addition to our forces was deemed sufficient. Now we are lost unless we can enlist in our service " Swiss" and German mercena ries. Swiss, I say, for the Duke of Newcastle ex pressly alludes to certain districts of Switzerland and Germany as being most likely to furnish troops to enlist in the Queen's service. In Mr. Pitt's day, the Sovereign of England was Sovereign of Hanover also, and the German troops employed were the King of England's subjects ; but now the Germans and Switzers enlisted will be purely mercenaries, and it will go forth to the world on the authority of her Ma jesty's Ministers that England is already reduced to the level of Carthage and Venice, and those declining commercial States, which, unable to fight their own battles, were compelled—a sure evidence of their decay and approaching fall—to take foreign soldiers into their pay. Anil why is this? Can it be pretended that the martial spirit of England is extinct? that recruits are wanting ? Nothing of the kind. Recourse is had to mercenaries now, because an incompetent Minis try delayed too long the work of preparation. They propose a foreign legion now, because they neglected to embody the militia nine months back. We are proud of Lord Raglan's army—we asso ciate its deeds, its sufferings, and its triumphs, with the brightest glories of our military history, and must we now dim its fame by proclaiming that bands of Switzers and Germans are necessary to its safety ? As Lord Chatham's name has been mentioned, we are compelled to remember his strictures on the con• duct, of the Hanovetian troops in the campaign of 1742. B; the bravery of the English Foot, he said, the French troops were driven precipitately across the Maine, when had they been pursued many must save been lost, and he continued "Did we endeavour to take the least advantage of the confusion they had been thrown into by their unexpected repulse? No, sir, the ardour of our British troops wasrestrained by the cowardice of the Hanoverian; and instead of pursuing the enemy, we ourselves ran away in the night time, and in such haste that we left all our wounded to the mem , and care of the enemy, who had likewise the honor of burying our dead as well as their own."—Chytha Speeches. THE PRESS. Far be it from me to make any reflection on the courage of the Germans, or any other people, but I ask does not this passage freely support the view taken by Lord Ellenborough that it is unlikely a German regiment at Inkerniann would have fought as the English regiments did, and that had such a regiment, when in line, given way it might have been fatal to the whole army of the allies. At beet, it must be a considerable time—if we consider only the diffi culties from foreign language—before these recruits can become component and effective parts of a British army. A word more. No one out of the Cabinet contem plated the necessity of such a measure. It has taken the country by surprise. And this fact—when all minds were directed to the war—affords some pre sumption that the measure can enlist no national sympathy in its favour, and was the very last one which a really English mind would have contemplated for the prosecution of that great struggle in which we are engaged.—l am, sir, obediently yours, Dec. 15. D. T. C. THE "TOO LATE" POLICY. TO THE EDITOR OF "THE PRESS." Sir,—lf Ministers, as they ought to have done, had completed their winter arrangements for our Crimean army in the dog-days, and had their hands at this moment free to prepare for next years' campaign, there might be some hope for us; but from the bustle with which they are now at last making pro vision for hutting our men and supplying them with winter clothing, when winter is come and many have llready perished, we can only anticipate that they will be seen equally energetic in arranging for the campaign of next spring and summer, when the summer is far advanced, and the spring gone by. We all remember the story of the savage who engaged in a boxing-match. He had no idea of guard—never stopped a blow. But, wherever hit there he immediately clapped his hand; thus shield, ing, but shielding too late, the smashed nose, the punched bread-basket, or the damaged visual. Now that, sir, I would humbly submit, is precisely the way in which recreant Peelites and disastrous \Vhigs are conducting the present war. We hear of some deplorable mishap, they then adopt some tardy expedient—good it' in time, worthless because too late. The hand whi , At ought to have parried the blow is applied to the wound. This is no groundless imputation. It is the very principle of action developed by Mr. S. Herbert, as I see this day, in last nights' debate on the answer to her Majesty's Speech. Mark his defence. He made certain telegraphic and superhuman efforts for butting our troops the moment the requisition for huts arose. The moment the requisition for huts arose 1 That, I presume, was the moment the tents were levelled. The moment it arose ? Say, the moment when our wounded, stripped by the furious blast of the last rag of covering, were perishing in the sleet and driving slush, exposed to all the fury of a typhoon ! He presently adds those pompous yet memorable words, "It is thus that I answer the charge." No answer at all, Mr. S. Herbert. The charge is, that you did not make the provision in time. Your answer is, that you made it too late. You ought to have had that shelter against the winter which you have now prepared, or rather which you are now preparing, ready and sent out long ago; and the very fact that you acted only when "the requisition arose" proclaims your short coming and culpable incapacity. What, then, is the inference now to be drawn by the deeply-concerned, excited, and anxious public ? If such are your omissions, that alone is bad enough. But if you so defend your omissions, why then there is no hope. You ought to have sent an ample supply of winter clothing long before our men began to perish by the winter blasts: yes, long before ; so long that, if the first supply did not come to hand, you might have heard, and sent a second in good time. Small comfort will it be for the " deaths by neglect" which have already occurred on that bare rock, or for those which will yet occur em the end of winter, if our men are sweltering in their furs and sheepskins under the fierce sun of a Crimean June. And that they are very likely to be ; for you ought now to be busied in getting up and despatelling a good serviceable light dress for next summer. I sup pose we shall hear of that next autumn. Meanwhile we now know the character of the consignments to be successively forwarded, each having been despatched " when the requisition arose "—hay for famished, though once gallant, steeds, of whom the vulture has ere this made skeletons cannons, whenever they shall be cast or forged, for a siege already com menced—wine for men at the last gasp, whose life might have been saved by one half pint of port — medicines and lint for convalescent cripples, by this time invalided home—and nurses for the dead ! Sir, I strenuously assert that, in the conduct of the war, this great war in which we are now em barked, nothing has yet been done, either adequate to the demands of the present, or even bearing any doe reference to the future. Oar wisole policy has been 1181 1 !Ei k continnona attempt to patch up past omi r ssions and past blunders; sea those who, unhappily for England, have now the management of her military affairs appear to be framing all their measures on the spur of the moment, without settled plan, and chiefly with a view to self-exculpation and parliamentary defence. From all that we have seen hitherto, the sequence that we are to anticipate is this :—l. Intelligence from the East., some dire dis aster that ought to have been provided against at home, and by common foresight might have been. 2. A hysterical shriek from their craven panio-striokett organ. 3. The grief, the anxiety, the surmisings of a patient public—a public prepared to make any sacrifice, but already beginning to growl with clenched teeth that it will not be cajoled. 4. Bust ling exertions to meet a bygone exigency. 5. swag gering self-vindication. Thou again, du cupo, another disaster, and the whole sequence repeated. It was once said of au ancestor of our present Secretary-of-War, who want pottering on through his daily business, always in a hurry but always behindhand, that he seemed to have lost half au hour in the morning, and to be trying all day to re ' cover it. Such, in the conduct of the present war, is the system of our Ministers, as propounded by their own exponent, Mr. S. lierbert.-1 am, sir, your eon• start, always gratified, and ever grateful reader, As OLD PENINISULAR. December 13th, 1834. CONDUCT OF THE WAR. TO TILE EDITOR Of " THR PRESS." Sir,—The Ministry must by this time be pretty well aware of the unsuitableness of half measures to great emergencies. Their desire to preserve peace was in itself a laudable one, but peace was not. to be pre served by sending to the war, when actually declared, a force sufficient for a mere demonstration rather than for active operations, and then to leave it to sustain, in disheartened inaction, the ravages of the cholera; to be at length sent on, sickly and unre. enticed, when the powerful and vigilant enemy had been allowed due time for his preparations fur de fence, to the plane where the real blow was to be struck. It angers us to think how the war has been protracted, and the lives of our noble countrymen wasted, by the paltry and undignified proceedings of our rulers. The Uoverittlient needed not to take the initiative—there was no lack of pressure from with out. The war was a popular one, and had prepara tions been made on a scale and with a promptitude that would have found a hearty response in the ap proval of the ccuntry, Russia, so far as man's fore sight can divine, would long ere this have succumbed, and many of those whom we now proudly lament would have been living to prove, if need were, on a future emergency, that Englishmen, gentle and simple, had no need to look to bygone ages for ex amples of gallantry and devotion. But it is not only inasmuch as we are ourselves concerned that the conduct of this war is likely to tell disadvantageously. Russia is a giant child among the European nations, and the dread of her already overweening power has led the two moot famous countries in the world for deeds of anus to combine for her present chastisement and the prevention of her future aggression. Now, we know that it is not the way to reduce to order au unruly subject to let r him feel that his power in comparison with our own .; Is much greater than we imagined; but this is just to what we have done. ,fs ' We may at length take Sebastopol and occupy the Ed Crimea, but now the Russian nation will only re member the difficulty we had in doing so, and the long-balanced contest which she whom we proudly term barbarian so long alone maintained with the emnbined armies of the most redoubtable of Euro trnations ; and the first juncture which again igs the armies of Russia on the theatre of European warfare will bring them with a prouder moral confi dence than they have ever yet possessed, and with a practical experience, taught by ourselves, which will tend to further, far more than their present losses to prevent, the attainment of those ends for which they have always struggled. In the opinion of one of our leading political writers the enemies of Russia have no *vest so much to fear as a war in which she takes, though unsuccessfully, a principal part. The muscles which we are so tenderly exercising we may at last perfect in strength ; and though it may not be our fate to live to see Europe shaken by its blows, history will not deny to our present policy the doubtful honour of having greatly nerved that powerful arm. A heavy blow, and promptly struck, would have laid the Bear at our feet, and we should have had no reason to apprehend that our tender enmity might prove more serviceable to him even than our friendship; but what Whig Ministry ever dea.t promptly a heavy blow on any enemy of England ? The country has been and is ready to do it ; and the blood so freely shed in the Crimea seems to mock the shameful temporising policy that has wasted it, and to cry out for military measures worthy of the spirit of the English army and the English people—not of the present Ministry of England.