The Press. — London, England, 1855-10-27 00:00:00

1018 may not, perhaps, in such communications expect the military feeling of which so much ignorance is shown in this extract, but we may expect truth. The reasons for intrusting the leading of the assault on the Redan on the Bth of September to the 97th and 90th Regiments were ob vious, and it was my pride and pleasure to feel that a diffi. cult, dangerous, and important service was so intrusted, by a fair and honourable claim, to Major Welsford, leading a part of your I egiment as the first storming party, and to Colonel Handcock, commanding your regiment, following on the same duty. These your two field officers, and many of your regiment, died fighting in and at the Redan. There scarcely requires any other answer to the remark which I have above quoted. —Yours sincerely, W. J. CODRINGTON, LieuteGleneral. WAR IN ASIA. We have not Set received the official details of the repulse of the Russians on the 29th of September, but they have reached Paris. The following extracts from private letters and correspondents give some of the leading features of the events of that day. The defence was conducted by the Hungarian General Kmeti, under General Williams ; and Colonel Lake and the other English officers greatly distinguished themselves. The attack of the Russians was obsti• nate and well sustained, but the defence was as obstinate and more successfnl. The advance of Omer Pacha was eagerly hoped for at Kars. A telegraphic despatch from Trebizond on the Bth of October states : The Russians are supposed to be preparing to attack Kars again. - - The correspondent of the Daily News, writing from Erzeroum, states that an express had arrived from Kars with letters of the 30th The letters were written in the evening, and contained the intelligence that on the morning of that day the Russians invested Kara on all sides in full force. The batteries at Kars opened a murderous fire on the besiegers. Three times did the Russians gain a footing in the Turkish retrenchments—and three times were they driven out by the Turks at the point of the bayonet. Colonel Lake distinguished himself in the contest, not only by his courage, but by his skill. It was he who drove the enemy from the Inglis Tabia. Eight hundred Russians were slain before a redoubt defended by four hundred Turks. The firing lasted seven hours and a half, when the Russians took to flight. The Turks performed prodigies of valour, and the European officers—Colonel Lake and Captains Teesdale and Thompson—distinguished themselves. Mr. Churchill, formerly attache of our embassy from Persia, and now secretary to General Williams, commanded at one of the redoubts, and showed himself a thorough Englishman.--Sept. 30. The loss of the Russians was estimated at 8,000 or 9,000 killed and wounded : The enemy lost besides this a great quantity of stores ; and about 300 prisoners were taken, amongst whom were many officers. Four guns are said to have been taken. The loss of the Turks is reckoned at about 750 killed and wounded. A private letter dated Kars, Oct. Ist, from one of the English officers, gives the following laconic ver sion of the affair : The fight was a most bloody one, and lasted seven hours and a half, without one second's intermission. The Russians left upwards of 2,000 men dead on the fold ; and their loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners, must have exceeded 6,000 men. What do you think of us Kars chaps after that? I was not actively engaged, as they knew better than to attack my almost impregnable battery a second time; but I did great service with my heavy guns, and twice drove them out of a battery they had taken, and turned upon us. It was a nasty sight—the field—afterwards. It was completely covered with dead bodies, mostly Russians, as our men did not lose more than five or six hundred altogether. The Turks fought, not like lions, but like fiends. I ne►er saw such despe- rate recklessness of life. You can form some idea of what a desperate business it was, when I tell you that the Bus• sinus had their whole force concentrated upon General Kmeti's division, which, with the reinforcements he afterwards received, did not amount to 8,000 men. The reports have just come in, and there are more than 3,000 killed on the side of the enemy. The Times correspondent at Batoum, Oct. oth, draws a lamentable picture of the state of Omer Pacba's army, hut the Sirdar was using every exer tion to put his force upon an efficient footing. The arrival of the 18,000 men from Balaklava would swell the number, this correspondent asserts, to 50,000 men, but it was extremely doubtful whether Omer Pacha could attempt the relief of Kars. From the camp in the Crimea we learn as follows : The Turkish troops are beginning to embark more rapidly. Several Turkish vessels have been sent down to Kamiesch to take them, and more than half of them have already gone. The officers who have come back from Asia say that everybody is agreeably surprised by the readiness with which the Circassians come forward with provisions at very low prices. The Russians have fort►fied all the passes leading up to Tiflis, as if they expected some advance from the Turks. If an officer of Omer Paella's staff is to be credited who arrived a few days ago, the concentration of forces on that point had already the effect to induce the Russians to retire from Kars, and that place had been provisioned.--Tnnes Cor., Oct.l3th. THE PRESS. jortign 6orrzsgoutturt. FRANKFORT, Oct. 23. " THE liberty of the press is as the air we breathe," exclaim the veteran Whigs ; " without it we die." Would that they were entombed indeed! This canon of Whig doctrine is a truth, albeit a sorry one, for the Whigs do exist and always have existed on the pro stitution of this great maxim of the Constitution. They have practised the misdemeanor, have normally taught the lesson, and the Times, an apt scholar, now far beyond tutelary control, is frequent in its self indulgence of this unworthy act. The last act has been against Germany. But before entering on that subject, let oue long-lingering word be exchanged with the old Whigs of au ancient renown. To say that the Whig is an impostor, " de jure et de facto," would be to enunciate a stale truism that has ceased to have any significance. To affirm that the Whig is the enemy of the political humanities is merely to revive the memory of the conduct of Sir James Gra ham towards the brothers Bandiera—the man who, as a Minister, pseudo-Conservative, spouted demo cracy on the hustings in vain attempt to preserve his character of Whig Liberalism, who defended the corn laws by a quotation from Scripture applicable to their preservation, and abjured them by another verse of the Bible that would have justified their maintenance. It is thus that Lord John Russell is Roman Catholic at Vienna and Calvinist in England. To assert that the Whig is faithless in the severest sense, it is suffi cient again to refer to Lord John Russell. His conduct to Lord Palmerston in 1851 was a fitting antecedent to his more recent lapse towards Lord Aberdeen and the flagitious trespass against the Duke of Newcastle; and to make manifest in his own example the peculiar uses to which the liberty of the press is Whig-applied, turn, 0 ye of any faith, to the passage in Moore's private chronicle, edited by the same Lord John Russell, wherein it is related how Thomas Moore, patriot-poet of Ireland, was suborned by Lord Holland to traduce, in the Whig fulness of hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness, the honour and integrity of a political antagonist. Possession of an object is necessary for its exclusive violation. The Georgian slave is defended at all hazards by her captor for vile purposes of his own. In apology for the misdeed the Whig is simple—" C'est l'habitude." Accepting the excuse in plea of " guilty," it neverthe less becomes a bounden duty, for the sake of honest propriety and social order, to protest against the abuse of a power which in a studied course of wrong doing may eclipse the advantages which of right should belong to it. The late attack on Germany by the Times is a case in point. The province of a journalist increases in responsi bility in ratio to the arena of circulation, and if the latter, in an extended issue, be a gauge of merit, dis cretion ought to be proportionately large in wielding the mighty weapon that has conferred distinction. The Times is a great fact, to use its own coined words. There is not a town on the Continent where the English journal is not perused with avidity. Painful, therefore, was the impression in Germany on the late unmeasured attack of that country, and Prussia in particular. The grounds selected for contumely were not circumscribed, but were ample, general, and without reservation ; and the arguments applied in support of this outburst of opprobrium effectually isolated England, as, if conceded, they were equally applicable to every other country, and indeed were so used. Certain remarks in THE PRESS and other journals on the probability of a marriage betwixt Prince Frederick William of Prussia and the Prin cess Royal of England occasioned the attack in the Times ; and, followed by the Daily News and the Sun, a forcible protest was issued against such al liance, as being nationally prejudicial, and shamefully injurious to the happiness of the young princess. These be grave accusations : but in the obloquy dealt out to Germany and Prussia, anger usurped the place of reason, and so thoroughly did the im pulse, proper or improper, genuine or spurious, con trol the moment that facts were despised, and a real or simulated ignorance went far to establish a want of authenticity in the information of foreign affairs. It therefore cannot be surprising that the offended parties, indignant at such wholesale vituperation, should reply after the following fashion : Depuis le jour de sa fondation jusqu'it l'henre presente le Times, qui a sans cesse ate achete, s'est toujours trouve a vendre. Le Times livre au plus offrant sa conscience et see opinions. 11 jauge la vertu, et tarife le vice ;11 specule stir la probite, et cote l'indelicatesse ; it met tout eels au rebels comma une denree avariee, et la mobilite de see sentimens s'explique par les haute et par les bas que l'es compte lui faire subir. This is the mere raving of a writer exasperated and improperly personal, but what follows against Eng land is a consequence of injudicious abuse : Nous Bayous que I'Angleterre a pour politique de caresser jusqu'i la seryilite, et outrager jusqu'a l'impudence ; male ce que nous Rayons par I'experience des hommes 1e peuple SATURDAY, le devine, l'apprend, lc sait par instinct. Aussi est-ce avec un profond sentiMent de repulsion et de &gout qua Ber lin, et dans tottte l'Allemagne, on a lu l'inqualificable ar ticle publie par le Times sur le projet de manage annonce entre le file du Prince Royal de l'russe et la Princes% Royale d'Angleterre. These latter words merit attention from being 'p a _ ticularly expressive of the temper of Collective Ger many. It is too much to suppose that the 'Ames, with its unlimited means of acquiring intelliglince, is not well instructed on the intricacies of o, i ' errnin Courts; it is not possible that the private an d re . vealed policies of the German principalities. can hale escaped notice. In language of discourtesy and cot_ tempt, the Times predicts that Prussia a.nd German; • without distinction of party, are nationally inimical to England, and unworthy of an alliance with her ; that England, as a rule, should eschew foreign con nection, and more especially with Proaestant Prussia. One of the reasons adduced is, that an English. princess on a l'russian throne would become in Russianised, and, by possibility, induce a prejudicial leaning of that nature in England.. In order that the position be tenable, it must be taken for granted that the war with Russia be perpetual—. a standing war—and that Prussia and Germany are for ever linked by inclination, not less than by ne cessity, with the interests and with the ambitious determinations of Russia. Let this bold assertion be scrutinised—let the veracity of the fact be tested. By the Congress of Vienna, Germany was deprived! of its ancient empire. Some princes were mediatired. —the remainder by an unwise arrangement became dependent, by force of position, upon Prussia and Austria; and the new kingdoms of Bavaria, Wurtems burg, and Saxony were continued in a shape of cit. cumscribed dominion that made each dissatisl,ed and covetous of an increase of territory, at the expense of the neighbouring princes. Prussia was Protestant, and Austria Catholic. Prussia popu. larised education, and Austria restricted the su pply of knowledge. Prussia established univ ers in es , Austria repressed them. The first was ar ,plaided by the people; the second bowed before an d re ceived the blessing of the Jesuit. Disco' al ensued, jealousy was rife throughout the Corded..tration, and then a third agent subtly introduced its( ilf—this was Russia. It worked with cunning tools . An d by a t r ipl e trench. 1. By family alliance with the p r i nce s ; 2. by fomenting a disrelish both c,A' P russ i a an d Austria, and by prompting inder.endence ; 3. by perseveringly inculcating the irraninent hostility and cherishing a hatred of Fran ce, and pointing to the legitimate counterpoise of Russian protection. The wild doctrines of democracy copied from France, and proclaimed in the Paul. Kirche of this tows, were directed by Russian intrigue, and had in tended results. Russia was thereby immediately strengthened in her Germraiic position. The failure of the Hungarian cause, was owing to her inters ference, which riveted the subjection of Austria; and the republican license otthe Paul Kirche, mischievous. and objectless, made the German princes, robbed and ruined by the democrats, cling for safety to , their Muscovite guardian. At that precise period: the affairs of Prussia were placed in trust by the, Emperor Nicholas, and the members of the u-paitti de la Croix" were nominated trustees. But the constitutional, and conservative party, tinily and absolutely Liberal, and not Whig. Saxon, were fully cognisant of the Russian intrigue against the. inde pendence of Germany, and stood alt.of !loom either faction', despotic or democratic. They were made stronger by the defeat of the Frankfosb anarchists. It is in the oblivicn or ignorance of the existence of this influential band of German politicians that con ! sists the chief error of the Times. Of this band -1 constitutional, conservative, monarchial, and patri- I Weeny German—the Prince of Prussia may be. recognised as the bead, and the names of MM. de Bunsen, Von Usedom, Bethinan Hollweg, Bonin,. d'Auesweld, de Wincke, and Furstenberg Stanheim,. are a guarantee for the high interest with which they are spiritually ennoble& They are opposed to. foreign interference, Russian and Austrian; they desire that Germany should be nationally CODSOII- , dated, and acquire a unity and a distinct position off which it is at present depthed ; they are in strict union of sentiment with the Prince of Prussia, with! whom, together and in common, they view in Pro-- t,estant and constitutional England a natural and necessary ally against unscrupulous 'Russia an Jesuit Austria, and they would pleasurably witness,. as constitutionalists, Protestants, and anti-Catholics', a closer bond of affinity betwixt the two nations;. Now, is this large, liberal, and powerful party,. conn posed of men of European reputation for talent as probity, with the Prince of Prussia as their 'sender, resolute in their defence alike against RnaWiat and the Jesuit, deserving of that sweeping coutheamatic with which the Times, recklessly and without reflec tion, has so unjustly visited it? Is it a. erirne. in the Prince of Prussia to entertain a regard for Protes tant England? Is M. Bunsen to be reproved for reverencing the constitutional and anti: Catholics institutions of Great Britain; and is that, honest band of patriotic spirits, full of sympathy for Anglo.