The Press. — London, England, 1855-11-24 00:00:00

1112 done, and given an additional proof of their ca pability when well officered and led to contend with their hereditary foe, is of itself most satis• factory and encouraging. But it is even still more so to feel that Russia has sustained so serious a check where, perhaps, she least ex pected it, and where she hoped to push forward her encroachments comparatively unchallenged and unobserved. The question now is how to turn these advantages to the best account. And here we may be permitted to remark that there does appear to have been a very gross error committed by those to whom og military arrangements were in trusted. Had ONES PACHA, instead of wasting his time and his strength in the Crimea, been despatched in the beginning of the present year to the seat; of war in Asia, it is possible that we might by this time have obtained results as important, if not more so, than even the fall of Sebastopol. It is the permanent effect, rather than the violence of the blow, to which statesmen and generals ought to look. And it seems very possible that, had an Anglo-French expedition landed at Batoum any time in the beginning of the present year, the Russians might ere now have been driven over the Caucasus. We most sincerely trust that all which it is yet possible to do may be done to improve the late glorious triumphs. The second victory of OVER PACHA on the Ingour leads us to expect every despatch with impatience. Even the friends of the Muscovite are staggered by the powers of the Mussulman ; and we cannot re frain from indulging in hopes which it would perhaps be foolish to express. Even as we write, rumours of the relief of Kars and the safety of our gallant countrymen are rife about us. But, however this may be, we cannot fail to remember, that it was in this indentical country that Prince PASKIEWITCu was foiled in 1829, and compelled to relinquish his march !won Trebizoud, from exactly the same cause which we may presume to be embarrassing MoSsaviErF now—the want of provisions. This b i as always been the great difficulty with which the Russians have had to contend in Asia Minor, and we only regret that advantage should have been taken of it so late. The season is now, we fear, too much advanced for any very extended military operations, and we must perhaps perforce be content to let the Russians winter south of the Cau casus. But the gallant behaviour of the Turks should be our warrant for attaching rather more of importance to the possibilities of an Asiatic campaign, than we have latterly been ipclined to do. With an allied contingent on the spot, there might be no limits to the suc cesses which OMER PACHA may next year accomplish. To drive the Russians back again within those limits which Nature herself has fixed, and of which all true policy recommends the preservation, may yet be the glorious task of the great soldier who first showed the pos sibility of resisting Russian aggression. WAR CALCULATIONS. nit leading journal of Thursday last contains in article based on a letter froin its Vienna boiiespondent, professing to dissipate what the irriter calls our " absurd delusions con " cerning the numerical strength of the " Russian armies." His assertions are founded on strict arithmetical calculation, by which he endeavours to prove that if " we press on the " war for a year or two" the soldiers of Russia will be utterly exterminated. We arc quite willing to accept his proposition that war is a matter of calculation, and that we are right to count the cost on both sides. This is perhaps the safest way of looking at the question. Let us discard all moral consi derations, and view the issue as one of arith metic, to be decided by figures. Agreed as to the principle from which we start, let us see to whiat results fair reasoning will lead us. The population of the Russian empire may be taken in round numbers at 60,000,000 of Souls. This number is below the aggregate given by the best•informed staticians, but it is uffic icntly near for the purpose of our argu THE PRESS._ ment. Of thetie 60,000,000 it is computed that not more than one-fourth, or 15,000,000, are between the ages of seventeen and forty-five. It is further computed that of these 15,000,000 not more than one-third, or 6,000,000, are available for the purposes of war. This com putation appears somewhat arbitrary ; but if we consider that the Government would not willingly accept recruits so young as seven teen nor so old as forty-five—the really avail able term of life being between twenty and thirty five—and further that a considerable number of this class of the population must be disabled from shortness of stature or physical infirmity, the estimate appears rea sonable. It is with the 5,000,000 of able bodied Russians, then, that we have practically to deal. Exterminate these 5,000,000, says the Times, in what it supposes will be deemed a " cold-blooded calculation," and we shall be in a position to " dictate terms to Russia." On our power of being able to effect this extermination the whole argument of the writer depends, and he supposes that we have already advanced far in the work. Of these 5,000,000 available men, a total number about equal to 3,500,000 have been called into action by the several levies of February, May, September, and December, 1854, and of February, May, August, and October of the present year. So far we are in accord with the writer in the Times. But now comes the point at which our reasoning diverges. It is assumed by the London, and perhaps, also, by the German journalist, that a considerable portion of these levies has already been used up. We doubt, on the contrary, whether any number of them worth mentioning has yet been brought into the field. If the calculations we dispute are correct, the human forces of Russia must, indeed, be in course of rapid exhaustion ; but if only small bodies of these new soldiers have yet been brought into the field, then we must suppose that the levies remain in reserve, and are being prepared for the long contest to be expected should the war continue. What are the probabilities of the case? From the enormous area of the Russian empire it requires a long time to collect any considerable bodies of recruits at one place ; then how long trust it take to form a Russian boor into a soldier, and how much longer to equip three millions and a half of men, to form them into corps, to supply them with artillery and cavalry, and to tit them for the field ? From February, 1854, when the first levy was ordered, to October, 1855, is at the utmost a period of twenty months. Can we suppose that time long enough to allow any considerable number of the men of the earlier lines even to join the armies in the field? Certainly the later levies cannot yet have been drawn upon at all. The radical error of the writers we argue with appears to consist in the supposition that the successive levies were dictated by immediate and urgent need for men, and that they were consumed as soon as the ukases which ordered them appeared ; whereas the levies were most likely ordered that the whole, or nearly the Whole, available strength of the empire might be brought into a state of pre paration for military service, shmild the necessity for employing it arise. Adopting the exterminating theory of the Times, it is very possible that as regards the disposal of the 5,000,000 fighting men of the Russian empire, our work has only just began. How much will it cost us to exterminate these millions? As we consider that men' are of somewhat more importance than money, let us begin with them first. We have no precise data for determining what has been the proportion between the losses of the Allies and those of the enemy during the last year. In that period the British are said to have lost 50,000, and the French 80,000 men : the loss of the Sardinians and the Turks would probably bring the total loss of the Allies to 200,000. The loss of the enemy must have been very severe, probably much exceeding that aggre gate. Let us take the largest number that can be conjectured, and suppose it altogether 500,000, while we drop the French and Eng lish loss to 100,000. Then it would seem that it takes one soldier of France or England to - dispose of five Russians. By this calculation it will require the sacrifice of one million of French and English soldiers to exterminate five million Russians. Is England, for the sake of some wild visionary aim—as to avenge the crimes of the Empress CATHERINE, or to put heart into the Teuton races—prepared to contribute her quota to this hecatomb ? W e remember a picture in our youth of " the man " what won the fight," and that we then first ......_ .• _._ ____ e , _ discovered that proverbs were sometimes false, and that people did not always laugh who win. Next comes the calculation of pounds, shillings, and pence. How much hard cash will it cost us to exterminate these five million Russians? We will take the outside figures both ways, basing our calculation on the maxi mum of Russians killed during the last year and the minimum of the allied expenditure. We will assume, as before, that we have anni hilated half a million of the enemy ; what has it cost the Allies to effect so much ? Their war expenditure during the last year cannot be set down at less than one hundred millions sterling. Then what does it cost to kill a Russian? It is not a very difficult sum ; any of our readers can work it out for themselves. As 500,000 men are to 100,000,0001. sterling, so is one Russian slain to 2001. Before, there fore, our red and blue coated gamekeepers have accomplished their task, and cleared every head of the five million Russians off the ground, their masters will be called on to pay the sum of one thousand millions, by far the greater part of which will remain a burden on the industry of the Western nations for ever. Here, then, we see what figures will do for us. We are grateful to our contemporary for having suggested so ready a mode of arriving at results. And we can only advise the leaders of the "war-to-the-knife " party to keep the calculation in the background if they wish to retain their adherents. Is it certain that our labourtlivoUld end with the extermination of the five millions? AS a general rule the human species is propagated in all sparsely-populated districts faster than it dies out. In Russia the annual increase of the population is estimated at one per cent. On 60,000,000 this rate of increase would show a yearly addition of 600,000 souls. Then, as our contemporary observes, there will be, dur ing the progress of the war, a continual growth of the youthful population up to the age at which military service commences; and, lastly, there might probably be a reserve to be drawn, in case of extremity, from those two thirds of the male population between the ages of seventeen and forty-five, which we have agreed to count for nothing in our calculation. Towards the close of the desolating wars of Louis XIV. we know that scarcely a man was to be seen in the fields, women guiding ploughs drawn by cows. yet the King was to the last enabled to keep great armies to meet his enemies in the field. Taking all these elements of computa tion into account, we must admit that the exter minating theory presents to us one of the moat hopeless and, at the same time, barbarous labours which a nation of rational Christian men ever yet undertook. Supposing that at last we succeed in our ob ject, that the great mass of the able-bodied population of Russia are exterminated, what then ? Is it not probable that by that time both parties may be heartily tired of the con test, and anxious to bring the war to the best conclusion they can ? From the very exhaus tion and weariness of the Allies, Russia may obtain better terms after we have beaten her for ten years than after we have beaten her for two. A merely tolerable peace may be our only relief from intolerable burdens. And we may wake to find ourselves impoverished, dis heartened,, and thrown back a century in the career of improvement, while the state of Europe remains after all 'scarcely affected by all the sacrifices we have made to change it THE COMMISSION AT CONSTANTINOPLE, to inquire into the employment of the last loan to Turkey, has been arranged, and has commenced proceedings by requiring that the war budget of the Turkish army shall be communicated to it. TILE KING OF PRUSSIA has bestowed the Order of the Red Eagle of the Second Class to Solyman Pacha, Commander-in-Chief of the Ottoman forces in the principalities.