The Sun.
London, England, 1855-12-01 00:00:00

7,71'
;\
/
4111111.-
1"-":
_HE WAR IN THE EAST. . •
T A
-
C'
-
14,
•
-
•
ct
/j L
01114,-W, '
C„,,„
_ 4;7,
-
It 't•• -"--cpe` - • ' -
4' -Auge `' ol•-k
4- 4tV - - 6411:111,L,
N._
Afk

thousand
their
whole Oni-
,
( From the Times of this day.j
senirs,,,4
Of course we must accept the conditions ottPtegli
so_
but a grand war is a very slow one. It 'Pisisili4tlil4,
every idea with which the youthful, and peatipir
should add the feminine, mind had invested the grofeseii
sion of -the warrior. Everything personal, indivgnal,
enterprising, and romantic disappears in a vast and safe
whole. Homer might well call it the "mill of Mars,"
for it grinds up everything put into it to one dull re:
suit. It is like the operation of an act of uniformity,
num-
ber of those bearing great andl oved names who have
tbheeeinr.sfohromveLlesdaiveetso_Csormimeeasdiviaigwniintidlihtthosauciotnomtrtstehuhosemeccaoecltinsiafsoamptnienolitnsfnafilmiitlenshkoceaneiartfbuednr-st ,
tdu t genial
e a stiff preacher,
rur rubric
.;
reflect on the
mnlaavv annhehdeadyncadc;hadesibtivt
druroprirtt
naytnettiodsgebhtnneoce
fsyi los:,
:et .til:irg:t
rnewepecooogenn:airoinhtprwiaaLrotdpinhgseasseEt,
~,enet
eotht
osour anybody
that might have happened to the youngest subaltern or
l
the rawest recruit. A name renowned in the Great Ger-
man. .
vic-
tim to a mistake in a log ; half an hour afterwards the
Bile surviving Biitish officer of Leipsic perishes in a -
crowd; and India sends her favourite General to die sins-
ply of the journey. But death, at all events, is glorious
and intelligible. What is neither is the disappearance and
utter neutralisation of those who survive, —that is, whose
names are still down in the Army List, and whose letters still
reach their friends and are read even in the clubs. Their
peculiar crystalisation, if we may so express it, is de-
stroyed ; their corners are rubbed off ; they are simply
round projectiles of regulation weights, to fit certain
calibres. It is not merely that we want the war to pro-
duce its owu heroes ; our complaint is that heroes dis-
appear in the war. Perhaps it is a penalty we pay for
the grandeur of the scale and the perfectness of the or-
ganisation. As a picturesque suburb is swept away to
make _room for a Tyburnia,-33 fifty mails and stage
coaches, with their coachmen, guards, and horns, roll up
into one train,— as the village belle sinks into the London
kitchen-maid, and the pride of the forest is sawn into
planks, so characteristics of all kinds are. effaced in the-
muster-rolls of a great war. Yet what an amount of
genius there must be blazing away in the depths *id.
cornets of that crowd. No doubt,:niany:aWcilfe,
Clive, is absorbed in regimental duties, and in foe ,Clive,
ts ure-wiii-be-returtedititted io action: - Car
I)ut harder stillihe fee of those WlioSeplace_ it is to
[lead, to.
A advise, .to Origibatelnt who" re incessantly
thwarted by the difficulties which even the-best and -
most sensible Men fled in co-operation. The spirit of en-
terprise stagnates in the dead lock of contrary opinion*:
Doubtless, there is wisdom in the multitude of counsel-
' lors ;• doubtless, dangers are 'avoided that might have
escaped the eye of one man, however circumspect ; yet
genius itself becomes a retarding, instead of a moving
power in these consultations, and the only result is that
nothing is done for fear of a resua that might, perhaps,
have been better than nothing. The difficulty is even
aggravated by the interf..lrence of unseen advisers. The
chiefs before Troy found themselves occasionally tapped
on the shoulder by a goddess who had come at a bound
from Olympus to pull theta out of a scrape. The
electric telegraph, if it makes a still longer journey, takes
a's ‘, we know not why, a much longer time, and does
not always appear to be the best possible adviser.
But it is not merely personal genius and personal
qualities of all kinds that are " thrown into the melting-
pot ; " there never was so great a muster, and so little
use, of national characteristics. Our owa solid infantry,
our heavy cavalry, our perfect artillery, the dashing
Zouave, the scientific French engineer, the active Pied.
montese, and the rough Turkish troops, who evidently
hire more in them than appears to the Western eye,
furnish a variety of instruments such as is rarely ob-
tained in modern armies. We have ourselves added to
the variety, by the formation of German and Swiss Le-
gi ins, a Turkish Contingent., and we know not what
besides. There are also army works corps, and trans-
port corps, and "navvies," and every supplementary
service that can be imagined by land or by sea. •
With all these auxiliaries it might have been expected
that while the grand army was moving at a pace of
its own, or taking its own time for doing anythit g
before Sebastopol, some smaller enterprises would
be attempted elsewhere. The autumn has been
most unusually propitious for any undertaking, by
land or by sea, that we were likely to attempt. With
such a force, and with three whole months to do it—
long enough for a march from Sebastopol to Moscow—
' it certainly is unaccountable that we have done nothing
to interrupt the communication between Perekop and
the Russian camp, or, at least, to compel so large an
e cort as to aggravate the drain on the Russian army.
We are afraid to move more than a day's journey from
our po,itions, having the fear of the Cossacks always
before us ; and at the same time we hold, not only at
Eupatoria, but on the Dardanelles, and now on their
road to Shumla, a large force of irregular cavalry, quite
as good as the Cossacks for outpost work, for forays,
and such desultory enip'oyments. We have done a
little in the way of intercepting supplies, but we must
be pardoned ff we think it but little.

[ PRICE 4D. STAMPED SD.

The preparations made for an attack on Kaffa, on
Arabat, and elsewhere indicate that even in the cautious
judgment of the chiefs more might be done with ad-
vantage, if it were possible. But, so far, Omar Pasha is
the fortunate man, alone spared from councils of war,
and allowed to act single handed. Are we to suppose
that among the many thousand officers of all nation&
in our army in the Crimea, and the soldiers of all
kinds at their disposal, there is no one who could
do what Omar Pasha seems to do as a matter of
course whenever he has the opportunity ! Yes,
there are two or three at Kars, the chief of whom
is there bermno. 41.0 or tne Dritish service are
carefully devised to discourage, and so to banish,
the officer who combines with experience the highest
description of professional ability. But to revert to the
hero of the Danubian campaign, now fortunately released
through
Russian forests,
army over
from Crimean trammels. He has conducted a large
force of irregulars into the interior of a country notorious
in all ages for its difficulty. Without any basis of ope-
fyound a
rivers,
till his
hwe arations, except that be holds the coast at no considerable
m o u distance,mountains sh he
andhas
strongly fortified on the opposite banks of a wide river.
The situation is very suggestive of Alma, but Omer
Pacha's treatment of it was not quite the same. Col-
lecting his army, he planted some cannon to occupy the
attention of the enemy, and then explored the river up
and down. Crossing it at four points, he drove the
Russians from their intrenchments with great slaughter
and little loss, and at the last date was following them
on the road to Kutais. The country before him is said
to be a second Affghanistan, and we are now approach.
ing a season of the year that would add to the parallel ;
yet we hear no fears expressed for Omer Pasha and his
gallant little army. So unbounded, after all, is the con-
fidence that people naturally place in enterprise and
genius in ever so great difficulties and with ever so in-
adequate means ! We are not saying that the same
risks are to be run with 200,000 men as with 20,000, or
that we ought necessarily to give up the advantage of
good advice for the sake of ono command ; but it is
rather bard on our officers, our soldiers, and our cause
that the only opportunity of personal distinction should
be reserved for an Austrian renegade and an army of
Turkish irregulars.