The Sun.
London, England, 1854-09-14 00:00:00

THE WAR.

(From the Daily i'Vews.)
It is an ugly fact that the Sebastopol expedition was
' strenuously opposed in the preliminary councils held to
discuss its feasibility by Prince Napoleon, the cousin of
the Emperor of the French, and by the Duke of Cam-
bridge, the cousin of the Queen of England. These
princes will necessarily be believed by the multitude to
know more of the minds of their respective courts than
the generals less intimately connected with them ; and
this belief will strengthen the still lingering suspicion
that our commanders in Turkey have had their hands
tied throughout the year by home influences. In• Paris
the conviction is universal that the Sebastopol expedi-
tion has only been carried into effect in consequence of
the dogged refusal of Marshal St. Arnaud to listen to
any opposition to the plan ;. and that the marshal's
obstinacy had good cause—his conviction that, unless
some enterprise of the kind was set on foot, the discon-
tent which compulsory inaction and disease had kindled
throughout the French expeditionary army would break
out into open Mutiny. That the soldiers of the allied
armies, when let loose upon Sebastopol, can be turned
back by no resistance that Russia can offer, is as cer-
tain as any future event can be. But the victory will
be owing to the gallantry of the troops alone ; the high
authorities, who seem to set them in motion, will have
been compelled to gain a victory against their will.
Nor is this the worst feature of the case in so far as
these high authorities are concerned. Their tardy and
reluctant consent that Sebastopol shall be attacked has
been obtained, in part at least, on the strength of another
consideration than the necessity of some such enterprise
being taken in hand to prevent the demoralisation of
their armies. They flatter themselves that the popular
exultation awakened by the fall of Sebastopol will efface
the memory of the inglorious part played by the French
and English armies in the East during the campaign on
the Danube of 1854. In this anticipation they might
not, perhaps, have been altogether deceived had it not
been for the malice or stolidity of their precious ally, the
Austrian Government. The Austrians are conducting
themselves—either with malignant intention or through
the most boundless stupidity-,--in Wallachia, in a man-
ner that must expose the French and English Govern.
ments to the contempt and hatred of every man worthy
of the name, unless they promptly protest against and
put an end to it.

Austrian troops have entered Wallachia in consequence
of the treaty concluded between the Porte and the Mu-
only object the attainment of which can warrant
the advance of these troops into the Principality is the
necessity of their presence to obtain the evacuation of
the province by the Russian troops. But the only
thing that the Austrian commander, General Fleas,.
and his subordinate agent at Bucharest, Colonel Halic,
have yet attempted, is to keep at safe distance from the
Russian army, to insult wantonly the Turkish Com-
mander-in-Chief, and to impair the efficiency of the army
under his command. Colonel Halic deliberately pre-
sented to Omer Pacha a note requiring him to withdraw
his troops to the south side of the Danube. This
peremptory request, on the part of a Power which has
not yet struck one blow against Russia, nor even shown
itself strong and courageous enough to do so, was of
course immediately negatived by the commander of the
victorious army, which, unaided, has driven the Rus-
sians back from the Danube. Omer Pacha replied
that the Russians were still within a few leagues of
Bucharest, and that until their last man had crossed
the Pruth, the withdrawal of the Turkish army to
the south of the Danube was out of the question.
Even an Austrian could see, after this reply, that his
demands were untenable, and Colonel Halic begged
leave to withdraw his insolent note. But though the
Turkish Commander-in-Chief has resisted the Austrians
on this point, he has been
less successful on one of,
perhaps, still more vital importance. Omer Pacha has
in his army, and upon his staff, a few Polish and Hun-
garian officers. These gentlemen have been five or six
years in the Turkish service ; they are first-rate
soldiers ; they speak the Turkish language, and enjoy
the entire confidence of the men ; they are, in short, the
best officers Omer Pacha has—the only officers in whom
he has implicit confidence. To deprive him of them is
to deprive him entirely of the power of manoeuvring in
the field, of marching to victory, an army which has
perhaps never been surpassed so far as the common
soldier is concerned, but which is sadly deficient in
officers. Yet the very first demand of the Austrians
after. entering into Wallachia was that no Polish or
Hungarian officer in the Turkish service should be
allowed to remain in that province. This arrogant
request has tamely been complied with. The Turkish
Government could and ought to have answered that it
had the same right to retain iu its army Poles and Hun-
garians who have been years in its service, as the Aus-
trian has to retain Frenchmen and Englishmen (or
Irishmen), who owe it no allegiance by birth. But the
Turkish Government, instead of standing on its un-
doubted right, is sending some of those high-spirited,
brave, and intelligent officers to compulsory idleness in
the neighbourhood of Monastir, and others to hopeless
toils and privations, and a nameless death in Asia. leav-
ing its Danubian army like a fair and athletic frame
from which the spirit has departed. So keenly
does Omer Pacha feel these insults offered to him by the
Austrians, and this weakening of his army inflicted with
the complicity of his own Government, that at the time
when our most recent despatches left Bucharest, he had
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tf
shut himself up, and refused to hold his ordinary levees.
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in-Chief and his army. They insist upon having every
r
pro-
mised to pay for all forage and provisions delivered to
take the depreciated Austrian paper money instead.
They are swaggering and insulting all classes—the pea-
sant and the boyard, the Wa.llachian, the Frenchman,
and Englishman. Tney are covering the rear of the re-
treating Russian army ; they are insulting the Turkish
Commander-in-Chief, and wresting from him the means
of handling his army in the field ; they are playing the
part of brutal and despotic masters in a country they
professed to enter as friends.
And in all these outrages France and England are the
accomplices of Austria. It was the combined influence
of the European diplomacies at Pera that prevailed
upon the Porte to conclude the fatal convention of
Boyadji-Keuy with Austria. It is in obedience to
the persuasions of the French and English commanders
at Varna that the Turkish authorities
submit to the in-
sreluctantlysa
suiting interference by which the Austrians are subvert
ing the discipline of their army and exposing its com-
mander to derision. Unless backed b
France nd
England, the Austrians would not dare 3:to remain 'an
hour in Wallachia, where all classes concur in regarding
their arrival as, if possible, a worse visitation than that '
of the Russians. And it is obvious that Austria calculates
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has for ustria
upon no mere temporary occupation of the Danubian
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nr tce oe" give them up ; she has taken care to stipulate
that her
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negotiated.from
cen-
turies been encroaching,upon—pilfering from the Ottoman
empire. Austria was the first mover of the present
troubles; for Prince Leiningen's mission to Constantinople
preceded that of Prince Menschikoff, and was equally in-
sulting. In the game it is now playing in Wallachia,
Austria is only acting in character ; but
uow are the
French and English Governments acting in conde-
scending to be made its cat's-paws ? These Govern-
ments, in abetting Austria, are acting with their eyes
open ; to appeal to their senses of honour would be
useless. But something may be accomplished by ap-
pealing to their sense of danger. The present secure
and triumphant position of the Emperor of the French
is mainly owing to the part he has hitherto played in
the great Oriental movement ; by tamely submitting to
become the accomplice of Austrian insolence, falsehood,
and wrong in Wallachia, he will lose all he has gained.
As for the English Ministers, are they prepared to brave
the storm of popular contempt, indignation, and hatred
that will break over them, if they continue to coun-
tenance and support Austria in the outrages against
every principle of law and morality which it is now per-
petrating in Wallachia ?

(From the Times.)

The answer of the Russian Government to the last
propositions addressed to it by the Cabinet of Vienna
has been communicated by the Austrian Ministers to
the representatives of the Western Powers, and the sub-
stance of this document has been published in the Vienna
journals. Like all the previous communications of a
similar nature, it is extremely temperate in its language;
for, though Russia never scruples to bully and insult,
even by the violence of personal outrage, those States
which she hopes to inle by intimidation, she affects an
extreme gentleness and candour in her dealings with
those German Powers which might have the power to
resist her will. A Prince Menschikotf was her instru-
ment when she sought to overawe the Divan, and lay
the Sultan prostrate at her feet. A Prince Dolgorouki