The Sun.
London, England, 1854-12-01 00:00:00

PUBLIC OPINION IN ZNGLAND.

(Front the Sieele.)
The spectacle which England now PreSanta will, we
think, remain in history as a lesson full of force and
authority for the conduct of States. L sok at that coun-
try:, which has been said to be only one of shopkeers ;it
enjoys liberty, and that which has made ' , it Se great as a
commercial nation has the privilege of F ,uddenly render-
ing it as heroic and chivalrous as abs Iliad of the old
clans. It would appear that the heart o f every English.
man has only one wish, and thatanardj
irtietyogne
a—ndYEictnonriyi..,
complete victory. The war cry of the
killens comes forth from every breast. The journals are
no longer simply daily papers recording the events of the
morning or the evening; the writers have become poets.
Their descriptions of battle smell of LISOY:11 than powder ;
they breathe forth the most undaunted :patriotism : they
are almost as ov/es-powering as the ch arges of Scarlett
and of Lord Cardigan. It may be comprehended in
reading theory, that it is not only the English Govern.
ment that makes war—it is the natioui—artisans, menu-
bcturers, great lords, And princes, all are engaged in
the same intoxication of combats. The hurrah for Old
England nowhere meets a dissentient voice. Even the
Stock Exchange of London, that famous speculative
Bourse, appears to think, at the hour of quoting its Con-
sols, of the number if millions of rentes fighting at the
head of the English troops in th.f. Crimea. It hails with
a rise the devotedness of those. great lords who quit
their estates, their luxury, their castles, and their clubs,
to maintain intact the fortune and the star of Great Bri-
tain, and who wish that the aristocracy should remain
in the illustration of death and sacrifice. There is not a
dissentient voice ! Numerous and brave men have been
lost and not acomplaint is heard ! Are reinforcements,
fresh vessels, fresh troop s, and fresh supplies of money
wanted ? The English fJovernment is told to take them.
It is not the tax-payer who gives them with regret ; it is
England who offers them with her whole heart. Eng-
land is pledged,- sb e must triumph. Sales populi au-
Prenza lox / What strength this unanimity gives to a
Government; inr,tead of having to stimulate, it has only
to direct and ry,oderate. For it there is no uneasiness
for the future ; in presence of public opinion so powerful,
and so enthusiastic, the Parliamentary powers cannot but
second with all their force and all their votes the submis-
sion of the Government to the wishes of the country. W.
have said that this country is free. When it decided for
war, it took its decision with a full knowledge of its situ-
ation and of its resources. It replied in the affirmative
when the first sacrifices were in contemplation, and it
cannot use a negative when the last shall be asked for.
If by chance some criticising and grumbling voices, as
there must be in all regimes of liberty, should demand
accounts, would not public opinion soon bring the ac-
cused towards the Capitol Is it not the free will of
England which ferments in every mind, which inflames
every one's courage, and which raises so high the great
hurrah of battle, that the majestic noise of the spinning.
jennies, and the long roar of the steam-engines are but
as silence compared to it ? And then for the brave men
who fall one against five, what a consolation there is
For those who fight, what a support there is in this fer-
vent public opinion, the echo of which reaches as far as
them ! In what dignified language it speaks •of their
heroism ; to what sublimity it rises in celebrating their
courage ; what a pedestal it erects for their devoted.
ness I A man can die with joy when so honoured. More
than once, we also, the organs of opinion in France, we
could have wished to follow our soldiers on the fields of
' battle, to live on the glory which they acquired, and to
identify ourselves by the grandeur of the poetry of our
homage with all their efforts. They do not do less than
the English ; they strikeand die like them, and like them
they excite admiration. But why not avow it? Why should
they be less celebrated ? The French press has not the warm
accents, the acclamations of which resound on the other
side the Channel ; the phrases of our writers have not
the sawed flame which burns beneath the pen of their
colleagues of the City. It is not, however, either the
patriotism or the talent of the French press that must
be accused for this. At other periods it has proved be-
fore history what it knew and what it could do. Row
often has it been seen to animate all, and to incite all.
When its voice, its true voice, the free eche of a free
public opinion sounded either in the country or in the
world, there was no other voice. There was even a time
when it guarded the frontiers conjointly with the armies,
and history can say that the enemy did not cross them.
No ! We do not fear to make open avowal of the truth.
Is not the right of speaking to the nation, of every day
exciting it to disinterestedness and to glory, and of leav-
ing no repose to its love of honour, in a manner taken
from us ? Are we not a little the pariahs of the law I
Precautions are taken against the press by every means
which surveillance can furnish. It has been wished that
it should have no strength for what has been called mis-
chief ; it has been desired that it should lose its sound-
ing voice, its prestige similar to the éclat of the sun, its
qu,os ego forming and arresting storms. The journalist—
formerly the man of the moment and of enthusiasm—has
become the man of reasoning and of tactics; his
ink, formerly so burning, has been chilled ; his periods,
in order to be irreproachable in the eye of the
law, are to be carefully revised and corrected—in a
word, we have been deprived of what was never-
theless our principal merit—that of thinking aloud
and of writing what we thought. We do not complain,
we do not recriminate ; but do not let public opinion in
England and France be any longer compared I Let it
not be any longer asked why, whilst Frenchmen and
Englishmen fall side by side with the same heroism for
the same cause, the praises resound louder at London
than in Paris. If, when free the press is a critical
power, is it not when free, also the consecration of sa-
crifices and of glory ? Look at England.

TILE BATTLE OF INKERMAN4

(From the Dcbats.)

The battle of Inkermann* and the grave conse-
quences which a success of the Russian army might
have had for the siege of Sebastopol appear to us to
merit serious reflections. We have no need to recapi-
tulate the details of this terrible affair ; we have already
given them at length, with all their picturesque features,
from English and French letters from the Crimea.
We now leave aside the terrible scenes of fury between
man and man, the butcheries with the bayonet which
correspondents have taken pleasure in describing, and
also the heaps of dead lying by thousands irr sOloody
field. We feel the heart wrung by such pictures. But
what can be said ? It is war ! We will, however, present
the ensemble of the battle, and the special object of the at-
tack of the Russians executed by a mass of from 60,000
to 70,000 'Neu. They attempted nothing less than to
cause the raising of the siege of Sebastepol—such was
the formal order of the Czar, and the plan was for a
moment en the point of succeeding. The English, only
8,000 in number at first, heroically sacrificed themselves
to the salvation of the great operation of the liege, and
the French battalions hastening to the scene of carnage
decided by their impetuous attack the victory prepared
by the admirable solidity of the English troops. The
combination of the qualities peculiar to the soldiers of
each nation, the noble emulation and the perfect frater-
nity in arms which prevails between them, appear to
have rendered them invincible.
The Debuts goes oh to state that the plan of the Rus-
sians, which, it says, was prepared by tie Emperor Ni-
cholas himself, was to take the height to the right of
the English, then to descend like a torrent •n
the siege works, to cut off the communications
of the besiegers with Balaklava, and t• take in
reverse the line of circumvallation, whilst General
Liprandi, advancing by the road of Balaklava,
should make a junction with the assailants. If, it says,
this great and able manoeuvre had succeeded, the
combined army, attacked in the rear, would have been
forced to abandon the siege-works, and to fight Its way
through the enemy's army to reach Balaklava and the
Bay of Kamiels. The Debuts then says that in execu-
tion of this plan the height to the right of the Englisk
became the key of the position ; and after briefly de-
scribing the terrible combats which were sustained for
the possession of it, it shows that a great fault was com-
mitted in not having that height properly fortified. It
then proceeds :7_

"In giving this general view of the battle of Inker-
man, we have desired to show that the strategic key of
the great Russian operation was the height neglected by
the English on the plateau of which the Russians, when
they get possession of it, hastened to place in battery 42
guns, which did so much harm to our allies. Wedoubt
not that since the battle the English have
properly for-
tified this important height. When we blame the
on
neg-
ligence of their engineers in this respect, account of
the grave consequences which it had, and
leswhich might
have become still more fatal, our blame
ame
Oast that et the English themsivOiss readersfarrasevere
may
remember the bitter complaints made on this subject
the Times, who appears we
the correspondent of
weak
for our safety,' said he, re-
doubt, and no sufficient by
versed in military operationsr-
work of defence, in spite
vt:av e Ihnada Pne naliytiaan
ns of General de Lacy
Evans. We did not g
of the reiterated representations
blow with spick-age, nor
weighs on those whose in-
sary. Heavy respon
to disdain to take precautions
remove a shovelful) osfieikvaielritthy—it was considered mamma.
difference caused them
to preserve us from a great discs.
which would have preserved so many precious lives,
which were sacrificed
Entrenchments in the field have an importance
utility which every one understands ; but in. order
fulfil their object they must present to the enemy an
to
obstacle no less difficult to take by escalade than to
andter.
knock dowa by cannon. A good plan, well flanked aid
well adapted to the ground, does not suffice ; the para.
pets must be strong, the fosses deep, and the gorges of
the works solidly palissaded. When a detaohment is
placed in an entrenchment, it naturally calculates on
that support. If the entrenchment be easily escaladed,
the detachment which would have bravely fought in the
opea field will take to flight, or will Rummell. in despair,
because a fortified post, on whichit had the right to count,
failed it at the moment of combat. The moral effect
produced by such things should be taken into serious
consideration by the Generals, whose troops have to de-
fend field fortifications destined to protect camps in the
rear. If such works be not constructed in such a way
as to cause perfect security, they have only an illusory
value. This was seen by the example of the incomplete
redolbts of Balaklava in the affair of the 25th October,
and a second example of it was seen during the first few
hours of the battle of Inkerman."