The Sun.
London, England, 1871-01-27 00:00:00

THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NORTH.

i Writing from Havre, January 25, the correspondent of
the Standard says :—This place is the head-quarters of a
large army, almost the only one which has not come to
grief through the hardships of campaigning and the
enemy's fire, but the process of waiting and watching
until it does something, though it is full of interest for a
keen observer, affords but few materials for a letter.
It is a great misfortune that there is no
commander-in-chief in France who could direct and control
the movements of the various armies. There
seems to be no general plan, and all the
various " commanders-in-chief" appear to act each on his
own hook. It is much to be regretted that, instead of
venturing on his rash march to St. Quentin, which re-
sulted in disaster, Faidherbe should not have waited
until General Loysel was able to co-operate with him
with the Army of Havre. The defeat of Faidherbe
must naturally interfere with the plans of the com-
mander here, and delay the advance from this place
for some time longer. It is probable that no forward
move will take place until Faidherbe is in a position
to second it, for I cannot suppose that General Loysel
would court defeat by encountering the victorious troops
which Von Goeben— who holds a railway, and knows how
to use it—has brought back to Rouen from St. Quentin
and the neighbourhood of Amiens. There is a disposition
in this town to make much of the victory alleged to have
been won by Garibaldi at or near Dijon ; but this partial
success, even if we admit it to be all that is represented
a fact about which I am sorry to say I en-
tertain strong doubts—forms but a small item
in the mass of discouraging advices which has suddenly
come upon us. The failure of Trochu's sortie, the defeat
of Faidherbe, coming so close after the discomfiture of
Chanzy, and the check sustained by Bourbaki—all this
accumulation of bad news is unquestionably disheartening,
and does suggest the question whether France is justified
in fighting on "to the bitter end " when every-
thing seems to be turning against her. But to
argue this question fairly it is requisite to bear
two things in mind—viz., the resources of the
country, and the terms it would be likely to obtain from
Prussia if she sued for peace at present. It is true that
Chanzy and Faidherbe have been beaten ; it is also
true that Trochu and Bourbaki have sustained a severe
check ; but Chanzy and Faidherbe, and Bourbaki
and Trochu are still in command of armies, and
the proportion of the population able to bear arms
that have not yet been incorporated is very great.
If France is to perish, it is better that she should perish
by the sword rather than be reduced to the condition of
Poland "by treaty "—her resources in men and money
are still unexhausted, and it is not unreasonable to hope
that the improvised armies which have held their own
against Goeben, and Frederick Charles, and Werder,
may by a course of defeat be hammered into that firm
stuff which victorious armies are made of. We should
not forget that the armies of the first Republic, whose
Italian and German successes are a favourite topic at
present, had to be trained to conquer by three years of
constant defeat. The improvised French armies that still
hold the field are not yet a match for the Prussians, but
they stand up to them, and though they lose too many
prisoners, they do not surrender wholesale as the
regulars did at the end of the first phase of the campaign.
It may, perhaps, be urged that my estimate of the
prospects of France is too favourable. I can only say
that it has been arrived at after much deliberation and
anxious consideration. Her sallies even now far out-
number her scientific assailants, and, as I believe,
her resources and her firmness exceed those of
Germany. It is her game to early on the war
a routrance, with a prospect of being victorious in the
end. But even if not victorious, she will have the satis-
faction of inflicting serious blows on her enemy, and of
reducing him to the same degree of exhaustion as herself.
In any case, when, bleeding and ruined, she is compelled
to lay down her sword—and she is not by any means
reduced to that plight now—she could not obtain worse
terms than she is likely to obtain from the Prussians in
the flush of their present unexpected—and I trust only
temporary—success.

CRYSTAL PALACE.—One Shilling Day.—Thursday,
January 26, 1871.—The admissions by season tickets
were 2,354 ; ditto on payment, 1,770 ; total visitors,
4,124.
....

THa EARL OF PEMBROKE SHIPWRECKED.—A
eorresp2ndent of the •Sydney Morning Herald, who dates
from Fiji on the oth of November, states that the Earl of
Pembroke had arrived there in the character of a ship-
wrecked mariner. His lordship was in his yacht Albatross,
bound from Samoa to Levuka. They sighted part of the
Fiji Group, supposed to be Vanua Balavu ; but the
weather being thick, Captain Braund stood off again, the
wind being S.E. On the night of the 21st of October, at
ten p.m., the vessel struck on a reef that surrounds the
Island of. Nukusambanga, near Pambi, and for some time
the position of those on board was perilous ; however, the
vessel drove over the reef into comparatively smooth
water. The live stock and necessaries of life were landed,
but the valuable collection made the last twelve months
was lost, and all personal effects. The shipwrecked party
remained nine days on the islands, because the Admiralty
directions declared the Fijian natives cannibals, so they
waited for moonlight nights to creep through the group to
Ovalu after dark. After nine days they took the lifeboat
and made for Taviuni, and were about to camp for safety
on Goat Island, in Soma Soma Strait, when they luckily
saw the masts of the Duke of Edinburgh lying at Uariki.
MARSHAL MARSIONTS OPINION OF PARIS FORTI-
FICATIONS.—The following remarks of Marshal Marmont,
taken from the Esprit des Institutions Militaires, which
was published in 1845, are of interest at the present
moment as bearing on the importance of Paris as a
fortified place :—Whatever be the result of the
most disastrous campaign, 80,000 or 100,000 men
would always form the remnant of a beaten
army, and, supported by properly constructed forts,
these 80,000 men would be perfectly safe from attact.
With the resources which Paris possesses in personnel, in
the number of its inhabitants, in the varied nature of its
wealth, and in its vast mat4riel, assisted, moreover, as it
would be by the adjoining departments, the cadres of such
an army would soon be refilled, its losses repaired, and in
less than a month's time an army of 300,000 men tho-
roughly equipped would be ready to march against the
enemy with renewed spirit. An enemy would require an
enormous number of men with which he would venture
to encounter such an army, and were he to divide
his forces his weakness at every point would lead to his
speedy destruction. Should the enemy, on the other
hand, keep his forces united for the purpose of fighting,
how could be subsist ? And what would become of him
after the slightest reverse ? Should, then, an enemy ad-
vance as far as Paris, the only thing left for him to do
would be to withdraw before the reorganised army of the
French could find him, and to hasten to carry on the war
in the provinces within easy reach of his own_base.