The Sun.
London, England, 1871-01-17 00:00:00

COUNT BISMARCK'S CIRCULAR.

Reviewing Count Bismarck's reply to M. Chandordy's
despal:ch upon the barbarous and inhuman mode of war-
fare pursued by the German armies in France, the
Standard concludes :—We are not disposed to deny that
the Government of the National Defence has committed
many faults, and is justly amenable to hostile
criticism ; but we scarcely think it open to cen-
sure upon the ground alleged by M. Bismarck.
There was very little need of any exertions on the
part of Favre and his colleagues to " rouse
the passions of the people." From the moment that the
Germans, having conquered the armies of France, com-
menced to make war upon the people of France, the one
sufficing stimulus was amply supplied. The march upon
Paris, and the cruel wasting of the fairest provinces of
the empire by which it was accompanied, did far more
to raise the nation in arms than all the proclamations
of M. Gambetta. Up to the fall of Sedan the
civilian population remained passive, but when the victors
turned their arms upon an unoffending people, destroying
their towns, ravaging their homes, plundering their fields
and vineyards, and extorting their last penny and their
last loaf of bread, what more natural than than that they
should turn upon their merciless conqueror ? The sense
of national defeat, and the longing for peace which
followed upon the capitulation of Napoleon's
army, gave way to an inextinguishable hatred and
a burning passion for revenge against the triumphant
enemy who turned his arms against innocent civilians and
made war upon the peasant in his cottage. It is the mili-
tary policy of the Germans which has forced the French
nation into the field in such enormous and ever-increasing
masses that, with 800,000 troops overrunning the country,
the task of the invader seems more formidable and
difficult of accomplishment than ever. The Germans
are feeling this keenly. They are sick and weary of
the war, and long for peace with irrepressible yearnint! ;
but the attitude of the French nation, resolute in its
invader
is of never laying down its arms until the
is driven from its soil, forebodes a protracted and
exhausting continuance of the war. It is they
who, by their wanton barbarity and cruel greed,
have " roused the passions of the people," and in the suf-
ferings and losses of the present and the dreary prospect of
the future they are encountering a heavy but merited re'
tribution.

The Portsmouth Times mentions a rumour that
"Mr. Childers is bent on making a further reduction in
the naval estimates, and that no less a number than 700
men are to be discharged from the 14ortsmouth Dockyard
during the ensuing financial year."

The Civilian states that about sixty junior clerks
in the War Office—who were recently informed that
their names could not be included in the new establish-
ment, but that they would be absorbed as vacancies
occurred—have addressed a respectful remonstrance to Mr.
Cardwell. The rumour that a further reduction is contem-
plated in the number of clerks employed in the Admiralty
is premature.
The lick! says :—The British hounds in Russia
have had capital sport. They commenced their season on
the 4th of August, and finished on the sth of November,
hunting four days a week, and killing ten brace of foxes.
The hounds are well hunted by John Squires, and it is
expected that there will be some good sport in the spring,
a good stock of foxes having been left.
The intelligence has just come to hand that the
condition of affairs in Peru was highly satisfactory, the
evolutionary alarm having completely disappeared. Two
German prizes have boon captured by the French gun-
boat La Mothe Piquet, of Africa. The August, from
liamburg, and the Gazelle, from California, both bound
for Arica, have been sent by the captors to Tahiti.