The Sun.
London, England, 1870-12-17 00:00:00

870.

THE BOMBARDMENT OF P.AHIS

Following up.his previous communication on ill- pro-
bability of a bombardment, the special correspondent of
the Daily News at the headquarters of the Crown Prince
of Saxony, at Margency, under date December 13,
remarks :—Perhaps the Parisians meant their acti-
vity of yesterday on the northern side as a
complimentary salute to the King of Saxony.
This, at least, is certain, that now his birthday is over,
they are profoundly quiet again. It is not believed
here, however, that this quietude is anything more than
a lull, and it seems to be accepted as a matter of
course that we are to look for more fighting, and that
the end is not yet at hand. I think it may be accepted
as a fact that the Germans have been quite out of their
reckoning as to the food resources of Paris. According to
the calculations on which they based their inactive policy,
Paris should by this time have begun to know the
meaning of hunger, and it is inexpressibly galling,
to them to find that she is not yet so far
gone as to be wholly on salt meat rations. The
miscalculation causes chagrin on several grounds.
But for it, who could floubt that before this time there
would have been a duel between the big guns of North
Germany and those of the Paris forts'? In that the error
of reckoning as to the food resources of Paris has post-
pened this duel until now there is cause for self-
reproach ; but there is yet deeper cause for this in the
fact that, so implicit has been the leaning on the broken
reed of the miscalculation, that the indispensable preli-
minaries of a bombardment have been neglected. Thus,
if it be assumed that now the eyes of the besiegers
are open, and that they find it necessary to resort to this
expedient, they must perforce wait yet awhile ; and it is
irritating to reflect that the months which have elapsed
have been in a great measure so much lost time. Now
the work has to be gone about in earnest at the worst
possible season of the year for such operations, when the
roads are terribly heavy after the breaking of a hard
frost, and the thaw of a considerable fall of
snow. The eagerness with which the troops crave for
what they consider the beginning of the end, in the shape
of the bombardment, must be known at headquarters,
and is an element which cannot well have been set aside.
But, then, the troops full of the belief that the bom-
bardment is now definitely resolved upon, use their
discernment to wonder how it happens that so much
time has to elapse before the resolution can be
acted upon, and the deduction is unfavourable to the
German prestige for forethought and a condition
of preparedness for alternative events. Still the
thunder of the big guns, and the stir of a bombardment,
will do much to efface such an impression ; and all that
oan be done is to make up as fast as possible for lost time.
There is do doubt that activity is now the order of the
day. When the roar of the besieging cannon is heard, it
will not reverberate from one quarter only. To one quar-
ter only, the south, has hitherto all the seige train
been directed, and hence the delay ! Doubtless were
the bombardment only to be on this hand, it might com-
mence to-morrow ; but then what of the east side, the
side nearest the feeding railway line, and yet a side
left all but barren—why not at once say utterly
barren—of siege artillery till the hour that the crisis
before Villiers forced on the determination to resort to
active measures in the shape of a bombardment. No
bombardment need be looked for in the north : to us
here the din will come bellowing from the east and
from the south. When will the former side be ready ?
Were guns all that are wanted, the delay would not be
very long. But Crimean experience—if there were no
other experience on record—teaches the error of beginning
a bombardment without the means of sustaining it unin-
terruptedly for a considerable period. The reserve of am-
munition must be large, and the commencement of the
bombardment waits the concentration of ammunition
for the supply of the batteries on the eastern side. When
this requisite is supplied—and Christmas will probably
have come and gone before such is the case—there will be
such a sound as Europe hag+ never yet shuddered at. But
before then, probably, the besiegers will have partially
abandoned their policy of inactivity, for there are

positions the storming of which will render it possible
to plant batteries in positions so advantageous that the
inevitable loss must for certain be more than balanced by
the gain.

OUR OOTEN

'ORARIES—This Morning

COUNT BISMARCK'S CIRC UL 11:.

The Times, in commenting on the Luxemburg question,
thus concludes its observations—We have already shown
on a former occasion that, however rudely Treaty rights
may have been set aside in some recent instances, they
have still a real and tangible force. War is held to
abrogate or suspend their operations for many purposes,
yet war itself is mitigated by the observance of rules
which, but for Treaties, would assuredly be trans-
gressed. In the present state of Europe, and in
the present mood of the leading Continental nations,
it would be vain to rely on ally internationa' league to
enforce treaties, as such, by a process of Federal execu:
tion. But the moral sense of mankind, though perverted,
is not extinguished by war ; it will surely re-assert itself
sooner or later, and the strongest Power cannot afford to
outrage it. Russia, for example, has never been actually
brought to account for the partition and oppression of
Poland, yet the memory of that nefarious deed clings to
her like the shirt of Nessus, and three generations have
not effaced the dark suspicions of Muscovite policy which
it engendered over all Western Europe. England, as the
most disinterested spectator of the present contest for the
supremacy of the Continent, is specially bound to uphold
the sentiment on which public Law depends,and which is our
only safeguard against a state of things in which all the
members of the European family would be arming against
each other. The duties of neutrality form a substantive
part of this public law, and we should be the very last to
sanction a lax construction of them, such as would
virtually extend the area of warlike operations
and the influence of warlike passions. At the
same time, we know by experience the enormous
difficulty, with the most honourable intentions, of
fulfilling those duties so as to satisfy both the belligerents,
and we must'protest, as the United States protested, in
the early part of this century, against a doctrine
',which imposes unreasonable liabilities on neutrals. Neutra-
lity, after all, is the normal state of nations. Belligerency
may be a misfortune, or it may be a crime, but, at all
events, it is a state voluntarily incurred, and it confers no
right to exact impossibilities from other nations which are
wise enough to remain at peace. _ _

That the English reply to Count Bismarck should not
have been published, says the Standard, although the sub-
ject most deeply interests the British public, is,
ntelligible enough. But it is certainly very re-
markable that Count Bismarck's circular is only known
by summaries, which at the best are very imperfect.
No statesman in Europe has known how to use pub-
licity to more advantage than the Chancellor of the
North German Confederation, and none has more
obstinately refused to satisfy public curiosity about
diplomatic matters when the satisfaction did not promise
him any benefit. We have had sufficient illustrations of
the Chancellor's readiness to use the press in the course
of this war. Iu one way or other, by telegrams sent to
all newspapers, or by documents communicated only to
one, Count Bismarck has published every diplomatic
communication which he thought would promote the
Prussian cause. He acted upon a principle long
ago avowed. He told the North German Parlia-
ment—which meekly asked that it might at least
have the semblance of that consideration the Legislatures
of other States, constitutional or soi-disant constitutional,
really enjoyed, and be favoured with papers explanatory
of the foreign policy of the Government—that whenever
any advantage was to be gained by publicity he would
resort to it. This, of course, contented them, and no
one outside Prussia can complain of the arrangement,
although it practically expresses the contempt of Count
Bismarck for the German Parliamentary celebrities
and their submission to a treatment which the
members of any other legislative assembly would consider
insulting and degrading. But Count Bismarck's language
then supplies an excellent test with which to measure
his own proceedings. We will not say that
he is actually ashamed of his Luxemburg cir-
cular, but he evidently regarded it as a very
cold venture, and he would not publish it until
he 'learned how Europe had received it. For all his
confidence in the weakness of the members of the English
Government, he still had his doubts whether they would
tamely submit to an insult which they must be aware was
especially directed against England. If the summary
given of Lord Granville's dispatch is correct, there is no
longer any occasion for such reserve. The Gladstone
Cabinet will have signed the abdication of England as a
Great Power.