The Sun.
London, England, 1860-01-09 00:00:00

THE BRITISH ARMY AND THE PRESS

In desposic countries, where the press is depen-
dent on the will of one man, or on the whims of an
irresponsible censorship, greater freedom is allowed
to military and naval men in their intercourse with
its organs than in our own, for the very obvious
reason that the expression of their opinions is there
subjected to official control. In Indis, where the
forms of Government closely resemble those of pure
monarchical States, officers of the highest rank make
large use of the press for the diffusion of their

views; and many of them, such as Mansfield and
Edwardes, gained reputation by their pens ere they
won it by the sword. During the last war the old
Muscovite world was astonished by seeing long
letters in the Invalid. _Russe from officers serving
in Sebastopol, mingled with official reports and
announcements; and at its close they were frightened
from their propriety by the spectacle of two
officers of the highest rank, who had headed great
armies, in the field, leading their columns down
Almas of letter-press, till tho contest, which raged
for some time by the permission of the Czar, was
terminated by his orders. Nor was Austria indif-
ferent to the uses of the press during her struggle
with Hungary, or in the resent war with France.
Appeals to the loyalty, traditional attachment, or
religious fervour of the various races subject to her
rule, were promulgated by official sanction—for
without it they could not have been issued at all—
in the narrow sheets of Tyrolese, Illyrian, and
Croat journals. The representatives of the public
papers who followed the French army were deco-
rated by the Emperor, and if we admit that free
and constitutional Sardinia has by no means imitated
the liberality of her Imperial ally, we must attribute
the course she adopted to the supreme exigencies
of the State. For us in England there is the one
great fact—freedom of the press, untrammelled by
the smallest ligament of official supervision. The
tame eagle is sure of being fed, but he were a sorry
bird who would exchange the noble flight and the
easy soar of outspread pinion for the cage and chain,
even though with them came the certain daily prey,
safety from the fowler's snares, and a refuge from
the tempest. We have thus to make the best of our
position—to accept the situation as it exists. It
would be treason to forfeit the smallest particle of
the most absolute independence or to contract by a
hair's-breadth the freedom of thought and utterance
for the sake of enjoying—if that were possible—the
entire confidence of the antipathies. But it is quite
compatible with the maintenance of these essentials
to evince every disposition to appreciate and allow
for the difficulties of official life and the necessities
of the public service. It may be safely affirmed
that the English press has hitherto not failed to ex-
hibit patriotism in its largest sense in dealing with
such subjects. The exceptions are few, and small
even when it appeared to men in office that they
were many and large. As we were once told by a
high military authority in Austria, if it had not
been for the English press, all Germany, believing
the accounts in the French and Russian papers,
would have concluded that the English army was
late at the Alma, mad at Balaklava, asleep at
Inkermann, disgraced on the 18th of June, and
annihilated on the Bth of September, But the
English journals, which could not be suspected
of any official suppressions, were accepted as ac-
curate expositors of the facts, and throughout the
cognate Fatherland. it was known that, amid great
disasters, the army And. navy had displayed the
highest'qualities of which British soldiers anti sailors
are capable, and none are capable of higher—that
Alma was glorious for our arms—that Inkermann
was as grand as Thermopylae—that it was owing
to circumstances which in no degree affected the
character of our infantry, though they might be
damaging to the judgment of their chiefs, we were
not successful in the assaults on the place, which
were unsuccessful in every point except one—and
that, at the erid of the war, we were " ready to go
on," while our all evinced his sense of failing
powers by a patenfirnxiety for peace. It is strange
enough that a nation which is the offspring of war
and conquest—the essence of fighting races=with
the blood of Viking, Norman, Saxon, and Celt—
and who knows what infusion of .Roman P—running
in its veins—should have always exhibited a eel.-
tain amount of contempt for military sciences and
for pure soldiery. No people on earth are more mar-
tial ; but none know so little, or care less, about
the principles of war. We English have never in-
vented a system of fortification, though it cannot be
said we did not need castles even when our fleet
protected our shores. We have never organized a
military system, or even an • order of battle. All
improvements in implements of war, except Arm-
strong's gun, which has yet to be tested in actual
service, have come from abroad ; and such grapd
discoveries and immense improvements as we have
made in the mechanical arts arc, is a military sense,
apparently more advantageous to our neighbours
than to ourselves. Our treatises on the science of
war are translations, mere fragmentary essays or
dry text-books and manuals. It seems as if, in our
undoubted power of figthing, we scorned all ad-
juncts ; and, indeed, not a few even now maintain
that the introduction of Minerva to the British
Mars will terminate in the youth's entire ruin.
There is a large mass of the public which has yet
to find out that the British officer is more intelli-
gent, better educated, and 'more accomplished in
all manly arts and useful acquirements than
three-fourths of those whom they call the edu-
cated classes in civil life. As the officers of the
services advance in the- estimation of their fellow-
countrymen, and feel that they are elevated from
the,empty•popula-rity -U passing enthusiasm for
some bloody. victory, to the higher level of perma-

nent national esteem, they will seek to vindicate
their position by a thorough acquaintance with the
principles of their art ; and we shall see them elu-
cidated with all the clearness and vigour of the
English intellect.—Army and Navy Gazette.