The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-06-27 00:00:00

RUSSIAN CAMPAIGNS AGAINST TUMMY, 1828-29.

The campaigns of 1828 and 1829, though they termi-
nated to the disadvantage of Turkey, are yet eminently
calculated to modify the ideas generally entertained as to
the great power of Russia in aggressive warfare, as well
as to evince the means of defence, in a military point of
view, which the Ottoman dominions possess. The Turks
began the war under the greatest possible disadvantages.
Their land forces had been exhausted by seven bloody
campaigns with the Greeks ; their marine ruined in the
battle of Navarino ; their enemies had the command of
the Euxine and the £gean, the interior lines of commu-
nication in the empire; the janizaries, the military
strength of the state, had been in part destroyed, in part
alienated; and only twenty thousand of the regular
troops, intended to replace them, were as yet clustered
round the standards of the Prophet. On the other hand,
the Russians had been making their preparations for six
years ; they had enjoyed fourteen years of European
peace ; and a hundred and twenty thousand armed men
awaited on the Pruth the signal to march to Constantino-
ple. Yet with all these disadvantages, the scales hung all
but even between the contending parties. Varna was
only taken in the first campaign in consequence of the
Russians having the 'command of the sea ; the Balkan
passed in the second, from the Grand Vizier having been
outg9ieraled by the superior skill of Diebitch. Even as it
was, it was owing to treachery and disaffection that the
daring march to Adrianople did not terminate in a disas-
ter second only to the Moscow retreat. Had the Pacha
of Scodra come up three weeks earlier with his twenty-
five
i r e
twenty
fi-e thousand men, and united with the twenty thousand
v,\
towards
thousand COnst Constantinople, Op
beenle , where
Had
d wouldten thousand Diebitch
Ttohr
En • ghsh auxiliaries been by their side, the Muscovite
standards would never have crossed the Balkan; had
twenty thousand French also been there, they would have
been hurled with disgrace beyond the Danube. It is not
to be supposed, however, that these `startling results are
to be ascribed to any weakness in military strength on the
part of Russia, or any extraordinary warlike resources
which the Turks possess, independent of their geographi-
cal position. The strength which Russia put in the war
was immense. A hundred and sixty thousand men
crossed the Danube in the course of the first campaign; a
hundred and forty thousand were brought up to reinforce
them in the second. Yet, with
menall
atthiiethey could only
produce thirty-one thousanddecisive battle
victo •
of Kouleftscha ; and whentheir victorious march was
thousand were assembled at Adrian-
oplestopped, only fifteen
thousand men had
fifty ! At least a hundred and
perished in the two campaigns ; and that, accordingly, is
the estimate formed by the ablest military historian of

the war. A very small part of this immense force
perished by the sword ; fatigue, sickness, desertion, pro-
duced the greatest part of the dreadful chasm. The long
march of twelve hundred miles from Moscow to Poland,
the pestilential plains of Wallachia, the hardships of two
campaigns in the inhospitable hills or valleys of Bulgaria,
did the rest. As Turkey is the portion of Europe most
exposed to the incursions of the Asiatics, so it is the one
to which Providence has given the most ample means of
defence ; for the plains of Wallachia and Moldavia present
a perilous glacis, which must be passed before the body of
the fortress is reached ; the Danube is a vast wet ditch,
which covers the interior defences ; the Balkan a rampart
impassable, when defended by gallant and faithful defend-
ers. Sterility and desolation, the work of human tyranny,
add to the defences of nature. Of no country may it be
so truly said, in Henry IV.'s words, "If you make war
with a small army, you are beaten ; if with a large one,
starved." The strength of Russia in a defensive is owing
to the same cause as its weakness in offensive war. Its
prodigious distances are the cause of both. A third of
Napoleon's army disappeared before it reached Smolensko,
or had been engaged in any serious battle; three-fourths
had perished before a flake of snow fell. One-third of
the troops which invaded Turkey in 1828 and 1829 sank
under the fatigues of the march, another third under the
diseases and hardships of the campaign which followed.
It is the same with the English in India, and from the
same cause. With the resources of a hundred millions of
men at their command, they underwent a catastrophe,
which rivalled the fate of Varus's legions, at the hands of
the mountaineers of Affghanistan ; they were soon after
outnumbered, and brought to the verge of ruin by the
Sikhs, who had only the resources of six millions to rely
on. One-third of the invaders of Russia perish before
they reach the country they are to assail; one-third of
the Russians perish before they get out of it to begin the
career of conquest, from the simple effect of the distances.
It is no exaggeration, but the simple truth, to affirm that
fifty thousand English and French troops disembarked at
Varna, and beginning their fatigues there, are equal to a
hundred and fifty thousand Russians, who have com.
menced their march from St. Petersburg, Moscow, and
Warsaw.

From the preceding sketch, and the quotations
given, some, though no doubt a very imperfect
idea may be formed of the great importance and
diversified interest of the volume, and also of the
work of which it forms a part. In conclusion, we
would briefly remark that its narrative is instinct
with life, and glows with animation—while it is
replete with beautifully elaborated pictures, and
enriched by the maxims and teachings of a sound
philosophy : these are so skilfully combined and so
happily applied, as to form a well-digested and
imposing whole. The work, like a well-con-
structed edifice, abounds in elegant features, is
rich in graceful and harmonious details—grand and
majestic in general symmetry, and noble in its
simplicity and completeness.

EVENING CLASSES FOR ADULTS.
HOW FAR DESIRABLE, POSSIBLE, AND
SOUGHT FOR.
(Concludedfrom our last.) •

(PICO3I A COREEnvONDENT.)

LET us now follow the poor man to his home, and sce•
how far he is encouraged or prepared to take advantage of
intellectual information. I have analysed 3,000 families
lying in the belt of narrow streets along the docks. They
were taken from four ecclesiastical districts, two in the
parish and two beyond it ; or one at the north end of the
town and three at the south.

Above the labouring: class .. 50 in. 3,000 I'6 per cent.
Labourers in regular employ 639 .. 21'3 „
in irregular „ 916 .. 30'5
670 ... 22'5 ~

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