New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1855-11-16

comments, the VhIlOus pOuics VI shO INV NV ~"
Ear abort ofther full CO Implement OF men. The most
curious proof of this is afforded by By aprocama-
.;on i,sued At Nikolsief, by the commander OF the
amy Of the south Gen Ldders He declares that
bv imperial order, twentythree drag'n's OF the Ill
,tis twenty thousand mem attached TO the army OF
the south are to be incorporated Win 'he hne' ana
that thew are to Join the third and fourth battal
IONS Of each regiment. Now this measure cannot
possibly have any other sgnlhcatlon than 'na' tue
regiments forming the army of the south are so re
duced in numbers that the mass OF the solliers OF
the third and fourth bat.aons are to be trans
frred TO the first and second battalions while tnei
places are to be filled by the militia In otner
words, before the incorporation Of the militia win
them. the four battalions of these regiments were
scarcely as strong IS two battalions of the full
complement. If such losses have taken place in
an army the greater portion Of which has never
been bt the enemy, and no portion of which
has been engaged since Silistria, what must have
been the Losses in the Crimea and in Asia We
Gain at once an insight into the actual state OF the
Russian army and the conjecture which TINS n'
SIGHT allows US to make as to its wear and tear,
explains the possibility of iwo-thrd' of million of
men being absorbed into it without yisbly iucreas-
ing its numbers
But how is this immense and disproportionate
wear snd tear brought about First, By the
enormous marches the recruits have to maAefr
their respective homes to the chief towns OF the
provinces, thence TO their depots, and finally to
their reeiments-not to count the marches these
regiments have to make afterwsrd. 1t is no tritle
for recruit to march from Perm to Moscow,
from Moscow TO wilma, and finally from wilma to
Odessa or Nkolsittf. And if such intermnaole
marches are hurried on by the supreme will OF a
man like Nicholas, who Fixes the hour OF arrival as
well as the hour of departure, and Furnishes every
deviation from his order; if brigades, divisions
srmy corps, are precipitated in hot haste from
one end of the empire to the other, regardless OF
the numbers left behind on account OF sickness
and fatigue; if a march from Moscow to Perekop
has to be made at the rate of an ordinary forced
march, which elsev here is never continued be-
ycnd two days-a great deal of this wear and tear
is explained. But to this Overstraining OF the
physical powers of the soldier must be added the
confusion necessarily arising from the notorious
decentralization of every department in the
Russian service, especially in the army cOmmissa-
riat. Then comes the method ofhaying the soldiers
fed on the march far possible by the inhabitants
of the country on the line of march-a method
quite practicable if well managed in an exclu-
siyely agricultural country but iusory and open to
tie greatest Inconvenience wherever, as in Russia,
tie commssarat aud the commanding officers
make good their embellishments out of ths stores
stolen from the peasantry. And finally come the
form liable mscalculations which necessarily must
occur wherever armies disseminated over such
a vast extent of ground are made to move by or
ders from one center, and are expected to execute
them with the regularity OF clOckwOrk, while all
the premises upon which these orders are based are
false and unreliable. II is not the sword and the
shot of the enemy ii is not the sickness inevitable
in many parts of Southern Russia, it is not
even the necessity of long marches which 30
decimates the Russian army; 1t Is the
special circumstances under which the Russian
soldier is enlisted, drilled, marched treated, fed
clad, lodged, commanded aud fought, which can
account for the terrible fact that very nearly the
whole of the Russian army, as it existed in 1883,
has already disappeared from the face of the earth
without having made its opponents suffer more
than one third of such loss
The order of the day of General Liiders is re-
markahle for another circumstance. IL cOnfesses
openly that the militismen are anything but fit to
be led against the enemy. 1t implores the old
soldiers not to laugh at or despise these young
troops for their awk gardness under arms; it adj
mits that they hardly know anything about drill,
and introduces an alteration in the drllregulations
which must have been expressly sanctioned by the
Emperor. The men are not to be " disgusted by
useless psradedrill; the most indispensable move
ments only are to be practced with them; hand
ling loading, firing their muskets, firing at the
target, movements in column, and skirmishing-
thing else is declared to be useless paradedr
Thus Russian general, under the express sane
ton of the Emperor, condemns twothirds of the
whole Russian drll-reguatons as useless stuff, tit
for nothing but to disgust the soldier with his
duties; and these regulations were the very work
of which the late Emperor Nicholas was most
proud
The "young soldiers" whose every gesture and
step are thus described provoking the laughter OF
their comrades would not in any other country be
called recruits. They have been under arms from
six to ten months and yet they are as clumsy as if
they came straight from the plow 1t cannot be
said that the long arches they have had to make
have left them no time for drill. Napoleon in his
latter campaigns incorporated his recruits in
their respective battalons after fortnights drill
and then dispatched them to Spain, to Italy
to Poland; they were drilled during the march,