The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-09-28

ties the Prussians have, however for coucen- /
trating suddenly and making an attack at au
unexpe ted point, the experiment is preca-
rious one. A stout heart, however, the gay
city still maintains. The officials within
claim that they have enough soldiers for all |
the needs of defense and enough provisions 10
last throughout the winter. Extraordinary
powers have been conferred upon the gene
raj officers, delegated by the Government,
with the proviso only that they must render
an account personally at the close of the war.
Z his action, which should have been taken
long ago, will effectually stop any renewal of
the riotous demonstrations which have been
leI oited from Paris. In war all laws are
silent. and there is no time for the action of
CT nstituent assemblies One good general
with extraordinary powers, untrammelled by
po itioal trickery like that which used to keep
Nc Clellan stuck in the mud before Rich
No nd. may yet save Paris and France. At
M, tz another effort to escape has been made
and failed. At Strasburg the defense holds
out as gallsnty as it has held out all along.
Throughout the republic comes cheering
wol DIS endorsing the ministerial decree CON
tinuing the war in preference to accepting the
terms insisted upon by Bismarck. Havre is
aiming for its own defense, and is besides
preparing to send forth its troops to relieve
the capital. Calais votes three million francs
as q war fund; troops from the south of
France have arrived at Tours; another de-
tacEment of the same army is at Orleans; de-
sultory fighting in the open country in the
rear of the Prussians besieging the southern
portion of the city is going on daily,
and call for a (eCee en- 7pdSSe is ex-
pected throughout France. This is the
spirit that should have been called into play
long ago. France, confident of an easy vic
tory at the beginning, hardly felt the M artial
ardor within her when Napoleon marched
upon Saarbruck The defeat there, and the
rapid succession of defeats following it up to
the grand overthrow at Sedan, first astonished,
then appalled,, and then demoralized her; but
the humilating prospect of steady and in
definite siege of her capital, and the final
failure of peace negotiations, seem to have
reused her to sense of her desperate situa-
ton. She is assembling five new armies-at
Lille, at Rouep, at Tours, at Lyons, and at
Marseilles-roughly estimated at an aggregate
of six hundred thousand men, and with these
and the troops penned up in Metz, Verdun,
Strasburg, and Paris, she is preparing to con-
test the question to the bitter end.
THE CRUSADE AGAINST TURKEY.
From the n. Y. Sl,n
The impending war between the Gar and
the Sultan would be likely to deliver the
Christian nationalities of the East from Mus
sulman domination if John Bull did not cling
as tenaciously to Ab1ul-Aziz as Louis Napo-
leon chung to the temporal power of Pho
Mono. However, if the report of a coalition
between Egypt, Italy, Austria, and Russia
against the Porte should be confirmed, Eng
land, now that France cannot join her in a
new Crimean war, would have to contend
against formidable odds in entering again
upon the Quixotic task of perpetuating the
existence of the sick man at Stamboul
Between Russia and Prussia there seems to
exist tacit if not explicit understanding to
the effect that each shall wink at the other s
aggrandizements in the east and west of Eu-
rope. Great Britain and Turkey would there
fore have nothing to hope and everything to
| fear from Prussia in the event of conflict
on the Black Sea, especially as the former
power is not in very good odor at Berlin.
| Besides, ever since the elevation of a Prince
of Hohenzollern to the throne of Roumania,
Prussia has been counted at Pera rather
among the enemies than the allies of the
| Porte. Nor would the possible extension of
| Austrian power over some of the semi-Tur-
kish possessions on the Danube as a reward
to Francis Joseph for his new and strange
alliance with Alexander II be likely to give
umbrage to Prussia, but rather the con
trary.
1t is therefore not likely that, even in the
event of an Austro-Russian alliance. Prussia
would swerve from her neutrality during the
| partition OF the Ottoman empire. 1t under
such circumstances England should again
come to the rescue of Turkey, she would
| have to encounter superior armies, and they,
rather than fleets, would decide the conflict.
1t is time that the Turk should cease to be q
ruler of Christian people and fall back upon
| Asia, whence he came and whore the eXpe-
riepce which he has acquired during his en-
campment in Europe may enable him to rule
with advantage over his fellow Asiatics, who
have never yet come into contact with Euro
pean civilization.
How helpless the Turks are against the
Christians was shown in the Cretan war OF
independence. Then handful of Cretan
warriors. defed for two years the Ottoman
army ana havy, and their revolt would never
have been quelled if all Europe, under the
guidance of England and Bonaparte, had
not vindicated their detestation of liberty by
siding with the Crescent against the Cross.
Thessaly, where the Christians are reported
to have risen against the Moslem, has, like
Crete, been for a long time the focus of the
aspiration for national independence. II
would be matter of surprise if the Other
Christian nationalities did not follow the ex
ample of the Thessalians, and rise everywhere
at Constantinople, at Janina, at Smyrna, al
Adrianople, at Salonica, in Bulgaria, Servia
and the Danubian principalities. In Constan
tinople alone there are half million popula
tion. If supplied with arms, they coulC
soon take possession of the Sultan anC
the officeholders at the Sublime Porte, Al
the Turkish Government buildings ar,
called, and open the gates of the city to th
Russian army. Meanwhile the Italians woult
help Egypt in consolidating her indepen
dence, and the Austrians and Russians woul