The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-12-16
PR USSIA AND x USSTA-THF NFW GOV
ERNING POWERS OF EUROPE.

81 want more head and less tongue, said
the greatest of modern leaders aud statesmen
when selecting men TO fill the various offices
of q new government that he was organizing.
He meant that silent and steady work which
allows attention to be fixed and concentrated
on the task in hand, instead of being diverted
and frittered away by endless discussion and
garrulous, noisy comment that, moreover
disclose to all the world and place at the
disposal OF open or hidden enemies what
should 1emain the treasured secret of the
governing and controlling power alone. In
the later days of the second Napoleonic empire
talk and fsnfaronade took the place OF that
silent will and persistent onward movement
which gave such apparently resistIess and un-
varying success TO its military enterprises and
its diplomacy in the beginning Of its dashing
career. Meanwhile, precisely the opposite
system had been adopted and was prevailing
in Prussia. Bismarck is a thinker and a
toier, not windmill of words, and from the
moment when his intellect began to sway the
destinies of his country babblers began to
disappear from positions Of high trust and
confidence. Noise ceased to be an element
of official life. ''Silence in the ranks!r be-
came the civic as we'll as the military order of
the day. Everything was thoroughly or
ganized and put in shape, and when an Aus
trian Cabinet with loud-moUthed threats and
pompous bulletins advanced to win an easy
victory, as it believed, in 1866, the over
whelming defeat at Sadowa suddenly and ter
ribly revealed TO it such skill, discipline and
resources in the Prussian antagonist as had
not been even suspected at Vienna. Nay,
at Paris, London, and even in New York,
predictions had been nearly all upon the
other side. The year 1870 has brought con-
spicuousiy before the world a repetition of
this lesson. the more remarkable after so
striking IN example precedent
In July last, the French Cabinet composed
L Ill ~
and egotism of the nation repeated the folly
that Austria committed four years ago. In
the meantime Prussia had been extending
and developing her system of quiet prepara-
tion and when collision came the hastily
assembled French armies saw themselves
utterly outnumbered, outgeneralled, and
ovelpowered at all points. On the persons
of captured German officers of inferior rank
were found maps of the smallest localities
and crossroads in the districts that the in
vaders were approaching, such as
were not in the possession even
of the Imperial staff of Napo-
leon III. After MacMahon s defeat at Woerth
that distinguished marshal had to in
quire the way, when retreating from the
field, of the neighboring peasantry, and with
no little difficulty escaped the victorious
Germans, who were rapidly and easily out
thanking him through their superior topogra-
phical information. Again, at Sedan the
French generals were evidently surprised,
owing to similar superior knowledge of the
ground on the part of their antagonists
Silence and celebrity prepared and massed the
PIussian forces, led them to the field, won for
them the victory and hurled them upon the
very heart of France. Talk was beaten; work
was the conqueror.
Russia, sterDly warned by the disasters of
the Crimean war and the humilations of the
bitter Treaty of Paris, has also been acting on
H., ,sl~ o. I
StructiDg her naval and military forces, ex-
tending her telegraphs and railroads with
feverish rapidity, purchasing the best arms
and enginery of war and perfecting her ad-
ministration at every point, she, too, pos
sesses, while we write, a capacity to strike
/ how, when and where few, ii any, outside of
her dominions, or not in high Office within
them, can pretend to know. She never
would have dared to brave the British lion
in his den, as she is now doing unless she
knew q secret of tremendous po yer and had
it m her grasp. A Herald correspondent
conversing recently with Russian gen.
tleman of high standing in the en-
| pire, repeats the statement from his
! lips that the Gar has now four hundred
| thousand men not far from the Austrian from
tier, possesses five hundred thousand Re-
mington rifles and two thousand mitrailleuses,
along with "a naval force that is little known
and has always been underestimated."
Again, reliable letter, dated at st. Peters
burg but a month ago to-day, uses precisely
this isnguage:-'1t is known that new
armament OF our forces is completed and
that the contingent amounts to more than
one million of well-drilled soldiers, while. as
= regards m0T0te, it is far superior to what we
possessed during the Crimean war;" An
other letter received from the Russian capi-
tai by the latest European mail
and dated November 2G says that the new
law levy now in progress will
yield five hundEed thousand fresh troops, and
that "devouring activity" reigns in the War
Office there. while at Kertch, a naval port of
great strength quietly constructed on the
\ coast of the Sea of Azof, everything is in
readiness for an imposing demonstration of
iron-clads on the Black Sea, should occasion
demand. At the same time an indescribable
enthusiasm, almost fanatical in its excess,
thrills throughout the empire, and in Austria
the best informed publicists express little
doubt that an uprising of the whole Slavonic
race in favor of Russia would at once follow
declaration of war either by that power or
against it.
This revelation bursts upon astonished
Europe as a direct sequel TO the surprises that
Prussia has just hurled upon the nations like
successive thunderbolts. The cloud of silent
preparation that hid the laboratory of the
Northern statesmen rolls apart and behold!
Prussia and Russia disclosed as the masters
of the scene. The one with seven hundred
thousand tried, trusty and victorious Veterans
on the soil of France thrOttles that country at
its capital and holds it down beneath her heel.
The other but awaits the word to pounce upon
Austria, should the latter lift one hostile
finger, and to swoop down upon all that is
left of Turkey in EuroDe while Great Britain