Bradford opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1874-1881, 1877-07-21
THE WAR IN THE EAST.



It is worthy Of remark that the
ordinary Turk and the ordinary Russian
deadly enemies though they are, resem
BILE each other so closely that any genera
on either. side may almost divine thu
good and bad qualities of his oppo
nent's troops from those Of his own
Both possess the stubborn, ,self.contained
valor which shows itself in defense
rather than attack. Both are stolidly
enduring, matchlessly patient under
every form of hardship, devout to super.
stition, obedient to the death. Both lack
the fexibility of more cultivated races
fighting well in heavy masses, but utterly
helpless in any emergency which calls
for individual action. Finally, both are
confirmed fatalists, the Russian as
thoroughly rs the Turk. Where the
Osmanli consoles himself in trouble by
circulating Kismet," destiny, the
Russian mutters: 7akmnye ma redoo
napisano," Gt was so written at my
birth). When. the cholera devastated
Russia in 1871, many of the sufferers
refused all aid, saying that "if they were
to die, no medicine could save them-if
to live, none was needed"
1t must be remembered, however, that
both armies, as they now exist, are quite
modern, the Russian system having been
virtually created by the protracted wars
of Alexander l., and deliberately remod-
eled under the present czar. The Turk
ish system dates back only to 1926, be-
fore which time the famous Janissaries
represented Turkeys military strength.
The determination of these by Mahmoud
Nv. cleared the way for the existing
organization, with its twelve years SER
vice, and its Nizam, or regular army;
Ikhtiat, or reserve, and two Redifs, or
supplementary reserves.
The Russian cavalry, though snowy,
is of inferior quality; but the artillery is
allowed to be excellent, and the foot,
especially when formed in close column,
possesses a stubborn tenacity which
Frederick the Great exemplifed in say
ing that "one must kill Russian first,
and knock him down afterward." The
same description applies equally well to
the Turkish forces, their artillery es-
pecially having been marked efficient in
the present war. The endurance OF both
Turk and Russian may be estimated by
those who remember how the Cossacks
of 1873 marched through the Khivan
Desert, fully equipped, under heat of
12O degrees in the shade-how the army
of the Yemen, in 1871, twice went into
action after a thirty-six hours fast-and
how the Russian regiment of Kabarda,
in the Caucasus, starved for two days,
and fought a desperate battle on the
third.
Both armies are equally ill-officered,
the few able men ON either side being
but the Russians have at
least the merit of being able to obey
even foreigner who shows himself fit
to command, as in the cases of Benning-
sen, Barclay de Tolly, Wittgenstein and
Prince Schwartzenberg. On the other
hand, foreign general commanding
Turkish troops stands in greater peril
from his own men than from the enemy,
if he be unsuccessful; and it
happens that at present an unusually
large proportion Of the sultan's leading
officers-Reschid Pasha, Blum Pasha,
Mehemet Ali, Hobart Pasha, Valentine
of foreign extraction.
As yet the war has been uniformly
characterized by methodical precision,
and careful avoidance of anything like
lash as thing not set down in the dia-
grams Of Jomini. This, too, is common
10 both combatants, and has been fully
axemplificd by the extraordinary fuctua-
ions of the Armenian campaign. Hith-
erto, the mistakes of each party in turn
nave been the salvation of the other;
md the final result will doubtless exem-
olify, for the thousandth time, the truth
If the old saying, that "war is success
zion of blunders, and he wins who makes
he fewest. "--Nev York Times.