The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1877-11-29
Ill ABOUT WAR.

all wars have progressed from the time
of Caesar to Skobeleff. We find, by
reading the history of all wars, even
from the day that Osmanyas of
Egypt, the first war-like King, who
passed into Asia and conquered Bactria,
two thousand one hundred years before
the Christian era, that war has been a
doubtful and a terribly destructive pro-
ceeding. 1t is game of chess, a game
of draughts, a game of eucher, in most
cases, though some strong kings and
governments have not unfrequently
made it a monte-card game as against
the weaker nations, and have despoiled
them, without conscience, of their best
and highest rights. 1t has been COM
puted, by an admirable statistican that
no less than six billion eight hundred
and sixty millions of human beings have
perished in the field of battle by what
has been well called the "malady of
princes" Among the nations that have
best played the monte and chuckerluck
game in war, marking the cards and
loading the dice, it has been proved to
the satisfaction of those interested in
such particulars, that Russia has taken
the lead. Russia broke up and par
titioned the fair land of Poland"
Suwarrow, the Russian general, in 1894,
after the siege and destruction of War
saw, cruelty butchered thirty thousand
Poles, of all ages and conditions, in cold
blood. Warsaw was constituted a
duchy, and annexed to the house of Sax
ony in 1907. In 1913 this duchy was
overrun by the Russians, and was made
the residence of Russian viceroy. But
the Poles again rose, desiring indie
pendence and national freedom, and in
November (this same month) 1880, the
god of battle perched on the banners of
the different parties until February 25,
1881, when the battle of Grochow took
place, near Warsaw. In this celebrated
encounter, the hard-wrougfft Poles were
victorious. They drove the Russians
from the field, with q loss of seven
thousand men. But ON September 6, of
the same year, the battle of Warsaw
commenced. After two days hard
fighting the city capitulated, the Rus
slams took possession of the place, and
the Polish army retired.
Since then Russia has been in favor of
the dissolution of the Turkish Empire.
There is traditionary feeling in favor
of occupying Constantinople, and the
prophets and seers say that the Gar will
not be satisfied till he occupies that
proud city, the seat of Constantine the
Great.
In 1874, when the Gar was in Eng
land, he conversed with the Duke of
Wellington and Lord Aberdeen respect
ing the dissolution of the Turkish EN-
pire, and on his return he embodied his
views in a memorandum drawn up by
Count Nesselrode. In January and
February of that year the Gear had sew
eral conversations on the subject with
the British envoy at st. Petersburg, Sir
G., FL. Seymour, in one of which he COM
pared Turkey to man in state of de-
crepitude and sickness, on the point of
death, and made proposals to the British
Government as to the disposal of his
property. He stated frankly that he
would not permit the British to estab-
lish themselves at Constantinople, and
said in another conversation that he
would not object to their possessing
Egypt. The purport of those dispatches
was conveyed to Lord John Russell,
who could not agree with the Russian
government, as France wasinterested, as
to the possession of the Holy Places in
Palestine, claimed by both the Greek
and Latin Churches. Out of these mixed
questions arose the war of 1854, in
which the Russians assailed the Turks
and in which England and France took
part in favor of Turkey, finally de.
feating the Gar and upsetting his am.
bilious projects.
The aim of Russia is doubtless for 9
wide extension of her territory, and fol
universal command of the East. Napo
leon the Great saw this, and delivered 9
prophetic utterance that progressive his
tory seems to be in the act of fulfilling
Unless France, England, and other Eu
ropean powers interfere in the war tina
is now going on between the Crescen
and the Bear, the Cossack will contro
Europe, and partition that goodly lant
to suit his magnificent purposes. Th'
Turk is slowly but surely yielding to tn
superior prowess and numbers of hi
Northern neighbor; the different Euro
pean powers are waiting and watching
and when the Crescent yields, perhap
not till then, events of the most impor
tant character will crowd rapidly upol
each other. But it would be well fo
the European powers to delay thei
waiting as little as possible, if the,
, would kill, and not scotch, the serpen
, that is on the spring for their vitals.