The Cheyenne daily leader. [volume] (Cheyenne, Wyo.) 1870-1884, 1877-05-18
RUSSIAN WANT OF TRANSPORTATION.

The Russians are having considera-
BILE trouble about transportation. We
are surprised to hear this, for we were
given to understand at the very COM
mencement of the war that their army
was, properly speaking, the most COM
plete, in military point of view, of
any of the standing armies of Europe,
and hearing this, we believed according
ly. Everybody doubtless remembers
the intensely dramatic situation, and
the comment it occasioned the world
over, when the Emperor of the French,
Louis Napoleon, interrogated his Min
lister of War, in relation to the COM
pleteness of the French army, and its
ability to proceed at a moments notice
to the front, to meet their enemy, Kai-
ser William, and his troops. ''Sire, !"
he replied, sit is absolutely necessary
that the French army should always be
ready. The army is ready now, and at
your commando and the Emperor,
trusting implicitly in his Minister, de-
clared war, that, within two weeks of
its declaration, proved to the world
that the French army was not only
not ready, but was in a most pitiable
condition, and entirely without organi-
Zation. We will not go so far as to in
sist that this is the case with the Rus
sian army, at present around about
Kars, in Turkish Armenia, or Bu-
karest or Widden, in Roumania, but
recent events have shown us that
they are lacking in discipline,
that their military leaders are not
what we were led to believe them to be;
and now we learn the additional fact
that their system of transportation is
most imperfect. In other words, the
house and the servants are there, but
the rest is wanting. Their means of
transportation is so primitive and so
imperfect, that, we are told, they find
great difficulty in procuring a sufliciency
of supplies; that the country carts of
the neighborhood are insufficient for
military purposes, and, that notwith-
standing the fact that the Russian
commanders, having charge of the COM
have pressed into the service
three thousand carts to meet the trans
portation demands, the supply had
been found to be inadequate. To the
average reader, three thousand carts
would seem to be sufficient for ordinary
or extraordinary purposes of this ma
ture, and they would undoubtedly an
swer the purposes required of them if
they were Yankee carts; but these
affairs Of the Armenians in Turkey,
and of the Roumanians along the Dan
ube, are of an exceedingly primitive
order of construction. They are cum
bersome and unwieldy, and made of
the heaviest and hardest kind of wood,
and one of them is a load in itself, be-
fore receiving an additional one; the
wheels are solid blocks of iron-wood,
banded and ribbed with iron, and from
six inches to Il foot in circumference.
Three thousand carts of this description
loaded heavily with commissary stores,
muddy roads, celebrated
for their badness, the snow very often
five and six feet in depth upon them,
when the mud is not, require an
army of men for support. This
does not speak well for the military
of the heads Of the commissa-
ry department, of the Russian armies.
now in the field. The Turks, on the
other hand, are thoroughly equipped
with the latest English and American
teams, suitable for purposes of this
kind, and in this respect are more for
tunate and have shown more fore
thought than their bearded foe, the
Russians.