The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1877-08-14
Consequences Of the Russian Defeat
Mt Pievna.


greatly affect the Russian morale, and
though the Turks were so little impressed
by it that they did not see in 1t anything
more than a guarantee for their continued
possession of the lines they held, yet IL
afforded q fine occasion for the British SYM
pathizer to toss his hat tremendously high
in the air and shout p@ans over the glorious
victory of his Ottoman friends and the COM
ing humiliation of the Russian army. In
civilized countries generally the event was
rated at value which gave its full gravity
to an unqualified defeat even in battle not
of the first magnitude. But the same wis
dom which prevented people who desired
to form an accurate judgment from
belittling fact prevented them gem
orally from falling into the other extreme
and overrating il in it's Importance or posi-
BILE consequences 1t was overrated only in
England, where it is the cue of great party
to make the most of things that seem to
favor the Turk. 1t was far from rational to
suppose that o Power with half million
men in the field was to be overwhelmed by
the loss of battle where it had less than
forty thousand men OF all arms and it was
equally irrational to suppose that the Otto
man Power could be retrieved from centuries
equality with one Of the great Powers OF
Europe by the circumstance that its hardy
though barbarous infantry had been able to
hold their well constructed lines against an
assault of inferior numbers of a too adventur-
GUS enemy. Yet this was what was held by
those who over hastily regarded the battle of
Plevna as an event likely to decide the war,
as q catastrophe from which the Russians
could not recover, as q defeat that would
compel the precipitate concentration of all
the advanced bodies into the narrow zone of
Danube country between the Jantra and the
Vid, where converging forces from Rustchuk,
Shumla, Plevna and the plain beyond the
mountains should storm down and crush the
invader.
How irrational it was to believe that Rus
sia's hopes of success were lost by that battle
we pointed out when our correspondents
clear account of the fighting indicated dis
tinctly the limit of its possible influence
on the prosecution of the war, and now that
time has been given for an ampler view and
that we know how the belligerents them
selves judged of the event by the acts it in
spired we see our opinion fully sustained.
Misfortunes in war that are not of sufficient
magnitude to astound or even discourage
those to whom they occur, but yet are great
enough to compel an attentive inquiry
into their causes and an examina-
ton of the ways by which their re-
currence may be rendered impossible,
are eventually advantageous to those
to whom they seem at first grave calami-
the first months Of war be an unwieldy
machine in the hands Of officers who, how
ever we'll taught theoretically, are without
extended experience, it seems on inevitable
consequence that for certain time blum
ders will be made; and this is the more
likely if the great army newly put in the
field is opposed by one that has had just as
much experience in field operations as the
Ottomans have been able to gain in their re-
cent wars in Servia and Montenegro In
freshly equipped armies the art of war is
acquired by an experience Of failures, and
through many mishaps made at their own
expense they move to ultimate success in
proportion as their blunders have been
such as to teach them what not to do
rather than such as to leave them without
further power to do anything. No sovereign
or government need hope that a great cause
will ever be served without mishaps and
the only legitimate aspiration that can be
INDUCED in such occasions is that the mis-
haps when they come may be such as to in
struct and not such as to overwhelm. In
this respect Russia herself was fortunate in
the first distinct Turkish victory.
There was phrase much employed in
the Southern Confederacy few years since,
and which by its abuse acquired sense of
irresistible drollery. They called their de-
feats BLESSINGS in disguise" and they SO
persistently extracted bitter kind of COM
fort from this fancy that the people, ever
keenly alive to the ridiculous, used these
words as another name for defeat, come in
what circumstance it might. General
johnson had met the enemy, encountered an
overwhelming blessing i'll disguise, and was
in full retreat" Such became the form of
the war bulletin of the time. But despite
the i'll fame the phrase acquired by its ride
ulous misapplications there are defeats that
answer very justly to the name, and more of
them were encountered by the Northern
than by the Southern armies. Judging
events in the light of all that we now know
who is there but might fairly accept the adj
verse result of the first battle of Bull Run
as providential interposition tending to
make the great fight for freedom thorough
and exhaustive2 Had the Union army over
whelmed the Confederates at Manassas they
would have swept on to Richmond without
obstruction, seized the capital and crowded
the Confederacy toward the Gulf Virginia
would have been saved, Tennessee awed and