The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1879-05-23
GOVERNMENT by THE SWORD.
The Disafiection La the Russian Army.
When Attila disDlaved tn his Huns n

The Disaffection la the Russian Army.
When Attila displayed to his Huns a
drawn sword as the sccpter wherewith
he meant to rule them and the world at
large, he unconsciously symbolized one
of the deepest truths in history, viz,
that despot must govern by the sword
or not at all, and that absolute mon
arches ard vast standing armies are the
necessary complement of each other.
The Roman Caesars, free to commit
every outrage while their legions re-
NAMED faithful, fell the moment some
Pavia or Martinez Campos of the period
made his prOnaIncidmento in favor
of new ruler. Lord Stafford, the most
jealous of all champions of "the right
divine of Kings to govern wrong"
schemed to make Charles I. all-powerful
by an overwhelming military establish
ment, which, ostensibly raised to crush
Irish disaffection, was really meant to
destroy English liberty. Louis Napo-
leon was scared into the war that over
turned his throne by the $4,000 "nays "
which his soldiers cast into the urns of
the plebiscite. The thrones of Russia
and Austria are propped by bayonets,
and must fall as soon as the holders of
those bayonets begin to think for them
selves.
Of the two great military empires,
Russia might be held the more secure,
possessing a homogeneous population
in place of the Earring mass of diverse
nationalities painfully held together by
her neighbor. But her security is more
apparent than real. The safeguard of
the ruler of standing army lies in this,
that whereas the citizen-soldier thinks
and feels with his fellow-citizen, the
professional soldier thinks and feels
with his fellow-soldiers, and with the
master who pays them. But the Rus
sian, despite his perfect discipline, is
more of citizen-soldier than any other
man in Europe. He has no ambition
and little esprit de corps. He is always
glad to get home again, to see his
friends, to sit by his own fireside
Should such a man once imbibe the
idea that his fellow-peasants are being
oppressed, and that the army to which
he belongs is the instrument of their
oppression, his native instinct of loyalty
would be rudely shaken.
Into an army of this kind the spirit
of disaffection has now begun to pene-
trate. When "two foot-regiments and a
brigade of artillery" lose nearly all
their officers by arrest, it is a sinister
omen, Russian army being more de-
pendent upon it's officers than any other
of our day. A similar peril threatened
England a century ago, when the chief
officers of the Anglo-Indian army, in
dignant at Lords Gives sweeping re-
forms, rendered their resignation in a
body. Give met the emergency by Civ
ing commissions to non-conmissioned
officers and even civilians; and the
fidelity of the Sepoys, together with
the perfect peacefulness of India at the
time, enabled him to tide over the peril
GUS crisis. But remedies that suffice
in peace are apt to fail in war. Had the
present disorganization of the Russian
army occurred when it was facing
Osman Pasha at Plevna, and had the
soldiers as well as the officers been leav-
ened with the new doctrine, what would
the result have been?