The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1879-07-25
Moving an ARMY.

Genghis Khan got across the world
twice somehow, and great Tartar
armies used to move about Russia ages
before roads were, and in regions
where they must have carried their own
supplies. The Turkish armies before
| Vienna must have been fed. The
Asiatic monarchs made war with huge
armies in roadless lands, and sometimes,
as in Persia, where no kind of requisi-
ton would have produced supplies.
The cOmmissariat of Xerxes and Alex
ander, and Baber and Nadir Shah, was
supplied somehow, and they all must
have moved through very desolate re-
gions. or course, the numbers attri-
buted to Xerxes are pure nonsense.
Nobody ever did or ever will march
the population of London as an army
straight on, and from any place to any
place whatever. Still, large armies
have moved very often in desolatc
regions, particularly IN Asia, without
any of the difficulties being visible TO
historians which seem to paralyze Lord
Chelmsford. We think, however. il
will always be found on examination
that there were certain pcculiaritics of
| such armies not tolerated now; that no
body cared who lived or who died !;
that the wounded and the sick perished
or got through as they could, as Turk
ish soldiers do now; that there was
nothing to carry except bare food, and
very little of that, except flour, each
man carrying his own arms, and there
being little artillery; and that scarcely
any attempt was made at wheeled wag-
ons. Whatever had to be carried was
| carried on camels, oxen and above all,
ponies, which were fed on anything, like
the men, ,overdriven, starved and used up
in great herds. Requisition did almost
everything, nobody was paid; the man
who did not get along was killed or left
TO die, and the track of the army was
| marked by skeletons for a quarter of a
century after. The great difficulties Of
modern army, expense and humane
feeling, were entirely absent. We sup
pose Alexander cared for his Macedo-
nianl lIoplites, bnt everybody else might
die without attracting anybody's notice,
except the vultures; and if enough men
are sacrificed, the elite can be carried
along. Hyder Ali said he would have
sent the Europeans to battle in palan
quins, so sacrificing eight non-fghters
to each fighter; and in principle that
is what the Asiatic warriors did do,
and SO did the small Spanish armies,
which conquered the New World. If
a regiment used up 10000 Indians in a
march-Mr. Helps puts the figures still
higher what did it matter? Give each
European in Zululand couple of
slaves and pony, and leave the artil-
lery behind, and the force would get
along somehow easily enough. And
then there is the element of time. The
frightful expense of campaigning makes
moderns impatient, but the old war;
riOrs and the Asiatio warriors knew no
more of time than they did OF clocks,
and marched as the Chinese general in
kasghar does now, as If the proper
way of spending life was to keep on
marching. He does not care if two
hundred miles take him two years, and
on one occasion, if we remember Mr..
Bouger's story Alright, made halt just
to sow and reap a crop. We cannot
but suspect, if a few engineers and
ltraffic managers, and people accustom-
ed TO popular demonstrations would
give their minds TO it, the movement
OF armies might be made easier; but the
best soldiers declare that supplies must
be carried on wheels drawn by animals,
and if theo are so carried transport will
always be most formidable difficulty
-fThe Spectator.