TOPICS OF THE DAY
" DELENDA EST CARTHAGO."
How little the iteration of wise maxims and even the foreknow- ledge of probabilities can forestal experience—how partial the i
truth contained in the proverb that to be forewarned is to be fore- armed—we have a fresh and striking instance in the gloom that overcasts the public mind at the protraction of our operations be- fore Sebastopol. Urged forward by an unanimous demand of the British nation—encouraged by the unequivocal desire of army and navy for the enterprise—deeply feeling the importance of striking a decisive blow at the earliest opportunity—our Government or- dered an attack upon what all Europe believed and proclaimed to be one of the strongest fortresses in the world, on which the re- sources of a mighty military monarchy have been lavished with unexampled profusion, and which the master of that monarchy with truth regards as the keystone of his Southern empire, the first arch of the bridge across which his dynasty is to march to universal dominion. Unless the Emperor Nicholas had been mad —unless all Europe had been under the strangest of delusions—the enterprise we undertook was one of the most difficult and hazard- ous conceivable. In landing an army of from fifty to sixty thousand first-rate soldiers in the Crimea—in gaining a bril- liant victory within a few days of landing—in establishing ourselves within a week in a position of impregnable strength, resting on our fleet—in maintaining that .position against ob- stinate and incessant attacks from a garrison probably equal in number to the besieging force, and an army in the field whose movements there is no observing force to check— we have performed a series of military exploits which will bear comparison with any recorded triumphs of the British arms. No one circumstance has turned out on the side of the Allies less fa- vourably than the most sanguine enthusiast could have anticipated. But the enemy has developed powers of resistance for which the more recent conduct of Russian troops had scarcely prepared that portion of the public who forget all history but what is passing before their eyes in the daily papers. We should all have been better pleased if the power of Russia had been a simple bugbear, that only needed to be approached to reveal itself as something quite harmless or ridiculous ; we should have been delighted to find that we had alarmed ourselves about nothing—that this great Emperor, who was goins-° to seize the throne of the Caesars, and impose leaden fetters on the intellect, speech, and action of Europe, was a mere military humourist playing at fortifications like my uncle Toby. We should have laughed at our long-nourished delu- sions, and added another chapter to the full catalogue of popular follies. But the laugh which dispels a nightmare that is choking the dreamer, is pleasanter than the sensation with which the dream transforms itself into the terrible reality of midnight strangulation. It would have been far more pleasant, far less costly, thus to have waked from our delusion, than to find that we have not been dream- ing at all ; that our sense of Europe's danger has been well-founded; that Russia has great military resources, and knows how to use them ; that in founding Sebastopol she 13113 planted a firm foot in her path to Constantinople ; and that if we intend to hurl her back from that path, we must concentrate into the blow that is to do it our hearts, our manhood, and our skill. We are not able to assign the reason why Russian soldiers who fight badly on the Danube become no despicable foes on the Alma, and stand well to their guns at Sebastopol, any more than why Turks can repel ten times their number from an open redoubt at Silistrie, and turn tail in the valley of Balaklava when supported by the finest troops in the world. Such things are, and we must take them as facts, not ex- plainable without more knowledge of details than we at present possess. The practical result is, that Russia is not" crumpled up" at present, and that the French and English nations have under- taken a task in every way worthy of their power and renown. The moral we draw from our Sebastopol experience is—not to be disheartened, not for one moment to falter or regret that we have taken upon ourselves to face a power that will cost us untold treasures in precious lives, in strength and skill, in the money that represents them, to bring it down to its proper level; but rather to thank God that a work that must have been done one day is at last in hand—that we have not wilfully sought it, but have ac- cepted it in vindication of the rights of nations and the law by which nations live in peace and independence—that it could not have come upon us under circumstances more favourable, more likely to crown our cause with victory, and to place the peace of Europe upon a sound foundation. It is certain that at Sebastopol we have met with difficulties of the most formidable nature ; certain that, overwhelming as our force seemed to those accustomed to judge of military resources, it is not, on ordinary military principles, equal to the task assigned it; and therefore that it is quite within the range of possibility that we may have to suspend our operations. That, certainly, would be a vicissitude of war which would severely try the sense and temper of the nation ! Yet, unless we are a people of more despicable humbugs, more empty windbags, more unstable, and more gasconading, than anything in our history would excuse even our enemies for suspecting us to be, sense and temper would not only stand the test, but courage and determination rise at once to heroic fervour, and a shout of "Forward to the rescue!" burst forth from a united nation, with a thunder.to whose echo the walls of the Kremlin would tremble as at predestined doom. We have no taste for prophetic victories, no disposition to imagine handfuls of French and British soldiers sweeping legions of RUB. Man serfs before them as chaff before the tempest, no doubt what- ever that the race which nearly won Borodino can fight like men. But we believe in the victory of that side on which are found the permanent elements of power; and in that be- lief we find abundant cause for confidence in the pending strug- gle, whether Sebastopol fall before Christmas, or be reserved for another and a greater effort. The elements of power on which our confidence is rooted are both moral and material The nation is convinced that the war is not only just according to the technical law of nations—is not only waged for the general in- terests of humanity—but through all the mazes of diplomatic foolishness which led to the final appeal to arms, it perceives the broad truth that it is a war of self-defence. This source of strength we owe to our freedom ; to that unchecked liberty of dis- cussion which identifies popular convictions with truth, and which gives to popular convictions in this country an irresistible power. But for it, no sane statesman would have taken the responsibility of embarking in a war sure to be so costly, so harassing, so sadden- ing, for an object distant at first from the popular apprehension. But for it, the first heavy losses, the first indications of increased taxation, would have quenched any mere military enthusiasm. Resting on it, the statesman can point to the very difficulties of the task as excitements to increased exertion, as proof incontrovertible of a danger that needs a spirit and acts of self-sacrifice from every man. If our freedom is not a source of most real superiority in our contest with Russia—if a free people, profoundly convinced that the liberties of Europe are in peril from the preponderance of Russia, is not stimulated to exertions far beyond those which can be exacted from a nation of serfs, whose chiefs are actuated by no higher motives than the lust of conquest—then all that Rng]iah- men boast of their free institutions is proved to be a practical lie, and the sooner we reorganize ourselves under a dictator or a feudal aristocracy the better for us and for the world. But freedom is a source of strength, and a war waged by a great people against a great despot must prevail even if material resources were equal on both sides. Hew far that is from being the case now, is needless to argue. The only point in which Russia can pretend to equal the Allied Powers is in popu- lation : in all that enables a nation to carry on war for a length- ened period—in productive power, in stored-up capital, in credit. in command of material, in the perfection of the individual soldier man for man—she is allowed to be far inferior. If we temporarily fail at Sebastopol, we fail from ignorance of the work we had to do : the attempt will at least cure that ignorance. And if the greatness of the preparations necessary to succeed almost startles the imagination, and quite throws all past experience into the shade, this will only prove the more pressing necessity that the work should be done. If we have undertaken—from a deep con- viction that it is the only effective means of arresting the path of Russia to dominion, over Europe—to put an end to her supremacy in the Black Sea, this plainly rests on her possession of a fortress of surpassingstreng:th, from which her war-ships can issue at pleasure to threaten the peace and safety of Europe. If we would overthrow the power, we must sweep away its foundations, or the work will have to be perpetually renewed. If, then, Sebastopol resist our present attack, and we are compelled to retire from an attempt whose mag- nitude we had underrated, we have but one single object on which to concentrate our efforts till it be gained. We know the strength of the Russian fleet in the Baltic, we have measured its heart of enterprise. Beyond the force necessary to keep that fleet in its inglorious durance, or to sink it if it appear beyond the range of its land batteries, not a man or a gun should be spared from Sebas- topoL That is our mark. Till the standards of the Allies are planted on Forts Constantine and Alexander, the whole tide of war must roll towards the Tauric Chersonese ; the chivalry of France and England must hurl themselves against rock and tower, till rock be bare and tower leveL And on that mighty shock of battle not only will Europe hang absorbed in breathless anxiety for its own fate, but higher powers will gaze with such interest as summons them to every field where right and wrong are waging internecine strife.
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