BOOKS.
ALISON'S EUROPE FROM 1815 TO 1852.* THE war in Turkey and the uncertain state of Greece give to this third volume of Alison's History of Europe since the final downfall of Napoleon the First an interest it might not have possessed in more quiet times ; the Greek insurrection 1821-1829, the Russian diplomatic encroachments and intrigues from the ac- cession of Nicholas, and the Russian war of 1828-'29, occupying half the bulky volume. Alison is not, indeed, the man to present the acts and still more the characteristics of men and nations with calmness and philosophic truth, even if it were easy to proportion the crimes called forth by untamed barbarism and vindictive passions during the eight years of terror in Greece and its islands. Existing circumstances, however, impart attraction to the Greek war of insurrection, with its deeds of patriotic heroism, of stern self-devotion, and, it must be owned, of factions selfishness and Eastern indifference to blood or engagements, dimly foreshadow- ing the national misconduct which has lately rendered the name of Greek a byeword among the nations. The still greater atrocities of the Turks offer a curious subject of compari- son with the present calm and measured justice which has distinguished the words arid also the actions of the Pole and its superior officers. The conduct of the irregular Asi- atic cavalry, as reported by the correspondents of the journals, seems to show that the animal passion of the Turcoman mind is still untamed ; and would break out as fiercely and remorselessly as at Chios if aggravated by a contest of religion and race and encouraged by authority. The war of 1828-'29 between Russia and Turkey has not the novelty of the Greek insurrection ; for, independently of references by different writers, we not long since had Colonel Chesney's professional narrative of the whole. But if less mathematically and technically clear than the Colonel, Sir Archibald Alison has a more florid and taking style. He is also more discursive in speculation and more ample in remark than the military man; and his speculations have an interest just now from the nature of passing events. There may be no great novelty in. the following summing-up, to those who have read and pondered upon the subject of the strength of Russia; but the facts are well put. "The campaigns of 1828 and 1829, though they terminated to the dis- advantage of Turkey, are yet eminently calculated to modify the ideas gene- rally entertained as to the great power of Russia in aggressive warfare, as well as to evince the means of defence, in a military point of view, which the Ottoman dominions possess. The Turks began the war under the greatest possible disadvantages. Their land forces had been exhausted by seven bloody campaigns with the Greeks ; their marine ruined in the battle of Navarino; their enemies had the command of the Euxine and the Rgean, the interior lines of communication in their empire ; the Tanizaries, the military strength of the state, had been in part destroyed, in part alienated ; and only twenty thousand of the regular troops, intended to replace them, were as yet clustered round the standards of the Prophet. On the other hand, the Russians had been making their preparations for six years; they had enjoyed fourteen years of European peace; and a hundred and twenty thousand armed men awaited on the Pruth the signal to march to Constanti- nople. Yet with all these disadvantages, the scales hung all but even be- tween the contending parties. Varna was only taken in the Snit campaign in consequence of the Russians having the command of the sea ; the Balkan passed in the second, from the Grand Vizier having been outgeneraled by the superior skill of Diebitch. Even as it was, it was owing to treachery and disaffection that the daring march to Adrianople did not terminate in a disaster second only to the Moscow retreat. Had the Pasha of Seodra come up three weeks earlier with his twenty-five thousand men, and united with the twenty thousand who retired towards Constantinople where would Diebitch with his twenty thousand have been ? Had ten thousand English auxiliaries been by their side, the Muscovite standards would never have crossed the Balkan ; had twenty thousand French also been there, they would have been hurled with disgrace beyond the Danube. "It is not to be supposed, however, that these startling results are to be ascribed to any weakness in military strength on the part of Russia, or any extraordinary warlike resources which the Turks possess, independent of their geographical position. The strength which Russia put forth in the war was immense. A hundred and sixty thousand men crossed the Danube in the course of the first campaign ; a hundred and forty thousand were brought up to reinforce them in the course of the second. Yet, with all this, they could only produce thirty-one thousand men at the decisive battle of Kouleft- eche ; and when their victorious march was stopped, only fifteen thousand were assembled at Adrianople! At least a hundred and fifty thousand men had perished in the two campaigns; and that, accordingly, is the estimate formed by the ablest military historian of the war. A very small part of this
im-
mense force perished by the sword; fatigue, sickness, desertion, produced the greatest part of the dreadful chasm. The long march of twelve hundred miles from Moscow to Poland, the pestilential plains of Wallachia, the hard- ships of two campaigns in the inhospitable hills or rallies of Bulgaria, did the rest. As Turkey is the portion of Europe most exposed to the incursions of Asiatics so it is the one to which Providence has given the most ample means of defence; for the plains of Wallachia and Moldavia present a peril- ous glade, which must be passed before the body of the fortress is reached; the Danube is a vast wet ditch, which covers the interior defences ; the Bal- kan a rampart impassable when defended by gallant and faithful defenders. Sterility and desolation the work of human tyranny, add to the defences of nature. Of no country may it be so truly said, in Henry IV.'s words, If you make war with a small army, you are beaten ; if with a large one, starved.' strength of Russia in a defensive is owing to the same cause as its weakness in offensive war. Its prodigious distances are the cause of both."
The narratives of the Greek and Russian wars, exhibiting as they do the ferocity of the Asiatics, and even of the European Turks when their blood is up, together with the disorganization of the Turkish service, apparently not yet rectified, point to a dif7 • History of Europe from the Fall of Napoleon in 1815 to the Accession of Louis Napoleon in 1852. By Sir Archibakl Alison. Bart., D.C.L. ; Author of the '4History of Europe from. the Commencement of the French 'Involution in 1759 to the Batt)* of Waterloo," &c. Volume III. Blackwood and Sons.
ficulty beyond the war—that of the final settlement. Upon this jr Archibald Alison has a.word to say.
"The Emperor Nicholas said to Sir G. H. Seymour, the English Ambassa- dor at St. Petersburg, on February 22, 1853: 'There are several things which I never will tolerate: I will not tolerate the permanent occupation of Constantinople by the Russians ; and it shall never be held by the English, French, or any other great nation. Again, I will never permit any attempt at the reconstruction of the Byzantine empire, or such an extension of Greece as would render her a powerful state : still leas will I permit the breaking up of Turkey into little republics, asylums for the Kossutha and Mazzinis, and other revolutionists of Europe. Rather than submit to any of these arrangements, I would go to war, and as long as I have a man or a musket I would carry it on.' These memorable words at once accuse the past policy and throw a steady light on the future course which should be pursued by the Western Powers on the Turkish question. All admit that a barrier must be erected against Russia ; the only question is, How is that barrier to be con- structed? The Czar has taught us how that is to be done, for he has told us what he will spend his last man and musket to prevent. It is evident that what he would spend his last shilling and musket to prevent, the rest of Europe should spend their last shilling and musket to effect; and this can only be done by restoring the Byzantine empire in Europe, under the rule of a Christian government, or a government in which the rights of the Christians are effectually secured, with the guarantee of England, France, and Austria. This, however, is the remote and ultimate result : the one thing needful in the mean time is to rescue the Turkish dominions from the withering grasp of Russia, not less inimical to real Christianity than the oppressive rule of the Mussulman. "Much has been said of the regeneration of the Turkish empire within the last thirty years, since the period to which the preceding history refers; and great are the expectations formed by a certain class of po!iticians of the social and political improvement of its inhabitants and institutions by the intermixture of European ideas. Experience has not yet enabled us to de- termine whether these anticipations are well founded, and it would be pre- mature to give any decided opinion on the subject. It is doubtless possible to give to Asiatic troops and police the discipline and efficiency of European, and that is what has taken place in Hindostan, Egypt, and Russia ; and by working out the resources of Asiatic wealth by the machinery of European civilization a great degree of temporary power and vigour may be given to a state. Whether it is feasible to unite with it, in like manner, the institu- tions and habits of a different race and quarter of the globe, and whether it is possible to erect the fabric of European freedom on the basis of Asiatic ser- vitude, is a question not yet determined ; but on which it can only be said, that if it does take place, it will be contrary to the experience of six hundred millions of men during six thousand years."
Although the first half of this volume will probably excite the most attention, the remainder is not without importance. The history of Charles the Tenth from his accession to his expulsion supplies by its narrative a literary want, and contains a good many characters, drawn in Sir Archibald's well-known manner. The do- mestic history of England embraces the period between the death of Lord Castlereagh and the great monetary panic of 1825.'26; the topics relating chiefly if not wholly to Free-trade and Cur- rency,—on which it is needless to tell anybody how Sir Archibald feels and writes. There is also a chapter on the French literature of the Restoration ; which is by far the best in its composition and the soundest in its judgment of anything in the volume. The modern French writers in history, memoirs, philosophy, and sci- ence, are passed rapidly but not curtly in review. The criticism, distinguished by a leaning to panegyric, but broad in its perception both of characteristic merits and failings, presents a lifelike pic- ture of the writers and literature of France for the larger part of the first half-century, as well as a notice of their particular works. It exhibits, moreover, an historical summary of French literature during the same period, impressing the mind with the amplitude of its stores and the greatness of its authors. Chateaubriand, De Steel, (it will be seen that Sir Archibald claims for the Restoration what strictly belongs to the Empire.) Guizot, Thiers, Lamartine, Miehelet, the brothers Thierry, Sismondi, form a muster-roll of names which shows how greatly the excitement of the Revolution and the Empire followed by the freedom of the Restoration had developed the literary genius of the French. And these are the
i names n almost a single department of literature : military and political memoirs, sciences and the belles lettres, art and the drama, add both tale and weight to the list of historians, which France of the old regime and scarcely combined Europe can surpass.
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