ments in their fleets. France has been long the most formidable of neighbours: but it is not too much to say that her present policy of amity with England, and the undisputed rank of her navy as the second in Europe, has doubled at the very least her warlike means against all the other Continental Powers. Attractive as the subject of strategy is to many intellects, it is to be regretted that its study has been so limited among ourselves that its first principles have to be forced upon the public at every separate occasion. Partly this has been due to the very strict attention of the best of our officers to the details of their own branches of the service-branches from which they rarely, in the scientific corps never, are removed. In the old United States army this was better managed: officers were trained more completely for the different arms; and the highest parts of a soldier's profession were not altogether overlooked at Westpoint as they still are at Woolwich. And as cabinets, however able, must generally, when entering on war, be dependent for their greater combinations on the private or official opinion of professional soldiers, it is not surprising that the views which have guided our own on certain recent emergencies have too often seemed narrow and ill-chosen. Federal generals failed at the first from want of proper material wherewith to execute their designs. Yet the early reports of M'Clellan, Halleck, and Sherman were as broad and luminous as the proceedings of the British Government at the opening of the Crimean war were meagre and uncertain. In our own errors we may be in some sort comforted by observing how utterly unable certain other Powers are to understand the present realities of war. The existing occupation of the Quadrilateral by Austria is simply as monstrous an error- if it really be a defensive measure-as was ever perpetrated by Mack or Weyrother. With the Adriatic open behind to a French fleet, with the neutrality of England secured, the value of the once potent line of Mantua and Verona is gone. The garrisons which would be turned by an army thrown by steam into Venetia would only be lost to the Austrian Empire. As a base for the offensive against Italy, the Quadrilateral is, on the other hand (as Radetski proved), simply invaluable. This is the menace against which Italy maintains her monstrous army: for this all Europe is kept in uneasiness and suspense. But the true line of defence for Austria Proper is now that of her mountains. In keeping it advanced to the Po she either has secretly in view an aggressive and dan gerous policy, or she is still the most shortsighted and blundering strategist of the age. The complaint often made by English officers of the want of a comprehensive and accessible guide to the study of the higher branches of their profession has hitherto been just. The elaborate works of Napoleon, the Archduke Charles, Clausewitz, and Jomini on strategy, of Bülow, Hardegg, Decker, De Ternay, and Lallemand on tactics, would fill a library; so copious are their contents, and so laden with historical and critical dissertations. To condense their spirit and modify their precepts to suit the requirements of a progressive age, has been nowhere attempted in our language, if we except Macdougall's Theory of War,' a work too slight, incomplete, and unfinished as we judge by his new publication-to satisfy the author, and yet too abstract in its method of treatment for the practical soldier. The want will be in great part supplied by the forthcoming Military Operations' of Colonel Hamley, who has used his rare opportunities well, if we may judge by that first portion of his book which we have been enabled to peruse. Though intended for the professional student, to whom its publication will be a real boon, this volume is so stripped of dry technicality, and made so luminous by the author's brilliancy of style, that all general readers who would raise their knowledge of modern warfare above that dead level implied by a trust in the gorgeous but inaccurate history of Alison would do well to see for themselves in its pages how armies are really subsisted, moved, and fought. 6 Englishmen, let us add in conclusion, need not be ashamed to interest themselves in the improvement of their military force. The existence of standing armies is a fact statesmen cannot afford to overlook; and our countrymen should take care that their own is neither petted into indolence, nor suffered to decay from neglect. The spirit of progress is thoroughly awakened in our soldiers. Let it be permitted to work out its honest fruits without discouragement, that the nation, grown more liberal in their treatment, may find a due reward in troops excelling all others in skill and readiness as well as in courage and devotion. Let it be remembered that much lost ground had to be recovered in our army, due partly to a spirit of false economy, and partly to what we must hold to be the mistaken views of Wellington in his old age. During the latter years of his military rule, it is too apparent (despite of Mr. Gleig's able defence of his hero), that the dead weight of a mighty name opposed to all reform or change crushed out the active life of every portion of the service. VOL. CXXIII. NO. CCLI. K Even the mild and colourless régime of Lord Hardinge revived the military spirit in some degree. Then came our bitter lessons in the field, Varna's pestilential marshes, Balaclava's freezing heights. The nation was fairly wakened to a sense of what was due to the military service; and the work of reform began. Whether under a succession of good but worn-out warriors of the Peninsula we should have been able to show the proofs of progress which every arm now bears, is a question we will not attempt to determine here. In looking back on the late history of our Horse Guards it is plain that too many of those honoured veterans came of a school in which reform was held in odium and improvement deemed impossible. While such men held office or advised Ministers, the army fell behind the rest of the nation, and the safety of England's future was allowed to rest on the glories of the past. Such is not the spirit that at present rules the British Army. It is not our purpose to eulogise the Prince who holds the highest commission in the service, or to pretend that his administration is faultless. But, on the whole, it is progressive, just, and active; and its care is felt to extend from the education of the staff officer to the teaching of the soldier's child. Under it the service is advancing to its proper place in the State, improving in the day of rest, and preparing to answer the call for action without unreadiness or mistakes. Long may it so advance, that the soldier may find his profession honoured by his countrymen in time of peace, and that in war the national courage which bore the Six Hundred to their death at Balaclava may be guided by the science from which their chiefs might have learnt how brave men's lives should be used! ART. VI.-Transylvania; its Products and its People. By CHARLES BONER. London: 1865. its A DISTANT little commonwealth readily kindles the sympathy of the English public. Its historical traditions, struggles for independence against foreign invaders, and for civil liberty against its own sovereigns, ensure it a place in the hearts of free nations. But this, which is true of most countries in the position of Transylvania, is peculiarly true of Transylvania itself. This petty state, now an outlying principality of the Austrian Empire, has been rarely visited and is very imperfectly known. Most travellers fancy it merely a continuation of Hungary; and they think they have seen enough of Christian Europe in the East when they have gone from Vienna to Pesth. Transylvania has been shut out from the rest of Europe by nature, as well as by adventitious circumstances. It lies almost as much isolated from Hungary as Hungary is said to be isolated from the rest of Europe. Shut in on nearly all sides by the Carpathians, flanked by Wallachia on the south and by Moldavia on the east, it might be supposed to be nearly out of reach of the influences of Western civilisation. In point of fact, however, it has contributed many events to universal history: it has shared in resisting Turkish domination and invasion, and has aided in the decision of several contests between Austria and Hungary. These Transylvanians, a community of little more than two millions, consist of at least three distinct nationalities, of which the Wallachs or Roumains are the most numerous, while the Magyars and the Germans are foremost in position and intelligence. The sharp contrasts and jealousies that subsist between them do not prevent them from constituting a single people. The distinctions of race and manners continue, but the political unity remains indestructible. Mr. Boner has written a work upon this country, which is entitled to attention as a laborious and apparently faithful description of it. He spares no pains to arrive at the truth. He does not profess to know everything that concerns his subject, and freely acknowledges where he is in doubt. He seems to have mingled with all classes and with each nation, though more especially with the Saxons. He went to Transylvania chiefly for its sports; but he does not seek to fill us with admiration for his exploits; nor does he return to his own country laden in triumph with the skins of bears that others may have shot. We commend, therefore, this book to the public on the ground that the author shows himself so singularly devoid of the ordinary characteristics of a traveller. But of the composition of the book itself it is impossible to speak in terms of praise. What is told to us might have been told in half the number of pages. The style is equally feeble and verbose; observations and reflections are continually reproduced; and there is a great want of method and arrangement throughout those chapters which treat of the condition of the people. But it is hard to quarrel with a chamois-hunter from the Bavarian Alps. Good writers are less scarce among our own countrymen than good Alpine hunters; and Mr. Boner's work at any rate deserves notice for the information it contains. At the present moment, Transylvania holds a prominent place in the constitutional question that is impending over the Austrian Empire. Her Diet has just been consulted in reference to the hardest of all the problems of domestic statesmanship that are now before the world. A composite monarchy, formed of four cardinal varieties of race, with moral antipathies as sharp as the contrast of their physical origin, and with still more numerous distinctions of traditionary government, has just begun anew the task of reconciling prescription with centralisation, local constitutions with a uniform representative system, and the separate rights of each nation and state with the superiority of the German element. Transylvania is to a certain extent a microcosm of the Austrian Empire. It has been seen that she is nearly as much divided in point of race and antipathy as Austria herself; and yet there is no question of a political dissolution in Transylvania, but only a question of further amalgamation with Hungary. Her example is at this moment instructive; and it affords perhaps an encouraging precedent to the advocates of some kind of parliamentary union for the whole Empire. It may be useful, therefore, to study Transylvania. ** * The most valuable essay we have seen on this subject, which is the key to Austrian politics, is entitled 'Die Nationalität Frage,' by Baron Joseph Eötvös-the most cultivated and judi cious member of the patriotic party in Hungary. The doctrine of nationalities-by which we understand, the right of a majority of persons belonging to a peculiar race and language to be governed by themselves only, and not by any extraneous authority-leads not only to the dissolution of so composite a fabric as the Austrian Empire, but to the dissolution of each separate kingdom in that Empire into separate districts, and of each district into separate villages, so various are the races of men in those regions held together solely by the imperial authority. This extravagant doctrine has found partisans in Hungary; but no argument can be used by the Magyars to justify their severance from the other dominions of the Empire, which may not be urged with equal force by the Wallachs, Sclavons, Szeklers, Saxons, and Croatians against Magyar ascendancy in Hungary and the adjacent principalities. Baron Eötvös has discussed this problem in a rational and comprehensive spirit, and although we have no desire to plunge our readers in the depths of Hungarian constitutional law, we can very confidently recommend those who are interested in the subject to read his pamphlet. At the moment we consign these lines to the press we cordially rejoice to learn that the Emperor-King has once more been received at Pesth with the enthusiastic loyalty of a gallant people, and we trust that he is about to enter upon that system of true constitutional government which can alone permanently attach these provinces to his crown. |