the bastions and demi-lunes in Flanders. This siege has become one of the most extraordinary operations of war, and it may be indefinitely prolonged until it be in the power of the Allies either to assault the place, or to effect a breach on the Severnaia, or Star Fort, to the north, whose fire extends to the line of the Balbek, or to defeat the Russian army in the field. In the latter case, the place must speedily fall from the want of reinforcements and supplies, which even now arrive with extreme difficulty.

It appears to us that this simple sketch of the course of events in the order in which they have occurred suffices to explain those apparent instances of delay and neglect which have been erroneously or unfairly imputed to the Government. It is not the fault of the Government if three distinct operations have been projected or executed in the course of the campaign, arising out of the altered state of affairs.

The first was to defend Constantinople and the Straits against an invasion;

The second was to support Omar Pasha in defending the line of the Danube;

The third was to attack the territory of the enemy in the Crimea.

Each of these movements required a re-embarkation and transport of the army, a removal of the stores and magazines, and hospitals, a change in the base of operations and in the arrangements of the commissariat, and an abandonment of a large portion of the animals collected for the purposes of draught, owing to the extreme difficulty of providing transport for so large a number of horses. The Allied Governments could only adapt the movements of their armies to the position of the enemy, whom they had first undertaken to repulse and then to attack. Their object and their design was that these operations should be carried on as rapidly as possible, and they were not sparing in their exertions to provide the means from France and from this country; but at the same time, far from complaining that some unavoidable delay occurred in the execution of such vast designs, the fullest justice is due to the exertions of those gallant men in all branches of the service, which alone rendered the expedition to the Crimea practicable in the present season.

Amongst the changes which the progress of science and civilisation have wrought in the world, few are more remarkable than the effects of the rapid transmission of intelligence and the universal publicity of this age on the conduct of war. Newspaper correspondents have attended every movement of the troops from their entry upon the campaign: travellers, lawyers,

and Members of Parliament have bivouacked by the streams of the Crimea, and eaten their rations of salt pork before Sebastopol; and by the progress of education in the ranks, thousands of letters from the men, admirable for their manly and honest spirit, have been circulated through every hamlet in Britain. No doubt some of the consequences of this publicity, with reference to the condition and the movements of the army, have been injurious to the service of the Allies; but, as in everything else, we must submit to these inconveniences for the sake of incalculably greater advantages.

In the conduct of an army in the field the present generation of Englishmen has almost everything to learn, for the experience of forty years ago is obviously inapplicable to the altered state of the world; and it is by this system of public discussion that abuses are exposed, omissions supplied, and innumerable expedients suggested. The whole country participates in the contest, and lends its intelligence and its resources to the army. It is, however, no new thing that officers in the field should look with some suspicion on unauthorised reports of their measures, and on the gossip of the town which affects to judge of military operations. When L. Æmilius took the command of the Roman army in Macedonia, his parting exhortation to the people is recorded by Livy in words which would not be inappropriate in the mouth of Lord Raglan.

Nam

Vos, quæ scripsero senatui aut vobis, credite, rumores cre'dulitate vestrâ ne alatis, quorum auctor nemo exstabit. nunc quidem, quod vulgo fieri, hoc præcipue bello animadverti, 'nemo tam famæ contemptor est cujus non debilitari animus 'possit. In omnibus circulis, atque etiam (si Diis placet) in 'conviviis sunt qui exercitus in Macedoniam ducant; ubi castra 'locanda sint sciunt; quæ loca præsidiis occupanda; quando aut quo saltu intranda Macedonia; ubi horrea ponenda; quâ terrâ, mari subvehatur commeatus; quando cum hoste manus 'conserendæ ; quando quiescendum sit. Nec, quid melius fe'rendum sit, modo statuunt, sed, quidquid aliter, quam ipsi censuere, factum est, consulem veluti dicta die accusent. Hæc magna impedimenta res gerentibus sunt. Sermonum satis ipsa 'præbet urbs; loquacitatem suam contineat; nos castrensibus 'consiliis contentos futuros esse sciat.' (T. Liv. Hist. lib. xliv. 22.)

If such were the complaints of the Roman general, the responsibility he throws on the loquacity of the town is incalculably increased by the power of the modern press, and the rapidity of modern communication; and it would be well if those who profess so eager an anxiety to correct all the mistakes

of military authorities would remember, that their exaggerated statements depress the spirit of our own troops, encourage the hopes of the enemy, and lower the character of the British forces in the eyes of other nations.

The Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Sidney Herbert have not, however, denied, in their defence of the administrative war departments of the Government, that if all had been known at first which experience has since taught them, many things might have been better done, some things left undone, some omissions prevented. The charge made against Ministers may, however, be resolved into this proposition that in the first six months after the declaration of war, and when the nature of the operations in which we were about to engage was still uncertain, they did not put forth the whole military strength of the country. It is not disputed that they did send out, in the highest state of efficiency, an army at least equal in numbers and in excellence to any army which the Duke of Wellington had commanded. No less than 54,000 men had left our shores for the East before the end of November; these forces were also co-operating with a large body of seamen and marines, and acting in concert with a French army of equal valour and of superior numbers. The highest praise is due to such an effort, and, considering the imprudent language which had been used of late years in speaking even of the means we possessed to defend this country from invasion, the result considerably surpassed our expectations. The chief error committed by the authorities of the war department appears to us to have been that they did not at once widen the basis of their military establishments in proportion to the extent they had given them abroad. It is impossible for any country to maintain an army in the field without a vast provision of men in training at home. The embodiment of the whole of the militia is the natural and constitutional school of the British army. Whether in the militia regiments or in the line, soldiers are of not much value in less than a year; in six months they may be termed trained recruits, but Napoleon scouted the idea of forming a soldier in that time. With a view, therefore, to the future demands of the army or the operations of another campaign, we think that extensive measures ought to be taken at the earliest practicable moment to prepare the materials of a large reserve. If any deficiency exists in the barracks of the United Kingdom, camps might be formed with great advantage to the health and training of the soldier. The regiments recalled from the colonies should be raised to their full strength with men seasoned to the exercises of war. In the present state of public feeling nothing would tend more to

strengthen the army in the field than the knowledge that powerful reinforcements are in training at home, The Mediterranean garrisons would form the advanced guard of this reserve, and ought to be raised to their full strength, not only with militia regiments, but with troops which may, in case of need, be sent on to join Lord Raglan's army. The French Government set us an excellent example by the formation of the camp at Boulogne, and it is to be regretted that they did. not make similar preparations in the south of France. As soon as the spring is sufficiently advanced, it would be an incalculable advantage to our young troops to pass a few weeks or months on Aldershot Common, so as not to proceed at once from a London or Dublin barracks to the climates of the Crimea or the trenches round Sebastopol, and we have reason to hope that it is the intention of the Commander-in-Chief to take the earliest opportunity of establishing a considerable encampment on the important strategical position near Farnham, recently purchased by the Government.

There is no doubt-for a statement to this effect has been made by the Secretary of State for War-that some of the latest reinforcements have been sent off with a larger proportion of young recruits than is desirable, and that even regiments like the 46th, which are equal to any in the service for military qualities, have suffered severely from disease on arriving at the seat of war in the present inclement season. These troops would probably have been far more useful if they had been subjected to more active training in the field before they left this country.

The first means resorted to by the Government to diminish this inconvenience was the presentation of a Bill empowering the Crown to enlist and train in this country a certain limited number of foreign soldiers, who should then be despatched to join the British army at the seat of war. The authors of this measure had certainly not foreseen the extraordinary misrepresentations to which it was destined to give rise, the false alarm it was to excite, and the extravagant opposition to be offered to it. They knew that in every war in which we have been engaged from 1688 to 1815 foreign troops in British pay had always formed a considerable portion of our armies. They anticipated on the present occasion considerable reinforcements from the sympathy of Europe in our cause, and they thought that a resource likely to supply men who had already gone through some years of military service, such as is required of every man in Germany and Switzerland, was not to be neglected. On these grounds the Bill for the enlistment of

foreigners was presented, and, with some difficulty, carried through Parliament. Its effects have yet to be seen; but unless some arrangement can be made with foreign governments willing to assist in the operations of the war, we do not anticipate any very large amount of voluntary enlistment; and we think there is more reason to fear that the measure will be inoperative than that it will be dangerous. The real auxiliaries we hope eventually to obtain in this struggle are allies — allies such as those gallant soldiers of France who have shared all the perils and hardships of the British army, or as the powerful armaments of Austria, which still keep in check the principal divisions of the Russian army.

We have so recently taken an opportunity in this Journal of discussing the changes which experience has shown to be necessary in those departments of Government which have the direction of military affairs, that we shall not again enter minutely into that subject. But it cannot be repeated too often that military administration is the root of all military success. In vain we may boast of sending the bravest troops in the world into the field-troops which have successively broken the baffled ranks of the enemy by their undaunted impetuosity, and resisted the attack of columns of tenfold strength by their unbending firmness; in vain we have placed at the head of our armies generals who learned the art of war under the Duke of Wellington, and have kept alive even in peace the heroism of their profession, in the plains of India, or on the banks of the Sutlej; in vain have we lavished the treasure of the country without inquiring the cost, as if success in war was to be bought by a profuse expenditure. These are elements of success, but the greatest of all is wanting, if the Government of this country does not place the administration of our whole military system in the hands of men of consummate knowledge, energy, and judgment. We intend to convey no censure on the Ministers who have thus far conducted this great enterprise. We are confident that they have devoted themselves to the work with indefatigable industry, with all the powers of their minds, and that if blunders and shortcomings have become manifest at the seat of war, no one has suffered so acutely as themselves from events which in some degree disappointed their foresight and their hopes. But it may be said without offence that the statesmen of this age have been trained in a very different school from the great war ministers of former times. The questions of economical and social reform, which it has been the part of a British minister to study and to promote during a forty years' peace, have little in common with the sterner duties of conducting a war. The subject is one