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tack; and it is now only to be hoped that the original feebleness and insincerity of the Anglo-French tactics may not damage the execution of the more manly and honourable action which the courage of the garrison of Silistria, and, no doubt, the spirit and soldier-like feeling of the French and English generals, have forced on. Earnestly do we hope those officers may be able to give a good account of themselves and of the Russians on the banks of the Danube, notwithstanding the imperfections of their equipment, and although that was the last place to which their political superiors intended them to march.

Although the campaign of the Danube unquestionably requires the greater share of public attention given to the war in the East, still certain striking events, and many uncouth names, attract the notice of newspaper readers to another series of warlike operations, rendered difficult of comprehension by their desultory character and the extent of country over which they are spread. To these operations, engaging the entire of the northern and eastern, and half of the southern coasts of the Euxine, from Odessa to Sinope, and extending to the south-east into the Pashalic of Kars, we shall, for lack of a better, give the name of the campaign of the Black Sea. The main local features of this seat of the war are the great Russian commercial entrepot and fortress of Odessa, the naval arsenal of Sebastopol, and the Russian forts on the coasts of Circassia and Mingrelia, from Anapa in the north-west, to St. Nicholas or Shefkatil in the southeast. The events of the campaign of the Black Sea have been hitherto, with perhaps a single exception, either disastrous or trifling. The capture of St. Nicholas by the Turks, occurring at the commencement of hostilities and simultaneously with the brilliant successes at Kalafat and Oltenitza, served materially to change the public opinion of Europe, in reference to the military power both of Russia and Turkey, and had thus, no doubt, a most important influence upon subsequent events. Men began to think that the "sick man" had a good deal of life still left in him; his weak and moribund state came to be spoken of by professing friends with less of destructive pity; and the doctor's absolute omnipotence for evil was

no longer implicitly believed in. In all human probability it was those gallant and most unexpected, though in themselves small, achievements that stimulated the hopeful sympathies of France and England to the point at which they overwhelmed the "connivance or credulity" of the governments, and swept them onward, unwillingly enough, into the course of active friendship towards the Turks in which they are now engaged. Unfortunately, the work so well begun at St. Nicholas was not carried on so as to secure or merit success. Less under the eyes of Europe than the Danubian army, the force employed in this campaign appears to have been more neglected by the authorities at Constantinople, and to have fallen into that state of disorganisation which the corruption and want of patriotism of the Turkish officers have so generally induced. Notwithstanding the exertions, described as very meritorious, of Kerschid Pacha (the English officer Guyon), the promise given at St. Nicholas has not been sustained, and we have heard little of late of the progress of the Turkish arms in Asia; but, upon the other hand, no Russian successes of moment have been there achieved. On the coast, the operations of the Black Sea campaign were inauspiciously begun by the disaster at Sinope, and the events which have since occurred were not calculated to produce any considerable influence upon the course of the war. The bombardment of Odessa was an inconsequential exploit, undertaken in a fit of passion, carried on with childish forbearance, and terminated without result. Whatever of material injury may have been done on that occasion by the guns of the allied fleet was more than counterbalanced by the moral effect of their retreat, re infectâ, upon the Russian people, enforced as that lesson has been by the calamitous accident to the Tiger. The batteries and gun-carriages of Odessa will be soon repaired, and but few subjects of the Czar will ever know the extent of injury they sustained: the news will be carefully spread into every nook of all the Russias, that a numerous French and British fleet bombarded the defences of a commercial fortress, and that the result was the burial of a captain of Her Majesty's navy, with such military honours as two Russian battalions and two Russian

guns could confer, and the committal of a captured British standard to the custody of a Russian corps of marine cadets. To lookers-on from without the Czar's frontier it is, nevertheless, manifest, that in the presence of the allied fleets his naval power in the Euxine is absolutely nought. From the moment when it was discovered that the purpose of England and France was really hostile, not a sail has ventured out of a Russian port; and while we write, a despatch of Sir Edward Lyons is before us, announcing the hasty destruction and abandonment of the forts on the Circassian coast. This, too, is after all nothing but stripping for the fight, and small indeed is the triumph it affords the allies. but the old Muscovite policy-destruction where defence is impracticableand the result is the liberation of the garrisons, and their availability for other and more important employment. No serious blow will have been struck in the Black Sea campaign, until the flags of the allies shall have been planted upon the citadels of Sebastopol and Odessa. How or when those operations should be attempted, or whether they are, under any probable combination of circumstances, practicable, it is not our intention at present to discuss.

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The third branch of this complex war-the campaign of the Baltic will require but a few words. The local features are generally familiar to our readers, and the events have as yet been few and wholly unimportant. The local interest of this campaign is circumscribed within the Gulf of Finland, and is fixed at present upon operations of the allied fleets in reference to the naval stations of Helsingfors, Revel, and Cronstadt, in which the three divisions of the Czar's Baltic fleet are now shut up. Helsingfors, the ancient capital of Finland, is situated on the northern coast of the gulf, at a distance of 180 miles from St. Petersburg. It is, like the other two ports, closed by the ice usually until the month of May, and is defended by the fortifications of Sveaborg, built upon a number of small islands, and mounting 800 guns. On the opposite, southern, side is Revel, about 200 miles from St. Petersburg, also strongly fortified and very difficult of entrance; and at the top of the Gulf, and twenty miles due west of the capital, is

Cronstadt, the chief of all the Russian arsenals, and, in fact, the outwork of the Imperial city. It is built upon the island of Kotline, and contains three ports, that for men-of-war being capable of accommodating thirty-five ships of the line. For the defence of this centre of the Czar's naval power the resources of art have been exhausted. Every rock and islet around it bristles with cannon, and the place itself is strengthened by the most elaborate works, while the narrowness of the channel, which is but thirty-six feet deep, would seem to render these costly preparations against hostile approach from the sea almost unnecessary. By the latest intelligence in our hands, we learn that Sir Charles Napier was with his fleet off Sveaborg, and it has even been reported that he has tried the range of his guns upon its works. The incidents of the Baltic campaign have, however, been very similar to those that occurred in the Black Sea. The Russians have abandoned positions which they could_not expect to be able to defend, and have withdrawn themselves within the shelter of their granite bastions and great guns. The operations of the allied fleets have been of the most trifling and inconsequential kind; a few merchant vessels have been taken, and a few stones knocked out of a battery at Ecknaess, at a risk which proved, indeed, the indisputable gallantry of the officers engaged, but which neither brought nor promised any equivalent advantage. Yet there are already rumours abroad which foreshadow great and worthy results from the Baltic campaign. Our Scandinavian kinsmen in blood and brethren in the spirit of constitutional freedom, have not seen the British ensign on their waters without emotion. It is said that Sweden, King and people, will strike in for liberty, and against her ancient and ever merciless foe. That the people are so inclined, the manner of their reception of our ships leaves no room to doubt; that the natural disposition of King Oscar would lead him to the same conclusion, the course of his life gives reason to believe. He is, however, but a young member of the corporation of monarchs, and signs are not wanting that he is not to be left to the free course of his inclinations. Recent news from Stockholm intimates that an envoy of Austria has had

private audiences of the King, for the purpose of laying before him the views of his sovereign as to the conditions of Sweden's joining the Western Powers, and taking an active part in the war.' The greatest reverence is due to a boy: may the Swedes reverentially guard their youthful dynasty from the pollution of communion with that hoary despotism! The natural ally of Sweden and Denmark, closely bound to both by ties of affinity and policy, is England. These three powers united, might at any time, in an honest cause, set at nought the power of Russiasupported by France, they may impose what terms they please upon the disturber of the peace of the world. It is to be hoped that they will so unite, and that the Danes will follow out what is certainly their best interest, and what there is good reason to hope is their inclination; and, notwithstanding the autocratic leanings of their sovereign, that they will heartily join in the great movement against military oppression and absolute government, which is now threatening Northern as well as Eastern Europe. Should this end be brought about by Sir Charles Napier's campaign in the Baltic, the game will be well worth the candle; and in playing it out it will by no means be necessary for him to knock his head against the granite walls of Sveaborg, or the bottoms of his ships upon the sands of the Great Road of Cronstadt. A league of the northern powers, offensive and defensive, and anti-Russian, supported by a blockade of the Baltic and the consequent stoppage of the supplies which now reach the Czar's treasury and the pockets of his noble serfs, in the shape of returns for hemp, tallow, hides, corn, and flaxseed, would shortly induce a lucid interval, and bring the Imperial madman to terms upon the most approved modern principles of mad-doctoring, and without the employment of shot, shell, or cutlass, or any direct means of bodily coercion. Let no man, therefore, be impatient because Sveaborg is not bombarded, or Revel stormed, or Cronstadt taken by a coup de main. Success against any of those strongholds by direct operations would be miraculous, and attempts to achieve it are not necessary to the accomplishment of the desired result. The campaign of the Baltic differs from those of the Danube and of the Black Sea, in the circum

stance of the Czar's position in regard to it being one strictly of defence. He has not advanced, and he dares not advance from his northern ports; to hold him thus in durance is a victory, while he is struck at in a most vital part by the obstruction of his commerce, and the interception of the means of his existence. In the East he has been and is an aggressor; and as long as he can maintain that position, the moral prestige remains with him. If he be not repulsed from the Danube, the triumph is his; if he be suffered to retain the Crimea, there will be no security for the peace of the world from day to day; if the mouth of the Danube be not wrested from his keeping, the trade of Europe will not be free. But the way to all these results will be shortened by a blockade of the Baltic, such as can be kept up under any circumstances by Sir Charles Napier's fleet, but still more completely by such a cordon sanitaire as could be established by an anti-Russian league of the northern powers. Had we a real statesman among our men in power, honest endeavours to consolidate such an alliance would have long since superseded the wretched intrigues with Austrian and Prussian diplomatists, which, during the last two years, have marred the national interests, and jeopardised the national honour.

We have now hastily and imperfectly traced out the geographical features of this multiform war; and there remains for the accomplishment of our present purpose but to add a few words they shall be few-in reference to the means at our command to meet the exigencies of this trying occasion. The rapidity and completeness with which the Baltic fleet was manned and sent to sea, and the ease and safety with which some five-and-twenty thousand soldiers have been withdrawn from our garrisons and transported to the shores of the Dardanelles, leave little room to doubt that the materiel of war is ready to our hands, good in quality and abundant in quantity. Nor can any man have observed the cheerfulness, good order, and quietness with which the naval preparations were made, without being impressed with a conviction of the excellence of the organisation of that department of our public service.

Under circumstances of considerable difficulty, with wages far above the average of many years, and with an

unusual demand for seamen, the largest number of ships ever sent out of harbour under one command, was fitted out and commissioned in a space of time incredibly short, and with as few complaints from any quarters as, perhaps, have ever been uttered in the course of so gigantic an operation.* Upon two points only have we heard a word of censure or disappointment expressed in reference to the organisation and arrangements of the fleets. A certain amount of shabbiness, the remuant of old Post-office notions, combined, perhaps, with a lurking disinclination to encourage private correspondence, has characterised the settlement of postal charges for transmission of letters to the ships, and a good deal of dissatisfaction has been felt at the uncertainty and delays of the mails. The latter has been, probably, to some extent unavoidable at the commencement of the campaign, under crude experimental regulations, with letter-writers inexperienced in the proper mode of addressing their communications, and letter-carriers untrained in the method of their delivery. The candid spirit in which the public criticisms upon this defect have been accepted by the responsible authorities, warrant us in believing that every practicable remedy will be applied to it; and we even indulge a hope that it will be seen to be but poor economy to balance the public liberality in carrying seamen's letters for a penny by mulcting officers of sixpence for every half-ounce of news from home, transmitted to them, at no cost to the public, by a Queen's ship. The only other stricture we have heard upon the naval arrangements, relates to the supply of medical officers. There has been difficulty in the way of providing a sufficient number of assistantsurgeons; some of the ships have not as yet got their complement; and Sir James Graham has admitted that it is not contemplated to appoint surgeons to the gun-boats. a service in which,

no doubt, they would be specially required. A return to the House of Commons, called for by Colonel Boldero, does, indeed, show that the list of candidates for naval medical appointments has run very low. There were but five names upon it on the 5th of May, 1854, the date of the return; a fact which we must look upon as indicative of a marked disinclination among young medical men to enter into that department of the public service. There is some reasonable ground for this feeling, and also, we are bound to say, much mistaken prejudice, founded upon misrepresentation, to remove which would, we conceive, be to confer a benefit upon the medical profession no less than, at this conjuncture, upon the naval service. It is not necessary to refer to Roderick Random's history of cockpit life, to learn that there was a time when the surgeon's mates of men-of-war were but scurvily treated no worse, however, in all probability, than they generally deserved. No one acquainted with the circumstances will deny that their position during the last war was not calculated to raise the assistantsurgeons in the estimation of their brother-officers, or to improve their own tone; neither, we trust, will any candid person refuse to admit that very great improvements have been effected in their condition during the last twenty years. An assistant-surgeon is now a commissioned officer, distinguished as such by his uniform, and placed, in regard to pay and reckoning of his time of service, in a position much superior to that of the class of executive officers equal to him in rank. He has the advantage over his fellows in the army, of being able not merely to live on his pay, but, if he be prudent, to save money from the very moment he enters the service.t The grievances complained of by or for him are, first, that he is not provided with a cabin; and secondly, that he is not at once a wardroom officer. The

On the 14th of June, according to the correspondent of the Times, the British fleet in the Baltic was in all 44 sail, carrying 22,850 men, with an armament of 2,022 guns.

We may, perhaps, afford useful information, by stating that the daily pay of an assistant-surgeon, on first joining, is 78. 1d. His first outfit of clothes, instruments, and all other necessaries, costs £75; and his mess subscription, including all his meals, is from £24 to £30 a-year. The daily pay of an assistant-surgeon in the army is at first 7s. 6d. ; his outfit certainly not less than £75, and the yearly cost of his mess-dinner alone, supposing him not to touch wine, is never less than £50.

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first we believe to be a real injury to the service as well as to the officer; the hardship of the second is imaginary, while it brings with it some real advantages. An assistant-surgeon enters the service after boyhood has passed away, when the community of sleeping and dressing upon the maindeck cannot fail to be painful to one unused to such a regimen from early youth. The refusal of a cabin furnishes a plausible excuse, if not a solid reason, for neglecting those professional studies which the service requires that a medical officer should never cease diligently to prosecute. As to admission to the wardroom, that is now conceded to assistant-surgeons after three years' service, and we confess ourselves unable to see the reality of a grievance in the obligation imposed upon a youth, fresh from the medical schools, to endure for that short period the society of future admirals, secretaries, masters of the fleet, and of present gentlemen of high rank, in the gun-room of one of her Majesty's ships. To a young man of limited means, on the other hand, we conceive it to be a real advantage to be so circumstanced that he need not enter the wardroom mess until he can have saved money enough to enable him to do so comfortably, and without incurring debt. We make these remarks in the hope that they may finally tend to remove some misapprehension; certainly with no want of sympathy for the medical profession, and still less with any failure of respect for the naval medical department, which we well know, when the hour of need shall come, will not be found unworthy of the high character it has attained under its present able and respected head.

So much for the navy; and few of our readers will think even so much necessary to prove what every British man believes, that its organisation, no less than its materiel, are equal to the occasion. The general opinion is not the same with respect to the other service; nor have the occurrences of the last few months tended to remove the doubts which most men entertain as to the efficiency of our military system. Scarcely has that system been tried in actual service before it has been found that its organisation is altogether imperfect; its departments are incompetent; its controlling head is overburthened with other and incom

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patible duties, and the details of its arrangements are cumbersome and mischievous. Within a few weeks, and, as it were, in presence of the enemy, the Secretaryship for War has been divorced from that for colonial affairs, and organic changes have been initiated in the management of the army; and what adds a peculiar untowardness to these events is the obvious fact that the changes have not been adopted under any conviction of their necessity, but have been forced upon the authorities by the activity of newspaper correspondents and the pressure of opinion from without. The "clothing colonels have been abolished, the Guards have been paraded without stocks, the tight coatee has been condemned but only after a desperate struggle, and with an unwillingness which plainly shows that the new measures will need the superintendence of new men. That this is so, is proved by the simple facts, that although a board of general officers for the superintendence of the clothing of the army is an old and permanent institution of the country, the breast and arms of the soldier's coat cannot be loosened, or its skirts widened, without previous inquiry being made into the habits of military nations; and that "consideration " is necessary before the commanding mind can be made up upon the grave question of the moustache. While this important point is under discussion, the newspaper correspondents are placed upon the list of suspects; and whether the pen or the razor shall be driven out of the camp, probably causes as much agitation in the souls of our warrior-chiefs as the distant booming of the Russian guns.

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It is not our intention now to enter into the minutia of the many complaints against the management of the army of the East; but upon three important points very grave charges have been advanced-and no one can doubt have been to a great extent substantiated and to these we shall address a very few remarks. The artillery is admitted on all hands to be very insufficient in force; and recent accounts state that it is greatly inferior to the Russian in weight of metal. Between the French and English armies, it appears that no more than forty-five guns could be mustered for service at Varna; and a letter from a correspondent of the Morning Chro

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