Blackwood's Edinburgh magazine, Vol. 75, No. 462, April 1854

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BLACKWOOD’S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
No. CCCCLXII. APRIL, 1854. Vol. LXXV.
After the enjoyment of nearly forty years of peace, during which two generations of men, whose fate it was to live in more troublous times, have passed to their account, we are entering upon a war which will inevitably tax all the energies of the country to conduct it to a successful and honourable conclusion. The enemy against whom our arms are directed is not one whose prowess and power can with safety be slighted. A colossal empire possessed of vast resources, wielded by a sovereign of indomitable character and vast ambition, who has for years been collecting strength for a gigantic effort to sweep away every barrier by which the realisation of that ambition has been impeded, is our opponent. The issue to him is most momentous. It is to decide whether he is hereafter to be a controlling power in Europe and Asia, to rule absolutely in the Baltic, to hold the keys of the Euxine and the Mediterranean, and to push his conquests eastwards, until he clutches Hindostan,—or to be driven back and confined within the limits of the original empire which Peter the Great bequeathed to his successors. Such a struggle will not be conducted by Russia, without calling forth all the vigour of her arm. An issue so far beyond her contemplation as defeat and extinction as a first-rate power in the world, will not be yielded until she has drained her last resources, and exhausted every available means of defence and procrastination. Russia possesses too in this, the climax of her fate and testing-point in her aggressive career, a mighty source of strength in the enthusiasm of her people, whom she has taught to regard the question at issue between herself and Europe as a religious one, and the war into which she has entered as a crusade against “the infidel” and his abettors. The result may be seen in the personal popularity which the Emperor enjoys, and the ready devotion with which his efforts are aided by the Christian portion of the population of his empire.