'Are you,' he asked me, 'among those who have taken shares in the
Russian railways?'
'No,' I said. 'They are the last that I wish to encourage.'
'Englishmen or Frenchmen,' he answered, 'who help Russia to make railways, put me in mind of the Dutch who sold powder to their besiegers.
'The thinness of her population—that is, the vast space over which it is scattered—alone prevents Russia from being the mistress of Europe. If her 64,000,000 were as concentrated as our 34,000,000 are, she would be irresistible. She loses always far more men in marching than in fighting.'
'The events of the war,' I said, 'lead me to believe that the goodness of the Russian soldier is exaggerated. They were always beaten, often by inferior numbers.'
'In the first place,' he answered, 'those who were beaten at Sebastopol were not the best Russian soldiers. They were short small men, generally drawn from the neighbouring provinces. The Russian Imperial Guards and the Russian Army in Poland are far superior to any that we encountered in the Crimea. In the second place, they were ill commanded. The improvements of weapons, of science and of discipline, have raised the privates of all the great military nations to about the same level. Success now depends on numbers and on generalship. With railways Russia will be able to bring quickly a preponderating force to any point on her frontier. Her officers are already good, and for money she can import the best generals; indeed, I do not see why she should not breed them. Russia is civilised enough to produce men of the highest military qualities.'
I asked Admiral Matthieu about the naval preparations of France.
'The "Moniteur,"' I said, 'denies that you are making any.'
'The "Moniteur,"' he answered, 'does not tell the truth. We are augmenting largely, both the number and the efficacy of our fleet.
'Four years ago, at the beginning of the Russian war, we resolved to build a steam fleet of 150 steam ships of different sizes for fighting, and 74 steam ships for the transfer service, and to carry fuel and stores. Though we set about this in the beginning, as we thought, of a long war, we have not allowed the peace to interrupt it. We are devoting to it sixty-five millions a year (2,600,000_l_.) of which from fifteen to seventeen millions are employed every year in building new ships, and from forty to forty-two in adding steam power to the old ones. We hope to finish this great work in fourteen years.'