Moukhtar Pasha has been falling back slowly and cautiously, as he found the forces increasing in his front. Several English officers are with his army. They speak highly of the efficiency which it has attained, and indignantly deny that any cruelties have been perpetrated by the regular Turkish soldiery, though they speak of the Kurds and Bashi-Bazouks as brutes, whom it is most difficult to keep in any kind of order—men who are as cowardly as they are brutal, and of whom the army would be well rid.
Over the movements of the English Army a dead silence has fallen. All letters whatever, whether of correspondents or others, since the fleet sailed after the Battle of Kosluji, have been stopped.
We have heard, indeed, of some of the fleet, probably cruisers, being off Odessa, and some alarm was recently created at Kertch by what was taken to be a combined expedition against that point. We have, however, as yet heard of no landing. This cannot last for long. We must get some news shortly. We know that immense numbers of vessels with stores, transport, and tools of all sorts have passed Constantinople with sealed orders to be opened only out of sight of land. Ministers are studiously reticent, and appeal to the patriotism of both Houses not to put inconvenient questions. Breathless excitement attends the next move.
Meantime, in France the situation remains nearly as our correspondent left it. The German armies, after their recent disasters, have been falling back and concentrating in the Vosges between the fortresses of Metz and Strasbourg. The French appear to be massing their forces chiefly in the neighbourhood of Belfort, though a large army has approached Metz, which is held by too powerful an army to be ignored. The French are in a state of great exultation and excitement, but considerable disenchantment has taken place as to the Russian alliance. They think that Russia has by no means proved the powerful ally they had expected. It is even no longer treason to say upon the Boulevards that sympathy with Poland was the ancient policy of France. Till the extent of their recent successes began to be popularly realised, it was even suggested that if the Germans would give up Alsace-Lorraine they might have their buffer State against Russian barbarism. Nay, some were not afraid to suggest that Germany might, if she would, create two buffer States on either frontier, a covert hint at the neutralisation of the Reichsland which a few weeks ago was received with silent assent. There can be no doubt also that the German people are becoming very weary of a war which threatens to be of indefinite length on either frontier. The Emperor, too, despite the successes on the Russian side which were not gained under his immediate command, has been not a little disillusioned as to the absolute infallibility of his own military genius.
The Italian forces have been checked by the news of the French successes, and the fear lest the vast forces now available might be turned against them.
Thus everywhere on the Continent it is a moment of temporary lull, though of active preparation for the future.
CAPTURE OF SIERRA LEONE BY THE FRENCH.
The letter which we publish from our Correspondent who accompanied the troops to India, must be preceded by a few words of explanation as to the circumstances which induced the Government to send a large party of officers and a small reinforcement of men by the Canadian Pacific route. That route for Calcutta is a little longer in point of time than the movement by the Cape. It was recognised from the first that in time of war it would not be desirable to depend upon the Suez Canal route, but it had been fully intended to employ the Cape line. Unfortunately, however, immediately after war was declared by France against us, communication with Sierra Leone was in some way cut. Some time passed before we heard what had happened. Then it appeared that, prior to the declaration of war, the French Governor of Senegal had been warned of the date at which it was intended in France to declare war, and was directed to dispatch from Goree a powerful expedition as quietly and secretly as possible. This, taking advantage of the concentration of the English fleets in the Baltic and Mediterranean, was to sail from Goree with sealed orders to be opened at sea, which directed the commanding Admiral, on a date named, to move straight upon Sierra Leone, and to attack it on the day that the declaration of war was issued in Europe.
It should be noticed, as a question of method and of the facilities presented by steam for such operations, that no great gathering of ships was allowed to attract attention to the preparations in Senegal, and ship after ship arrived, received its equipment, and departed alone, with orders to rendezvous on a given day at a stated point in mid-ocean, fixed by latitude and longitude. In this way, without attracting attention, and without difficulty, the great fleet was collected, and moved off at the time named under the orders of the Admiral and General upon Sierra Leone.
The garrison of Sierra Leone has always been kept at a low ebb, because of the unhealthiness of the place. It was to have been reinforced in view of war, but this had been postponed. The movement was a complete surprise, and though indignant remonstrances appeared in all the English papers, and in the letter addressed by the Governor of Sierra Leone to the French Commander-in-Chief, the fact remained that Sierra Leone had, for the time being, passed into the hands of the French. Although statements were freely made that such an outrage had never been committed since the beginning of the world, and most English people believed them, there was no difficulty in showing that precedents from the actions of all countries were in favour of the French. However, apart from the merits of that question, the plain fact of the matter was that, with Sierra Leone in the hands of the French, our whole route viâ the Cape to India was seriously disturbed.