While we at once grant that our commanders have failed to display any great genius in the war, we think the treatment of them by the public altogether unreasonable. Gentlemen stricken in years, who have never in their lives been distinguished for anything in particular, and who have spent half a century in the world without impressing their nearest relations or most intimate friends with the idea that they possess remarkable capacity, far less genius, are suddenly placed in a position demanding a rare union of high qualities. This sudden elevation of course fails to elicit what they never claimed to possess—and men who would have passed most respectably through the more sequestered walks of life, are suddenly covered with obloquy, because they do not exhibit, on their giddy eminence, that mastery over men and circumstances of which few examples are vouchsafed to the world in a century.
To point out how the public has been as indiscriminate and unreasonable in its praise as its censure, would be a more invidious task. But it has frequently happened, that the eulogies showered on some fortunate individual have not been endorsed by the opinion of the army. Reputations, beginning nobody knows how, have taken shape and substance. The mischief of this is, that these will be the men selected for trust in a future emergency. Where there is so little opportunity for individuals to distinguish themselves, chance confers a small prominence on some who, thus lifted from the level of the crowd, become marked men—and to be marked where there is so little competition is to be famous. To us who note this, all history grows a chapter of accidents: we have an uneasy doubt whether Horatius really did keep the bridge, or Leonidas the pass—how much of his fame Coriolanus may owe to aristocratic connection, Scipio to his relation with a forgotten war-minister, or Alcibiades to private interest at the Athenian Horse Guards. Still, it is well to find that the public, with all its disposition to censure, retains the desire to praise; and we are the less disposed to except against its encomiums, because we should be puzzled to show how they might be better directed. The campaign has been singularly barren of opportunity for showing capacity. In most cases some divisions of an invading army possess a certain independence of movement, and their commanders have a field for showing their powers. Advanced guards from these and from the main body are commanded by officers of lower rank, who, in the attack or defence of a farm or a village, in the passage of a difficult stream, in the surprise of a convoy, or the collection of information, have an opportunity of displaying their qualities. But in the advance from Old Fort, the army marched entire across wide open plains, seeing only the retiring skirmishers of the enemy, entering abandoned villages, and passing the different natural obstacles unmolested, except at the Alma. None of the sense of enterprise, and of being engaged in scientific operations, which lends such glow and interest to civilised warfare, animated the troops traversing these desolate regions. Extensive plains, vast fields of coppice, or tumbled masses of hills, unbrightened by spots of culture or signs of human habitation, almost destitute even of roads, spread round the army, which dwindled to insignificance in the large sweep of the monotonous horizon. Then came the eleven months’ siege, when the prescribed daily duty of the trenches left no field open for invention, resource, or sagacity. In such circumstances, military genius remained latent in the army. That it exists we have no doubt; and we should expect in the course of another campaign to see brows, now perchance obscure, wreathed with merited laurels; but whether any truly great general, such as Wellington, Marlborough, or Napoleon is to be found in either army, is a point of which we may well doubt, when we remember how rare such beings are—how happy must be the combination of circumstances which lifts them to the point where they are recognised, and that we live, moreover, in an age when those pre-eminent spirits, which become landmarks for time, seem almost to have ceased their visits to earth.
Meantime it is curious to observe how the nation, uneasy at being baulked of its desire for a leader, proposes to make good the deficiency. Besides the somewhat arbitrary and unpromising plan already alluded to, of seizing upon ordinary men and commanding them to become great by virtue of their position and responsibility, other methods are proposed for eliciting the sparks of genius. The most favourite scheme at present is the education of our officers. Masters are appointed to examine candidates for commissions in different branches of science and literature; and, from the specimens we have seen of the examination papers, we may expect, supposing a reasonable proportion of the questions to be answered, shortly to see some very erudite men in the army, for it appears to us that the heart of the Admirable Crichton would have broke before he had got through a tithe of them. What shadow of a chance would the most accomplished Russian officer have, if opposed to a man who could, offhand, “write a short life of Milton, with dates,” “perform the eudiometric analysis of atmospheric air,” “tell what smoky quartz is,” “give a summary of Cousin’s argument against the philosophy of Locke,” and “draw a map of Britain in the time of the Roman occupation:” which are a few of the achievements demanded of the candidates in August 1855. “What is the origin of Roman satire?” is asked of the military aspirant by the Rev. G. Butler, one of the examiners, who, we should think, possibly became, on the occasion, the origin of some English satire. “Compose,” says another of them, the Rev. C. Trench, “an essay which shall not exceed thirty lines, on the following subject: In what way may England hope to avoid such a conflict with her colonies as led to the American War of Independence?” We hope Mr Labouchere will at once see the propriety of resigning his post to the author of the prize essay on this subject, whose faculty of compendiously settling such knotty points, in thirty lines, would be invaluable in the colonial, or any other department of State. “What is the object,” asks J. D. Morell, Esq., “which Kant proposed to himself in writing the Critick of Pure Reason?” to point out which might possibly have been acceptable to Kant himself. The Rev. R. W. Browne, after demanding an explanation of the terms, “Rhapsodist,” and “Cyclian Poet,” asks, “What are the conditions most favourable to the growth of epic poetry?” the best answer to which we shall be happy to accept as an article for the Magazine, as also the reply to the demand of A. H. Clough, Esq., for “a history of translations into English,” which we will publish in parts. Under these new conditions we are certainly likely to get commanders such as the world never saw before. Fancy the bewilderment of poor old Jomini, prince of strategists, at being required to tell the Rev. G. Butler what he knew “of the military organisation of the Samnites,”—or the perplexity of the Duke of Wellington, when requested by the Rev. Mr Browne to “illustrate from Homer the respect paid to the rites of hospitality.”
The fact is, we do not anticipate from the educational plan, the happy results which seem to be generally looked for, the reasons for which have been given fully in the well-considered article “On the State of the British Army,” in our last Number. We fear that the best of the candidates might still be a poor creature or a prig, perfectly inoffensive, but no more capable of infusing confidence into an army than his grandmother. The spell which is to evoke the coming leader has not yet been framed—he will appear, as heretofore, when time and the hour shall bring him. While we are seeking him with spectacles and lantern, now in this corner, now in that, grasping what we think to be him, but which turns out to be a post, we shall hear in the distance his strong clear voice, dispelling doubt. And O that he were come! What order out of chaos, what confidence out of confusion, what reverential silence out of senseless clamour, what strength, hope, and trust, would attend his victorious steps! Now we know what gratitude is due to him who can wield firmly and gloriously the might of England,—now we know that dukedoms, Strathfieldsayes, garters, and uncounted honours, are all too little to acknowledge our debt to the bold sagacious spirit which can animate and direct our powers, else blind, diffused, and enervate.
We choose this juncture to attempt to instil into the public mind some doubt of its own cherished convictions, because those convictions may at present lead to consequences we would gladly avert. There is an idea abroad that the past campaign leaves us failures to be retrieved, glory to be recovered, and influence to be restored, and that another is necessary to set us once more on our accustomed pinnacle. In vain have we written, if it be not clear that we cannot share the popular feeling of discontent, either at the course of the war, or the prospects of peace. While Russia was stubborn, haughty, and repellant, none raised their voices more loudly than we, for prompt, vigorous, and sustained efforts against the foe. Now that she is willing to treat on bases which will insure to the Allies all the objects they took up arms to attain, we should be false to our own policy and convictions did we desire to continue the war upon the new ground, that fresh victory is necessary to our reputation. There is a vile savour of defeat about the sentiment, ill becoming a nation which has just borne its share in a great and successful feat of arms; and we repudiate it the more scornfully, because we can trace so clearly any loss of prestige we may have sustained, to the false and self-depreciatory outcries of our own ill-informed and ill-judging countrymen.
The plans of that coming campaign, if haply it is still to be, are now being settled by the council sitting in Paris. On the alternatives which present themselves to that council we have cast many an attentive and eager glance. First, with regard to the present theatre of operations, we have long considered an advance from our present position before Sebastopol impossible, partly for reasons already given in speaking of the expectations raised after the capture of the town. To advance from Eupatoria in great force is also probably impracticable, from the want of water in supply sufficiently frequent and copious to satisfy the requirements of a large army. There remains, then, only the Kertch peninsula as a base of operations, to which we must shift the mass of our army. That a campaign from thence would result in the conquest of the Crimean peninsula, we do not doubt. But two considerations arise: First, supposing the Crimea in the hands of the Allies, will not its disposal be a source of embarrassment, far from compensated for by the advantage of possessing it? Secondly, with Sebastopol wrested from her, her fleet destroyed, and her coasts blockaded, is not the Crimea already virtually lost to Russia? As to the first question, often discussed as we have heard it, we have never yet caught even a glimpse of a satisfactory solution. Joint occupation, possession granted to any one of the different powers, all expedients that present themselves, contain difficulties which would render any advantage accruing to us from its being so held, small in the balance. And what would that advantage be, beyond what the footing we have there already gives us? We can maintain a force as easily at Kamiesch as at Perekop, thus preventing Russia from re-occupying the great prize of the campaign, the “standing menace to Turkey;” and as to the loss to our enemy in being deprived of the Crimea, we have frequently expressed our opinion that, in holding territory so distant and difficult of access, she incurs loss far heavier than that of the prestige or dominion which would fall from her with the peninsula. The vast and ruinous efforts which she made before the fall of the city were indeed justified rather by the importance which the possession of Sebastopol had obtained in the negotiations than by its real value; those efforts may have had no small effect in inducing her present concessions; and to continue them would, in our view, be a draining and exhaustive policy.
The war in Asia offers a more alluring field of enterprise and achievement. None of those difficulties beset us at the outset which render the Crimean campaign such an uphill game. To recover Kars, to match our troops against the enemy in the open field, and to force them struggling back upon the Caucasus, forms a brilliant and attractive programme. But has France a sufficient interest in a campaign in Asia to induce her to join in it? Will she not say that British interests are mainly at stake here, and that, to her, Russian progress in Asia is comparatively a matter of indifference? And, if she takes this view, will it suit her to sit idly by, while the British army engrosses all the interest and glory which have such powerful allurements for the soldiers and people of France? But, whether our allies join us in such a campaign, or permit us to prosecute it alone, it is worth while to consider whether the advantages to be gained, either in the shape of positive successes or losses suffered by our adversary, are such as to compensate for the drain our army will suffer in a year of the most favourable and triumphant warfare in Asia.
The third important point open to attack is the fortress of Nicolaieff, the great naval arsenal and dockyard of Russia in the Black Sea. And if we had a voice in the Allied councils, on no point should we speak with more confidence and decision than in positively objecting to another great siege, jointly undertaken. In the first place, the French will always so far outnumber us as to be able to lay claim, and to establish their claim, to a far greater share of the weight, the conduct, and the glory of the enterprise. Then, as before, the English people, growing impatient, probably, at the necessarily slow progress of siege operations, filled, with the wildest expectations, and often doomed to find them disappointed, will once more give vent to their chagrin, by depreciating the exertions of their army; and they will again be suicidally successful in lowering their own military prestige, which this second campaign was to restore.
Having thus reviewed the possible theatres of operation, and weighed the successes to be gained against the sacrifices in achieving them, we have acquired the conviction that there is a method by which we shall more damage our adversary with less injury to ourselves than by any of these enterprises. Leaving an Allied garrison within the lines of Kamiesch, watching and harassing the coasts of the Euxine and the Sea of Azoff with a squadron of light vessels, and aiding the Turks with a large contingent, we would gladly see the Allied powers agreeing to withdraw their forces simultaneously from that distant and now unsatisfactory scene of operations, and to convert the war into a blockade. Deprived of all exercise for her military strength, which would then become to her an encumbrance, debarred from commerce, and incapable of injuring her adversaries, Russia would lie like a huge corpse rotting on the face of Europe—or a Titan chained to a rock, unable to scare away the assailant that rent his vitals.
Already we are beginning to lose sight of the objects with which we commenced the war: not for territorial aggrandisement, not for glory, not for augmentation of influence or prestige, not even for that which seems now to be so generally regarded as desirable, the ruin or deep injury of Russia, but for the security of Turkey against an act of oppression. Surely a war may be carried on fully in earnest without desiring the utter destruction of the foe; and there has been nothing in the course of hostilities to justify such deadly exasperation. Our object, always plain and direct, is not to destroy, but to coerce Russia. If she is now ready to make the required concessions, we can see no just or politic reason for continuing the war; if she be not ready to do so, we think the course we have pointed out the best and safest for obliging her to submit. In either case, we should welcome with joy the gallant army of the Crimea. With such a force ready in these islands for defence or aggression, what power would then dare to act on the presumption that England’s prestige has diminished? Come what come may, though fear of change should perplex the monarchs of Europe, and the elements of discord be loosed, our power would be founded as the rock. Girt by such a fleet as never before floated, and guarded by the best appointed army we ever possessed, we might bid defiance to the world in arms.