It is now very near a twelvemonth since a small Turkish corps, 
two battalions, succeeded in crossing the Danube near Turtukai, 
opposite Oltenitza, threw up intrenchments there, and being 
attacked by the Russians, repulsed them in a very spirited little 
affair, which, being the first engagement in the war, took the style 
and title of the Battle of Oltenitza. There the Turks alone were 
opposed to the Russians; they had no British or French troops 
behind them as a reserve, and could not even expect any support 
from the allied fleets. And yet they held their ground on the 
Wallachian side of the river for a fortnight at Oltenitza, and for 
the whole winter at Kalafat. 

Since then, England and France have declared war against 
Russia; sundry exploits, of a doubtful nature it is true, have been 
achieved. Black Sea fleets, Baltic fleets, and an army of now nearly 
a hundred thousand English and French soldiers are there to 
assist the Turks or to make diversions in their favor. And the 
upshot of all this is nothing but a repetition of the Oltenitza 
business on a larger scale, but rather less successfully than last 
year. 

The Russians laid siege to Silistria. They went about it stupidly 
but bravely. They were defeated day after day, night after night; 
not by superior science, not by Captain Butler or Lieutenant 
Nasmyth, the two British officers present who, according to The 
Times, saved Silistria.* They were defeated by the ignorance of the 
Turks, an ignorance extending so far as not to know when a fort 

or rampart ceases to be tenable, and sticking doggedly to every 
inch of ground, every molehill which the enemy appears to covet. 
They were defeated, besides, by the stolidity of their own 
Generals, by fever and cholera; finally by the moral effect of an 
allied army menacing their left, and an Austrian army menacing 
their right wing. When the war began, we stated that the Russian 
army had never been able to lay a regular siege, and the 
ill-managed operations before Silistria show that they have not 
improved since. Well, they were defeated; they had to decamp in 
the most discreditable way imaginable; they had to raise the siege 
of an incomplete fortress in the midst of a fine season, and 
without any troops coming to relieve the garrison. Such an event 
occurs not more than once in a century; and whatever the 
Russians may try to do in the autumn, the campaign is lost, 
disgracefully lost for them. 

But now for the reverse of the medal. Silistria is free. The 
Russians retreat to the left bank of the Danube. They even 
prepare for, and gradually execute the evacuation of the 
Dobrodja. Hirsova and Matchin are dismantled. The Sereth seems 
to be the line to which the Russians trust for the defense, not of 
their conquests, but of their own territory. Omer Pasha, the wily 
old Croat, who can hold his tongue or tell a lie as well as anybody, 
“in the execution of his duty,” at once sends a corps to the 
Dobrodja and another to Rustchuk, thus engaging the two wings 
of the Russians at once. There were far better maneuvers possible 
at the time, but poor old Omer appears to know the Turks and 
the allies better than we do. The correct military move to be made 
would have been to march through the Dobrodja or by Kalarash 
upon the communications of the enemy; but after what we have 
seen, we cannot even accuse Omer of having missed a goog! 
opportunity. We know that his army is very badly cared for 
—provided with almost nothing—and cannot, therefore, execute 
rapid movements which would remove it to a distance from its 
base, or open up fresh lines of operation. These movements, 
decisive as they are in their effect, when undertaken by a 
sufficient force, are not within the reach of an army which lives 
from hand to mouth, and has to pass through a barren country. 
We know that Omer Pasha went to Varna, imploring the aid of 
the allied generals, who at that time had 75,000 capital soldiers 
there, within four days’ march of the Danube; but neither St. 
Arnaud nor Raglan thought proper to come up to where they 
could meet the enemy. Thus Omer could do no more than he has 
done. He sent 25,000 men toward the Dobrodja, and marched 

with the rest of his army to Rustchuk. Here his troops passed 
from island to island until the Danube was crossed, and then, by a 
sudden march to the left, took Giurgevo in the rear, and forced 
the Russians to quit it. On the next day the Russians were drawn 
up on some hights to the north of Giurgevo, where the Turks 
attacked them. A sanguinary battle ensued, remarkable for the 
number of English officers who, with rare success, competed for 
the honor of being shot first. They all got their bullets, but with 
no benefit to anybody, for it would be preposterous to think that 
the sight of a British officer being shot could inflame a Turkish 
soldier to invincibility. However, the Russians having a mere 
advanced guard on the spot—a brigade, the two regiments of 
Kolyvan and Tomsk—got beaten, and the Turks made good their 
footing on the Wallachian bank of the Danube. They at once set 
about fortifying the place, and as they had British sappers, and as 
at Kalafat they did very well for themselves, there is no doubt that 
they were making a formidable position of it. But thus far they 
were allowed to go, and no further. That Emperor of Austria who 
now for eight months has been trying hard to act the part of an 
independent man, steps in at once. The Principalities have been 
promised to his troops as a feeding ground, and he intends to 
have them. What business have the Turks there? Let them go back 
to Bulgaria. So down comes the order from Constantinople to 
withdraw the Turkish troops from the left bank, and to leave “all 
that plot of land” to the tender mercies of the Austrian soldiers. 
Diplomacy is above strategy. Whatever may. come of it, the 
Austrians will save their own frontiers by occupying a few yards of 
ground. beyond; and to this important end even the necessities of 
the war must give way. Besides, is not Omer Pasha an Austrian 
deserter? And Austria never forgets. In-Montenegro she interrupt- 
ed his victorious career; and she repeats the process again, to 
make the renegade feel that he is not yet out of the allegiance of 
his lawful sovereign. 

It is entirely useless to enter into the military details of this 
present stage of the campaign. The actions possess little tactical 
interest, being plain, straightforward front attacks; the movements 
of troops on either side are ruled more by diplomatical than 
strategical motives. Most likely we shall see the campaign closing 
without any great enterprise, for on the Danube there is nothing 
prepared for a grand offensive, and as to the taking of Sevastopol, 
of which we hear so much, the beginning will probably be delayed 
until the season is so far advanced that it must be postponed till 
next year. 

It would seem that whoever may have had any conservative 
leanings in Europe must lose them when he looks at this 
everlasting Eastern Question. There is all Europe, incapable, 
convicted for the last sixty years of incapability to settle this puny 
little strife. There they are, France, England, Russia, going actually 
to war. They carry on their war for six months; and unless by 
mistake, or on a very shabby scale, they have not even come to 
blows. There they are, eighty or ninety thousand English and 
French soldiers at Varna, commanded by old Wellington’s late 
military secretary,* and by a Marshal of France” (whose greatest 
exploits, it is true, were performed in London pawnshops)—there 
they are, the French doing nothing and the British helping them 
as fast as they can; and as they may think this sort of business not 
exactly honorable, the fleets are come up to Baltshik Roads to 
have a look at them and to see which of the two armies can enjoy 
the dolce far niente with the greatest decorum. And yet, although 
the allies have hitherto only been eating up the provisions upon 
which the Turkish army had calculated, idling away day after day 
at Varna for the last two months, they are not yet fit for duty. 
They would have relieved Silistria if required by about the middle 
of May next year. The troops that have conquered Algeria and 
learned the theory and practice of war on one of the most difficult 
theaters in existence,**° the soldiers who fought the Sikhs on the 
sands of the Indus, and the Kaffirs in the thorny bush of South 
Africa,”*’ in countries far more savage than Bulgaria—there they 
are, helpless and useless, fit for nothing in a country which even 
exports corn! 

But if the allies are miserable in their performances, so are the 
Russians. They have had plenty of time to prepare. They have 
done whatever they could, for they knew from the beginning what 
resistance they would find. And yet, what have they been able to 
do? Nothing. They could not take a yard of contested ground 
from the Turks; they could not take Kalafat; they could not beat 
the Turks in one single engagement. And yet they are the same 
Russians who, under Miinnich and Suvoroff conquered the Black 
Sea coast from the Don to the Dniester. But Schilder is not 
Miinnich, Paskievich is not Suvoroff, and though the Russian 
soldier can bear flogging with the cane beyond all others, yet when 

it comes to habitual retreating, he loses his steadiness as well as 
anybody else. 

The fact is, that conservative Europe—the Europe of “order, 
property, family, religion’—-the Europe of monarchs, feudal 
lords, moneyed men, however they may be differently assorted in 
different countries—is once more exhibiting its extreme impoten- 
cy. Europe may be rotten, but a war should have roused the sound 
elements; a war should have brought forth some latent energies, 
and assuredly there should be that much pluck among two 
hundred and fifty millions of men that at least one decent struggle 
might be got up, wherein both parties could reap some honor, 
such as force and spirit can carry off even from the field of battle. 
But no. Not only is the England of the middle classes, the France 
of the Bonapartes, incapable of a decent, hearty, hard-fought war; 
but even Russia, the country of Europe least infected by infidel 
and unnerving civilization, cannot bring about anything of the 
kind. The Turks are fit for sudden starts of offensive action, and 
stubborn resistance on the defensive, but seem not to be made for 
large combined maneuvers with great armies. Thus everything is 
reduced to a degree of impuissance and a reciprocal confession of 
weakness, which appears to be as reciprocally expected by all . 
parties. With governments such as they are at present, this Eastern 
war may be carried on for thirty years, and yet come to no 
conclusion. 

But while official incompetency is thus displaying itself all over 
Europe, in the south-western corner of that continent a movement 
breaks out which dt once shows that there are still other forces 
more active than the official ones. Whatever may be the real 
character and the end of the Spanish rising, so much at least may 
be affirmed, that it bears to a future revolution the same relation 
as the Swiss and Italian movements of 1847 to the revolution of 
1848.7 There are two grand facts in it: first, the military, the 
actual rulers of the continent since 1849, have got divided among 
themselves, and have given up their calling of preserving order, 
for the purpose of asserting their own opinion in opposition to the 
Government. Their discipline taught them their power, and this 
power has loosened their discipline. Secondly, we have had the 
spectacle of a successful barricade fight. Wherever barricades had 
been raised since June, 1848,7*° they had hitherto proved of no 
avail. Barricades, the resistance of the population of a large town 
against the military, seemed of no effect whatever. That prejudice 
has fallen. We have again seen victorious, unassailable barricades. 
The spell is broken. A new revolutionary era is rendered possible, 

and it is significant that while the troops of official Europe are 
showing themselves useless in actual war, they are at the same time 
defeated by the insurgent inhabitants of a town.