We published the other day some interesting extracts from the 
pamphlet lately issued by Prince Napoleon, which, we doubt not, 
were duly considered by our readers. That pamphlet’ reveals the 
striking and most important fact, that the Crimean Expedition was 
an original invention of Louis Bonaparte himself; that he 
elaborated it in all its details, without communicating with 
anybody; that he sent it in his own handwriting to Constantinople, 
in order to avoid the objections of Marshal Vaillant. Since all this 
is known, a great portion of the flagrant military blunders 
connected with this expedition is explained by the dynastic 
necessities of its author. In the council of war at Varna it had to 
be forced upon the Admirals and Generals present, by St. Arnaud, 
appealing, in the most direct manner, to the authority of the 
“Emperor,” while that potentate, in return, publicly branded all 
opposing opinions as “timid counsels.” Once in the Crimea, 
Raglan’s really timid proposal to march to Balaklava was readily 
adopted by St. Arnaud, as it led directly, if not into, at least to 
somewhere near, the gates of Sevastopol. The frantic efforts to 
push the siege, though without sufficient means—the eagerness to 
open the fire, which made the French neglect the solidity of their 
works to such a degree that their batteries were silenced by the 
enemy in a couple of hours—the consequent overworking of the 
troops in the trenches, which is now proved to have done as much 
as anything else toward the destruction of the British army—the 
inconsiderate and useless cannonade from the. 17th of October to 
the 5th of November—the neglect of all defensive works, and 

* De la conduite de la guerre d’Orient....— Ed. 

Fate of the Great Adventurer 87 

even of a sufficient occupation of the ridge toward the Chernaya, 
which ended in the losses of Balaklava and Inkermann **—all this'is 
now as clearly explained as can be wished for. The Bonaparte 
dynasty was bound to take Sevastopol at any cost, and at the 
shortest notice; and the allied armies had to do it. Canrobert, if 
successful, would be made a Marshal of France, Count, Duke, 
Prince, whatever he liked, with unlimited powers to commit 
“irregularities” in financial matters; while if unlucky, he would be 
a traitor to the Emperor, and would have to go and join his 
former comrades, Lamoriciére, Bedeau, and Changarnier, in their 
exile. And Raglan was just enough of an old woman to give way to 
his interested colleague. 

All this, however, is but the least important feature of the 
consequences incumbent upon this Imperial plan of operations. 
Nine French divisions, equal to eighty-one battalions, have been 
engaged. in this hopeless affair. The greatest efforts, the most 
lavish sacrifices have accomplished nothing; Sevastopol is stronger 
than ever; the French trenches are, as we now learn from 
authentic sources, still fully four hundred yards from the Russian 
works, while the British trenches are twice that distance; Gen. 
Niel, sent by Bonaparte to look into the siege works, declares that 
an assault is not to be thought of; he has changed the principal 
points of attack from the French to the British side, thereby not 
only causing delay in the siege, but directing the main attack 
toward a suburb which, even if taken, is still separated from the 
town by the Inner Harbor Creek. In short, device after device, 
dodge after dodge is resorted to, to keep up, not the hope, but the 
mere appearance of a hope of success. And when matters are 
come to this pitch, when a general war on the Continent is 
imminent, when a fresh expedition to the Baltic is preparing—an 
expedition which must do something this season, and therefore 
must be far stronger in land-troops than that of 1854—at this 
moment, obstinacy goads Louis Bonaparte to engage five more 
divisions of infantry in this Crimean slough, where men, and even 
whole regiments, vanish as by enchantment! And, as if that were 
not sufficient, he has made up his mind to go there himself, and 
to see the final assault carried out by his soldiers. 

This is a situation to which the first strategic experiment of 
Louis Bonaparte has reduced France. The man who, with some 
sort of reason, thinks he is bound to be a great Captain, 
approaching, in some degree, the founder of his dynasty, turns 
out at the very beginning a mere presumptuous piece of 
incapacity. With very limited information, he forms the plan of the 

expedition at some 3,000 miles from the spot, works it out in its 
details, and sends it off secretly and without consulting anybody, 
to his General-in-Chief,* who, though but a few hundred miles 
from the point of attack, is yet equally ignorant as to the nature of 
the obstacles and the force of resistance likely to be encountered. 
The Expedition once commenced, disaster follows disaster; even 
victory is worse than sterile, and the only result obtained is the 
destruction of the expeditionary army itself. Napoleon, in his best 
days, would never have persisted in such an undertaking. In such 
a case, he used to find some fresh device, to lead his troops on a 
sudden to a fresh point of attack, and by a brilliant maneuver, 
crowned with success, make even temporary defeat appear as but 
contributive to final victory. What if he had resisted to the last at 
Aspern? It was only in the time of his decline, when the 
thunderstroke of 1812 had shaken his confidence in himself, that 
his energy of will turned into blind obstinacy, that, as at Leipsic,** 
he clung to the last to positions which his military judgment must 
have told him were completely false. But here is just the 
difference between the two Emperors; what Napoleon ended with, 
Louis Napoleon begins with. 

That Louis Bonaparte has the firm intention to go to the 
Crimea, and to take Sevastopol himself, is very likely. He may 
delay his departure, but nothing short of peace will shake his 
resolution. Indeed, his personal fate is bound up with this 
expedition, which is his first military effort. But, from the day he 
actually sets out, the fourth and greatest French revolution may be 
said to date its beginning. Everybody in Europe feels this. 
Everybody dissuades him. A shudder runs through the ranks of 
the French middle-class when this departure to the Crimea is 
mentioned. But, the hero of Strassburg is inflexible. A gambler 
all his life, a gambler accustomed of late to the very heaviest of 
stakes, he stakes his all upon the one card of his “star,” against the 
most fearful odds. Besides, he knows well enough that the hopes 
of the bourgeoisie, to escape the crisis by retaining him in Paris, 
are entirely hollow. Whether he be there or not, it is the fate of 
the French Empire, the fate of the existing social order of things, 
which is still approaching its decision in the trenches before ° 
Sevastopol. If successful there against hope, by his presence he will 
overstep the barrier between a highwayman and a hero, at least in 
the opinion of Europe; unsuccessful, his Empire is gone under all 
circumstances. That he calculates upon the possibility of such an 

* Saint- Arnaud.— Ed. 

Fate of the Great Adventurer 89 

event, is shown by his taking with him his rival and heir 
presumptive, the young Jérome Bonaparte, in the livery of a 
Lieutenant-General. 

For the moment, this Crimean Expedition serves nobody better 
than Austria. This slough which drains off by army-corps after 
army-corps the strength of both France and Russia, must, if the 
struggle before Sevastopol lasts a few months longer, leave Austria 
the main arbiter of the Continent, where her 600,000 bayonets 
remain disposable, in a compact mass, to be cast as an 
overwhelming weight into the scale. But, fortunately, there is a 
counterpoise against this Austrian supremacy. The moment 
France is launched again in the revolutionary career, this Austrian 
force dissolves itself into its discordant elements. Germans, 
Hungarians, Poles, Italians, Croats are loosened from the forced 
bond which ties them together, and instead of the undetermined 
and hap-hazard alliances and antagonisms of today, Europe will 
again be divided into two great camps with distinct banners and 
new issues. Then the struggle will be only between the Democratic 
Revolution on one side and the Monarchical Counter-Revolution 
on the other. 

Written about March 16, 1855 Reproduced from the New-York 

: : . Daily Tribune 

Tribune, No. 4353, April 2, 1855, re-