The papers relating to the fall of Kars, as laid before the British 
House of Commons, have been described by our London 
correspondent as arranged with a view to conceal, rather than 
disclose the truth; and a careful examination of the Blue Book in 
which they are contained* evinces the correctness of that 
judgment. Hardly less remarkable and significant than the papers 
themselves, are the comments they have elicited from the leading 
press of London. The Times, for instance, has devoted three 
consecutive articles to the subject,” selecting, however, as the 
special marks of its flourishes, invectives and arguments, the 
dispatches covering the interval from August 2, 1854, the day of 
General Williams’s appointment as British Commissioner at the 
head-quarters of the Turkish army in Asia, to the latter part of 
January, 1855, when his personal quarrels with Lord Stratford de 
Redcliffe had, at last, died away. The real aim of The Times, in 
giving this exaggerated importance to that portion of the 
documents which do not even touch on the epoch of actual 
warfare, is transparent. On the one hand, public attention was to 
be diverted from the darkest pages in this most melancholy Blue 
Book; and on the other, Lord Redcliffe is to be made the 
scapegoat of the Government at home. The rest of the daily 

London press, with the exception of The Morning Herald, are but 
too happy to follow in the track beaten by The Times. 

To become initiated in the mysteries of that disastrous Asiatic 
campaign, we must start from a quite different point, and 
commence by inquiring into the action of the Alhed Governments 
during the decisive epoch, beginning with the first advance of the 
Russians from Gumri, in May, and ending with the capitulation of 
Kars, on November 24, 1855.*°° Carefully concocted as it is, 
mutilated by omissions, falsified by extracts, beautified by patches 
and plasters, even this Government publication, if put to the 
critical rack, may be forced to speak truth. 

Toward the end of May, 1855, Gen. Williams reports to Lord 
Redcliffe, who reports to Lord Clarendon, that a large Russian 
force, consisting of 28,000 infantry, 7,500 cavalry, and 64 pieces of 
artillery was assembled around Gumri; that the Mushir* had 
received information of their intention to attack Kars, and that 
their own (Turkish) force concentrated in the intrenched camp 
consisted of 13,900 infantry, 1,500 cavalry, 1,500 artillerymen, and 
42 field-pieces. When Redcliffe received this letter from Williams, 
and Clarendon from Redcliffe, both already held in their hands 
another letter from Williams, in which he makes the following 
statement: 

“T left Erzeroum yesterday (2d June) en route for Kars, which place the enemy 
has announced, in an order of the day, his intention to attack.... I have now four 
months’ provision in that garrison” (viz.: at Kars), “and [...] trust the central 

Government and the Allies will soon prove to this remnant of an army that it is not 
absolutely forgotten by them.” 

The English Government, then, was informed that if Kars 
should be cut off from Erzeroum, and a blockade be established 
by the Russians, the fortress could not hold out much longer than 
Oct. 3, 1855. If it did fall rather more than a month after, it was 
because the garrison were Turks, and not beef-eaters. 

On the receipt of the dispatches from General Williams, 
Redcliffe makes urgent recommendations to the Porte that 
reenforcements with fresh supplies and money should be sent 
forthwith to the army of Kars. He even invites the Seraskier,” now 
that Circassia is cleared of the Russians, to unite the army of 
Batoum with that of Kars. Why the Porte objected to this 
proposal, the following dispatch from Gen. Williams explains: 

“Kars, June 28, 1855.—Mustapha Pasha of Batoum has |...] recently written to 
me to say that he had only 3,772 regular troops, and was pressed by the enemy.” 

On June 28, Lord Redcliffe reports to Lord Clarendon that: 

“Tt is some consolation to him [...] that even at this eleventh hour the Porte has 
recognized the necessity of listening to his advice, and sending out reenforcements 
without further delay.” 

The only difficulty avowed by Redcliffe himself was to decide 
where those reenforcements were to come from. 

“How are they to be provided with the necessarv supplies? [...] Nothing can 
with prudence or consistency be detached from the army under Omer Pasha in the 
Crimea. At Batoum, Sukum Kaleh, and other neighboring stations on the coast, it 
would be extremely difficult to muster more than 11,000 men. [...] The other parts 
of the Empire afford no additional reserves, with the exception of Bosnia, where it 
is stall possible that a few thousand men might be detached. I speak of regulars. 
Bashi-Bazouks may be procured, but your lordship knows what little dependence is 
to be placed on such undisciplined hordes. There remains the half-formed corps of 
Gen. Vivian, and the irregular cavalry collected by Gen. Beatson and his officers. 
[...] In Bulgaria I question the existence of more than 50,000 men, including 
garrisons.... Austria, it is true, has declared her intention of considering the passage 
of the Danube by Russia a casus belli, and she also stands pledged to the exclusion 
of that power from the Danubian Principalities; but the resolution which in such an 
emergency would enable the Porte to take its line upon those assurances, and to 
overlook the awkwardness of leaving an important position inadequately 
defended, is more fit to be admired than to be embraced.” 

According, then, to the avowal of Redcliffe himself, he urges the 
Porte to send to Kars “reenforcements of every description,” while 
he is quite aware that there exist none of any description 
whatever. 

On June 30 there took place at the Grand-Vizier’s* house, on 
the Bosphorus, a meeting between the Grand-Vizier, the Seraskier, 
and Fuad Pasha on the one side, and Redcliffe, attended by 
Brigadier Mansfield, on the other. The Turkish Ministers pro- 
posed, as they had done before, to collect an army at Redout Kaleh, 
which was to advance to Kutais, and to make from there an 
excursion into Georgia. They proposed that the expeditionary 
force should be composed as follows: 

Vivian's Contingent......... 20,000 To be drawn fm Bulgaria. 5,000 
BCAtsOit Si larnnrdurtanedes 3,000 Egyptian Cavalry oo... 800 
Batoum garrison ............. 12,000 unis HOPS savigeieleonyss 600 
Albanians .............000ccceeeees 2,000 Se 

STU al cayieelech cut oes tuicanads taeecateanassaesn lureos calesuadia tend re snctaunees acter ate 43,400 

The Turkish Ministers expressed their readiness to intrust the 
direction of the expedition to a British commander, and to accept 
General Vivian in that capacity. Gen. Vivian at once raised 
difficulties as to the means disposable for this plan, and 
considered the employment of his contingent as premature and 
interfering with the arrangements for its organization. Two weeks 
later Redcliffe communicated to his Government that— 

“Preparations for the said expedition are in progress, and that it might save’ 
much valuable time if he was informed at once by telegraph whether Government 
was prepared to sanction a powerful diversion, by Redout Kaleh and Kutais into 
Georgia.” 

On July 13th, 1855, Lord Clarendon sends a dispatch wherein 
he first repeats the objections raised by General Vivian, and then 
adds his own: 

“Her Majesty’s government are of opinion that the wiser course would be to 
send reenforcements to the rear of the Turkish army, instead of sending an 
expedition to the rear of the Russian army. The reenforcements might go to 
Trebizond, and be directed from thence upon Erzeroum. The distance from 
Trebizond to Erzeroum is less than from Redout Kaleh to Tiflis, and the march is 
through a friendly instead of through a hostile country; and at Erzeroum the army 
would meet supporting friends instead of opposing enemies, and supplies instead 
of famine. 

“If the army of Kars cannot maintain that position against the Russians, it should 
fall back upon Erzeroum, and the whole Turkish force should be concentrated there. 
If the Russians are to be defeated” (are they?), “it will be easier to defeat them by the 
whole force collected than by divided portions of that force: and a defeat would be 
the more decisive the further it took place within the Turkish frontier.” 

On the following day, July 14, Clarendon also addresses the 
following telegraphic answer to Lord Redcliffe’s telegraphic 
question: 

“The plan for reenforcing the army at Kars, contained in your dispatches of the 
30th June and Ist inst., is disapproved. The reasons will be sent by the messenger 
to-day against employing the Turkish contingent until it is fit for service. 
Trebizond ought to be the base of operations, and if the Turkish army of Kars and 

Erzeroum cannot hold out at the latter place against the Russians, it might fall back 
on Trebizond, where it would easily be reenforced.” 

It is very curious that this telegraphic dispatch, dated London, 
July 14, had not arrived at Constantinople on July 19, on which 
day we find Redcliffe writing again to Clarendon: 

“An appeal has [...] been made by means of the electric telegraph to her 
Majesty’s Government, who were entreated to lose no time in making known their 
pleasure as to the proposed diversion.” 

‘In fact, this answer from London only reached Constantinople 
on the 30th of July, six days after the arrival there of the London 
mail of the 14th of July. On July 15 the Seraskier informs Lord 
Redcliffe, through Gen. Mansfield, that: 

“The 15,000 men in Bulgaria destined to form part of the expedition were in 
readiness to march to the coast with sufficient means of transport, and that, in 
general, his preparations were so advanced as only to require the assent of Her Mayesty’s 
Government to carry them into effect.” 

Meanwhile, appeals from Gen. Williams for assistance followed 
upon appeals. On June 23 he announces that— 
“The enemy [...] has pushed forward large bodies of cavalry, [...] and urgently 

recommends the immediate landing of troops at Trebizond, and if the season 
admit of it, strong demonstrations from Redout Kaleh.” 

On June 26, he writes that the Turkish army in Kars was 
surrounded by the Russians, who had established themselves on 
the high road between that fortress and Erzeroum, and cut off a 
portion of the provisions collected for the army. On June 27, he 
states that the Russian army was master of the surrounding 
country. On June 28, that the enemy was master of all beyond the 
reach of their guns, and that the troops at Kars were twenty-three, 
twenty-seven and twenty-eight months respectively in arrear of 
their pay; and on July 7, that the united forces of the Russians 
were ready either to assault or to more closely invest Kars, by 
cutting off their only remaining communication with Erzeroum via 
Olti. It is true that these latter dispatches did not arrive in London 
till July 26; still the use of the telegraph occurred to the British 
Government only on August 9—not indeed to advise what should 
be done in consequence of this news, but only to raise fresh 
difficulties against what the Porte was preparing to do. On the 
same day on which Lord Clarendon addressed Lord Redcliffe by 
telegraph, Lord Panmure addressed General Vivian as follows: 

“War Department, July 14, 1855. 

“Sir: I transmit herewith, for your information, a copy of a dispatch which the 
Earl of Clarendon has addressed to her Majesty’s Embassador at Constantinople, 
on the subject of the plan proposed by the Porte for the relief of the Turkish army 
at Kars, and I have to acquaint you that I entirely concur in all that is said in that 
dispatch as to the objectionable character of the plan proposed by the Porte. I 
place such full reliance on your professional ability that I feel no anxiety lest you 
_ should undertake any expedition of a nature so wild and indigested as that 

contemplated by the Porte. While it is your duty to give every aid in your power, 
not simply as commanding the Contingent, but as a British officer enjoying the 
confidence of her Majesty’s Government, to our allies, the Turks, it is at the same 
time necessary that you should be cautious in not risking the honor of the British 

name and your own reputation by undertaking military operations for which 
proper bases have not been laid down, communications opened, supplies arranged, 
and transport provided. A coup de main by means of suddenly throwing an army 
on the coast to threaten, or even to attack an enemy's stronghold, is one thing; but 
a deliberate expedition to invade an enemy’s country, and on his own territory to 
make war against him, is quite another. In the first case something may be 
hazarded; but in the other every preparation must precede action. Moreover, from 
all the information which has reached me, I have every reason to believe the army 
of Batoum to be in a deplorable state. I know the Contingent to be scarcely 
organized; of the Bulgarian troops you can have no knowledge; and I presume 
that Beatson’s troops are as little reduced to control and discipline as your own 
troops. In short, | am assured that it would be madness to attempt to succor 
Brigadier-Gencral Williams in this way. It is too late to regret the policy which has 
left that gallant officer.and his army exposed to such straits; but it would only be 
opening the way to fresh failure to follow out such schemes as have been proposed 
for the purpose of relieving him. You must, as I have no doubt you feel, lose no 
time in getting your force into order for service, which will be sure to await you 
somewhere as soon as you are ready for it; but organization 1s as necessary for an 
army as endurance and valor, and without the former the latter qualities are utterly - 

unavailing. 
: 8 * Panmure.” 

The plan proposed by the Porte was, in its general conception, 
bold and strategically correct; it amounted, in fact, to the adoption 
of an eccentric position with respect to the invading army, 
menacing Tiflis, the center of the Russian power in Asta, and thus, 
by threatening to cut off Muravieff’s basis and line of operations, 
forcing him to retreat from before Kars. A Mingrelian expedition 
held out fair prospects not only of relieving Kars, but of affording 
ample opportunity to gain the great point in all warfare, viz.: 
throwing the enemy on the defensive. But, the urgency of the 
danger being admitted, such an expedition could hardly be 
undertaken save on the condition of its being pushed on with 
rapidity, with a numerically sufficient force, and with an abun- 
dance of supplies and means of transport. Now, the army 
proposed by the Porte for this service, apart from its motley 
composition and the unfinished drill of certain portions, was to 
muster 43,000, or, as Redcliffe computes them, only 36,000 men. 
It was with about the same force that Omer Pasha afterward 
undertook the expedition; still, when he arrived at the Rioni 
(Phasis), his army had dwindled down to 18,000 or 20,000 men. 
Muravieff had, in his immediate rear, Gumri, as his nearest 
support, a fortress expressly calculated for the offensive against 
the Turkish territory; he was therefore enabled to keep his 
position till informed of the advance on Tiflis being near its 
accomplishment. However, for the expedition to assume this 
dangerous turn, there was required the descent of at least 55,000 

to 60,000 men on the Circassian coast, the capture of Kutais, and 
the forcing of the pass of Gort. The Turks not having that force at 
their disposition, there remained but the alternative of marching 
via Trebizond on Erzeroum, thence to relieve, reenforce and 
provision Kars and limit themselves to the defensive. An army of 
20,000 men was, at all events, more useful at Erzeroum than one 
of only 40,000 in Mingrelia. There were also difficulties in the way 
of that operation; the roads being extremely bad, a considerable 
force with its artillery and ammunition could hardly reach 
Erzeroum in less than three months, and thus the crisis might 
have been over long before the army could arrive on the scene of 
action. If, on the other hand, a small force were sent, it might 
succeed in reestablishing the communication between Erzeroum 
and Kars, but would be insufficient to guard Erzeroum if Kars 
had fallen. It is clear, then, that the Turks had hit on the best plan 
for the relief of Kars; but that the Allies, by locking up in the 
Crimea the only Turkish army capable of carrying it out, 
prevented its execution. 

Let us now come to the objections raised by the British 
Government. Lord Clarendon commences his attack, not upon the 
weak points, but on the strategically correct points of the Turkish 
plan. He thinks it wiser for an army to strengthen its defensive 
basis in its own rear than to undertake offensive operations in the 
rear of the enemy. We will leave him to settle this point with old 
Napoleon or Jomini, while we can quite understand his anxiety for 
a safe retreat. He thinks it better for an army to march through a 
friendly country than through a hostile one, if march it must. In 
his first dispatch he says that if the Turkish army could not 
maintain its position at Kars, it should fall back on Erzeroum. Did 
he not know Kars was the key of Erzeroum, and that but for the 
prolonged defense of Kars, Erzeroum in its then state of defense 
would have fallen in the same year? But, as his Lordship 
entertains peculiar views as to the offensive and the marching of 
armies, so he holds opinions of his own with regard to defensive 
warfare. A defeat of the Russians, he says, would be the more 
decisive, the nearer it took place to the gates of Constantinople. In 
his telegraphic dispatch of July 14, he goes a step further, and 
coolly recommends the Porte to withdraw its army not only from 
Kars, but also from Erzeroum, falling back on Trebizond, “where 
it could easily be reenforced.”» He would have the Turkish army 
come to its reenforcements, if the reenforcements would not come 
to it. Not choosing to recollect, before the fall of Kars, the 
importance of Erzeroum as the center not only of the commercial 

but also of the military resources of Anatolia, he discovers, after 
the fall of Kars (when writing to Lord Cowley in December, 1855), 
that that alone was sufficient 

“to bring about the worst consequences, if prompt and decisive measures are 
not taken. Masters of that strong fortress, threatening Erzeroum, and commanding 
all the mountain passes, the Russians might be able to force the whole of Kurdistan 
and the Armenian population to assist them against the Sultan*; and the Allies 

might in a few months learn that far greater dangers threatened the Ottoman 
Empire on the side of Asia than on that of Europe.” 

From the same telegraphic dispatch (14th July) we also see that 
the Turkish contingent was formed for no other purpose than to 
remove from the control of the Porte the only reenforcements of 
its armies. 

This much would seem to result from the dispatches of 
Clarendon, namely: that it was a settled point with the British 
Government as early as July, 1855, that Kars and Erzeroum 
should fall into the hands of the Russians. This strange and 
indeed almost impossible view of the case is further confirmed by 
the dispatch of Lord Panmure to General Vivian. Nothing could 
be more curious than the distinction drawn by this English 
Minister between his own Crimean expedition and the Mingrelian 
expedition intended by the Porte. Because the civilized Govern- 
ments of the West had ventured upon a headlong coup de main 
against Sevastopol, the barbarians of the East must not undertake 
a “deliberate” expedition against Georgia. The forces enumerated 
in the Turkish plan he scatters to the winds, and laughs at the 
notion that Turkey possessed any army fit for operations, except 
the one pent up in the Crimea. What, then, after all, was the 
meaning of the hectoring and bullying instructions as to reen- 
forcements with which the British Government worried the poor 
Porte? Was it to read well in a Blue Book on “The fall of Kars?”