THE HAMBURG OF THE EIIXINE.
1 Adam Street, Adelphi, 14111 May 1855.
Snt—At the commencement of the present war I speculated in your pages on the advisability of taking and keeping the Crimea, and selling off the land in small lots on the London Exchange and elsewhere, in aid of a sink- ing-fund for the expenses of the war. We had not then taken Sebastopol, nor have we now ; but the Romans of old sold by auction in the forum the land on which was encamped the army if the conquering Carthaginian; and we are not less than the Romans. The Crimea is ours, if we will it—ours and that of our Allies, as surely as Dover and Calais. We have nothing to repine at. Whatever is is right. Had we taken Se- bastopol by a sudden rush after the battle of the Alma, we should have vain- glorified ourselves on what we had not as well as on what we had and have. The grand and indomitable courage of our people would have overshadowed our shortcomings, and we should have gone on in the belief that our system was a perfect one, till at some future time we should have plunged into a similar series of blunders, possibly with less favourable circumstances to re- trieve them. " Our noble army of martyrs " has indeed bled for us ; but, alas ! it is only by the blood of martyrs that the regeneration of a people can be wrought out. Grievous though it be, we have reason to be thankful that such martyrs are found amongst our ranks. Had our people been of low caste and only remarkable for obedience to orders, they might, under skilful generals, have achieved victories as do Indian sippahees ; but the perma- nence of our nation would in such ease have depended upon individual men ; we should have been as the people of Thebes, whose glory rose—and fell—with Epaminondas and Pelopidas. But it is not so. Whether with or without generals, whether as an army or as a crowd, the heroism is in the mass ; and, as with the Greeks of Thermopylie—whether that be his- tory or fable—the heroism only becomes extinct with the death of the last weapon-wielder. Disasters, defeats, miseries, nothing can baffle such a peo- ple—only extinction—an extinction preferable to living the life of serfs. England and France represent the world's progress, aide by side with en- lightened, wise Sardinia. Russia represents the dark ages in their death- throes ; while Prussia and Austria, balancing sinister and dexter, "let I dare not wait upon I would."
Had the Allies made a brilliant success, the foeman and the world might have called it a happy chance on one side against misfortunes on the other : but the process has been slow and sure. Never have the Russians stood their ground against the Allies in fair fight. They have burrowed in their earth and atone, and the process has been as that of drawing a badger, the severest of all trials of the tenacity and endurance of well-trained dogs. Sebas- topol has been the treasure-house of war. There have been gathered to- gether the stores and munitions of a score and a half of years, destined for the conquest of Constantinople. The value of that treasure has changed the Scythian policy of retreating and destroying before an advancing enemy. The armament intended for the Dardanelles is consuming day by day in wrath and despair; and even were the siege sure to be now abandoned the hope of success against Turkey must be postponed for two generations. When Sebas- topol can no longer be maintained, the destruction of their fleet and the lad remnant of their war-gear will precede the snarling retreat of the baffled Scythians ; who will fly howling across the neck of Perekop, adding another to the many proofs that, numerous though they be, they cannot concentrate their numbers to any useful effect against the men of England and Franca; wha will settle down and make a. thriving colony of freemen on the soil, where the Russ kept only serfs, after robbing it by main force from its former owners. At the outset the Allies proclaimed their intentions not to make any territorial aggrandizement. It is quite compatible with that promise to set up new na- tions under their guarantee, to break the heart and wither the grasp of des- potic Russia, and drive her back into her howling wilderness, till the energies of those who have fought to retain Sebastopol shall begin to prompt the question, whether successful freedom be not a better thing for them and theirs than unsuccessful despotism? After all, it is not against Russians that we combat, but against the evil principle that crushes and makes powerless the Russians themselves. Russia must be broken into fragments ere she can, grow into a form of beauty. But for her own aggression this painful ope- ration might have been postponed yet awhile ; but she has sown the wind and must reap the whirlwind.
Sebastopol attained, step by step, across the Steppes must the Allies drive in the Russian lines ; or if it be too much waste of life to march up the ridges, as at the Alma, they must cut off the rear. Of course the savage Scythian will destroy Simpheropol, and every farm and village, when forced to leave it, and will fight furiously ere he traces his way over the dry desert leading to his refuge : but the Alhes must bring the resources of modern engineering to bear upon him, and amongst them a really effective portable railway, and preparations for well-sinking. With these appliances, the Allies may carry with them guns and materials unavailable to the enemy. The Russ swept from the Crimea, and the Allies in possession, it will become an engineering question whether it is not possible to turn the course of the nye': Don, through an artificial strait cut through Perekop, instead of letting it dis- charge through the strait of %each. The accessible maps do not as yet settle this question whether the Crimea can be made an island.
In the course of this war our chief difficulties have arisen from the want of a road ; the getting out of the difficulties has been materially helped by the railway. There can be no doubt that facility of transport is one chief element of war; but the railway that has been laid down is not precisely the least costly or most mechanical construction that could have been adopted. It has necessitated the sending out of a corps of mechanics or quasi-me- chanics, more highly paid than soldiers, though doing work that soldiers were competent to perform. The railway sent out should have been as com- plete in its way as a gun or gun-carriage ; instead of which, it had to be put together by skilled, labour on the spot. Had only the materials of gun- carriages been sent out, it would have been a troublesome operation to put them together. With your permission, I will in my next letter endeavour to make clear what an army railway should be, to yield the maximum of ser- vice with the minimum of labour, and aid in making the Crimea a Hanse Town, the Hamburg of the Euxine.
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