TOPICS OF THE DAY.
PEACE AND ITS CONDITIONS.
IT is by no means impossible or improbable that the faction which would seek, at any perversion of truth and fairness, to decry the merits of the present Government of England, will find an any in the overheated imaginations of a portion of the public which ex- pected the walls of Cronstadt and Sebastopol to crumble before the first distant roll of French and British cannon. With the ex- ception of the brilliant engagement on the heights of the Alma, the actual feats of the Allied forces have not been such as to strike very forcibly that taste for marvellous and rapid victories which would have the gods "annihilate both space and time to make true Britons happy." In reality, no six months of military progress have ever been more crowded with solid achievements ; but they bear the character of preparations for future and more brilliant successes, rather than of completed results. Still, when we sum up what has been done, and remember that Russia has been blocked up in her Baltic ports, her coast towns insulted with impunity, her outlying fortress against Sweden razed to the ground, her com- merce cut off or forced into unnatural channels—that she has been ignominiously driven by the despised Turks from the provinces she had invaded, her armies, that deemed themselves invincible, de- moralized by defeat—that her power in the Euxine has been ut- terly destroyed—that her great stronghold, whence she swayed that sea and its surrounding coasts, and held over Constantinople an ever-impending menace, is at this moment invested by the Allied armies and tottering to its fall,—when we remember all this, and think how completely the prestige which two years since was the basis of all the influence of Russia in European poli- tics, her prestige both for vast power and for a sagacious and de- termined use of it, has been dissipated, we for our part cannot but judge the results of the last six months' campaign worthy of com- parison with those of any campaign in which the British arms ever were engaged. Nor do we fear that the judicious, unbiased, and -well-informed portion of the British public, will hesitate to indorse our verdict.
But our main interest in these results is not to measure them by the wishes and expectations of parties more or less well-informed, more or less capable of estimating them from a military point of view, and more or less inclined to weigh them fairly, but to ascertain how they bear upon that reconstitution of European equilibrium for which we have engaged in war. They at least establish this fact, that Russia, attacked North and South, can bring no preponderating or even adequate force to defend herself; that she is at once reduced to a mode of defence which, if obstinate and hard to be overcome, is yet passive, despairing, and depressing to the morale of her own people and soldiers. It is not in the nature of things that even Russian soldiers, among whom the sense of personal honour and the desire for individual distinc- tion are weaker than in any other European army, should maintain a defence of this kind without a daily deterioration of all that consti- tutes the strength of armies, a daily degradation from a high mili- tary condition; while, on the other hand, the opposite causes produce exactly opposite effects on the troops and navies of the Allies. It requires no military experience to prophesy that the Russian forces must become worse and weaker, and the Allied forces stronger and in finer heart, as the war goes on. Of this, we imagine, there can be little doubt, that were the European Powers to retain their present attitude, Russia would be surely, if slowly, driven from all her outlying provinces—from all her conquests, except perhaps her Polish robberies, acquired by the successors of the great Peter, if even St. Petersburg itself were not reduced to the Neva swamp that it was a hundred and fifty years ago. But, unfortunately, it does not follow, because we beat Russia, that Russia will give in, or consent to make peace on such terms as may be acceptable to the Allies. In a constitutional country, or even in a state of society in which under absolute political forms the bulk of the nation is really a social power and its in- terest an element in the decisions of the government, hopeless defeat would lead to a settlement in the sense demanded by con- querors not anxious to push victory beyond the requirements of public policy. But in Russia the personal qualities of the sole ruler outweigh the interests of the nation, and no conclusion can be drawn with any certainty as to the effects which defeat might have upon a mind constituted and trained as the mind of the Emperor Nicholas has been. Pride and self-esteem have seldom been fostered by circumstances, in a nature originally self-con- tained and aspiring, to a more fatal height than in this man. He may, indeed, be seized with remorse at the consequence of his per- sistence, or a gleam of common sense may break in upon the distemp- ered phantasies of his ambitious dreams ; but it is equally likely, and in accordance with what is known of his character, that defeat may only exasperate him—that humiliation may only rouse to fiercer transports the dtemon of pride and power that possesses him, and he may throw himself into the almost inaccessible recesses of his hun- gry and inhospitable land, and there defy banded Europe to do their worst against him. True, the Russian nobility have remedies of their own against mad Emperors, and fifty years of foreign civili- zation may not have untaught the use of such extreme measures ; but the Russian nobles are belied if, at present, they are not as heartily disposed as their master to proceed in the path on which he has entered with such fatal auspices, and it may take years to make them as a class feel very severely the requisitions of the war, which would become less burdensome to them the more it was colt- centrated within the region of Russia Proper. It is not, therefore, upon the effect produced by defeat upon the mind-of the Emperor or his nobles that we can calculate with any great certainty for a rapid termination to the war, even if we could calculate, which we may indeed do with less arrogance than in most previous wars, upon an almost uninterrupted series of victories, or at least of on- ward advances.
At this moment, we presume that the Allied Powers would be content to retire from the contest on the terms proposed last August ; and that their military measures have been directed to obtain for themselves by force the status implied in those terms. They are—the freedom of the Danube, the abrogation of the Rus- sian protectorate in the Principalities and over the Oreek Chris- tians in Turkey, together with the practical cessation of Russian supremacy in the Euxine. The formal admission of Turkey to the community of European states would crown these concessions with a practical guarantee against future peril in that quarter from Russian ambition. A twelvemonth ago, far less -would have been demanded ; a year hence, much tuore may be considered neces- sary. The longer the Emperor Nicholas holds out, the more ob- stinate the resistance his will and his power oppose to forces em- ployed in vindication of European law, and solely to insure the solid peace of Europe, the more stringent must the conditions be which Europe will feel necessary for her own security. We can- not afford a great war every now and then because Russia does not know how to employ vast resources otherwise than in schemes of aggression and extension of her territory. A power with such dangerous tendencies must be reduced within limits that leave her neighbours no longer cause for constant apprehension. If, therefore, the Emperor of Russia should, as may well be, harden his heart like Pharoah, and refuse to comply with -the successively severer terms of peace that will be from time to time offered him, what is our resource ? We should not despair of completely depriving him of an offensive strength, even should the other Powers of Europe maintain their present attitude. He might, like a hunted, fox, take himself to earth, and refuse all terms and probably the Western Powers would scarcely seek him at lioseow,—though the French misfortunes of 1812 by no means decisively prove the impossibility of invading Russia with a moderately large army, however they show the difficulty of providing for such a mon- strous horde as Napoleon led there to perish, not by the sword, but of hunger and cold. Reduced to such a condition, he would not be an object of apprehension to his neighbours, and time might be counted on to bring him to a more reasonable mind. Facts are mighty things, even when contending with imperial humours. But is it likely that the other Powers would retain their .present attitude ? Austria has already not only advanced from her ori- ginal position of moral sympathy with the foes of Russia, but has laid down a principle pregnant with practical consequences for all powers whose interests are damaged by the maintenance of war. Peace, she says, is essential to her; and she cannot afford to wait for it from the efforts and combats of other poWers. It is so es- sential to her, that she must do her utmost to obtain it as speedily as it can be obtained. In a word, she must throw her material as well as moral force upon the side of Russia's antagonists. Now this principle is as true for Prussia as for her neighbour, leaving out any comparison betweet the financial condition of the twe countries. If we succeed in cutting off, the lucrative transit-. trade which has accrued to Prussia through the war, the only result to her of continued warfare will be the necessity of keeping her army up to a war standard, of standing out against the common voice of the most important European Powers of losing her position as a great power, of forfeiting all claim to a voice in the final settlement, and the extreme pro- bability of being after all forced to take that part from which she shrinks, and so incurring all the inconvenience without the glory of a free choice. Surely these are forces stronger in the long run than the mere personal predilections of a ling of weak character, and the sympathies of a small fraction of a nation, a mere coterie. We cannot doubt that the continuance of the war will, by the natural tendency of these forces, bring Prussia actively to cooperate with that side to which she has all along given her moral support, or at least her approval. It were utterly to mistake the relative strength of social forces in a country as enlightened and highly cultivated as Prussia to suppose otherwise. The destiny of Prussia is towards our side, however individual weak- nesses and the selfishness of faction may for a time thwart its accomplishment. It would indeed have been well for Russia had her Prussian friends thrown themselves from the beginning de- cidedly into the opposite scale. Russia's Emperor might have felt his honour less compromised by receding before an European com- bination; and Europe would have had to fight the battle she hi now waging at some future time, and under less favourable circum- stances—well for Russia, but most unfortunate for Europe : and therefore we cannot help feeling grateful to the vacillating Xing of Prussia, that his conduct has been just suited to lead on his fated brother-in-law to a point at which he cannot escape by in- trigue or cajolery—at which he has shown his hand, and indicated to his antagonists the game they have to play. And that game will be played out. We say, nothing of the Scandinavian Powers,; though it can scarcely be doubted that Sweden would gladly regain Finland, could she be secured against Russian vengeance ; and Denmark, fond as her King is of absolutism, can have little ambition to sea the Baltic a Russian lake—besides that he is likely to be too busily engaged at home to think of helping his brother despot of st, Petersburg. Our oonvietion ia, that a protraction of the war tends ,every day to render more probable a combination of all the great Power a against Russia, and that such a combination would be irresistible. In that ease, whether the Emperor of Russia chose to make peace on the conditions that might be offered, or whether he chose to sulk and retire within his deserts, those Powers could effectually restrain him from giving any cause of alarm to Europe. He would in the latter cage become almost as indifferent to the European community of Btates as his ally the Khan of Khiva. How exactly to form the political cordon sanitaire that such a state of things would render necessary, is toe complicated a problem for the close of a paper already somewhat extended. But the statesmanship of Europe is surely equal to such a problem; and it becomes of practical inte- rest to dismiss the possibilities which its solution opens for many hopes, that two years since would have been fairly deemed too il- lusory and distant for the region of real politics. The Emperor of Russia has been called the Great Revolutionist; no one can yet fa- thom the extent to which he may justify the title in the eyes of those to whom the treaty of Vienna is the standard-of international conservatism.
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