From either seat of war we have no reports this
week of any fresh event, and we are quite content to be for a week without the means of reporting present progress. Impatient as we all are to have some great event at least once a week, we may remember that in all previous wars startling achievements did not come so fre- quently; and as time advances, we' are able better to understand the progress already made in this contest. It has indeed been greater than the summary record of positive action on the field would indicate. We have had results which at the commence- ment we had not the means to calculate. We could not, for ex- ample, reckon upon that capacity for mixed aggressive and defen- sive warfare—that combination of daring and prudence—which has enabled Omar Pasha to obtain the superiority on the Danube; we had underrated the fighting power of the Turks, and could not presume such generalship amongst the resources of the Sultan. We are still unable to count with certainty upon the active alliance of Austria ; but even her armed neutrality has already been amongst the elements of the combinations which have obliged Russia to hold back considerable bodies of troops from the Danube ; and thus, negatively, Austria has already strengthened the rela- tive power of Omar Pasha, and has served the purposes of the Alliance. Even if we cannot secure a much more active coopera- tion of Austria in the field, a continuance of these advantages would be too great a relief for our own resources to be despised. When France and England first definitively undertook to stand by Turkey, the most immediate concern was to secure the capital against conquest by Russia. We now find Turkey secured as far as the Danube. But important results of a campaign have been attained without so much as a blow struck by the Allied forces. Omar Pasha may be said to have cleared Lesser Wallachia without a battle. In like manner, the reduction of Silistria, which was supposed to be a simple question of military arithmetic, came to nothing before the force of circumstances combined against Russia. Again, the unhealthy province of the Dobrudscha was cleared from Russians without the necessity for entering it on the part of the Allies. The tract between the Danube and the Sereth appears equally to be in process of clearance without the neces- sity for advance. These things are done, and our commanders now stand, with ample powers, completely equipped forces, and a future before them.
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