overwhelming concern with the issue of that terrible combat. The subject was discussed with vivacious interest — indeed, with curiosity, with more or less of intelligence; but very much in the tone in which it might have been discussed by a coterie in the Army and Navy Club. With the exception indicated, there was no recognition or apparent realization of responsibility. I left the kibitka with the curious sense that I, the stranger and the foreigner, was, save one, the man who felt the most concern in the episode and the result. Except as regards the actual fighting, there is a strange, inappropriate dilettantism about the soldiering of the officerhood of the Russian army. There is a disregard of the grand military fact that if success is to be achieved, every man, each in his place, must put his hand to the work as if he were working for his own hand — ay,for his own honor and his own life.
One word as to the emperor. I would have it to be understood that no word I have written can apply to him. His position, in proportion to the fulness with which his character is recognized, must move to the sincerest respect and the deepest sympathy. He is a true patriot, earnestly striving for the welfare of his country. But he toils amid obstacles, he struggles in the heart of gathered and incrusted impediments, the perception of which on his part must, it seems to me, kindle wrath which is unavailable, bring about misgivings which must awfully perturb, induce a despair which must strike to the very heart. He is not answerable for the growing up of the false system which strikes at the vitals of the Russian army, but he cannot but recognize the blighting curse of it. He is not the Hercules. to cleanse the huge Augean stable; but he knows, and in this hour of terrible trial must revolt from the foulness of it with a disgust that is all the more loathing because it is impotent. I sincerely believe that the emperor is the Russian who in all unselfishness suffers the direst pangs of anguish under a Russian disaster.
II. THE TURKS.
The Turks have blundered greatly in the management of their military affairs, but two mistakes of theirs were of such exceptional magnitude, that they loom high above minor errors. The Turks are barbarians, pure and simple. They have neither part nor lot in civilization: their religion and its injunctions, their origin, the area of their empire, their conservatism, bar them out from membership in the European family circle. It may be and has been contended that this being so, Europe is no place for them; but with this phase of the subject, involving as it does argument, I have no concern. I would merely remark that when it shall have been conclusively proved that they are out of place in Europe, there remains the physical task of acting on the conclusion; and that task, to the lot of whomsoever it may fall, does not quite bear the aspect of a holiday undertaking. Meanwhile they are barbarians, and they are in Europe. As barbarians and as non-aggressives, it would have been quite consistent for them this spring to hold some such language as the following to all whom it might concern: "We do not want to go to war, but if any power thinks proper to assail us, we give due forewarning that we are barbarians, and will defend ourselves by barbarian tactics. Our religion enjoins on us the ruthless slaughter of the infidel. If we are assailed we give fair warning that we will neither ask nor give quarter; that we will, more nostro, torture, chop, hack, and mutilate our wounded enemies, encumber ourselves with no prisoners, despise such finicalities as flags of truce; our battle-cry will be deen to the Giaour. You are entitled to know this, because the knowledge may be a factor among the considerations which affect your final resolution. If after this intimation you are still bent on assailing us, why, then, come on and see how you like it." This intimation the Turks did not make, but they have consistently acted according to its literal terms. I have myself seen great clumps of mutilated Russian dead on battle-fields. I have watched, without the need of a glass, the Bashi-Bazouks swarming out after an unsuccessful attack on the part of the Russians, and administering the coup de grâce with fell alacrity, under the eyes of the regulars in the sheltered trenches. This style of fighting is working its inevitable result on the Russian soldier, who hesitates to face this grim additional casualty of the battlefield, and it is no improbable supposition that the candid premonition of it would have weighed with the Russian authorities on whom would have vested the responsibility of making war in the face of it. But the Turks have tried to blow hot and cold — to profit by their barbarism, and plough with the heifer of civilization. While slaying and sparing not, they have addressed whining, and it may be added lying, appeals to Europe, invoking the enactments
