>>7136
(cont)
In the first place, the nature of the country and the want of roads. Her resources may be vast, but they are scattered and remote. Her forces may be immense, but they are necessarily in great measure distant from the scene of action. The very extent of her territory is against her. Her capital is a thousand miles from her most menaced and unquiet provinces. It takes three months, sometimes six months, to convey her troops to the districts where their presence is required. There are no railroad, and scarcely any common roads to convey them. They have to march--and what is worse, to drag baggage, ammunition, and artillery—over inhospitable and uncultivated steppes, scantily inhabited and affording few resources for even peaceful traveler. In no country could railways be so cheaply or easily constructed ; in no country are they so peculiarly and urgently needed;—yet only two, we believe, exist as yet, and few others are projected. Hence. when war is declared, a whole campaign will elapse before reinforcements can arrive at the place where they are needed. This will explain why the vast armies of Osten-Sacken and other Generals, which were announced as on their march to the Danube nearly a year ago, never reached that river at all; why of the 150,000 or 200,000 men who, we are told, occupied the Principalities, more than 70,000 never could be got together; and why we only find 50,000 troops in the Crimea, though nine months since it was proclaimed that reinforcements to the number if 70,000 had been ordered thither. The fact is, that thousands die or fall sick on the road; thousands more lag behind or desert; and those who do reach their destination reach it in an enfeebled condition and after incalculable and often irretrievable delays.
Secondly. The Russian armies are often armies on paper only. Not only are their numbers far fewer than are stated in official returns and paid for out of the official purse, but they are notoriously ill-provided with everything necessary to the effective action of a soldier. The colonels of regiments and officers of the commissariat have a direct interest la having as large a number on the books and as small a number in the field as possible, in as much as they pocket the pay and rations of the difference between these figures. They have an interest also in the men being as inadequately fed and clothed as possible,—inasmuch as they pocket the difference between the sum allowed and the sum expended on the soldiers' rations and accoutrements. The Emperor provides (or believes he does) for the food, clothing, lodgings, arms and ammunition of 5 or 600,000 men, but every one of these who is or can be made non-existent is worth two or three hundred rubles to some dishonest official or officer; every pair of shoes or great coat intercepted from the wretched soldier is a bottle of champagne for the ensign or the major; every ammunition wagon which Is paid for by Government, but not provided, is a handsome addition to the salary of the captain or the contractor. Robbery and peculation of this sort is universal, in every rank, in every district, In every branch. It runs through every department In the Empire; and its operation upon the efficiency of the military service may be easily imagined and cannot be easily exaggerated. This horrible and fatal system originates in two sources—both, we fear, nearly hopeless, and certainly inherent In Russian Autocracy;—the rooted dishonesty of the national character, and the incurable inadequacy of despotic power.
Cheating, bribery, peculation pervade the whole tribe of officials, and are, in fact, the key-note and characteristic of the entire administration. There seems to be no conscience, and not much concealment, about it. The officers are ill paid, and of course pay themselves. Regard for truth or integrity has no part in the Russian character. We have heard those who know them well say that there are only three honest men in the Empire: Woronzow is one, Nesselrode another—and men differ about the name of the third. We have heard statesmen, who strongly incline towards a Muscovite alliance, say that the Russians are liars above all things: it is their specialty. Then the power of the Autocrat, absolute as it is and vigorously as it is exercised, Is utterly insufficient to meet the evil. What can a despot do who has no instruments that can be trusted? There is no middle class who pay the taxes and insist upon knowing how they are expended. There is no free Press, with its penetrating and omniscient vigilance, to compel honesty and drag offenders to light and retribution. There is only one eye over all, and that eye can of course see only a small corner of this vast Empire. What the Emperor looks at, or can visit, is well done: everything else is neglected or abused. It is the common and inevitable story, wherever you have centralization and barbarism combined.