HOW FRANCE HAS BEEN SWINDLED.

Grey River Argus, Volume IX, Issue 752, 12 November 1870, Page 4

HOW FRANCE HAS BEEN SWINDLED.

[NEW YORK JOURNAL OF COMMERCE.] It is related of the Czar Nicholas that, shortly after the Crimean war broke out, he was strolling through the ordnance yard at Sebastopol, surveying with pride the pyramids of cannon balls piled up there, when he idly chanced to strike one of them with his walking-stick. It gave, back a strange, dull sound, An examination revealed that it was made of wood, and the same exaggerated wooden nutmeg imposture had been practised by the contractor in supplying all the balls there stowed away. Following up the clue, the Czar ascertained that jobbing and fraud pervaded all departments of the army service, and that, except on paper, his empire was in no condition to contest with the allied powers. Napoleon's army and military equipments and provisions are not deficient and delusive as those of Nicholas ; but theyifall far short of what he and the world expected them to be.We question, in the first place, whether the active army was anything like 400,000 strong. We have never been able to figure up more than 250,000 or 270,000 regular \ French troops in the advance on Prussia ; and we believe that the actual enumeration of the men at his command was the principal reason that induced Napoleon to stand on the defence instead of attempting an invasion of Prussia. Somebody — or some military ring — has been deceiving the Emperor and getting rich out of the rations and supplies of a paper army. Then, the reserve of 400,000 men, who were supposed to be capable of taking the field at short notice ; why have they not been available to reinforce? Because, we venture to say, the War Department was unable to furnish them with rities or muskets of any description, to say nothing of the Ohassepots, equipments, and uniforms. More than* a, y eat ago we read the statement that France had over a million Chassepots in her arsenals ; and the Government factories were said to be still turning them out. Immediately after M'Mahon's defeat, complaints began to be rife that France was short, not only of Chassepots, but of arms of every kind. The French commissariat is worse, if possible, than any other branch of the service, if we may believe a tithe of the statements made by correspondents. M'Mahon's army was represented to be almost starving for some days, and that, too, in a region in easy communication with the capital. All these deficiences and weaknesses in the French army, disclosed by the light of events, astonish those who believe that since 1866 France has been making unremitting efforts for a war with Prussia. Either she had no serious intention of fighting Prussia in all that time, or the Emperor has been grossly duped by his favourites, who have deluded him into the belief that France was prepared to comfort " every eventuality" (to quote from his speech to the bodies of State, January 18, 1869), and has profited by his credulity to amass fortunes.