RUSSIAN OPINION.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2553, 13 March 1877, Page 3

RUSSIAN OPINION.

The Busski Mir, in an article discussing the forces at the disposal of England for a war against Russia, says that it is easy for an insular power to defy continental states,, but that Germany and Russia, with their colossal armies, hare nothing to fear from ironclads, which are powerless to attack their^shores, or from the Bmall English army of soldiers who serve for day. " England may well boast that she.is leady for war, for she do^ea not require much time to mobilise hejr insignificant military force and to send'tier fleet to Bca, Sweden and Denmark may also say, with equally good reason, that thoy are ready for. war.; but the Question is whether England is able to enter into a successful conflict with-'Eussia for the ' achievement of a .fixed political object. ; England is powerful on the sea, but she is hopelessly weak on the Continent. . . We may leave the sea to the English, and in the meanwhile we can quietly destroy the Turki on land, or allow them to escape in English ships. We can raise an insurrection in India, from Persia and Khokand; and can destroy England's martime trade, by the help of a few cruisers, - while the English ironclads will endeavor in vain ?to approach the torpedo protected harbors of the Black Sea and the Baltic. Our railway communication would make a successful r landing of English troops on Russian territory as impracticable as one of the Russian troops on English territory. In a word, England is harmless to us so long as she has no-continental allies ; and she will not find any, for the Napoleonic regime in France has fallen, and no other European state is disposed to follow its disastrous example. The powers of the Continent must attach far greater importance to the maintenance.of their mutual relations than_to the alliance of a commercial nation-which,, being . separated from them' by the sea, holds aloof from the.system of continental politics."