THE MILITARY POWER OF RUSSIA.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2640, 25 June 1877, Page 3

THE MILITARY POWER OF RUSSIA.

In an article on Eussia in the new number of the Edinburgh Eeview we read :—" Russia reached the mouths of her rivers long ago, and has got beyond them, unless the Danube is also to be reckoned as a Russian stream. Yet the exertions of the Eussian Government to augment its military forces were never greater than they have been in the. last six years. She had already the power to bring balf-a-million of men into the -field. But the great measure of universal conscription sanctioned by the likase of Jan. 1, 1875, will add another half-million to that number of that number of her active troops, and another million to the reserve. The territory of Eussia is invulnerable. Nobody has the slightest interest in attacking it, unless she begins by attacking some one else. If attacked, as she was in 1812, she may rely on her climate, her extent, and the patriotism of her population for effectual defence. Setting aside ambitious considerations, we should say that to burden a poor and thinly-peopled country with the maintenance of an enormous army, is the most mischievous policy that can be conceived. It is a perpetual>^iin on the manhood of the Empire. It leads to a frightful waste of life. When the Emperor Nicholas once expressed his surprise at the inferiority of the men in his army to the seamen in his fleet, in point of discipline and condition, Count Woronzow replied that what the army wanted was ' more food and less drill.' Hundreds of thousands of human beings have been sacrificed in the lastfifty years to .'the stupid pride of exhibiting to the world the shows and I pageants of a great militery establishment. What renders this -state of things still more lamentable and extraordinary is that the Eussians are not a warlike or combative people. Even in their drinking bouts they do not fight. They are entirely ignorant of all.that goes on-abroad, and entirely different to glory. Nor can any , conceivable benefit accrue to the people of Eussia by threatening and molesting their neighbors, or by the acquisition of territory, of which they hare already more than enough. If their country were attacked they would defend it with undaunted courage, but as a race of men there is no people in the world less disposed to slaughter their neighbors. Military service is with them the result of absolute blind, unOjUestionißg obedience. They submit to it as they submit 1o a law of nature, because they are docile and brave. Yet sorely military service as it is under-

stood in Russia, is the most detestable form of slavery ; for a peaceful peasant is converted by it, without the least will of his own, into a bloodhowr.d, a destroyer, or a victim. And this burden is rmw hung with redoubled weight upon the back of every peasant iv the empire. The whole community is crushed by it. Military service is the primary obligation of life, and must affect every other relation of society."