THE RUSSIANS AS SOLDIERS.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2644, 29 June 1877, Page 3

THE RUSSIANS AS SOLDIERS.

Napoleon the First, who is entitled to be regarded as a high authority in military matters, thought that the Russian soldier should rank foremost among European troops for hardihood, endurance and stubborn ralor. But at the same time he professed to hold the Russian Generals iv slight v esteem. He bad personally witnessed the unfaltering courage of the Russian infantry, and during his imprisonment at St. Helena he told Barry O'Meara that in his opinion Russian armies, if properly drilled and officered, would be more than a match for any- other class of European troops in equal numbers. At one time when the great French military leader first encountered the Russian troops in the shock of battle their pay was but an English shilling—or twenty-five cents of our xnoney—per month, and they fought cheerfully when supplied with no better rations than brown bread and water. In a war like that which has just been initiated in thft East, where religious and race antipathies are invoiced, the Russian will fight with the ferocity of a famished tiger. Sir Robert Wilson, a somewhat fanciful English writer, says that Napoleon infaded Russia in 1812 solely in order " to get her A&sJh make her his ally against England, -and*recruit his polyglot armies with brown coated Muscovite moujihs," whom he regarded as unequalled warlike material when properly disciplined and commanded. There can be no question as to the stubborn bravery, the docility and frugality of the peasantry from whose ranks the Russian armies are chiefly recruited. One of tho most valuable qualities of Russian troops is their extraordinary steadiness in the face of reverses and threatened defeats. They are not liable to panic. Repulse does not demoralize them, and after defeat they can be easly rallied to a fresh contest. Such at least was the estimate the great Napoleon made of the qualities of the Russians as soldiers. The probability is that the history of the next few months will furnish fresh and reliable data for testing the soundness of his opinion.—S. F. Chronicle.