A CLASSIC BATTLE GROUND.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 1992, 16 May 1885, Page 2

A CLASSIC BATTLE GROUND.

Notwithstanding 'the more, peaceful aspect of theßussjairafiir, the ey'e§ of everyono are still turned towards Afghanistan with anxious'expectation, Thero are few who feel qulfco qaay about pur future relations with Russia, for have .we not the evidence of stern, facta to tell us that Russia never means what she wishes other nations to. believe ? We may, as we showed in our article yesterday, be very soon compelled to fight in defence of our honor or prestige in India.. The chivalry of England may yet be marshalled on the classic ground where Alexander's Mace

donianalmowod down the' undisciplined .rabble, of the Persian as in tho •last Afghan war, against a number of disunited- Asiatio tribes—but against some of the steadiest and best armed troops of Europe, led on by generals in no way inferior to our own; It is rather a curious coincidence that the countries lying' between Hindostan snd the shores of the Black and Meditererean Seas, situated, • with regard : to' Asia; exactly asthe Netherlands are in regard to Europe, have been as much the battleground for the one continent asthe latter have been for the other. The regionlying between the Indus and the great seas has witnessed most of the important struggles for supremacy in the Asiatic continent—at any rate,jthoae recorded in our histories aad traditions of the past. -Passing over the period when the Assyrian; and Babylonian empires dominated those regions—when Ninus, arid the still more, famous • Semiramis, carried their conquests to the - confines of India—we read of the victories of Cyrus and of his' successors untit the overthrow of. the old Persian Empire by the Macedonian conqueror on his way to : India, And tliis period has: invested, most of the region refered to with a special and enduring interest,' Just before the appearance of Alexander on the scene, there was the famous Retreat of the Ten Thousand, from near the spot where we. lately heard of Sir Peter Lumsden—the modern -town of Meshed, Later on, we find the Grecian conqueror founding a city aftor his own name on the site of the now celebrated oity- : of Herat; while his progress through the intervening countries has been ' one uninterrupted 'career of victory. : Still later, our retards tell'us of the sanguinary struggles which followed the death of Alexander, when his generals quaireles over the spoils, and devastated the whole region -with fire and sword. The fertile valley oil the 'fleri-Rut has received the, bones of-many a brave Greek who followed the fortunes qf his chief in the stormy-times tif' the Seleueida, Romans, also, have found a grave net far from there, for thousands of them fell.in the attempt to subjugate the Parthians who once ogoupied that country, What terrible wars, too, were carried on during the later period of the Roman empire, even ajfcer the signs of its decadence had appeared! The subsequent histoiy of Western Asia records how the Saracens and Turks desolated the whole of it, and how Tamerlane, the great Tartar all before nim, from .the Indus to the Mediterranean. And coming to the present century, how many a dark page in our own histoiy tells of our battles on the same classic ground, Not that the soil over which Alexander led his victorious army bears no mementos of British valour. On the contrary, soroo of the most brilliant acheivements of the soldiers of the empiro have been there performed; and the spot where Alexander overcame the brave Poms is not far from the scene of a British victoiy still more brilliant than his, Yes; if the armies of England and Russia meet in the shock of battle on the plains of Afghanistan, those who fall will rest in classic grqimd. 'Almosf, side by side will lie the jjrayf) gf eyery.psrijofj qf hptepthe world's, hiijtqry. E^tjijn, 1 Greek', Roman, Saracen, and. British an d Russian warriors will repose in peage at last; mute, but impressive witnesses of the vanity of human schemes, and the fleeting nature of man's grandest enterprises. —Ohristchuroh Telegraph.