jails. Thus is Russia in a position to concentrate the whole of her forces for the execution of her policy in a manner which might be difficult, if not impossible, in other countries. It is not forgotten in Russia that the Moscow Municipality of 1863 proposed to organise a guard of the inhabitants to permit of all the troops being sent to the frontier. For the defence of her borders in addition to her standing army, Russia disposes of a powerful popular armed power, which is applied in England by the volunteers, in the militia system in Switzerland and of America, but which is strange to the other countries of Europe. The latter dare not place arms in the hands of their citizens, unless they have been converted into soldiers. We have seen how carefully the highly popular Italian Government watched her volunteers. Prussia alone of continental countries has recourse to a militia, but then it is a militia trained and converted to the condition of a regular army; indeed it is a part of that army. In Russia during this century, the militia, "Opoltschenie," have been three times called out, that is in the years 1807, 1812, 1855. No great war will ever take place without again having recourse to them as a reserve, for the defence of outlying boundaries, the guarantee of coasts against the troops of a maritime Power seeking to cause a diversion in favour of its allies which might be engaged in the principal struggle, the guard of fortresses, and so forth.'

Although every province in Russia is held to be liable to furnish its military contingent; and notwithstanding that, according to our Western views, lately conquered provinces might be held to be imbued with a strong anti-Russian spirit, and therefore to fail in military duty in the hour of trial, this does not seem to be true in practice. In the quoted opinion it is broadly stated that four-fifths of the empire may be divested of troops when the country is engaged in serious war. The great fortresses in Poland and in the Baltic would have to be occupied. But the occupation would fall on troops of an inferior description, or on militia not destined to act in the front line. Consequently, in the performance of such a duty may be found an appropriate place for the application of troops to which suspicion might attach. It is true that the elements of the Russian armies present a heterogeneous character. They include the natives of provinces believed by the Western world to be in a state of chronic dissatisfaction, which at times expresses itself in open revolt. Yet according to our knowledge of the action of Russian armies, we never hear of treachery to the standard in a Russian regiment. Nor does intelligence reach us of disappointment to a Russian commander in the field, because of lukewarmness amongst his men, or of misconduct springing from non-military sources. We do not know of any example of such want of harmony among the different nationalities serving in the same army under a Russian general,

as is alleged to have been seen in the Austrian forces during their late war against Prussia. The reasons of these facts of the Russian system comprehend many points demanding close investigation. Thus how much may be attributed to the operation of a consistent military method, or to the enormity of the mass into which the recruit is thrown on his coming from a disaffected province? It may be asked, if it be the influence of regimental feeling in which the original national tendency is fused, or does the Russian process of assimilation depend partly on the uncivilised character of the people at large, and partly on a docility that helps to produce such consequences? The suggestion may occur that the Russian institutions, oppressive as they may appear to half-informed Western opinion, do not present in practice to the people concerned the points of difficulty and annoyance attributed by others. It may be that much that we hear of the extreme poverty of many millions of the poorer classes, whether in town or country, and of the fact that, as in China and India, these millions exist on the thin line separating mere subsistence from starvation, is true in the main; and therefore that it exercises no slight effect on the willingness of the people to abandon homes which present but little charm or sense of security to them. If, as will be seen hereafter, the tendency of the army is to improve the lot of the individual soldier, such feelings cannot fail to grow in strength, and still more to reconcile large sections of the population to a forced service under the State, and indeed to prefer it to a miserable existence in the country where they can no longer claim by law protection from starvation at the hands of the great proprietors. It is probable, then, that the military consistency of the masses of the Russian armies is not the effect of one particular cause, but that it owes more or less to the several motives that have been indicated. We would further hazard the opinion that this military consistency is but the type and the expression of the harmony and the oneness characterising the Russian Empire from end to end for political purposes. Is it not true that the sense entertained by foreign countries of this political unity within the circle of the Russian borders, lies at the root of their fears, as the acknowledgment of it is the cause of exultation at home?

We have somewhere seen the expression that although the evidence of lassitude evinced by the Russian people after the Peace of Paris is a sufficient sign that the power of Russia for war was then comparatively feeble, and therefore not to be

dreaded by Western nations, nevertheless all who have made themselves acquainted with Russia on the spot, with the growing strength of her military forces, and with the military spirit again becoming prominent, speak with bated breath of the immense organism now developing before the eyes of Europe. This is, after all, but the counterpart of the opinions of the Russians themselves, whether illustrated in their popular prints or in pages of a graver character. For they say alike, do not think we are to be estimated by what took place in former wars, and more especially in the most recent one. Peace was then made for our convenience, but not as an absolute necessity of the pressure put upon us. The resources brought into operation in that last struggle, and on previous occasions subsequent to the death-wrestle with the first Napoleon, were combined according to such means as existed for the purpose. But how imperfect were those means of combination. How little could one part of the empire be brought into communion with the other parts. One section of this great country was left, so to speak, to shift for itself, while other portions of the vast mass lay almost inert. In short, Russia might be compared to a great creature, still, as it were, in embryonic form, a vital force of wonderful character lying potential within her frame, but as yet hardly animated.

Since 1855 this can be no longer said. For as briefly shown in the foregoing pages, whether socially or physically considered, the vital power of Russia can be seen breaking forth in all directions. With reference to the points of military development, of intercommunication between the provinces for defence, of the general application of the people for Imperial purposes, and of the prosecution of a national policy, the empire is one. The difficulties of space have been obliterated. The furthest extremities of the empire are in immediate connexion with the centralising and guiding power.

Such, then, is the change which has come over Russia as a country, which influences the population, which causes the process of Russification in the latest subdued provinces to advance with an accelerated motion and a more assured certainty of success. These are the facts which should attract the attention of Western Europe. These influences-some moral, some physical, and some artificial-are all conducive to one end. They have a potency unknown to the mere forms of military organisation, to the mere regularity of a military array, to the mere numbers of military forces. We see, under these circumstances, something in the moral aspect of Russia

that reminds us of the attitude the United States of America have been able to preserve towards Europe.

For the last thirty years the United States have displayed a force in their diplomacy, which has rested, not on the actual presence of armies and fleets, but on what was believed to be the capacity of the American people for war if they should be engaged in a great struggle. That capacity was seen to depend on the spirit of the population, their wealth, and the position of their country. In a certain way Russia may now be said to impose on Europe, by what it may be in her power ultimately to effect rather than by the actual strength of her military forces. This is true, notwithstanding the attention paid to the latter, and the determination to adopt the policy of the nations of Western Europe, and so to place her forces on a permanent footing equivalent to what may be arrayed against her by an European alliance. Whatever value may be attributed to the speculation, we cannot doubt that the fact of even a partial belief in her latent strength and her great future as held by the Government and by the people is a lever of power of very special character, to observe the action of which becomes a duty of first-rate importance in the Cabinets of Europe. This part of the subject may be closed with the remark that the several populations of which the Empire of Russia is made up, present a numerical total more than double the aggregate numbers of any other single nation of the Continent.

The estimated strength of national forces must rest in all great countries on two important considerations. One may be called the domestic capacity for the formation of armies, and the other is the relative position of the State concerned in the general international system of the world. The former depends on a variety of circumstances, and is liable to vary with reference to social change, such as that which has been indicated in the enfranchisement of the serfs in Russia, to the advance or reaction of democratic influences, to the application in one country of what has been found to operate with success in another. To call on a country to make efforts on account of the second consideration, its relative position in the general international system, is a course frequently prompted by the example thus set to it by foreign plans of organisation, whether or not those plans indicate hostile designs against itself. If reason for alarm be afforded by their operation; if there be a fear in consequence of change of the relative international position; if, in short, the extraordinary development of a new power is felt to threaten domestic importance, jealousy

cannot fail to ensue with the further results of demands for military extension and the restoration of that general influence with which no Government is permitted to part by a people still careful of its self-respect.

If notwithstanding the staidness of our modern demeanour, the facts of our insular position and our commercial tendencies, we feel very fully the force of such motives and compel our Government to act on them, we cannot be surprised that an empire comparatively young, caring little for the reasons which operate with us for insisting on peace and quiet, should do likewise. It follows that such an empire must turn its attention powerfully and practically to the modes in which the relative position in the international system may not only be maintained but amplified by the enlargement of the domestic capacity for military development. A few words may then here be said on the relative international position of Russia, as it appears to her leading statesmen and generals, with regard to the exertions she might be called on to make under circumstances not to be deemed extraordinary, but at times to be expected according to the traditions and precedents of the last seventy years.

These traditions and precedents show very clearly that the bias of Russian policy is aggressive, that Russia has little to fear from the attack of any single Power, but that she is liable to be assailed by an alliance of many Powers.

Under such circumstances her position is a false one, if, after having sustained a first attack, she is not able to pass from a defensive to an aggressive attitude. This was seen in 1812, when Napoleon led all the Continent of Europe against Russia. The ruin of the Grand Army of France, followed as it was by the dissolution of the Alliance forced by Napoleon on Austria and Prussia, and the union of the two latter with Russia, enabled the Emperor Alexander to adventure on an offensive policy, and finally to reduce the assailant who had occupied Moscow. But this great result was owing not to the inherent power of Russia and the skill with which that power was arrayed in the field, but to the vast changes consequent on the destruction of the Grand Army, the effects and their consequences being European rather than merely Russian, so soon as the remnant of the French army disappeared from the Russian soil.

In the last great war waged by Russia against an alliancethat of the Crimea-the attitude maintained by her was simply defensive, and assuming even that a greater success had attended the stand made at Sebastopol, Russia had not the

VOL. CXXXIV. NO. CCLXXIII.

C