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PUTNAM'S MONTHLY.

3 Magazine of Literature, Science, and Art.

VOL. V.-FEB. 1855.-NO. XXVI.

DIPLOMACY AND CANNON-BALLS.

THE IMPERIAL GAME IN EUROPE.

THE calendar has completed a full - cycle, since the "game of kings" was again commenced in Europe. Slowly, but steadily, the great players have brought out their forces, and calmly and deliberately strengthened themselves for a long and desperate struggle. The world has looked with the deepest interest at the magnitude of preparation, the magnificent displays of power, and the wonderful development of resources by the Western Powers, contrasted with the sluggish movements and stubborn and dogged self-reliance of their great enemy. Young America and its kindred spirit everywhere, has scarcely been able to restrain its impatience at these cautious and deliberate movements, and, like the spectator of other and smaller games, has been constantly overlooking the board, hurrying the players, suggesting all manner of wise or foolish experiment, and restraining with the greatest difficulty the appetite for blood and carnage which its own fevered condition has created.

And still the game has moved grandly on. The giants have awakened slowly, but refreshed by their long sleep, and have gathered together their old armor, and polished and sharpened their bat#e-axes, and examined and strengthened every joint in their harness, with a deliberation that proved at once that they appreciated fully the magnitude of the contest in which they were to engage, and the ability and courage of the enemy they were to oppose. The flippant scribblers for the VOL. V.-8

press have sneered, it is true, at the supposed inferiority of Russia, and kept up their courage and fanned the war spirit of her enemies by boastful predictions of victories won without a struggle, and triumphs so easily obtained as to be shorn of their value. But, with all their mistakes-and they have been neither few nor small-the allied nations have not made that great one, of undervaluing the enemy they were to encounter.

The war having begun, it became necessary to avoid the appearance of indecision or hesitation, while time should be gained to make those vast preparations that were indispensable for its successful prosecution. For this purpose, far more than with any expectation of an amicable arrangement of the difficulties, negotiations have been carried on-congresses held-meetings between royal nobodies arranged, and all the machinery of continental diplomacy brought into the fullest action. The time has not yet come for the history of all this maneuvering to be written; but if either of the great actors in it shall preserve the record in detail, it will exhibit, when it shall be brought forth to astonish another age, a degree of duplicity, an extent of chicanery, an amount of cunning, and a succession of blunders, that has not been excelled, if equalled, on the earth, since the day when the Arch Enemy first commenced teaching diplomacy to man.

It has been the habit of Western Europe to arrogate to itself a superiority

over the Eastern nations, so great as to be unquestionable, in all the refinements of life. In letters-general diffusion of intelligence-quickness of perception, and high mental culture, they have claimed a pre-eminence so decided as to distance competition; and, wrapping themselves complacently in the mantle of their own self-conceit, have looked down with haughty condescension on the inferiority of their neighbors. It would not be difficult to show that in the negotiations preceding the declaration of war, the feathers of national vanity were sadly ruffled; and the philosophic historian may yet deduce from it anew the old truth, that wars more frequently originate in the bad temper, passions, weakness, or caprice of those whose duty it was to avoid them, rather than from any real difficulty about their ostensible cause. But the errors that preceded and rendered the war inevitable, were but "trifles, light as air," when contrasted with the greater blunders that have been committed during the last year.

From the beginning, it has been apparent alike to parties and lookers on, that the alliance of Austria and Prussia was of the utmost consequence to the belligerents. If they should join their power to that of Russia, French vanity and English self-conceit were alike compelled to admit, that it would give the contest a character of equality more satisfactory to the lovers of a fair fight, than to their hopes of easy and speedy victory. By bringing the war to the banks of the Rhine, it would compel one of them, at least, to drink of the cup it had helped to drug, and by reviving the recollection of the time when eastern armies had quartered further to the westward of that famous river than it was pleasant to contemplate, would suggest to its imperial usurper, considerations in reference to a repetition of that mode of occupancy of his royal residences, vastly more possible than agreeable. History and experience had alike taught, that semibarbarians were troublesome visitors for luxury and refinement, and that the Cossacks of the Don, and the Hussars of the Danube, though but picturesque features in Eastern landscapes, assumed a somewhat different and vastly less satisfactory aspect, when their horsetails streamed in the streets of Paris.

But, if the alliance of Austria and Prussia could be secured to the Western Powers, it would transfer the seat of

war to the East, and expose the whole western frontier of their enemy to their attacks. The worst horrors of the controversy they had provoked would be spared to their own subjects, and the whirlwind that was to come from the wind they had sown, would be reaped by others. Oh! it was a crafty device, but not original with them. It was, at least, as old as Esop, and the fable of the monkey and the cat had long since demonstrated its practical advantages in all cases where it could be carried out.

The wiles of diplomacy make good progress so long as they are not seen or counteracted. But, Russia was as keenly sensible as they were, of the importance of securing this alliance, and as active and more successful in its efforts to obtain it. But the alliance she desired was not that of active co-operation, but of "masterly inactivity," and her object was not to array her neighbors against her enemies, but to use them rather to mislead and embarrass them. This will become perfectly apparent from a slight glance at her own position.

No other power is so self-existent and Extending self-sustaining as Russia. from the mild parallels of southern Europe to the frozen regions of the north, she embraces within herself the productions of almost every clime, and the material for a domestic commerce equal to all the wants of her people. With an overflowing population-agricultural resources boundless and well developeddefended on the north three-quarters of the year by the "frozen mail" of impenetrable winter-on the south by the dangerous navigation of the Black Seaits vast distance from her enemies, and the stupendous fortifications that crown its coast-unapproachable from the east -it is obvious that it is only from the west that she can be attacked with any possibility of doing her any serious injury. Her ports could be blockaded, it is true! But what then? By cutting off the exportation of her vast surplus of wheat-greater than that of all Europe beside her enemies, accustomed to depend upon it for bread for their own people, would be starving themselves, while by its accumulation at home, the price would be lowered--universal cheapness and plenty would thus more than compensate the masses for the other losses they might sustain, and the gov ernment itself would be enabled to feed its increased military force at so much

less expense, as to be a gainer, rather than a loser by the blockades.

If, instead of blockading, they capture the ports, the result would be yet more disastrous to the invaders. They would batter down stone walls, that could be rebuilt from the same materials when the war was ended, but where would be the vastly more expensive "wooden walls," that they must sacrifice in every such attack? Where the hecatombs of brave men, that would be offered up at every step from the construction of the first parallel to the last hand-to-hand encounter in the "imminent deadly breach," and whose expiring cry of agony would thrill through the heart of brethren at home, and make the soul of the nations shrink from the further prosecution of the hell-born struggle? Whence would come the many millions of treasure that such far-off and difficult operations would require, and that, added to indebtedness already so vast that the mind trembles as it attempts the enumeration of the figures that express it, must secure national bankruptcy as another of the fruits of the bloody game? And when in the suspension of business, the interruptions of the ordinary channels of trade, the cutting off of a part, and the diminution of all the foreign demand for their productions, the manufacturers shall be compelled to suspend their operations, and the spindles of Manchester shall cease their revolutions, and the looms of Lyons shall be idle, and the thousand thousands that they now feed shall gather together with sunken and haggard visages, on which hunger has preyed until it has taught lessons that only hungry men can learn, and their deep, despairing cry for bread' shall ascend to heaven, will they be quieted and sent back peaceably and contentedly to their starving families, by the assurance that all the bloody battles that have been fought, the gallant fleets that have been destroyed, the millions of money squandered, and the hosts of noble men sacrificed, have all been to demolish a few forts that were worth nothing after they were captured, that they might the more effectually prevent Russia from sending them the food for which they were dying, and from purchasing the manufactures that would have supplied the means to pay for it?

The time has been when all these natural results of war would have been encountered by the English and French nations, and if now borne without repin

ing, would, in a just cause, have been submitted to, to the end. But it was before forty years of peace had followed half a century of carnage, and in its contrasts as well as in the burdens it found itself compelled to bear, had taught the masses their true interest and their power. They now rule whenever they are aroused and exercise their strength, and when want stalks through the land, and ranges them under his banner, he will become a leader, powerful enough to shake to the foundation every war-worn and tottering throne.

It is now entirely apparent that the interest of Russia is to prolong the war. Acting only on the defensive, her operations at home are conducted with vastly less expense than those of her enemies. The disbursements for the support of her armies are all made among her own people, and the evils resulting from sending abroad so large a proportion of the capital of a country are thus averted from her, while they fall with the greatest severity upon her foes. Every soldier lost can be replaced by another, and hardly be missed, while the ranks of the hostile forces can only be filled at a sacrifice of time and money so great, that every victory becomes in its consequences a defeat. Nicholas has only to remain on the defensive until they are exhausted by their bootless triumphs, to be able to present to the world the new spectacle of the vanquished dictating terms of peace to the victors.

It is idle to deny the Czar the possession of great sagacity and ability. That he does not comprehend fully the relative position of his neighbors, his enemies, and himself, is a supposition not now to be entertained. He has no present need of the assistance of Austria and Prussia, as he can exhaust his enemies more rapidly without, than with their aid. He would much rather that they should be husbanding their resources-strengthening themselves commercially and financially enlarging and drilling their armies and protecting him by their neutrality, than to be obliged to defend their territories as well as his own, and furnish the "sinews of war" for their troops, in addition to the armies of Russia? If they enter the struggle as his allies, they lose their financial strength with the capitalists of Europe, and he must supply the funds that they would be unable to procure anywhere else. So long as he knows he can trust them, he had far rather that they should be coquetting

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