SPECIAL MENTION | AdventAI

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, February 19, 1880.

FromThe Review and Herald, Vol. 55, No. 8

SPECIAL MENTION.

THE PROSPECT IN EUROPE.

The political outlook in Europe is growing darker. Russia has decided to increase the number of her war forces by 150,000 men. No worse sign of stormy weather can appear on the political horizon of the old world than the intelligence just received that “Bismarck has resumed his functions with all his old energy.” The prospect of a war with Russia is earnestly discussed in the military circles of Germany, where the staff officers, with that ultra-confidence which characterized the French generals in 1870, show to their own satisfaction that they would occupy St. Petersburg and Moscow in less than six weeks. They deride the idea of anything like the possibility of a serious resistance to their triumphal march by the Russian troops, which they affect to consider as being of no more importance than an undisciplined army of African savages.

The financial writers of Berlin endeavor also to show that Russia is not in a condition to fight. Her last war with Turkey, they say, has added 60,000,000 of roubles per annum to her budget for interest upon new loans alone; the total interest to be paid in 1880 on the Imperial State debt will be 180,000,000 of roubles, or 30,000,000 more than in 1878; and the sentiment of the Berlin Bourse is that it would be folly for Russia to engage in such a financial enterprise as a war with Germany and Austria must be, when she has no credit and can scarcely meet her present obligations. But the German bankers forget that principles of wisdom do not always govern potentates or even republics; that good credit and abundance of money are seldom a guarantee of military success; that the French republic, for instance, was bankrupt when she conquered Europe, while the French empire had its coffers full of gold, and Germany could not borrow a thaler in London when Napoleon III. surrendered; and lastly, they forget also that it may be cheaper and safer for the Czar to muster his Nihilists against Bismarck and have them slaughtered by German armies than to keep them at home under the surveillance of German police.

The contempt professed by the military authorities of Berlin for the supposed inefficiency of the Russian troops is unwise, even if justified by the facts, which is not the case. General Todleben, who defended Sebastopol against the combined forces of France and England, and changed the fortunes of war as soon as he took command of the Russian armies in front of Plevna, proved himself the peer of Moltke as an engineer and an organizer. It is not likely that military forces trained by him may have so suddenly become the “clumsy accumulations of badly armed and badly drilled soldiers” which they are represented to be. It has been the good luck of Germany in her previous quarrels with France and Austria to find an enemy as presumptuous as she seems to be now, and entirely unprepared for a great conflict. But Russia is not to be surprised, although she may be defeated. According to the St. Petersburg Viedomosti, the numbers of her population, which have been greatly underestimated by foreigners, were in 1879, 97,000,000, and she could easily put in the field 3,000,000 of soldiers. As Germany would necessarily have to keep a large force on the left bank of the Rhine to watch France, it is evident that a war with Russia would tax to their utmost her military resources. —America, Feb. 7, 1880.