nd his subjects with utter disdain.

The Turkish government took example from Russia rather than from the
allies; she made prodigious efforts to meet the exigency. Her first care
was wisely not in the direction of the Danube. She knew that, numerous
as were the Russian legions, they could not force the passage of the
Balkan, and meet her in defence of her capital upon the plains of
Roumelia, before the allied fleets and allied troops would secure
it. She had another and more urgent danger; that pointed out by Lord
Aberdeen in his despatch upon the treaty of Adrianople.

* * * * *

Russia might penetrate through Armenia into Asia Minor; she might,
from the southern shores of the Black Sea, rundown new hosts, overrun
provinces comparatively unprotected, and by another route reach the
Dardanelles, and menace not only Constantinople, but the allied fleets
within its waters. The divan accordingly organized an army of Asia,
and with it occupied Anatolia. Selim Pasha was appointed as
commander-in-chief and seraskier of the province. Had he possessed the
genius of Omar Pasha, to whom the army of the Danube was committed,
he might, as events have since proved, have driven the Russians from
Georgia and Circassia, and freed the Caucasus from their presence. He
was wholly unfit to command a division, much less an army. The Asiatic
danger provided against, Omar was sent to collect and organize an army
in Bulgaria, and strong reinforcements were promised to be held ready at
Adrianople. Two conscriptions, of 80,000 men each, were made before
the end of September; and Russia replied to these demonstrations by two
enormous levies.

Thus the note of preparation sounded through all the vast empire of the
sultan, from Hindostan to the Bosphorus, and thence to the Danube.*

* Nolan's "History of the War against Russia."

The allies made attempts to open negotiations at Vienna, in which the
Russian, Austrian, and Turkish diplomatists proved themselves superior
to those of Western Europe. The only result was to prove that the
dispute could be settled only by the arbitrament of war. This the sultan
declared on the 4th of October, the new year's day of the Turks. Fifteen
days were given by the sultan for the czar to withdraw his armies before
any attack was made upon them.

The events which followed will best and most briefly be depicted by a
quotation from the author's work already referred to.

Four days after the declaration of