breed of men had
taken the places of those soldiers who had been so prominent in the work
of overthrowing Napoleon; and even the heroes of 1812-15 were admitted
to be inferior to _their_ predecessors, the soldiers of Zuerich and
Trebbia and Novi. It is the fact, and one upon which military men can
ruminate at their leisure, that the Russian armies showed more real
power and "pluck" a century ago than they have exhibited in any of
the wars of the last sixty years. They fought better at Zorndorf and
Kunersdorf, against the great Frederic, than they did at Austerlitz
and Friedland, against the greater Napoleon, or than we have seen them
fight, at the Alma, and at Inkerman, and at Eupatoria, against Raglan,
and St. Arnaud, and Omar Pacha. There was no falling off in the soldiers
of Suvaroff; but personal character had much to do with his successes,
as he was a man of genius, and the only original soldier that Russia
has ever had; and the men whom he led to victory in Turkey, Poland,
and Italy were trained by officers who had learned their trade of the
warriors who had fought against Frederic. But in the nineteenth Century
the change in the Russian army was perceptible to all men, and in none
could that change have produced more serious feelings than in the
present Czar and his father. Nicholas is supposed to have died of
mortification because his army, the instrument of his power over Europe,
had been cut through by the swords of the West; and Alexander II.
succeeded to a disgraced throne because his troops had proved themselves
unworthy successors of the men of Kulm. Wishing to have better soldiers
than he found in his armies, or than had served his father, Alexander
II. hastened that scheme of emancipation which he had been thinking of,
we may presume, for years, and which, he asserts, is the hereditary
idea of his line. We do not suppose that he is less inclined to rule
despotically than was his father, or that he would be averse to the
recovery of the position which was held by his uncle and his father. We
find not the slightest evidence, in all the proceedings of the Russian
Government, that the _people_ whom the Czar means to create are to
be endowed with political freedom. A more vigorous race of Russians,
morally speaking, is needed, and, except in some parts of the United
States, there are no men to be found capable of arguing that any portion
of the human family is susceptible of improvement through servitude. The