THE STRATEGY OF SLOW PRESSURE.
THERE are a number of people who look upon the Turco-Russian war as a “failure,” because the fighting doesn’t begin on the Danube. They seem to think that Russia has assumed the offensive with a great flourish of trumpets, and that she is bound to go ahead with the performance, like any other spectacular exhibition. But the Russians do not look on it in this light; they want to so carry on this war that its work will endure. This work is no less than the obliteration of Turkish power in Europe. Already the relations of Roumania to Russia are so close as to make the former almost a part of the Russian Empire. The Danube is now practically the northern boundary of Turkey. Wallachia and Moldavia are already lost, and Russia’s slow campaign has conquered these and secured them, probably forever, almost without striking a blow. The march from Kischeneff to the Danube was a feat of swiftness. Russians can be fast enough when it is necessary. They are halting now, because more is to be gained by waiting than by victories which might startle all Europe. Every day of delay strengthens the Russians and weakens the Turks. The desperate measures to which the Porte is resorting in his death agony show his pitiable weakness. He has ordered a levy en masse for men, and forced loans for money, and still gets very little of either. At Constantinople there is impotence, sloth, divided counsels, revolutionary intrigue, tyrannic temper, monstrous pride, omnipresent corruption, jealousy, suspicion, irresolution, and imbecility. Every day of delay makes the government of the Porte weaker at home, more despised and hated abroad. The armies are badly clothed and equipped, wretchedly fed, and poorly officered. The discipline, never good, is now worse than ever. The hospital accommodations are insufficient and the troops are swept off by a deadly typhus and the plague; the heats of summer and bad food will bring dysentery also. Conceding to the Turks individual valor and fanatical devotion to the Sultan and to the Crescent, they will hardly be able to withstand the disciplined onset of the Russians. The problem in Bulgaria will not be like that in Armenia. There the armies are small, and the fortresses of Varna, Rustchuk, and Schumla, poorly manned. Armies of siege will be left to isolate these, and the great army will push beyond the Balkans and dictate the peace near Constantinople. The slow campaign will win. —Baltimore Gazette.