Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/11

 A PREFACE TO THE PRESENT EDITION. Vll gentle, poetic impulsion — to love, fond, worshipping love of the Holy Shrines in Palestine ; and now, as it happens, sheer chance — for indeed I sought no such knowledge — makes me able to say that it is sentiment — romantic, wild sentiment — which has once more been throwing the spark. When Servia in the month of July invaded her Suzerain's dominions, the new leverage of Kussian Democracy had already so acted upon Opinion, that the Czar, although not at that time under anything like hard compulsion, was still so far moved as to be induced to let some of his people go out and take part in the rising — a rising against the Government of a State with which he professed to be at peace ; but this armed emigration at first was upon a small scale, and the Servian cause stood in peril of suffering a not distant collapse, when the incident I am going to mention began to exert its strange sway over the course of events. The young Colonel Nicholai Kireeff was a noble, whose birth and possessions connected him with the districts affected by Moscow's fiery aspirations ; and being by nature a man of an enthusiastic disposition, with a romantic example before him in the life of his father, he had accustomed himself to the idea of self-sacrifice. Upon the outbreak of Prince Milan's insurrection, he went off to Servia with the design of acting simply under the banner of the Red Cross, and had already entered upon his humane task, when he found himself called upon by General Tchernaieff to accept the command of what we may call a brigade