Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/47

 BETWEEN THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN. 5 thought, what they felt, what they saw, what they ciia P. heard, nay, even what they were planning against '_ the enemy, they uttered aloud in the face of the world • and thence it happened that one of the chief features of the struggle was the demeanour of a free and impetuous people in time of war. Again, the invasion of the Crimea so tried the strength, so measured the enduring power of the nations engaged, that, when the conflict was over, their relative stations in Europe were changed, and they had to be classed afresh. Moreover, the strife yielded lessons in war and policy which are now of great worth. But this war was deadly. "The grave of the Ground -m liii • i t-» i tracing) ri» hundred thousand which Russia keens holy on causes c, „ r J the war. the bevernaya contains, after all, but a fraction of the soldiers, sailors, workmen, and peasants whom she alone brought to the sacrifice;* and if the aggregate of her losses were discovered and added to those of France, England, Turkey, and Sardinia, there would be seen to have resulted altogether an appalling destruction of life. The war con- sumed treasure unsparingly, but also swallowed up in huge quantities that yet more precious rural Kebastopol contains a less number of ilea,} than its poetic appel- lation imports— contains, I believe, SO, 000— but it is not there that the bulk of the victims repose. They died on the lines of march. The losses sustained by Russia were mainly occasioned by the effort of marching great distances in the interior of her vast territories. The Czar did not merely press on his people by forcing the march of soldiers, but by wringing from a hap- less peasantry the means of moving his Divisions with their war encumbrances over immense tracts of country.
 * "The grave of the hundred thousand " on the north side of