not be complete unless his companion were some French or Roumanian beauty, as venal as himself, who is serving him as he is serving Holy Russia. A French correspondent, with a disinclination for going to the front, and a desire to employ his spare time, has been employing himself in collecting and authenticating cases of peculation throughout the Russian army, the record to be published at a safe season when the war is over. The exposure will astonish the world — at least that portion of the world which does not know Russia. In the mean time I venture to assert that every article of consumption or wear supplied to the Russian army costs, by the time it comes into use, more than double what it ought to do under a well-managed and decently honest system. Of other and yet baser corruption — of the little difficulty with which men of whom other things might be expected are to be found willing to be virtual traitors for a consideration, by offering to sell secrets and secret documents — I dare not trust myself to speak. The subject is too grievously melancholy.
Favoritism brings it about that commands are bestowed on men within its ring-fence, with little or no reference to qualifications. The Russian officer does not need merit if he can only attain to "protection." With "protection" a youngster may be a colonel in command of the grizzled veteran of hard campaigns and many decorations, who, destitute of "protection," is still but a first lieutenant. The aim in making appointments at the beginning of this war seems to have been to exclude from active service every man who has ever distinguished himself in a previous command. Todleben has been only sent for now as a last resource. Kauffmann, the conqueror of Khiva, was left behind to chew the cud of his experience. Bariatinsky was not withdrawn from the neglected retirement into which he had been suffered to lapse. Kotzebue's experience of command in active service remained unutilized. Tchernaieff, who with a mass of untrained militia kept the Turks four months at bay, was left for months to cool his heels in Russia, was at length insulted with the offer of the command of a brigade in Asia, and has now finally been ordered back into retirement at the instance of the archduke Michael — jealous of the ovations with which a fine soldier and really capable chief was received on arriving at the former's headquarters. Nepokoitchitzky's claim to be chief of the staff lies simply, so far as I can gather, in his knowledge of the Danubian valley on the Roumanian side of the river, derived by having served in the force which in 1853-4 scarcely covered itself with glory in fighting against the Turks. At Ploesti he seemed to me to fulfil the rôle of a superior sort of staff sergeant, always walking about with a handful of returns and states. He is a dumb man — and dumb seemingly from not having anything to say. Levitsky, his sous-chefy is a young professor, utterly devoid of experience except in the handling in manœuvres of comparatively small bodies of men; pragmatic and arrogant, but with a strong will, which, in conjunction with his incapacity, has been one of the chief factors in the failure hitherto of the Russian army. But he is within the ring-fence of "protection," and holds his ground against the clamors and murmurs of the army. To be within that pale is to be safe, if not from contumely, at least from open disgrace. If there be one thing more certain than another in connection with this war, it is that Prince Schakoffskoy ought to have been tried and broke for insubordination and disobedience of orders at the battle of Plevna of-the 30th of July. But he still commands his army corps, and, so far as I know, did not even receive a direct reprimand. In the old days Krüdener would have been sent to Siberia for the unmilitary and insubordinate act of assembling a batch of correspondents, and essaying to vindicate his conduct through them to the world by the publication of the essentially private orders under which he was forced peremptorily to act. But he holds his position in command of a corps, although his immunity may indeed be owing to the fact of his grimly and threateningly holding the telegrams which exonerate him at the expense of others. Schilder-Schuldner, the hero of the utterly "unspeakable" first fiasco at Plevna, still retains the command of the fragment of that brigade which his crass blundering shattered there. General Kriloff, who the other day, entrusted with a mass of Russian cavalry, and charged with the task of blocking the Sofia road, supinely failed to intercept reinforcements and supplies marching on Plevna, enjoys the equivocal credit of an exploit which the English military reader may be excused for regarding as well-nigh impossible. He commanded for a year a cavalry division at Warsaw, during the whole of which time he possessed no charger, although he drew rations, or rather their money, equivalent for six.
