Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/227

PRECEDING THE INVASION. 197 Ottoman forces, was not so formidable an invader chap. XII of European Turkey as to deserve that her de- L_ spairing struggles in the country of the Lower Danube should be encountered with all the re- sources of strategic prudence. Besides, the ques- tion was not purely a military one. It was cer- tain that the mere presence of the French and the English forces in the neighbourhood of the conflict would have a moral weight more than proportioned to their actual readiness for offen- sive operations. Finally, the question had been settled. The allied Generals, in their conference with Omar Pasha, had engaged to move their troops to Varna ; and the honour of France and England stood pledged. But if there was a semblance of military wis- dom in the hesitation of the French to move up to Varna, there was none in their plan for the de- fensive line behind the Balkan at Aides ; for if the want of means of land-transport threatened to hamper the activity of the force even in the advanced position of Varna, it is obvious that the same cause would have reduced the French and English forces to sheer uselessuess if they had taken up a position at so vast a distance as Aides is from the scene of the conflict. If the plan had been followed, no French nor English troops in that year would have seen the shape of a Russian battalion. Yet Marshal St Arnaud, so far as conceraed France, had determined thus to forfeit all mihtary significance in the pending campaign, and had done so, and had begun to carry the pluu