one time considered a strong place, but has long ceased to be looked upon as formidable by the modern engineer, who, however, recognizes in its position an important military post, and the key to the Turkish dominions on the Asiatic side. In the

year 1829 it was taken by Prince Paskiewitch, though it afterwards fell again into the hands of the Sul

tan.

At this siege one officer particularly distinguished himself-this was General Mouravieff, destined, six and twenty years later, to enter once more the gates he had then burst open. During the progress of the present war it became evident to the allied powers that the condition of things in this quarter was eminently unsatisfactory and dangerous. A great battle had been fought at Kurekdéré, in which the advantage of position and numbers was all on the side of the Turks; yet it had resulted in a shameful defeat, the officers having deserted their men in the middle of the action and hurried to the rear, in order to secure their property, and make off with it to a place of safety. Attempts were made to rouse the Porte to the necessity of taking precautionary measures with a view to strengthening the Turkish frontier in that direction, imperilled as it was by the flagrant incompetency and misconduct of the civil and military functionaries. These attempts corrupt influences rendered abortive, till it was seen indispensable to despatch a British official to the spot, nominally to assist and advise, but really to watch and control the native authorities. Accordingly, on the second day of August, 1854, the Earl of Clarendon wrote to LieutenantColonel Williams, an officer of artillery possessing considerable experience and well acquainted with the East, to inform him that he had been selected to attend, as her Majesty's Commissioner, the head-quarters of the Turkish army in Asia, and to act in that capacity in communication with and under the orders of Lord Raglan. From this appointment date those memorable occurrences, which have rivetted upon a comparatively remote and unvisited region the attention of the world.

The new Commissioner found things in a deplorable condition. At Erzeroom, situate at no great distance from Kars, and occupied by a nume

rous garrison, the winter quarters were reported as altogether inadequate, there was no arrival of warm clothing, wheat and barley were deficient, strong shoes and worsted stockings were wanting, the medical department was unsupplied with the first requisites of the healing art; and the pay of the troops was fifteen, seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen months in arrear. This was in September, at the approach of the rigorous winter which in those elevated regions commences early, and lasts long. At Kars, the material comforts of the soldiers were somewhat better provided for, and the hospitals were in tolerable order; but the officers and surgeons were glaringly unfit to undertake the charge entrusted to them. As to the former, Colonel Williams's words may be quoted. Addressing Lord Clarendon he says, "from the information I have been able to collect from various sources, I have no hesitation in stating, for your lordship's information, that the general officers commanding the divisions are totally unfit for their employ. They

must have connived at the peculations which are practised in every department. They exhibited a lamentable incapacity in the field of battle." With regard to the latter class, namely, the medical officers and their supplies, the best authority to have recourse to is Dr. Sandwith, head of the medical staff attached to the British commission. This gentleman reports as follows, "The medical department was, in truth, at a very low ebb; less on account of the inefficiency of the staff than because they were, as usual in that land of plots, split up into numerous factions, and intriguing against each other." "The hospital supplies were a marvel and a phenomenon! Here we were, in the heart of Armenia, and when I inspected the drug-depôt I found cosmetics, aromatic vinegar, eau de luce, scents, and other dainties and medicines de luxe; but the medicines really necessary for the use of the army in the field were scarcely to be found, and the few that did exist were of the most worthless description."

It was soon discovered that an organized system of peculation and corruption was in operation within the Turkish army. The various Pachas who held command at Kars, with few

exceptions, played into each others' hands, at the expense of the unfortunate soldiers and country people, who were alike the victims of the rapacity and indifference of their superiors. The first object the newly appointed commissioner set before him was to get rid of these incompetent and unworthy functionaries, and to have them replaced by men of another stamp. To this end he despatched pressing and repeated entreaties to the representative of Her Majesty with the Sublime Porte, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, urging him not only to have competent military and medical officers sent to the camp, but to call for the disgrace and punishment of the guilty Pachas. He represented that before any effective steps could be taken towards reform, it was imperatively necessary that proof should be given of the power and willingness of the sovereign authorities to grapple with existing abuses, by the public degradation of those whose misdeeds were public and notorious. He pointed to the grave consequences that must ensue if a system corrupt as this was should be allowed to continue-consequences that might compromise interests far greater than those of provincial garrisons and forts, and neutralize or more than neutralize -all the good it was his mission to see accomplished. He inform

ed the ambassador that the British name had in him been repeatedly and grossly insulted, and that he had been bearded and ridiculed to his face, in the presence of numerous witnessesand finally, referring to an avowed ground of contempt on the part of one of these officers, he added a request that he might be accorded by the Sultan the rank of Ferik, or General of Division, which would relieve him, he conceived, from the contumely to which he was exposed by the want of a recognized position. Such may be taken as a summary of representations made from time to time to Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, from the month of September, 1854, to the following December, and backed by the steady approval of the foreign minister, Lord Clarendon. These representations were embodied in numerous despatches, amounting to fifty or sixty, and were accompanied by ample details, corroborating the statements, and suggest

ing plans of reform for the future. Moreover, it began to be apprehended that the enemy in Georgia was not only more numerous and nearer, but more likely to take active measures than was supposed, and the approaching campaign was expected to be an early and a stirring one. Under such circumstances it was judged by the commissioner that some interest might have been taken in these matters by the representative of our government with the Porte;-that that interest might have been manifested by frequent and confidential communications, which would have had in themselves the tendency, upon those who were cognizant of them, to enhance his authority with the army and local functionaries; and that its results might by this time have been begun to exhibit themselves in acts done by the Turkish government in accordance with his suggestions. It is easy to imagine the mortification, not the less keen for having been nobly suppressed all that time, that he must have experienced, and which must have so bitterly augmented the difficulties of one placed in his dubious and responsible position, when to these reiterated representations and supplications not one line of reply was ever vouchsafed! Can we wonder if at last Colonel Williams's disappointment finds words in respectful remonstrances? He takes the liberty of reminding his lordship that since he fulfilled the duties confided to him as Her Majesty's commissioner to the headquarters of the army at Kars, he had the honour of addressing to his Excellency fifty-four despatches, identical with those forwarded simultaneously to the Earl of Clarendon and General Lord Raglan. He states that each packet was accompanied by a private letter containing details and suggestions, which, had they found place in his public communications, would have inconveniently lengthened those documents. After alluding to one private letter written to him during that period on a subject having no reference to his official position, he goes on to say, that, with that exception, he has not been favoured by a line from his Excellency, even as an acknowledgment of the reception of his public or private communications. "To one," he adds, "who has served your lordship for so many years, such

an avowal on my part can only be recorded with feelings of deep disappointment and mortification-feelings which I have studiously endeavoured to conceal, even from my aide-decamp and secretaries."

Here, then, is the first fact premonitory of the fall of Kars.

As these remonstrances, though addressed to the minister at Constantinople, found their way in their official character to Her Majesty's Government at home, it became at last absolutely necessary for Lord Stratford de Redcliffe to say something in vindication of his conduct. Seeing moreover that Lord Clarendon, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs (we find the same difficulty as Lord Ellenborough in understanding why the whole of this business was not rather in the department of the war minister) applied for an explanation in terms which lost none of their pungency by being kept rigorously within the bounds of diplomatic etiquette, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe at length condescended to attempt a justification. The document is a curious one. The minister assumes the attitude of an

injured man. "I think myself entitled to remark," he says, 66 on the hasty manner in which Colonel Williams has allowed himself to suppose that I have neglected the important interests committed to his charge. Because he did not hear from me as soon or as frequently as he expected, he rushed to the conclusion that I gave him no support." Considering that Colonel Williams had written fifty-four official letters, and fifty-four voluminous statements in explanation of them, during the space of three or four months, in which he was coming to the conclusion in question, the term, implying as it does a headlong, blind, and sudden arrival at it, seems felicitously inappropriate. Nevertheless, there can be little doubt that to the writer the letter from which the above is an extract seemed triumphantly conclusive. He wrote it for the public eye :

"Thus to the world appealed my lord,

and cried

Whatever happens, I am justified."

The whole epistle is as instructive a specimen of the peculiar pedantry characteristic of high office, adminis

tered with a high hand, as it has been our lot to peruse.

From hence, however, dates a remarkable change in the tone of this correspondence. The attention of

Her Majesty's ministers at home had at last been called to the acts and designs of the now-recognized commissioner, pursuing his arduous task steadily and sternly in the recesses of a remote and inhospitable region, and amidst the thwarting influences of a semi-barbarous population. The British people had begun to spare a moment from the principal theatre of war, and turn their eyes to British qualities displayed elsewhere. A new man had appeared. The name of Williams was heard pronounced in the assemblies and thoroughfares of England with approbation. He was not to be any longer ignored, even by a plenipotentiary. From this time forward we find but few directly disparaging or slighting expressions addressed by Lord Stratford de Redcliffe to the British Government in regard to Colonel Williams. He confines himself either to serious expostulations or to vague insinuations; and even these are abandoned, at first for stiff, official proprieties, afterwards for extorted and strained commendation, as events follow each other, and place their necessity upon him. Unfortunately, the reparation came too late. The mischief had been done. It was first whispered-then openly stated-that the zealous Englishman was disowned by his own Government. Spies abounded. From the Turkish camp the rumour spread to the enemy. It would naturally prove matter of encouragement to them that the principle of non-interference appeared to be acted upon with regard to their Ottoman opponents, who were left to their own devices. Lord Clarendon, it must be stated to his credit-or disparagement, does not spare the Envoy. Expostulating indignantly as long as the injury was palpable and calculated to prejudice the great public interests in his charge, he contents himself with delicately hinting from time to time, once there ceases to be any further danger on this score, that he is neither deceived by the recent forbearance of the minister, nor convinced by his original exculpation. But it is when the tables are turned

-when the slighted, snubbed, insulted subordinate rivals his superior in the estimation of Europe, and becomes in his turn the proper object of respect and deference as well as of admiration, that the minister in England has his revenge. He has no need to seek about for expressions that will gall and go home. Every word he is obliged to say bears its proper sting. He cannot advise without appearing to reprove-he cannot reprove without seeming to taunt. The language of official routine takes a sinister meaning from past occurrences, and reads like an involuntary impeachment.

But we have anticipated the progress of events. Thus much it seemed necessary to premise, in order to show that into an estimate of the causes of what followed some personal influences, amongst those more strictly political and general, would of necessity have to be thrown. It may be thought, before we bring these pages to a conclusion, that in one other instance at least, a similar motive was possibly at work.

The winter of 1854-5 was passed by Colonel Williams in unceasing exertions to provision, arm, and fortify the cities of Kars and Erzeroom. In his efforts he was aided by several brave and energetic Europeans, amongst whom were the following Englishmen --Colonel Lake, Captain Teesdale, Captain Thompson, Mr. Churchill, and Dr. Sandwith. Notwithstanding the inaction of the Russian General Bebutoff after the battle of Kurekdéré, the prescient sagacity of Colonel Williams foresaw that the approaching spring would witness active operations, and that Kars would probably be the first object of attack. Bebutoff had been succeeded in the command of the Russian army in Georgia by Mouravieff; and the Commissioner knew enough of the character of that General to apprehend a speedy change of policy. Having now the rank of Ferik, or General of Division in the Ottoman army, he found it somewhat easier to manage the miserable incapable officials within those two fortresses. He contrived to have engineering works of considerable extent completed around the former of them. The nature of the ground is such, that a defence can only be made by means

of several independent forts. General Montieth had given it as his opinion that in no way but by detached works could Kars be strengthened. The town is commanded by heights at both sides of the dividing stream. These heights, since they were of too considerable a circuit to fall within continuous defences, were, by Colonel Williams, marked out for the construction of a series of tabias, or batteries; and in the course of a few months he had the satisfaction of seeing the place so far strengthened by the application of engineering skill and bodily labour, that a sufficient force, properly armed and victualled, might bid defiance for a considerable time to the best efforts of an attacking army. How he toiled at this work, he has not told us himself. But Dr. Sandwith has told us for him." I often heard Turks remark that Williams Pacha worked as no Pacha ever worked before. They could not understand him. Was he not a Pacha? Why, then, should he work like a hammal ?'" "General Williams worked incessantly at the fortifications in sun, rain, and snow; but this was his easiest task." His real difficulties were, in fact, of a different nature. To attempt a defence of the place, the garrison must be armed, clothed and provisioned. Accordingly, for the accomplishment of this object, the Commissioner bent himself with his characteristic energy to obtain supplies. But here it was that obstacles presented themselves, beyond the scope of personal labour, which all his exertions were unable to overcome. Here the rooted evils of the Turkish system met him, and blockedup his path. Falsehood, peculation, corruption, disregard of the public weal, and recklessness of public danger, the absence of all self-respect and all patriotism amongst the higher ranks, these together formed a barrier beyond his power to surmount. At this period his difficulties had not reached their climax; yet he had, even now, paralyzing proof of what he most wished to avoid believing. He found the generals cowardly, thievish, and ignorant. "They laughed and smoked while the army starved." He tried, and at last prevailed, in spite of the British ambassador, to have some of them removed. He discovered that while supplies, stated at head-quarters to be regularly