would have grown half-grey," the retreat was countermanded, and orders for resuming the offensive were given. On the 31st of March, the Allied army marched through the gates of Paris, and on the summit of Mont Martre, the Emperor Alexander clasped Diebitsch in his arms, expressed his grateful acknowledgment of the eminent services he had rendered to the common cause, and with his own hand invested him with the ribbon and insignia of St. Alexander-Newsky,—the highest distinction which Russian chivalry affords.

As soon as peace was concluded, Diebitsch found his way back to Warsaw, and on the 31st of March 1815, he married Jane Baroness de Tornau, a daughter of the Baron and Privy-Counsellor of that name, and niece to the lady of Prince Barclay de Tolly, under whose immediate eye the latter years of his bright career had been passed. Of this marriage there has been no issue; and he is at this moment in the first year of his widowhood.

On Napoleon's return from Elba, Alexander called him to his side at the congress of Vienna, and then sent him to join the first corps of the Russian army, as chief officer of the general staff. After the battle of Waterloo, Count Woronzow's division being left to form part of the army of occupation, the remainder of the Russians bent their way homewards, and Diebitsch proceeded with his corps to the Dnieper, where he remained in headquarters at Mohilew, until the Emperor gave him a farther proof of his confidence by appointing him Adjutant-general. When the Spanish and Italian revolutions called the Sovereigns together at Laybach, Diebitsch was specially summoned to accompany his Monarch to the congress, and was one of his principal advisers throughout its proceedings. Upon their termination, he returned to Mohilew, where he remained stationed, until he was ordered to St. Petersburgh in the year 1820, and placed at the head of the Imperial staff. In this capacity, and as Adjutant-General, he was attached to his Sovereign's person in the strictest sense of the word, accompanied him on all his journeys, and was consulted upon every occasion where the army or military affairs were concerned. His influence was also enhanced by bis appointment to the Major-Generalship of the Russian forces.

In the autumn of 1825, the Emperor Alexander set out upon a tour of inspection through Podolia, Wolhynia, and Bessarabia, and having joined the Empress at Taganrog, on the Sea of Asoph, thence made excursions into the Crimea and several adjacent provinces. Diebitsch was his favourite companion. Sebastopol was one of the places they visited, and its rich and delightfully romantic scenery excited the Emperor's admiration in so lively a degree, that he suddenly turned round to Gen. Diebitsch, and exclaimed -“Should I ever withdraw from the cares of government I should wish to close my days on this spot." He had not been long at this place before he complained of cold and general indisposition, returned in consequence to Taganrog, and, after some fourteen days' illness, expired, on the 1st of December, in the arms of his exemplary consort. Diebitsch, having witnessed this scene with a sorrowing eye, and wept many a bitter tear over the last remains of a kind and beloved master, hastened back to the Russian capital. The faithful servants of the elder were welcome guests in the presence of the younger brother, and Diebitsch found in Nicholas a patron who was capable of appreciating his merits and devotion. The young Prince was scarcely engaged in providing for the conduct of the Government, when he was called upon to defend the throne against a widely-ramified conspiracy, of which the seeds had been laid so far back as the year 1821. It was, however, averted by the resolute energy of the Regent, and Miloradovitsh, Governor of St. Petersburgh, who fell its first and most distinguished victim. Among the numerous list of those who were thus rescued from its vengeance, was Gen. Diebitsch, who seems to have shared the hatred of Bestusheff and Murawiew, in common with the Imperial brothers and the most eminent of the Russian nobility. That this treasonable design was conceived in a purely selfish spirit, became abundantly manifest from the discordance

of views which prevailed amongst its originators; some of whom were for establishing a republic, others a limited monarchy, some a regency, and others again a middle system between a monarchy and a republic; whilst most were incapable of designating for what direct end they had conspired. Immediately previous to this explosion, Gen. Diebitsch had been dispatched to Warsaw to notify the demise of the late Sovereign to the Grand-Duke Constantine, he was accompanied by Prince Wolkonski, and returned in a short time with letters from the Cesarowitsh, in which he declared himself ready to take the first oath of allegiance to his brother Nicholas, as Autocrat of all the Russias; thereby confirming the solemn renunciation which he had made on the 24th January 1822. By activity and dexterous management in this negotiation, no less than zeal and resolution in suppressing the spirit of turbulence which at that time manifested itself in the second corps, Diebitsch established himself firmly in the favour of the new Sovereign, was confirmed in the post of chief of the Imperial staff, and, in a general order of the day issued by Nicholas, was distinguished by as honourable a mention as was ever conferred by a Monarch on his subject.

"Among the services, which you have rendered to your country," says the order, "posterity will justly account among the most important, the decision and energy with which you conducted yourself at a time when we were weighed down by the great calamity which had befallen the whole nation, and when you came forward single-handed to meet the approach of danger. In the name of the country at large, accept, through me, the tribute of our unmingled gratitude; and believe me to be, "Your most affectionate,

"NICHOLAS."

It was no trifling pledge of his Sovereign's esteem to be entrusted shortly after with the duty of receiving the remains of the late Emperor at Moscow, and conveying them to St. Petersburgh, where, upon the solemn obsequies which took place on the 26th of March 1826, he followed, at the head of the general staff, immediately next to his Grace of Wellington. And again, in the September of the succeeding year, he had the high gratification of being chosen as the medium through whom his Imperial Majesty extended a free pardon to those, who, by reason of their participation in the late conspiracy, had been condemned to hard labour, or exiled to the more distant provinces. The connexion between Russia and Turkey had for years been gradually assuming a more unfriendly, if not a decidedly hostile character; the negotiations, which had long been pending between both powers, involved points, whence either of them could readily derive a plausible pretext for bringing that connexion to a precipitate termination; and it was unlikely that advantage would not be taken of them, whenever it might be convenient to Russia to give farther effect to her favourite yearning for aggrandizement in the South. On the 14th of April 1828, she therefore put forth a thundering manifesto of wrongs and outrages done to her by the Ottoman, and forthwith set her armies in motion. The indifferent result of the first campaign received, however, some compensation from the capture of Varna; and this was abundantly needed to revive the sinking spirits of the Muscovite soldiery, after their sanguinary miscarriage before Brailow, and the discomfiture of their attempts upon the entrenchments of Shumla. Diebitsch's friends have invariably repudiated the plan of this campaign, so far as he has been charged with having been its author; and this accusation bears its own refutation with it, if it be true, as it has been confidently alleged, that he had previously insisted upon the urgency of making Varna the basis of any aggression upon Turkey. The experience of preceding campaigns must, indeed, have convinced so wary a soldier as Diebitsch, that Shumla and the Balkan are nothing less than the Thermopyla of the Turkish dominions on their northern side; and it is impossible but that he must have felt, with a brother soldier, that "after inspecting its natural and artificial strength, the visitor will acknowledge he could not have set foot

within it, save and except by the permission of its custodians.”* At all events, the fall of Varna was the work of General Diebitsch, and virtually acknowledged as such by an eye-witness-his own Sovereign, in the Imperial rescript issued on the 12th of November, to which was added the grand-cross of the order of St. Andrew. His subsequent operations were confined to the establishing of the Russian forces, which continued under the chief command of Count Wittgenstein, in safe and comfortable winter quarters on the northern side of the Danube. Having effected this important object, and consulted with his brother-officers on the subject of the campaign for the following year, he followed the Emperor Nicholas to St. Petersburgh; and, upon his return to Jassy, was appointed commander-inchief with unlimited powers; an honour which he intimated to the army by his General-order of the 27th of February 1829, wherein a respectful and affectionate testimony is borne to the services of his predecessor. Between this time and the 20th of March, he was indefatigably occupied in the equipment, renovation, and reorganization of the Russian forces, and, in the same interval, had removed his head-quarters from Jassy to Isaaktsha. In the following month the campaign opened with desperate, though unavailing, sallies on the part of the Turkish garrisons in Widdin, Giurgewo, and Silistria, under the walls of which latter fortress their onset was so formidable as to impel him, though labouring under a severe fever, to animate his men to victory by his own presence, where the contest raged with greatest fury. May was signalized by an abortive assault upon the same stronghold; but, on the thirtieth of the month ensuing, the intrepid obstinacy of his opponents gave way, and the Russian eagle replaced the crescent within its frowning battlements.

This event left him with the unincumbered means of effecting an enterprise, which has deservedly placed him on a level with the first captains of the present day. He knew that the Grand Vizier, in command of "Shumla the inexpugnable," would concentrate his attention on the defence of that important stronghold, and foresaw, that if threatened in that quarter, he would leave every other point, especially that below Kamtshik, uncovered, rather than expose it even to the remotest prospect of danger. Diebitsch, therefore, moved up the main body of his forces in front of Shumla; then directed Gen. Rüdiger to advance to Kiuprikioi, on his right, and cover Roth's division on his left, which had orders to force the pass over the lower Kamtshik; both were to be supported by Count Pahlen with the reserve, and whilst this operation was proceeding, Gen. Krassowski, at the head of 40,000 infantry and cavalry, had it in charge to keep the Grand Vizier in check, and defend the line of operations until the passage of the Balkan had been effected. The circumstances, however, of this brilliant and successful achievement are of so recent a date, as to render it unnecessary for us to dwell upon its details. It will be sufficient to observe, that Diebitsch, having mastered every obstacle, and given a signal overthrow to the Grand Vizier, who had issued from his entrenchments with 40,000 Turks on the road to Paravadi, forced his way through the mountain-bulwarks of the Balkan, assaulted and carried Mesambri and Burgas, repulsed the gallant attack made upon him before Aidos by Ibrahim Pasha, and on the 31st of July, issued from that town a proclamation, which converted even Mussulman prejudice into respect and amity, by guaranteeing to all entire safety of persons and property: an act of grace unknown to the ferocious character of Mahomedan warfare. Eleven days after this, the victor's name was enrolled by his Imperial Master's hand in the annals of Russian glory, under the title of" Iwan Iwanowitsh SABALKANSKY," (the forcer of the Balkan,) in perpetual remembrance of his lofty enterprise and splendid triumphs." The difficulties of the ground between Aidos and Adrianople would have

* Colonel Rottier's Itinerary from Tiflis to Constantinople.

required as many months, as it occupied him days to compass them, had he been called upon to encounter them in the presence of a less panic-struck antagonist. On the 19th of August, Eski-Sarai and the heights which command the ancient and splendid city of Adrianople, were in the possession of the victors. There were means of defence at hand; regular troops and militia to the extent of nearly 30,000, and approaches rendered tenable by deep ditches, numerous gardens, and close-set hedges; but a deputation of Turks presented themselves at the outposts to negotiate a capitulation, and Diebitsch required an unconditional surrender within the next fourteen hours. At five in the morning of the 20th, the columns of attack were on the march, and two hours before the expiration of the breathing-time allowed, the Russian commander was seen heading the right column within gun-shot of the walls. Another proposal for obtaining terms was summarily rejected-and the assailants were again in motion. At this sight, both soldier and citizen threw away their arms, and rushed out to welcome their invaders; whilst some of the Pashas advanced to offer greetings to Count Diebitsch, and others clapped spurs to their chargers that they might avoid taking a part in this scene of national humiliation. Fifty-six cannon, fiveand-twenty standards, and five horse-tails, besides a rich booty in necessaries and munitions of war, fell a prize to the victors.

On the following day, Kirklissa, Lullé-Burgos, and Iniadi having been entered, the Russian advance was pushed as far as Tshatal-Burgas on the road to Silivria. Thus established in the very heart of European Turkey, where could Diebitsch have been placed in a more auspicious position for exacting what has passed into the nomenclature of diplomacy" indemnity for the past and security for the future?" The negotiations were opened by envoys dispatched from Constantinople; and, after they had spun them out until he threatened to break them off altogether, and dictate harder terms before the gates of Constantinople, a treaty of peace was ultimately signed at Adrianople on the 14th of September, and on the 28th of October following the ratifications by each Sovereign were exchanged on the same spot.

Of this treaty we have only space to remark, that, in proportion as it crippled the power and independence of the Ottoman empire, it extended the dominion and cemented the preponderance of Russia, to a degree, indeed, which has rendered her an object of new alarm and jealousy to every state in Europe.

Since the close of the Turkish campaign, Field-Marshal Diebitsch has been occupied in military avocations at St. Petersburgh, with the exception of a few months in the autumn of last year, which he has chiefly spent on a visit to his patrimonial estates in Silesia. His health had been much impaired by the toils of war, and it was generally believed that this circumstance, combined with the undissembled jealousy he was exposed to endure from many of the native officers in the Russian service, had inspired him with a determination to retire from public life. But Poland has sounded the tocsin of independence, and he has been summoned to an inglorious task;-a task, in which whatever fame he may acquire, will be blotted out in abhorrence of the means through which he will have purchased it.

In personal appearance, Diebitsch is of diminutive stature; his complexion is sunburnt, and he walks with his head bent downwards; his eye is busy and full of fire; his forehead high; and there is something about his look which forbids familiarity. His person exhibits the vivacity of an active and stirring temperament, and his manners betray the man of the world and the warrior.

S.

ON THE MODE OF ARMING AND FIGHTING

STEAM SHIPS OF WAR.

MR. BURKE says, that before a great change takes place, men's minds must be prepared for it; and the maxim holds good in war, as well as in politics. Since the peace of 1815, the opinion seems to have been gradually gaining ground, that a considerable change must take place in naval warfare by the application of steam power. The French and Americans have accordingly been preparing for that event; and the latter, it appears from the President's speech, have suspended the building of line-of-battle ships for the present; Great Britain alone has been resting upon her arms; it having been a maxim of a late Board of Admiralty, that she owes her naval superiority to the yard-arm-and-yard-arm system, and that she ought not to be the first to introduce any change.

Now this policy, I am inclined to think, will appear somewhat problematical to most people, who naturally imagine that statesmen, as well as soldiers, ought never to be taken by surprise, but to see their way clear before them. If a change is to take place when war arises, it naturally follows that large sums of the public money have been expended since the peace in objects worse than useless. Far be it from me to wish to detract from British courage in any way; but at the same time I think it may be considered as a fundamental principle never to be lost sight of, that the nation which excels in fire will be ultimately victorious in war. And I am very much mistaken if war will not become a much more mechanical operation than it has hitherto been, in which although personal courage may still be very influential, yet, at the same time, its relative importance will be greatly diminished. In other words, it will be expedient to trust more to science, and less to physical force.

But to come to the matter more immediately at issue: How are steamers to be equipped and fought? This becomes a question of some importance; and under the existing circumstances, the Government can hardly be expected to be able to give an answer to it. Velocity and efficiency will evidently be the principal things to attend to; and it is in the just combination of these two qualities that their advantages will probably be found to consist. If two steamers came to close action, broadside to broadside, there can be little doubt that they would immediately disable the paddles of each other, and that they would then become the most helpless of all vessels. If this reasoning be correct, it follows that close action must be evaded, and accuracy of fire will then become an object of paramount importance. By a parity of reasoning, I think it will follow, that large steamers, independent of their enormous expense, will be a positive incumbrance; as at a long range, the advantage of fire is on the side of the smaller vessel, from having a much larger object to fire at.

Under these circumstances, the plan I beg leave to submit for the arming of steamers, will be with two short 24-pounders, working in grooves on either side of the foremast, parallel to the keel of the vessel, so as to throw either shot or shells. Similar grooves to be placed in the