English and Foreign.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VI, Issue 393, 9 August 1856, Page 5

English and Foreign.

THE DEFENCE OF KA.RS BY GENERAL

WILLIAMS

(From the "Times," .Inarch. 8.)

Among the men of self-reliance who have struggled alone amid adverse circumstances General Williams must hold a high place. His aggressive warfare against Turkish corruption is as brilliant as his subsequent defence of Kars against forces three times as numerous as his own. As the reality of his position during the last three mouths of 1855 is disclosed, we wonder that any "man' should have so persevered in befriending aruingrateful ally and upholding a hopeless cause. We feel how ratural it swas to suppose that, if left unaided and unanswered, he would, in a fit of anger or despair, desert the charge which he had received from the Government of his country. We can appreciate the probability that if he remained he would only mix up his name with incapable generals and a broken army, and if he returned at all, only return to obscurity or to censure. When Colonel Williams received the rank of brigadier, and was deputed to advise the Turkish Com-mander-in-Chief in Asia, it was thought proper that he should receive Turkish military rank. He was to be appointed a Pasha, and to have the position of a General in the Ottoman army. Now let it not be supposed that such a distinction was totally new, that |it shocked any prejudice, or that any long time or any great exercise of power was necessaryjto obtain it. For years Turkey has had Pashas and Beys from every quarter of Europe. For years Stamboul has swarmed 'with refugees and renegades with high rank in the Sultan's army. At the commencement of this war there was a crowd of British aspirants for such honors. A gentleman with a week's moustache, and looking about the last man in the world to regenerate the Mussulman, would suddenly appear in the streets of Pera. He 'would wear the brilliant uniform of the Peckham Fencibles :or some such semi-warlike corps. His ca«

would be that which adorns the body guard of His Highness the Navvaub of Thuggapore, his rank of colonel he would have earned in the service of one of the lale Governments of Nicaragua. Such a hero found no difficulty in approaching the Seraskier armed with the strongest diplomatic recommendations, and a few hours 'were sufficient to convert him iuto an Ottoman General with a highly Oriental name. But no such speed was thought necessary in the case of the Queen's Commissioner; labouring in an endangered province for the good of a wasted army, and daily insulted by the vilest of mankind. On the 15th of November, after General Williams had been two months In Asia, Lord Stratford writes that he has applied to Rsdschid Pasha that the rank of Si Ferik" should be conferred on the commissioner; but there the matter rested. For two months longer, although General Williams was writing almost daily, to complain of the treatment he received, and his want of authority, no notice was taken at the British Embassy. The Firman, which could have been obtained in half an hour by the English dragoman, was never asked for. It was not until General Williams, driven to desperation, had laid the Ambassador's neglect before the Foreign Office, that Lord Stratford condescended to write tojiim, and, in a communication not a little insolent and bitter, to inform him that his appointment as " Ferik" had been made. This despatch—the first addressed by the Ambassador to the Commissioner —bears date December bO. Well might Lord Clarendon point out in indignant language to the Ambassador, that though a despatch from the Embassy, of November 15th, announced that the appointment had been asked for, yet no steps had been taken to obtain it, and that, '• knowing the necessity that General Williams should have rank in the Turkish army, in order to secure to him the respect and obedience required, his diploma of ' Ferik ' has not yet been sent to him, nor does he appear to have been -informed that the rank was conferred upon him." " General Williams," says the Foreign Secretary, " was surrounded by traitors and robbeis, and stood in need of all the encouragement that her Majesty's service could afford him."

Lord Stratford's main defence is that he had, while declining to notice the Commissioner, done all that was necessary with the Turkish Government. In justice to the Ambassador's diplomatic talent, we ■may say that he does not fail to keep up appearances ; but" we think there will be few' deceived by such obvious precautions. That in despatches to the Foreign Office General Williams should be spoken of once or twice as a " zealous " and "' meritorious " person is no nvyre than might be expected. Lord Stratford was not very likely to make himself appear beforehand the opponent of the man whose failure might be more effectually compassed by a quiet neglect. So also the Ambassador now calls in his dragoman to prove that certain propositions have been submitted to the Porte. He puts thirteen questions which M, Pisani duly answers in a satisfactory manner, and questions and answers are then transmitted to London. Lord Clarendon iv reply tothe despatch says, " Your Excellency's despatch has received the careful consideration of her Majesty's Government, and I have to inform you ihnt it appears by M. 'Pisani's replies to your Excellency's queries that with the exception uf some bail cartridges, little or nothing seems to have been SMit !o the relief af the army at Kars. The supplies which the Ambassador had declared he had asked for, it was acknowledged were never sent, and the medical stores were proved to have been worthless. Lord Clarendon then, having glanced over the other assertions of the Ambassador about

letters of reprimand and approval having been addressed to various Turks, says with vehemence, " But this is all that has been done for the relief of the army, notwithstanding the repeated and urgent remonstrances of her Majesty's Government." He then concludes with a sentence in which these words occur:—"Her Majesty's Government cannot but regret the silence observed by your Excellency towards Gen. Williams, and they can well understand the discouragement and mortification he must have felt at receiving no acknowledgement of his 54 despatches,- accompanied by private letters, for he looked to your Excellency as his natural protector." Such is Lord Clarendon's judgment on all the defence which Lord Stratford had to offer then,—on all he has to offer now. The reprobation of the Foieign Office will, we think, be acquiesced in by every man who reads the documents now published, and, when we consider that Lord Clarendon wrote long before Kars was invested or General Williams a man of note, it will be plain how deeply blameablp the offence must have appeared.

General Williams having dared to appeal to the Home Government, Lord Stratford could no longer conceal his resentment. Even the commonplace epithets of approbation, usual in official documents wholly cease. The Ambassador, after a silence of months, addresses the Commissioner. He sends the firman which appoints him Ferik. This letter is in the dryest official tone, without one word of apology or regret—without any mention of the reasons for."delaying to reply which he had urged to Lord Clarendon. It ends with a sneer. General Williams had been ill received by' the Turks, and grossly insulted by a certain Shukri Pasha. He had also complained of another, ICerim Pasha, but the latter had subsequently become more civil, and given assistance to the Commissioner, who had written to indicate the change. Lord Clarendon had instructed the Ambassador to demand the recall of Shukri Pasha. The Ambassador obeyed, and thus announces the fact to General Williams : " I have demanded the recall of Shukri Pasha, at the risk of 'your seeing reason to change your mind concerning him, as in the instance of Kerim Pasha." One or two meagre messages are despatched fjtom the Embassy to the Commissioner within the nest two months, and then follows in order of time a most remarkable document. It will be remembered that Lord Stratford had denied any coolness in his support of the Commissioner. It was, he asserted, quite by accident that he had not written to him, it was quite an accident that he had not accredited him, it was quite an accident that he had obtained, his appoinu ment of Ferik, But now, two months later, we see fully the animus of his Lordship displayed. On the 19th Febru&ry, Lord Stratford writes to the Foreign" Office. Under the form of asking for information, he brings the gravest charges against Gen. Williams, Be it observed that the General had been more than five months with the army, and had, as far as we can learn, only received three communications from Lord Stratford daring the whole time; they are all short, and contain not a word of advice, not a word of warning, not a word to indicate approval or the contrary. Then follows a roll of accusations. The Commissioner asserts a right of beinoobeyed, of suggesting the punishment or removal of officers, the correction of abuses, the introduction of improvementa, the direction of operations. If. this be his position, Lord Stratford does not see in what he differs from a Commander-in-Chief. " The Porte most certainly does not put this constructipn on the authority with which he is invested, nor have Iso read my instructions. I venture to ask whether the tone which he has

| assumed, the abruptness of his charges, the ;virlence of his threats, the dictatorial spirit which, according to his own account, has generally characterised his proceedings, are authorised by the spirit of his instructions from home ?" He cannot, he says, conceal from the Turks that General Williams is ignorant of the native language and of the manner of conducting operations in the field. In fact, the Ambassador proclaims the Queen'rf Commissioner to he incapable, vain, quarrelsome aud tyrannical. What, then, becomes of the one or two favourable epithets he had previously applied to him? When the General was new to his post, when he was being insulted with impunity by the " traitors and robbers" whom Lord Clarendon speaks of, when he seemed likely to submit to the contempt of so great.a personage as an Ambassador, and to sink without a struggle into obscurity, Lord Stratford could cheaplj' say a word or two that might remain on record about the Commissioner's " excellent intentions ;" but when, after six months toil, he was winning ihe position "which afterwards gave him the power of accomplishing a noble feat of arms, then the Ambassador feels it necessary to appear in his true colours and endeavour to obtain by open accusation what he had failed to accomplish by more secret means. In fact, by the despatch of February his whole previous conduct is explained. General Williams was the same man who was appointed six months earlier ; and all his lordship's objections, if well founded,should have been stated half a year before. The indictment now sent home proves but one thing, that all the Ambassador's former declarations as to the good faith of the assistance he rendered, all his excuses for his neglect of the Commissioner, are equally baseless., From the whole course of*his conduct we easily learn that he was as hostile in September as he was in February.

Disconcerting an Orator.—lt is an astonishing thing how little a. matter will sometimes disconcert a man who is accustomed to speak in public and to have his thoughts about him and. ready at ."'command, on all occasions. "I was once opening a speech from the stump," said a distinguished western political orator to us recently, " and was just begining to warm with my subject, when a remarkably clear and deliberate voice spoke out behind me, saying, 'Guess, he wouldn't talk quite so hifalutinatin' if he knew that his trowsers was bust; clean out behind." From that moment I couldn't get on. The people in front began to laugh, and there was a loud roar in my rear, and I dared not reverse my position for fear of any new beholders of my condition. I made, or rather invented an excuse for delay, and' sat down. "The malicious scoundrel.!" continued the orator, " it was only a mean trick after all. There was nothing under heaven the matter with my unmentionables;," — American paper.