WAR NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XIV, Issue 5018, 15 December 1877, Page 1 (Supplement)

WAR NEWS.

WHAT THE CZAR THINKS AND FEELS. The special correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph at Buda-Pesth, gives thefollowingasthesubstarceofaconversation which he held with a veteran diplomatist in that city, just after intelligence had reached it of the Russian reverses at Plevna: —The Czar, as we know, with absolute certainty, is more peacefully disposed than ever ; he is painfully anxious to conclude the war; if the Turks would hold out the olive branch, he would snatch at it, upon almost any terms. But the Grand Dukes are as bellicose as he is the contrary; they will hear of nothing but Constantinople, and even talk, as I hear, of conquering England, and exacting ten milliards from her as war indemnity. Your expedition has raised their noble fury to fever heat, and now that we are beginning to show our teeth their indignation knows no bounds. Do you suppose, my dear sir, that we find it so very easy to keep Hungary quiet with the Russian army threatening Adrianople ? And yet we have not even mobilised, much less shed a drop of our blood. What must be the difficulties of the Czar, however clearly he apprehends the profundity of the scrape into which he has thrust himself and his people, being as he is at the head of a gigantic army that has fought, bled, Buffered all manner of privations and fatigues ; that has Asian humiliations to avenge; that is in the heart of the enemy's country, almost within sight of the goal which every Russian has avowed to attain; that is commanded by tetes-montees Princes, ambitious, vainflorious, and penetrated by the extravagant elief that Rr.ssia, if she will, can conquer the world ? Every precautionary move that England and Austria make, in natural vindication of their own interests, heightens the exasperations of those hot-headed Grand Dukes, from whom the officers of the Russian army take their tone and temper but too exactly. No more distressing position than that of the amiable Alexander Nicolaievich can be conceived ; nor have the prospects of Russia woru bo dark an aspect as they do now since the fall of Sebastopol.

.RUSSIA, POLAND, AND TURKEY. The Polish Society ol the White Eagle has sent the following address to his Imperial Majesty the Sultan : —" We, the orphans of Poland, moßt respectively beg you graciously to receive our most humble and hearty expressions of sympathy and goodwill in the righteous struggle which your Majesty and your faithful subjects are now so gallantly engaged in to protect your territory, institutions, and national faith from the rapacity and intolerance of the Muscovite. We who now address your Majesty are representatives of a nation which for one hundred and five years has been the victim of .Russian oppression, vindictiveness, and treachery. No instance of similar national wickedness, so unjust, so utterly unjustifiable, has ever before stained the history of the world. For over a century, murder, rapine, robbery, and every violation of every law, divine and human, has marked Russian oppression in Poland. Not only has the nationality of our unhappy country been blotted out irom the map of Europe, in defiance of the protest of Turkey and several other European Powers, but to this calamity, so fatal to the peace and national equilibrium of this continent, has been added personal cruelties towards our unhappy countrymen, exceeding in fiendish brutality and refinement of torture, which are without parallel in the bloodstained annals of the most savage nations in either ancient or modern times. We Poles are firmly convinced that the Almighty has destined the Ottoman nation to be the worthy instrument of effectually curbing the intolerable curse of llussian domination and influence ; and. being well assured of the sympathy which has so frequently been officially demonstrated by your Majesty's illustrious predecessors in the cause and automony of our unhappy Poland, do most respectfully and earnestly offer your Majesty our heartfelt prayers and hopes that the gallant Turkish nation may be signally triumphant in defeating the unholy aud ungodly designs of that wicked and criminal Government of the nation which is now invading it. In the results of this struggle we take the most lively interest, because we feel assured that your Majesty's triumph over the Russians will, humanly and politically speaking, tend more to the restoration of Polish nationality, liberty, and independence, than any other event of which we have cognisance."

THE RUSSIAN COMMISSARIAT. One of the many flaws in the organisation of the Russian army which the present war has exposed is the Commissary .Department. The subsistence Btores for the troops in the field are purchased in open market or furnished by contractors, and inspected, or supposed to be inspected, by the officers to whom they are consigned. There is a Commissary General to control and supervise the whole business, but every officer in command of any separate body of troop 3 is informed by the Adjutant General how to procure provisions and by what means to transport them. A a far as the railroad reaches this system works, if not well, at least with tolerable smoothness, but when the stores have once arrived at the terminus the difficulties begin. No transportation is attached to regiments or brigades, except a few baggage wagons for the accommodation of officers, and everything must be carried on private vehicles, hired for the occasion at so much a day. 1£ no wagons can be hired, then conscription or requisition is resorted to. Not a vestige of military discipline can be discovered among thiß crowd of miserable carts, and more money is wasted by the breaking down of wagons and spoiling of provisions than would be required for constructing spacious and durable wagons for the whole army. The rascally drivers seize every opportunity for causing delay, which brings more money into their coffers. A system of subsistence and transportation, as it existed in our army during the last years of the rebellion, would place the Russian army on an entirely different footing and make it possible to handle the now unwieldy masses with some degree of ease. At the present time this deficiency is at the bottom of nearly all the inexplicable delay in Russian military movements. A step indicating future improvement in this line has, however, been taken. Constantiue Petrovitch Kaufman, the hero of Turkistan and Khiva, has been ordered to Bucharest to assume charge of the Commissary Department, and his long experience in campaigning in regions where not a morsel of food could be obtained from the country, justifies the hope that the system and order which characterised the subsistence department of his army while crossing the burning desertß will to some extent be introduced in Bulgaria ; but nothing can be accomplished without the organisation of a regular train service, with a strict military discipline for both officers or wagon-masters and men.— San Francisco Chronicle.