seen to be inevitable when his book went to press.
In reference to the last point, he even sketches a plan of defence which
it seems not improbable may be that which the government will adopt, if
its own collapse or the intervention of other powers does not bring the
struggle to a speedier termination or an unforeseen issue. He considers
the Danube with its defences as offering no obstacle of importance to
the overwhelming forces preparing to cross it. The Balkan affords
numerous passes which may be traversed at all seasons except in the
depth of winter, and no points of defence that may not easily be turned.
But after crossing this range the Russians will be more than three
hundred miles from their base, and all their supplies will have to be
brought over the mountains. Their numbers will have been so diminished
by sickness and by the large detachments necessary for masking the
fortresses in their rear, that out of the four hundred thousand with
which Colonel Baker supposes them to open the campaign, they cannot be
expected to operate with more than one hundred thousand south of the
Balkan. They will still have a difficult country before them, and from
Burgas, on the Black Sea, where Colonel Baker proposes the establishment
of an entrenched camp, to be constantly supplied and reinforced by
water-transport from Constantinople, their flanks may be harassed and
their communications threatened, making it impossible for them to march
on Adrianople before ridding themselves of this danger. "It may be
argued," says Colonel Baker, "that this plan of defence would be giving
over a large portion of the empire to Russian occupation, but the answer
is, that Turkey, being in command of the Black Sea, could strangle all
Russian commerce in those waters until that power released her grip of
the Ottoman throat." But whatever be the merit or the feasibility of
this plan, it presupposes not only a design on the part of Russia to
advance upon Constantinople, which is doubtful, but a degree of energy
in the Turkish government and military commanders which it is almost
certain does not exist. The Ottoman power is to all appearance perishing
of inanition, and the mere hastening of its dissolution through external
shocks is not to be deprecated. But it is puerile to imagine that this
will be the only or chief result of the war now going on, if not
arrested by intervention in one form or another. In the delicate and
complicated relations of th