Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 August 1877 — THE TURK. [ARTICLE]

THE TURK.

Uta Strongest Point In Wartare. The recent battles in Bulgaria, says the New York Ttmea, have exemplified once more the peculiar qualities of both combatants. The strength of both lies in defense rather than attack, and in this case, the Russians being the assailants, their weakest point was matched against their enemy’s strongest. In holding an intrenched position, the Turkish linesman has few equals and no superiors. In the field, where he is, and feels himself to be, at the mercy of incompetent officers, the occasional panics to which he is liable, in common with all Eastern races, have led many critics to undervalue the splendid fighting power which he really possesses; but behind a breastwork, where his stubborn valor is untrainmeled by any influence from without, he is emphatically “ the right man in the right place.”

It is worthy of remark that both nations have been almost uniformly victorious as defenders and unfortunate as assailants. Russia’s defensive victories at Poltava, Kunersdorf, the Trebbia, Heilsberg, Valentina, Smolensk, and her disastrous attacks at Narva, the Pruth, Zorndorf, St Gothard, Naefels, Austerlitz, Inkerman, Eupatoria, are familiar to every student of history. As instances ci the Turk’s aptitude for defense it is sufficient to mention the twenty months’ siege of Rnstchuk in 1811-12, the defense of the lines of Bassova against Gen. Aurep, in 1853, the stubborn resistance of Silistria in the same year, costing 8,000 men to the besiegers, the gallant defense of Kars against Gen Mouravieff, and the crowning victory of Eupatoria, which broke the heart of the Emperor Nicholas. On this point it is worth while to quote the words of an eminent military critic of the present day, whose long personal experience of Turkish troops gives special weight to his opinion : “In holding his ground against any odds the Turkish grenadier is unsurpassed. Were the enemy to come sweeping down upon him 40,000 strong, where he stands yonder, a solitary sentinel, he would fire his piece among them as resolutely as if he had an army at his back, and then fall where he stands, without yielding an inch. With his implicit faith in destiny, and his noble selfsacrifice in the cause of God and the Sultan, he is capable of endurance and effort that might put a Spartan to the blush—witness the wan, famine-stricken, hollow-eyed specters that manned so stapchly the walls of beleagured Kars. Take care of the officers, keep the Pasha’s hands from bribery, and you may trust the Turkish soldier that no Russian regiment ever reaches the gates of Constantinople.” The last clause sounds almost prophetic, in the face of the efforts now making to secure the services of the Hungarian General, Klapka. It is certainly a poor compliment to the native officers that, with a German at the head of the central army, an Englishman in command of the Black sea fleet, two Prussians prominent among the engineers, an Egyptian taking the lead in the artillery department, and another Englishman handling the cavalry, the Porte should beg another general officer from Hungary; but it must be owned that the two leading instances of “imported Generals ” recorded in history— Tyrtmus at Sparta and Xanthippus at Carthage—were successful enough to make the experiment worth repeating.