BIRTHS, MARRIAGES, AND DEATHS.

METEOROLOGICAL REGISTER,

KEPT AT THE OBSERVATORY OF CAPT. W. H. SMYTH, AT BEDFORD.

ON THE OVERLAND INVASION OF INDIA.

"We shall negotiate with the English at Bombay."-Petersburg Gazette.

An opinion has been gaining ground, for the last half century, that, in the event of a rupture between Great Britain and Russia, an attempt might be made by the latter power against our Indian possessions. It was not the interest of the cabinet of St. Petersburg to allay our illconcealed fears on this subject: on the contrary, that ambitious and Machiavelian government always made the most of our apprehensions, and took even some pains to ascertain the nature of the countries intervening between the Indus and the Russian frontier; so that as many plans for the over-land invasion of India are said to be deposited in the archives of the war-department at Petersburg as at Paris. It is useless to enter into any detailed account of these schemes: as far as they are known, they serve but to illustrate an important moral truth, showing, that, in exact opposition to the conception of great and noble undertakings, which raise the genius of the projector to the level of their execution, the "base lure of gain" (and all these plans of Indian conquest originate only in a low desire for plunder) tends only to narrow and contract the judgment in the same proportion that it inflames the imagination. Lieut.-Col. De Lacy Evans, an officer of great talents and experience, was the first, so far as is known to the writer of this article, to call attention to the possibility of carrying an army up the line of country traversed, rather than watered, by the Oxus. This long, low, and narrow stripe of steppe land, considered already in the time of Herodotus as the usual gate through which the Asiatic tribes invaded Europe, is described by Ritter, in the second volume of his great geographical work just published*, "as almost totally destitute of wood, verdure, or productive earth; the soil everywhere impregnated with salt, covered with drift-sand, and bearing little besides the spare and thorny shrubs of the desert." Notwithstanding the difficulties that the passage through such a country would naturally present to the advance of an army, Colonel Evans's idea is still the only one, yet advanced on the subject, that seems at all deserving of serious attention; and how far even his opinion may stand the test of professional investigation remains to be seen. If, passing over half the obstacles that an army following the route pointed out by Col. Evans would be certain to encounter, we shall still succeed in showing the impracticability of such an enterprise, we may of course be excused from investigating any of the other plans, hitherto suggested, for driving the "dominators of the sea" out of India, as the execution of the best of those, that are not absolutely ridiculous, offers incomparably greater difficulties than the one against the possible adoption of which by our enemies the gallant Colonel has so ably warned us. The reader will not expect that we should seriously enter the lists against the projectors, who deliberately embark entire French armies on the sea of Suez, where there are neither ships nor materials for building them; or that we should stop to refute the imaginative tacticians who, in three sentences, canter

*Erdkunde von Asien. Berlin, 1832.

U. S. JOURN. No. 55, JUNE33, 18.

L

fifty thousand warriors of the great nation across the deserts of Syria and of Persia, to the very gates of Calcutta.

In an inquiry of this nature we must reason principally from analogy, because, owing to our imperfect knowledge of central Asia, we can form but imperfect notions of the difficulties that might be encountered by modern European armies in marching through such half barbarous regions; and, as to any aid or reinforcements by the way, we cannot possibly comprehend from whence they are to be derived.

And now to the more direct parts of our subject.

Considering the difficulty experienced at Lisbon by Sir John Moore, in merely equipping some twenty thousand British troops for a march into Spain, the complicated operation proposed by Lieut.-Col. Evans, of bringing a Russian army down the Wolga, transporting it across the Caspian, landing it in the Bay of Balkan, marching it by Kiava to the Oxus, embarking it on that river, and then ascending to Bokhara, seems certainly no easy undertaking. Yet, as it cannot be called impracticable, let us suppose it achieved, notwithstanding the jealousy of the natives, and the obstacles, short of actual hostility, they would not fail to throw in the way of its execution. And, having made this liberal concession in favour of the first campaign, let us further suppose a Russian army of adequate strength (whatever that may be), after wintering at Bokhara, started for the invasion of India at the best season of the year, with all its necessary supplies and materiel, and let us then judge, from former events, what would probably be its fate.

Napoleon started from the banks of the Oder in May, 1812, for the invasion of Russia, with about 550,000 men. The main body of this army, under his own immediate command, consisted, at the commencement of the campaign, of 295,000. On the 7th September it brought only 120,000 into the field of Borodino, and, allowing 30,000 to have fallen in the previous engagements, and this is much above the mark assigned by any of the historians, what became of the 145,000 still left unaccounted for*? Any one acquainted with war can easily answer the question, they fell to the rear, or perished from want, misery, and fatigue. The distance this army had to traverse was, in a straight line, less than 500 miles, for many of the French corps were not only in advance of the Oder, but beyond the Vistula. They started from the most fertile countries in Europe, from the midst of their depôts, from cantonments where they had been stationed for years and making preparations for months; their march lay through peopled, civilised, and cultivated countries, and was performed in the finest season of the year, and yet they could not, after such a four months' march, bring one half of those into battle who had escaped the sword. We have stated the distance from the Oder to Moscow, in a straight line, at 500 miles, and in military calculations we add a quarter to the straight line of distance to make up for the windings of the road, which, together with the détour made by the French army round Smolensk, will give a distance of about 700 miles actually marched over. If, then, a march of 700 miles along fine roads and level ground, (for the country between

*The second edition of the Marquis De Chambery's Philosophie de la Guerre, states the total number of the grand army that actually entered Russia, at 613,000, so that we have 63,000 men to the good.

the Oder and Moscow is almost a perfect flat,) commenced under all the advantages above enumerated, was attended with privations and fatigue to occasion a loss so tremendous, what is likely to be the fate of an army having double the distance to go before entering fairly on the scene of action, and under circumstances of far greater difficulty and hardship?

The expedition of Hannibal furnishes another example of a similar loss that great commander took five months to march with his unincumbered ancient army (for he left his heavy baggage behind under the care of Hanno) from New Carthage to the banks of the Po, a distance of 6800 Roman stadia, or about 850 of their miles. With the precaution that might have been expected from such a leader, he had caused all the countries between the Pyrenees and the Alps to be carefully reconnoitred beforehand, and had entered into treaties with the intervening Gallic tribes for the supplies that his army might require; yet, notwithstanding these judicious arrangements, he lost two-thirds of his men by the way, though the march was performed in the best season of the year, and free from all opposition, except what was experienced in the Alps, which, having only plunder for its object, was neither very syste

matic nor determined.

Let not the amateur pedestrian, who journeys pleasantly from one albergo or pasada to another, be surprised at such losses. A march, however fatiguing, that is sure to close at last with a good supper and a warm bed, and a march from one wet and cheerless bivouac to another, are altogether different things. With regular food, rest and shelter, a man may do a great deal; yet even with these he requires, after longcontinued exertion, some respite from toil in order to recruit his exhausted strength. But, in all marches extending into uncultivated countries, beyond the reach of depôts, food, both in quantity and quality, becomes precarious, while rest depends entirely on the clemency of the weather; and every day of want and night of rain lessens, though imperceptibly at first, the soldier's strength, so that, in the end, a blistered foot from accident or bad shoes, a slight attack of dysentery from uncertain diet, or only a week's exposure to rain, will oblige a man to fall to the rear. And in a long continuous march, like that to Moscow, or the one now in question, all such men must either delay the whole army, or they are lost; for where the cause of the evil is constant, it cannot be expected that rest, and the means of healing the foot or curing the dysentery, (if even within reach,) should enable the convalescent, not only to make up his lee-way, but to go through what he was unequal to before his illness or accident. The young and the weak are of course the first to give in; but, as want and fatigues augment, as time flies and hopes decay, the ranks thin in proportion, till at last a few nights of rain and days of deep and cheerless road, or unrefreshed toil and exposure under the scorching rays of a vertical sun, bring down entire sections, and exhibit, in the rear of the line of march, scenes of suffering that few who have not witnessed can well picture to themselves, and from which death offers, too frequently the only, and, in such situations, not always the most unwelcome relief. The strong of limb, the high of heart, and above all the soldier bronzed in many a field, and nerved to toil by many a march, will long indeed bear up against every hardship; but "prolonged endurance tames the bold" and where is