Thus the case is said to stand as regards money. It is not any better in respect of men. In time of war the Russians do not abhor military service as they do in time of peace; because they are then better treated, and have prospects of advancement. But it appears that the Russians do not make a soldier fit to be led against the enemy until after several years’ drilling. Deduct from the Czar’s million of men four hundred thousand that can form lines only on paper, and three hundred thousand destroyed in the present struggle, only three hundred thousand old soldiers remain to cover the whole frontier, north, south, east, and west. Another campaign will destroy them nearly all, and there will remain nothing but an army of recruits. Fanaticism may be infused into these by abolishing serfdom, and by other home appeals; but their fighting powers will be very low indeed at the end of another campaign. To urge on the war, therefore, without giving time for a recovery of breath, is to destroy the attacking power of the Russian empire; and all the arts and all the diplomacy at its command--and they are both numerous and skilful--ever have been and ever will be to gain time. Time is, with Russia, nearly synonymous with victory. Its defensive power nobody is disposed to under-estimate. In this matter, its real weakness gives it, in one sense, special strength. Steppes, swamps, and vast regions almost destitute of roads, a bad climate, a thin population barely civilised that vanishes before approaching hosts and leaves only a desert for the enemy to traverse, are obstacles that exist now as they existed in the days of Pultawa and Moscow. Upon this the Czar reposes his last trust. But every condition of the empire is such as to cause its vital parts to be rather upon its western and southern borders than in its more central parts. Drive the people into the inhospitable interior, and their difficulties of subsistence will be only a little less insurmountable than those of an enemy. Indeed, of the prodigious superficies over which the empire extends--including, as it does, nearly one-seventh part of the terrestrial globe--by far the greatest proportion is uninhabitable to friend or foe. The enormous northern provinces, especially, are destined to perpetual sterility, not only on account of the extreme rigour of the climate, but because nearly all the great rivers by which they are traversed fall into the Arctic Ocean; and are therefore inaccessible for the whole or a greater part of the year. We may live to see, therefore, that the Muscovite tradition of defence is quite as vain a trust as most of the traditions blindly followed in these days, unless the peace now in course of negotiation be lasting and secure.