Turkey thus at once resumed her position as a military power, and gave earnest, that when the ten or twelve millions, constituting her Christian population, shall have accepted the offer of the Sultan to bear arms like their Mahometan fellow-subjects, she will be in a position to protect herself against any aggression. Time of course must elapse before this takes place; but enough has been done to prove that the protection of England and France need not be always indispensable to the existence of the Turkish empire. It is unnecessary for our present purpose to follow the hostile armies on the Danube through all their operations. It will be sufficient to observe, that after the various engagements in the neighborhood of Kalafat, Omer Pacha resumed the plan on which he had previously proceeded at Giurgevo and Oltenitza, the object of which was to constrain the Russians to detach a portion of their army in order to cover Bucharest. He had no desire to attempt any rash enterprise, but prudently kept watch, so as to avail himself of any favorable contingency; his character presenting a happy combination of daring and prudence. While the events we have related were proceeding, the war was being carried on with vigor on the frontier of Asia: numerous conflicts took place, attended with much slaughter, but not with any very commensurate results. The most important battle was that of Akhaltzik, claimed by the Russian General, Prince Andronikoff, as a great victory. Like that of Sinope, it was celebrated at Petersburg by a solemn _Te Deum_; “The most pious Czar,” in the words of the Government organ, “thanking the Lord of lords for the success of the Russian arms in the sacred combat for the orthodox faith.” (!) The allied squadron in the Black Sea, after having escorted a Turkish squadron freighted with supplies to Batoum, Trebizonde, and Checkvetil, reconnoitred the Russian fleet in Sebastopol, and returned to the Bosphorus. England and France having announced to the world their intention of affording to Turkey both moral and material support, but their _moral_ aid having failed to avert the invasion of the Danubian provinces, the massacre of Sinope, or the treachery of Austria, masked as it was under the guise of friendship, it became incumbent on the two Western Powers to abandon at once all further discussion, and to appeal to the stern but inevitable arbitrament of the sword. The Queen’s declaration of war appeared in the Gazette of the 28th of March: on the preceding day, at Paris, the Minister of State read to the Legislative corps a message from the Emperor, announcing “that the last resolution of the Cabinet of St. Petersburg had placed Russia in a state of war with respect to France--a war, the responsibility of which belonged entirely to the Russian Government.”