Publications concerning the Asiatic Campaign
"Turkey has now the enthusiastic support of her Mussulman population. The Christian population, with the only exception of Bulgaria, partakes of this enthusiasm. All the warlike tribes, from Albania to Kurdistan, are now supporting the authority of the Sultan. Mehemet Ali is gone, Arabia and Syria are again under the dominion of the Sultan; Servia has made peace, and has become the support of Turkey, offering her, in case of a Russian war, 80,000 men. The Principalities have become the enemies of Russia; they had too long to suffer from her oppression. The public revenue has doubled. Turkey has organised a regular army of 200,000 men, equal to any other, besides the militia. She has distinguished generals - Omer Pasha and GUYON, Her fleet is equal to the Russian fleet in the Black Sea and her steam fleet superior to the Russian. She has for allies all the people from the Caucasus to the Carpathians; the Circassians, the Tartars under Emir Mirza, the Cossasks of the Dobroja, by whom the electric shock is transmitted to Poland and Hungary, form an unbroken chain by which the spark is carried into the heart of Europe, where all the combustible elements wait the moment for explosion. Twenty-four years ago Turkey was believed to be in a decaying state; it is now stronger than it has been for the last hundred years.
You can see why it is my fear, that this week, or this month, or this year, Russia will attack Turkey, and we shall not be entirely prepared; but though you do not give us material aid, still we must rise when Turkey is attacked, because eve must not lose its 400,000 soldiers. The time draws nigh when you will see more the reason I have to hasten these preparations, that they may be complete whenever, through the death of Nicholas, or Louis Napoleon, or a thousand other things—most probably a war between Russia and Turkey—we want to take time by the forelock."
Kossuht's adress to the people of the United States of America, in 1852."The Emperor Nicholas has good reason to rejoice that Turkish jealousy and Polish intrigue, have hitherto kept General GUYON in the back ground, as merely Chief of the Staff. Had GUYON been in command of this army, since the end of spring, not a Russian official would now have foot-room on Georgian soil." Times Correspondent at Kars, 12th Sept., 1854.
"Our gallant ships having "drifted" from sea to sea, as widely and as much in the dark as those of guineas, we were compelled by the orders, or the threats, or the remonstrances, or the insinuations of Austria, to abandon the only part of Europe on which our atolls could make an impression We then selected for operations the part least assailable. Had we first blown up Odessa, where every magazine and every house is the Tsar's, which we might have done, and had we then entered the sea of Azof, and occupied the fortresses on the coast, at that time weakly constructed and inadequately garrisoned, we could have made the Circassians masters of their own country and conquerors of the circumjacent. GUYON was at hand, than whom there is no braver, more vigilant, snore active, or more intelligent commander. Fire-arms, artillery especially, and ammunition, were wanting But what was also wanting, was about as much money to conciliate the Tartars, as is expended in half-a-dozen contested elections to Procure a seat in our House of Commons. Persia, deceptive almost as Austria herself, would have then sidled towards us."
Walter Savage Landor. Atlas, 15th May, 1855.