THE TABLET
A Weekly Newspaper and Review
Dum VOBIS gratulamur, animos etiam addimus ut in incceptis vestris constanter maneatis.
Front the B r ie f oj H is Holiness to The Tablet, Ju n e 4, 1870,
Vol. 43. No. 1778.
L ondon, May 9, 1874.
P r ic e sd. B y P ost
[R e g is t e r e d a t th e G en e r a l P ost Offic e as a N ew spaper
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C h ro n ic le of t h e W e e k : —
The Defeat of the Carlists—and Relief of Bilbao.—Count von Arnim and the Prussian Government.—Alleged Origin of the •Quarrel.—The Peace of Europe. —The Treaty of Washington.— Mr. Newdegate and Mr. Disraeli. The Irish Fisheries.—Postponement of Mr. Newdegate’s Bill.— The Gold Coast Debate.—The F armers, the Government, and the Malt Tax.—Pauper Children and the Education Code.—Mr. Butt’s Tenant-Right Bill. — Persecution in Central South America.—The French Constitutional Bills .. 577
CONTENTS .
L e a d e r s :
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Sir John Kennaway’s Amendment 581 The Irish Fishery Question .. 581 The British and Irish Colleges in
Prayers used at St. Edmund’s
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College, Ware .. .. .. 587 The Magazines for May .. .. 587 Literary, Artistic, and Scientific
Rome .. .. .. • • 582 Our P ro t e stant C o n t em po r a r ie s :
G o s s ip ........................................... 588 C o rrespo n d en c e :
The Archbishop’s Bill .. .. 583 R ev iew s :
Decreta Authentica S. Congrega
Mr. Newdegate’s Bill .. .. 589 Monastic Schools in Ireland .. 589 The Influence of Antonio de tions Indulgentiis Sacrisque Reliquiis Praepositse ab Anno 1668 ad Annum t86i _ .. .. 585 The Contemporary Review .. 586 The Dialogues of St. Gregory the
Great .. . . .. . • 5^6 S hort N otices :
Versicles and Tales.. .. .. 587 Twelve Tales for the Young .. 587 Christianity in Great Britain .. 587
Dominis on Charles I. .. .. 589 The Prince of the Asturias .. 589 St. Joseph’s Almshouses .. .. 589 St. Vincent’s Industrial School .. 589 The Barnet Schools and Missions 589 The “ Guardian” and the “ Dublin
Review ” .. .. .. 589 Declaration of the Archbishops and
Bishops of Austria relative to the Projects of Law, &c. .. .. 590
R o m e :
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Letter from our own Correspondent 593 R ecord of G erman P ersecution :
Church Laws.—The Landtag .. 594 Trait of Devotion and Loyalty .. 595 D io cesan N ews : Westminster.—Southwark.—•Hex
ham & Newcastle.—Northampton 595 Salford .. .. .. .. 596 I r e land :
Letter from our Dublin Corre
spondent .. .. . . .. 596 F oreign N ew s :—
France .. .. .. .. 596 Russia .. .. .. .. .. 597 Fund for the Rescue of Starving
Children in India, &c. .. .. 597 P a r l iam en t a r y I n t e l l ig en c e .. 598 G en e r a l N ews .. .. .. 599
CHRONICLE OF TH E W EEK .
OF THE CARLISTS. T
THE DEFEAT
H E Carlists have received a crushing blow, and any attempt to disguise the fact would be perfectly useless. It must be manifest to everybody that the position which they recently occupied gave them advantages ■ which, in the whole course o f the campaign, had never before been theirs. They were threatening, and very seriously threatening, Bilbao, which is the key o f the North o f Spain, and their own lines were almost impregnable by a direct attack. They had twice beaten back the Republican troops with considerable loss, and another victory must have soon opened to them the gates o f the besieged city. They had given abundant proof o f their fighting qualities ; and that an attack similar to the last would be followed by a similar repulse was rather more probable than that it should prove successful. There was, however, always one element o f weakness to be taken into account in calculating the Carlist chances. They had evidently no artillery capable o f coping with the K rupp guns which Serrano could bring to bear on them ; the shells which they threw into Bilbao were o f the old spherical kind, and for the last month they have replied sparingly, except by musketry, to the fire o f the Republican batteries. In any case, this want, which has always been one o f their greatest embarrassments, would probably have been fatal to them sooner or later ; but an additional weight has been thrown into the Republican scale in the shape of a real strategist, Marshal Concha, to whose arrival the turn in the fortunes o f the campaign seem to be due. No attempt was made to storm the strong central positions of San Pedro de Abanto and Santa Ju liana, but they have been turned by a masterly flank movement. On the 28th April, while Marshal Serrano and his headquarter-staff remained at San Ju an de Somorrostro in front o f the Carlist centre, which was attacked only by artillery, and responded by volleys o f musketry, Marshal Concha pushed on with his division along the road from Castro Urdiales to Valmaseda, which leads through the right o f the Carlist position. At Otanez he came up with about 7,000 Carlists under Castor Andechaga, the commander o f the Biscayans ; and after a smart action, in which General Andechaga was killed, the heights o f Muniecas were gained, and the Carlists fell back on the Galdames chain on the eastern bank o f the Somorrostro river, being cut off from a retreat on Sopuerta by the advance o f General Laserna up the Somorrostro valley. That night the R e publicans remained in possession o f all the mountains on the left or western bank of the Somorrostro, and the Carlists lined those on the eastern. On the morrow Marshal Concha
New Series Vol. X I . No. 287.]
along the heights, and General Laserna in the valley, kept fighting their way toward the base o f the Galdames mountain, and on the 30th the Carlists were observed ascending its slopes in good order and disappearing over the crest. That evening Marshal Concha descended into the valley, and began his ascent of the Galdames range at about 9 p.m. by moonlight. When the troops reached the top it was found that the strong Carlist positions were held by a very small force, which was easily overpowered, and the centre of the Royalist lines was thus completely turned. At the same time news arrived that General Echague had taken the heights o f Buenes near Valm aseda, and further in the Carlist rear. Firing still went on from San Pedro and Montana, the Carlist centre and right, but the next day, the 1st o f May, a reconnaissance discovered that San Pedro and the whole first line had been abandoned, and that ever since Concha’s victory on the 28th, General Elio had been quietly withdrawing his men and material, leaving only a skeleton force in the trenches. H is retreat was so admirably effected that not a single gun, only a few muskets, and a hundred prisoners remain in the hands o f the Republicans.
It was confidently stated that behind the
—aisd first iine there were other positions virtually RELIEF OF , , , ,, 1 „ 1 Bilbao. impregnable, and that Castrejana especially was far stronger than any o f those against which
Moriones and Serrano had broken their heads. But the very next day proved this to be a d e lu s ion ; there was no position between those won by General Concha and Bilbao which was tenable against the long range of modern artillery ; and the 2nd May, the anniversary o f the rising o f the Spaniards against the French, was celebrated, as Serrano is said to have promised that it should be, by the entry, first of Marshal Concha, and in the evening o f Serrano himself into Bilbao. Marshal Serrano and Admiral Topete have returned to Madrid, and the command is left to Marshal Concha. A telegram from Durango, Don Carlos’s headquarters, states that the Carlist force, after raising the siege of Bilbao, divided itself and took different directions— the Navarrese remaining with Don Carlos at D u rango ; the Biscayans, under Valdespina, retreating into B iscay (which is unintelligible, as they were in B iscay already), the Castilians to Areta in Biscay, and four battalions under Velasco to Guardejuela. The cavalry is stated to be at Ordufia, and the artillery in the valley o f Arratia. All these places are in Biscay, and none o f them very far from Bilbao. The campaign will now probably assume the same desultory form which characterized it before its concentration on the struggle for Bilbao.
