Turenne was one of the great captains whose campaigns Napoleon recommended all soldiers to “read and re-read.” His fame as a general was the highest in Europe at a period when war was studied more critically than ever before, for his military character epitomized the art of war of his time (Prince de Ligne). Strategic caution and logistic accuracy, combined with brilliant dash in small combats and constancy under all circumstances of success or failure may perhaps be considered the salient points of Turenne’s genius for war. Great battles he avoided. “Few sieges and many combats” was his own maxim. And, unlike his great rival Conde, who was as brilliant in his first battle as in his last, Turenne improved day by day. Napoleon said of him that his genius grew bolder as it grew older, and a modern author, the duc d’Aumâle (Histoire des princes de la maison de Condé), takes the same view when he says: “Pour le connaltre il faut le suivre jusqu’à Sulzbach. Chez lui chaque jour marque un progrès.” In his personal character Turenne was little more than a simple and honourable soldier, endowed with much tact, but in the world of politics and intellect almost helpless in the hands of a skilful intriguer or casuist. His morals, if not beyond reproach, were at least more austere than those prevalent in the age in which he lived. He was essentially a commander of regular armies. His life was spent with the troops; he knew how to win their affection; he tempered a severe discipline with rare generosity, and his men loved him as a comrade no less than they admired him as a commander. Thus, though Condé’s genius was far more versatile, it is Turenne whose career best represents the art of war in the 17th century. For the small, costly, and highly trained regular armies, and the dynastic warfare of the age of Louis XIV., Turenne was the ideal army leader.
The most notable of the numerous portraits of Turenne are those of P. de Champagne at Versailles, and of Senin (dated 1670) in the Jones collection at South Kensington, London. Of the older memoirs of Turenne the most important are those of “Du Buisson,” La Vie du vicomte de Turenne—the author is apparently Gatien de Sandraz de Courtilz (Paris, the Hague, and Cologne, 1688–1695); Abbe Raguenet, Histoire du vicomte de Turenne (Paris, 1741) and especially Ramsay, Histoire d’Henry de la Tour d’Auvergne, vicomte de Turenne (Paris, 1735), the second volume of which contains the marshal’s memoirs of 1643–1658. These memoirs, of which the Prince de Ligne wrote that “ce ne sont pas de conseils, ce sont des ordres . . . ‘faites’ . . . ‘allez,’ &c.”—were written in 1665, but were first published (Memoires sur la guerre, tires des originaux, &c.) in 1738, reprinted in Michaud, Memoires sur I'histoire de France, 3rd series, vol. iii., and Liskenne and Sauvan’s Bibliotheaue historique et militaire, vol. iv. (Paris, 1846). A manuscript Maximes de M. de Turenne (1644) exists in the Staff Archives at Vienna, and of other documentary collections may be mentioned Grimoard, Collections de leltres et memoires trouves dans la portefeuille de M,. de Turenne (Paris, 1782); Recueil de lettres ecrites au vicomte de Turenne par Louis XIV. et ses ministres, &c. (Paris, 1779); Correspondence inedite de Turenne avec Le Tellier et Louvois, ed. Barthelemy (Paris, 1874). See also the Observations on the Wars of Marshal Turenne, dictated by Napoleon at St Helena (1823); Puysegur, La Guerre par principes et regies (Paris, 1748); Precis in Bibliotheque international d’hist. milit. (Brussels, 1883) ; Duruy, Histoire de Turenne (Paris, 1880) ; Roy, Turenne, sa vie et les institutions mililaires de son temps (Paris, 1884); Hardy de Perini, Turenne et Conde (Paris, 1907); Neuber, Turenne als Kriegstheoretiker und Feldherr (Vienna, 1869) ; Sir E. Cust, Lives of the Warriors of the lyth Century (London, 1867); T. O. Cockayne, Life of M. de Turenne (founded on Ramsay’s work; London, 1853); G. B. Malleson, Turenne. Marshal Turenne, by " the author of the Life of Sir Kenelm Digby " (London, 1907), is a valuable work by a civilian, and is based in the main on Ramsay’s work, the memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, James, duke of York, &c, and on Napoleon’s commentaries. A remarkable parallel between Turenne and Conde, in Saint-Evremont’s eloge of the latter, will be found in Carrion-Nisas, Essai sur l'histoire general de l'art militaire, ii. 83 (Paris, 1824). (C. F. A.)
TURF, the top or surface of earth when covered with grass,
forming a coherent mass of mould or soil in which the roots
of grasses and other plants are embedded. This is capable
of being cut out in solid mat-like blocks, known by the same
name. Similarly “peat” (q.v.) when cut in pieces for fuel
or other purposes is also styled “ turf ” The term is applied
widely to any stretch or sward of trimmed grass-land, and
thus by metonymy, to horse-racing and all connected with it,
from the owning and running of race-horses to betting. The
word “turf” is common to Teutonic languages, cf. Du. turf,
Ger. Torf, Dan. törv, &c. It has been connected with
Skt. darbha, grass, so called from being matted or twisted
together, darbh, to wind. The Teutonic word was adapted in
Med. Lat., as turba (cf. Fr. tourbe, Ital. torba), whence
was formed turbaria, turbary, the right of digging and cutting
turf in common with the owner of the land. (See Commons.)
TURGAI, a province of Russian Central Asia, formerly a
part of the Kirghiz steppe, and now included in the governor-generalship of the Steppes, bounded by the province of Uralsk and the governments of Orenburg and Tobolsk on the W.
and N., by Akmolinsk on the E., and by Syr-darya and the
Sea of Aral on the S. This territory, which has an area
of 176,219 sq. m.—nearly as large as that of Caucasia and
Transcaucasia taken together—belongs to the Aral-Caspian
depression. It has, however, the Mugojar Hills on its western
border and includes a part of the southern Urals; and from
Akmolinsk it is separated by a range of hills which run between
the two largest rivers of the Kirghiz steppe—the Turgai and the
Sary-su. In the north it includes the low belt of undulating
land which stretches north-east from the Mugojar Hills and
separates the rivers belonging to the Aral basin from those
which flow towards the Arctic Ocean, and beyond this range
it embraces the upper Tobol. The remainder is steppe land,
sloping gently towards the Sea of Aral.
The Mugojar Hills consist of an undulating plateau nearly 1000 ft. in altitude, built up of Permian and Cretaceous deposits and deeply trenched by rivers. They are not the independent chain which our maps represent them to be:[1] they merely continue the Urals towards the south, and are connected with the Ust-Urt plateau by a range of hills which was formerly an island of the Aral-Caspian Sea. Their northern extremity joins the undulating plateau (400 to 600 ft.), built up of sandstones and marls, which separates the tributaries of the Tobol from those of the river Ural, and falls by a range of steep crags—probably an old shore-line of the Aral basin—towards the steppes. The steppe land of Turgai is only some 300 ft. above the sea-level, and is dotted with lakes, of which the Chalkar-teniz, which receives the Turgai and its tributary the Irgiz, is the largest. The Turgai was, at a recent epoch, a large river flowing into the Sea of Aral and receiving an extensive system of tributaries, which are now lost in the sands before joining it. Re- mains of aquatic plants buried in the soil of the steppe, and shells of Mytilus and Cardium, both still found in the Sea of Aral, show that during the Glacial period this region was overflowed by the waters of the Aral-Caspian Sea.
The climate of Turgai is exceedingly dry and continental. Orsk, a town of Orenburg, on its north-western border, has a January as cold as that of the west coast of Novaya Zemlya (−4°F.), while in July it is as hot as July in Morocco (73°); the corresponding figures for Irgiz, in the centre of the province, are 7° and 77°. At Irgiz and Orsk the annual rainfall is somewhat under 10 in. and 12 in. respectively (3 in. in summer). The west winds are parched before they reach the Turgai steppes, and the north-east winds, which in winter bring cold, dry snows from Siberia, raise in summer formid- able clouds of sand. A climate so dry is of course incompatible with a vigorous forest growth. There is some timber on the southern Urals, the Mugojar Hills and the water-parting of the Tobol; else- where trees are rare. Shrubs only, such as the wild cherry (Cerasus chamaecerasus) and the dwarf almond (Amygdalus nana) grow on the hilly slopes, while the rich black-earth soil of the steppe is chiefly clothed with feather grass (Stipa pennata), the well-known ornament of the south Russian steppes. In spring the grass vegetation is luxuriant, and geese and cranes are attracted in vast numbers from the heart of the steppe by the fields of the Kirghiz. The jerboa (Dipus jaculus) and the marmot (Spermophilus rufescens) are characteristic of the fauna; another species of marmot (Arctomys bobac) and the steppe fox (Canis corsac) are common; and the saiga antelope of Central Asia is occasionally met with. Farther south the black earth disappears and with it the feather grass, its place being taken by its congener, Stipa capillata. Trees disappear, and among the bushes along the banks of the rivers willows and the pseudo-acacia or Siberian pea tree (Caragana microphyla) are most prevalent. In the middle parts of the province the clayey soil is completely clothed with wormwood (Artemisia fragrans and A. monogyna), with a few grassy plants on the banks of the rivers and lakes (Lasiagrostis splendens, Alhagi camelorum and A. kirghizorum, Obiona portulacoides, Halimodendrum argenteum); while large areas consist of shifting sands, saline clays clothed with various Salsolaceae, and the desiccated beds of old lakes. Such lakes as still exist,
- ↑ See P. S. Nazarov, in “Recherches zoologiques dans les steppes des Kirghizes,” in Bull. soc. des natur. de Moscow (1886), No. 4.
