The Press. — London, England, 1854-12-23 00:00:00

DECEMBER 23, 1854. THE WAR. PROGRESS OF THE SIEGE. roads between this place and the camp renders their transit impossible. We entertain west hopes from the mortars brought up by the Gulden Fleece, which ship arrived on the afternoon of the 26th with the 9th Regi ment. These mortars are twelve in number, and, being 'hirteen inches in diameter, are expected to throw right ...........er, a... _ The information contained in the latest telegraphic into the town. These is much need of the town being well advices respecting the siege of Sebastopol is unim- hammered before the assault is made, for in the preseut portant. it is comprised in the following brief des- position of the line-of-battle ships they command the patches published in the Monitcur on Tuesday and street's, all of which run straight towards the water. There Wednesday last : are still many among us who fear, after all, that Sebastopol will have tom taken at the bayonets point. The thith Cerezi, Dec. 7.—The batteries are reestablished, and and 46th Rments are attached to the 4th division ; sick will be ready to open fire in three days. The allies are formidably intrenched, and now receive ness still continues rife in the latter—they have lost nearly sixty men since they landed. But none sutler so severely their provisions with so much ease and regularity that they as the Turks, and hunger is added to their other evils ; can, if necessary, remain the whole winter in their present now, in d ee d , t h ey get 8 oz . o f b iscui t a day from our com positions. day two Russian steamers made a sortie, under missariat ' but this is little enough to keep body and soul Yesterday together, and they are continually to be seen in our camp the fire of the forts, by the narrow outlet which they have begging biscuit. - 'T here is usua ll y a group round the hoe retained. They exchanged a few shots with two French pi tal tents early in the morning, tor . soldiers the are steamers that were at anchor in the Bay of Stresaika, but always very attentive in bringing tar more biscuit than failed to hit either. Two English frigates and a French they can ever eat to their wounded comrades, which, when corvette drove them into port with their volleys. thrown away, falls to the lot of " Buono Johnny." '. I'oor Dec. o.—General Montebello arrived yesterday. The Bu on o," it was very hard times for him for some weeks Russian corps under General Liprandi has quitted the after the 21/th ' but now our fellows' hearts are melted at heights above Balaklava, to rejoin the Russian army to the t h e i r f or l orn state . One of our troubles in the camp now north of the Tschernaya. must be the want of generals. 1 will just give the list as The Cambria, Ripon, Thames, Niagara, and other it stands now: —Light division, no general; Ist brigade , English steamers have arrived in the Bosphorus with Codrington; 2 nd ditto, Buller. 2nd division, no general; 5,01 K) French troops for the Crimea. Ist brigade, Peneenither; 2nd ditto, senior officer 47th. In a despatch from Constantinople of the 7th it is Ist division, no general; Ist brigade, Colonel Upton, senior stated : officer ; 2nd brigade, Mir Cohn Campbell. hind division, Omer Pacha has embarked for the Crimea with the Sir Richard England ; Ist brigade, Eyre : 2nd ditto, colonel tith Regiment. 4th division, Sir J. Campbell greater part of his army. Ismail Pacha commands the Turkish troops on the Danube provisionally. Prince (acting) ; Ist brigade, Colonel Garrett, 46th (acting); 2nd ditto, Colonel Horn, 28th (acting). Cavalry, Lord Naoleon has had a relapse, and cannot yet rejoin his division. Liman; lst brigade, General Scarlett ; 2nd ditto, no one (Lord Cardigan sick). Russian advices adil little to the information re ceived viii Paris, but as usual bring down the intelli- The Times writer, in his letter of the Ist inst. from gence a few days later. On the sth Prince Menschi- the camp, gives a still more gloomy picture of the koff reported:— state of affairs and prospects of the besieging forces. The besiegers and the besieged have received eonei- He says derable reinforcements, the latter principally in cavalry Although It may be dangerous to communicate facts and Cossacks of the Don. General Liprandi has fallen likely to be of service to the Russians, it u is certainly into disgrace. hazardous to conceal the truth from the English people. They must know, sooner or later, that the siege has been On the Bth . for many days practically suspended, that our batteries are Nothing new has taken place before Sebastopol. The used up and silent, and that our army are'much exhausted enemy continue their fire, but very feebly, and causing us by the effects of excessive labour and watching, and by the scarcely any injury. wet and storm to which they have been so incessantly ex- On the 13th : posed. It is now pouring rain—the skies are black as ink—the Nothing of importance had occurred before Sebastopol wind is howling over the staggering tents—the trenches up to that day. are turned into dykes—in the tents the water is sometimes Some small sorties had been made with success. In one a foot deep--our men have not either warm or waterproof of them the Russians captured in the trenches of the allies clothing—they are out for twelve hours at a time in the some small mortars, and spiked some others of larger trenches—they are plunged into the inevitable miseries of dimensions. a winter campaign—and not a soul seems to care for their The fire of the allies was feeble, and the Russian loss comfort, or even for their lives. These are hard truths, very slight. but the people of Englund must hear them. They must The Journal de St. Petersbourg makes much of know that the wretched beggar who wanders about the these occasional sorties, asserting, on the authority of streets of London in the rain leads the life of a prince com a report from Prince Menschikoff, that on the 2nd pared with the British soldiers who are fighting out here a lieutenant and 66 soldiers attacked one of the for theircountry, and who, we are complacently assured by the home authorities are the best-appointed army in trenches of the English camp, killed a great number Europe. , Ihey are we'll fed, indeed, but they hav e no of English, made three pris:oners, and carried off 14 shelter, no rest, and no defence against the weather. The muskets. On the following night another party, it tents, oolong exposed to the blaze of a Bulgarian sun, and is stated, attacked one of the French batteries and now continually drenched by torrents of rain, let the wet killed 30 French soldiers, and on the same night through "like liieves," and are perfectly useless as protec another lieutenant, at the head of 00 volunteers, tions against the weather. attacked one of the English trenches, killed 11 men, Will it be zredited, that, with all our naval officers in made one prisoner, and carried off four muskets. lialeklave with nothing else to do—with our embarras de All these bold sorties, says Prince Menschikoff, were richenes of captains, commanders, and lieutenants—there is no more care taken for the vessels in Balaklava than if effected without the loss of a single Russian. they were colliers in a gale off Newcastle? Ships come in Letters from St. Petersburg state that the news of and anchor where they like, do what they like, go out when the hurricane on the 14th and the loss of the allies they like, and are permitted to perform whatever vagaries on the Crimean coast was received with an outburst they like, in accordance with the old rale of " higgledy, of joy. This feeling was soon tempered by other re- piggledy, rough and tumble," combined with " happy-go ports from the Crimea, which told the pitiful state of lucky." A drunken man may put an end to the British the Russian troops themselves. They had been expedition pro hdc rice, for, if a vessel caught fire in one of almost without provisions or forage during several the gales of wind to which this narrow lake is exposed, days. The tempest had not only scattered and nothing could save the vessels, packed as they are without order or arrangement, with fouled anchors, cables crossing destroyed convoys, but even the ricks of forage, and and recrossing each other, and hawsers made fast in every so forth, of the inhabitants. "In the midst of race direction. even," says a report from Perekop, "such a hurricane Although the men are only left for twelve hours in the would have been more destructive than a visit of trenches at a spell, they suffer considerably !tom the effects locusts, and would have brought famine and plague of cold, wet, and exposure. The prevalent diseases are with it, for, to the destruction of crops, must be added fever, dysentery, and diarrlices, and in the light division, that of habitations." on which a large share of the labour of the army falls, there A letter from Odessa of the 4th states that., from were MO men on the sick list a day or two ago. The men's the 12th to the 30th of November last, the army of clothes are threadbare and tattered, and are not fit to resist rain or cold.. Prince Menschikoff had been reinforced by two divi- The siege is practically suspended, and the utmost we sions, consisting of front 28,000 to 30,000 men. do is to defend the trenches at night and to return shot for CHRONICLE OF THE SIEGE. shot whenever the enemy tire. Of course, as the cease. The narrative of siege operations, if such they can tion of the fire of our batteries allows the besieged, or rather the partially invested force in possession of the he called, for some days later than had previously tow'', to do as they please, the Russians very wisely go transpired, has been received during the week. The to work to increase their internal defences, and they accounts are, however, meagre in incident, the are said to have constructed street batteries on a large weather having in great measure stopped all active scale. proceedings on both sides. The Chronicle cos- I suppose one must still head one's letters " Siege of respondent from Balaklava on the 28th ult. says : Sebastopol," but really and truly there is no siege of the Perhaps the last five days have been as barren of incident place whatsoever, and all this delay increases the ditticnlty as any since the commencement of this eventful siege. which was mused by our original neglect and indifference The French batteries have now advanced within s'2o metres, towards the formidable works which we permitted the but scarcely a gun fires from them in an hour, as in all Missions to throw up with impunity, and which have con probability the Russian batteries could silence them if an veiled Sebastopol into one of the most formidable defen active fire should commence. The English remain at eive positions the world ever saw. If we had men enough' 1,400 yards, and we shall probably not attempt anything to do it effectually, perhaps the best plan of reducing the Ihrther till the news gun. brought hy the Firebrand und Strum. place would be to descend into the valley, administer a 1 hitfrail the fleet are got up. At present the state of the sound bea t ing to Prince Menschikoff and °loners' lA. • THE PRESS. 1217 prandi, drive them out of the field, and then quietly draw a cordon round the plebe, inolosing forts, citadels, earth works, anti batteries from the Ilelbeck to lialaklava. How many men would do this? Perhaps 120,000 would be sufficient. When the people hear that our army is, and has been for awns days pest, helf•starving of hunger, and that the sickness which always prevails in camp, aided by a fresh outburst of cholera, is finding but too many victims among our exhausted ranks, they will see that every effort in the power of the oountry to make is put forth to suc cour them. What is the use in disguising the fact ? I see none. The army is suffering greatly worn out by night work, by vigil in rain and storm, by hard labour in the trenched, they find themselves suddenly reduced to short allowance , and the excellent and ample rations they had been in the habit of receiving cut off or miserably reduced. For nine days there has been, with very few exceptions, no issue of tea, coffee, or sugar, to the troops. These, however, are luxuries, nut necesseu ies. of military life. Yesterday (November 30) the issue of meat to the men of the fourth division was restricted in most instances to two ounces of meat, and that meat was salt pork. This division received part of its grog or rations of rum. The general allowance of meat per man throughout the army now is half a ration or half a pound. Sometimes this allowance is reduced to one-third, or even to one quarter of a pound of salt meat. The cholera, which broke out on the night of the 2Fith of November, continues its ravages, and we cannot esti mate the number of deaths iVOIII it and its abettors in the destruction of life lower than sixty per diem. No less than eighty-five men died the night before last iu (vamp, according to the statements I have rece►ved and believe, and the number of sick men is very large. Ot the marine officers in the trenches only two are lit for duty. Of the naval lieutenants of the brigade of seamen, amounting to twenty, it is stated only five are able to work. On the 2nd the same writer adds : Until the new guns can be placed in position, we can not expeot to see any very great progress made in the bombardment. The enemy usually make a nightly sortie ; the one of the night of the 214th was a more serious one than usual ; they attacked the French lines with 4,000 men, but were driven back with great loss ; the French had five officers killed and wounded. Early this morning (;lud ) the Russians attacked the pickets of the 30th, and drove them in, but were in their turn repulsed and driven back, by the Rifles. We had about twenty killed and wounded. I have heard of no officers among them. General Liprandi is reported to have left with a part of his division going towards the eastward. There is evidently something going on, as there was a greet deal of bell ringing and cheering last night ;Ist) in tiehann,pol. l'he correspondent, in closing his despatch on the 3rd, relates : The cause of the Russians cheering which we heard yes terday morning is now ascertained. They had received a remforcement of men and of provisions, and, according to the statement of a deserter, both were much needed. The supply must have been very small indeed, for it escaped our observation, and any large body of men or waggons must have been seen entering the city. They also cheered in the morning before they came out to attack a party of the 50th Regiment, posted in the Ovum—the eaves in the rocks to the lett of and below our left attack, in a ravine near the neck of the harbour. As our men had been out in the wet all night, they found their rifles would not go off, and, the enemy bung very numerous, they were forced to fall back, and tire Russians once more established them• selves in the Ovens. These were soon, however, made too hot to hold them, for a party of the rifle brigade was at once pushed down, and speedily dislodged them. We lost two men killed and two severely wounded, eight men slightly wounded, in this affair. Three men are supposed to have deserted to the enemy, one from the 77th, one front the 33rd, and one from the 138th. The operations on the Russian side are described in a letter of the 2nd from the Daily News cor respondent : The large lltinch mortars have arrived, and are to be divided between the French and our own baueries. Two Lancaster guns have been brought into position to the left of Chapman's battery. The French have mounted their guns in their new square redoubt above the hiker mann valley ; they are heavy ships' guns, and will be brought to bear upon the Inkertuann Light nearest the water of the roadstead, and the two earthwork batteries which the Russians have thrown up in front and to the left of it. This lighthouse is constantly during the night repeating signals to the garrison in the town, by means of lights of various colour% and numbers, from the second lukermann Light on the hill to the eastwird. The guns are not yet mounted iu one redoubt which is a little to the westward of the redoubt just named. The Itussiiiiia have been attempting to interrupt the new works by throwing shot .from the Lighthouse-bill batteries, but they have done no damage. They have evidently perceived the object of another new work which is still further to the westward, and commanded the Harbour Creek and Careen. ing Bay, as they have removed some vessels from these situatiuna, and moved them over to a bay near the double battery on the north side of the rusdatead. '1 hey have also moved three line-of-battle ships to a further distance than they were from the south shore of the rotdsteltd, as if to be able to use their guns against the new works. The Russian troops on the north heights are very busy fortify ing their position; no less than eight new batteries can now to: counted on their left flank. These batteries ale placed on the heights above a broad raiine, which opens into the I iikermioin valley, east of the Lighthouse-hill. A zigzag road is carried up this ravine, and is the main route of communication between the Heerlen army and the head