The Press. — London, England, 1854-08-26 00:00:00

800 pestilence and the efforts of three armies, they returned with honour to their country. Soldiers ! have confidence in your General•in•Chief and in me. lam watching over you, and I hope, with the assistance of God, soon to see a diminution of your sufferings and an increase of your glory. "Soldiers ! farewell , au re roir. " NerotEow." The British army numbers 32,700 men, including the sick and invalided, but not more than 20,000 men could be brought under arms. The French could not muster so many men fit for service in proportion. Their divisions, which are nominally composed of 1'2,900 men, cannot be considered stronger than 9,000 or 10,000. Inclusive of cavalry and artillery, they do not, therefore, dispose of more than 45,000 men. Accounts from Constantinople to the 14th inst., re • ceived via Vienna, state that a serious conflagration had broken out at Varna, by which one-third of the town was destroyed. The greatest part of the muni tions belonging to the allied forces, including the powder-magazines, were, however, saved. Little was lost except some hay, wine, and camp utensils. Sir Edmund Lyons had sailea into the Black Sea with his division. Ships-of-war and transports are still proceeding there, but the object of the expedi tion is kept strictly secret. Forty thousand Russian troops are said to be en camped round Sebastopol. Cholera and typhus had committed serious ravages among the troops. The French had suffered most, their forces in camp having lost 720 men up to the 9th inst. The British loss to that date was 260 men, of whom 100 belonged to the light division. Lat terly the virulence of the epidemic had diminished. By far the worst consequences, however, fell upon the French division under General Canrobert during an expedition to the Dobrudscha. The following account of this resultless and disastrous enterprise is given in a letter from Varna of the 9th inst.:— "On Sunday, the 6th, 5,000 or 6,000 men of the Zouaves and Light Divisim returned from Kustendje, in the Dobrudscha, to Varna, by sea, and on the same day the great mass of the French expedition, which had come back by land, encamped in the neighbourhood of the town. They had been absent on their reconnaisance exactly twelve days, and perhaps in the annals of modern warfare it would be impossible to name another expedition of the kind in which sickness bad committed such ravages in so short a space of time. It is no exaggeration to say that cholera and typhus literally decimated them. Of the whole force of 33,000 men, they have lost, includingßashi- Bazouks, upwards of 4,000 in the space of twelve days. " Those who came by sea were principally the invalids, and men too delicate to bear the fatigues of marching back. The former alone numbered upwards of SOO. I went down to see them disembark, and I thought I never saw troops in a worse condition ; they were the ghosts of their former selves—sunburnt and haggard, fatigued and dispirited; and even the most hardy and robust spoke of the climate and malaria which existed in the Dobrudscha as being such as would destroy Europeans. The Russians appear to have lost, in their five or six months' occupation of this country, upwards of 40,000 men. " During the time the expedition was absent it tra versed the greater part of the Dobrudscha, from south to north, without meeting scarcely a human being. The whole country, which the French say seems remarkably fertile, is as desolate as Sahara. Most of the villages were deserted, and, to all appearance, had been so for some time. In most instances no attempts had been made to sow the land, and the few crops which they found were standing and choked with weeds. About 10,000 of the French remained a little to the north of Hadschlogli- Baser, while the main body pushed forward for Karasu and Kusteudje, with the Bashi-Bazouks, Chasseurs d'Afrique, and light infantry in advance. The army was decidedly sickly when it commenced its march, and cholera and typhus had manifested themselves, though not very estensively until the second and third day of the advance, when an alarming number were attacked by both diseases. From that time until their return on Sunday the sickness spread, and literally ravaged the camp ; of the French nearly 1,700 died in about eight days, and almost as large a number were sick, and rendered for the time unfit for duty. But the loss which fell on our brave allies was nothing to that which visited the Bashi-liazouks, under the command of General Yusuf. Everything about these unfortunate wretches predisposed them towards taking the diseases in their worst forms. Their dirty habits, and fashion of sleeping uncovered in the op coen, damp night air, induced fever ; their irregular meals, mpooed almost en tirely of fruit and vegetables, brought on cholera; and the mortality from both causes was doubled owing to their peculiar belief in fatalism, which led them in most cases to refuse all offers of medical assistance. Typhus and cholera, therefore, raged in their ranks unchecked, and literally destroyed them. It is a psitive fact, that, of the 2,01)0 Bashi-liazouks who started with the French, up wards of two thousand perished within ten days. I do not suppose there ever was an instance of such a rate of mor taliy occurring among such a limited number of men in the same space of time. The French have now no Bashi- Basouks, for of the :2(X) or 300 which have returned nearly all are invalids or wounded." Prince Napoleon has returned to Constantinople sick. Lord De Ros, whose return home from ill-health was announced some time since, had recovered, and remains in the East. Lord Raglan has issued orders to the English commissariat to supply each man until further orders with two ounces of barley, half a gill of spirits, and half a pound of meat extra , making the allowance a THE PRESS. pound and a half instead of a pound ; and the men are not to be charged anything additional for the extras, but they will cease as soon as the sickly season is over. It has been reported that the French Government intends to send as speedily as possible to Turkey 10,000 men to fill up the blanks caused by deaths or sickness in the French army. THE PRINCIPALITIES. The last letters from Germany state that, after all, Russia does not evacuate the principalities. Ibraila is not evacuated, and orders have been given to various corps to march upon Galatz. General Luders commands a considerable force, whose head-quarters are to be in these towns. Two lancer regiments have been sent by forced marches from Odessa towards the west. The Austrians crossed the frontiers into the prin cipalities on the 20th inst. General Count Caronini is appointed Commander of the Austrian army of occupation. Letters from Bucharest of the 14th inst. state that the most perfect tranquillity and most exemplary order reigned in the city. Several shops which had been closed were at that date reopened. The great majority of those inhabitants of Giurgevo who had fled to Bucharest bad returned to their homes. The Russian soldiers in the hospitals will, upon their recovery, be set at liberty. Halim Pacha has pub lished an order of the day threatening to inflict the severest punishment on any who may commit ex cess. The Turks pay for everything with ready money. Omer Pacha had not arrived in Bucharest, but was daily expected, having quitted Giurgevo on a tour of iwection. THE ARMY IN ASIA. The Invalide Russe contains the announcement of a victory obtained by the Russians over the Turkish army in Georgia. It. states that 3,000 Turks had been left dead on the field, the remainder having taken to flight ; and that the Russians had taken 15 guns, 84 officers, and 23,000 troops, besides munitions of war. There are ample reasons for believing that this success is largely exaggerated, if not wholly apocryphal. Under the head of "The Caucasus," the same Russian journal publishes a pompous account of some affairs in the beginning of July between the Russians and a body of mountaineers, 15,000 in number, under the immediate command of Schamyl. The mountaineers are stated to have attacked and taken possession of the village of Schil'dy, the Russian force there being very inferior in number ; but they were subsequently driven out, leaving 480 dead, whilst the Russians had (says the journal) only 19 killed and 38 wounded. Several other conflicts ensued, all of which, if we are to believe the Invalide, ended gloriously for the Russians, and by the 10th of July this part of the Caucasus had been entirely freed from the presence of the army of Schamyl. Another and more trustworthy account runs to the effect that Sheik Emin, with other Circassian chiefs, had paid their respects to Lord Redcliffe at Tberapia, and made many interesting communications respect ing the state of Daghestan, where it is understood that nearly 200,000 men only wait the signal for the fray, and a little supply of arms and ammunition, if pos sible, from the generosity of the allied powers. The Constantinople correspondent of the Austrian Lloyd says, in reference to the army of Kars, that Kourschid Pacha ( General Guyon), in a communi cation of the 25th ult. to the Seraskier of Kars, com plains bitterly of the Polish and Hungarian officers of this army, and gives the following extract in reference thereto : Had I been free in my operations (says General Guyon)—had not these ignorant and stupid emigrant officers continually intrigued—l should have advanced weeks back into the Russian terrtory, and the Russians would nut have had time to collect their forces. lam a man of few words, but this eternal inactivity of our com mander in-chief, who seems to adopt the counsels of all those who would dissuade him from undertaking any energetic measures, forces rue to speak openly to your excellency. So long as Zarif Pacha is at the head of this fine army, and so long as these Polish and Hungarian officers remain here, there is not the shadow of a hope of attacking and conquering an enemy whose forces are daily increasing in strength." This communication of General Guyon, it appears, has had the desired effect. The correspondent says that Zarif Pacha was to be recalled, and those officers dismissed who interfered with the operations of the Turkish army. At the date of his letter (the 7th) Count Maflre was en route for Kars, where his mis sion is the settlement of those dismissals, and the reformation of the Turkish general staff. THE WHITE SEA. Telegraphic advices from Archangel to the 13th inst. state that the blockade had commenced. The Monifeur says :—" It has always been the benevo lent intention of the allied powers that the blockade of the ports in the White Sea should offer no impediment to the commercial relations existing between the inhabitants of Norwegian Finmarck and those of the coasts of the White Sea, a people in either case so little favoured by nature. The Minister of the Marine and Colonies has SATURDAY. just confirmed to our cruisers in those latitudes the in_ structions given to them for this purpose in the month of May, previous to the declaration of the blockade." amusing account of an affair, verbal), founded on some resi occurrence on the'Shores of the white Sea, is given in the Petersburg journals, in the shape of a communication from the Archimandrite Alex ander, superior of the Solovetsky convent. In his report to the Synod he states that when his monas tery was bombarded by two English screw-frigates, on the 18th ult., his garrison consisted of only an ensign, ten soldiers, and a few volunteers, and his artille of only two 3-pounders. The ene m y , he says, bom ry barded for more than nine hours with shells, with 120, 06, and 36 pounders, and with red-hot cannon shot; but the monks never for a moment ceased their devotions, and of the brave garrison not one was either killed or wounded. The bombarding ships of course sheered off. The only wonder is that the Archimandrite does not inform the Spot( that he sank them. THE REINFORCEMENTS. The 34th Regiment, mustering 650 rank and file, embarked at Portsmouth Dockyard on Monday on • board the hired screw-transport Maraius for Corfu, en route to the Ea-t. Messrs. Dunbar's new troop-ship the Hougomont, of 1,000 tons, Captain R. J. Downes, proceeds to the Baltic for the conveyance of French troops. In compliment to our allies, the Government, with the sanction of Mr. Dunbar, has altered her name. The Admiralty are taking up transports at 20s. per ton, to replace those now in the Black Sea used in the transport of troops, and which are hired at the rate of 30s. and upwards per ton the calendar month. This arrangement will effect a considerable saving. Two new screw first-rates are to be built forth with, viz., one of 3,950 tons, 245 feet in len g th, by 61 feet in breadth ; and one of 4,116 tons, 260 feet in length, and 60 feet wide. These ships will be the finest a nd most powerful that the world has yet produced. An order has been sent down to Sheerness to pre pare the Devonshire for receiving five hundred Russian prisoners of war coming home from Bomar sund. An ingenious proposal for annihilating not only Cronstadt, but St. Petersburg also, is offered by Mr. James Gill, jun., who communicates his scheme to the Edinburgh Witness. He says : " Beyond the reach of the batteries at Cronstadt the channel of the Neva is only six miles broad, with an average depth of about four fathoms. In the centre of the stream it deepens to about six fathoms, which is little more than suffi cient for a man-of-war. By sinking stone-laden hulks in this narrow channel, one month would suffice to imprison the Russian fleet inside ; and this itself would be of the highest importance. More than this, however, might be accom plished. If Britain were to make a permanent barrier, the effect would be so destructive to the power of Russia, that, very possibly, the mere threat might induce Nicholas to make peace on any terms. Two or three thousand hulks laid down in the channel I have referred to would produce an important geographical change. The impeding of the current would, of course, raise the level of the water con siderably, and form extensive lakes and marshes where there are at present roads and houses. The silt, instead of being swept through the narrow channel, would settle down in the hollow, and in a few years fill it up. Peters burg, which lies so low that it is in danger every year of bei flooded would feel the effects of the change almost imme ng diately ;, but the complete catas t r ophe would not take place till spring, and then the destruction of both St. Petersburg and Cronstadt would be inevitable. At the breaking up of the ice the present channel is scarcely suffi cient to allow the deluge of water. ice, and mud which swee ps downwards in the Gulf of Fi nland to puss; but, when that channel is choked u p , St Petersburg and Cron tadt would be entirely submerged, and the whole lower basin of the Neva covered with debris, increasing in quantity each successive spring." A gentleman named Haagg has been for some time past at Omer Pacha's head-quarters as correspondent of a London morning journa l. He is an Austrian by birth, and took a leading part in the political events at Vienna in 184 S, since which time he has been an exile. He has made himself in the interval an American citizen, and carries an American passport. He is a man of considerable scientific attainments , and w as recently appointed the head of the exploring expedition which is about to be sent into the interior of Australia. He has been pursuing his occupations now for some months upon the scene of opera tions peaceably and without molestation, as be came to Omer Pasha backed up by letters of introduction from the best possible quarters. A few days since, however, Omer Paella sent for him, and in the p olitest manner possible requ ested him to absent himself from head-quarters, or in other words to go away altogether, inasmuch as th e, e Austrian authririties had protested against his presenc and requested his removal. Ma. WYON, of the Royal Mint, has issued designs for a new coin to be used by the state of Sydney. The idea of issuing any design for a decimal coinage has been abandoned. It would take ten years, ac cording to the Mint authorities, to carry out any such plan. \