The Press. — London, England, 1855-09-29 00:00:00

SEPT. 29, 185 i. the great fight of Inkermann, swept the Sea of Azoff and its seaboard, wasted Kertch, and seized upon Yenikale— have witnessed the battle of the Tschernaya—have opened seven bombardments upon Sebastopol—have held in check every general and every soldier that Russia could spare ; and new, after the endurance of every ill that an enemy at home and abroad could inflict upon us, after passing through the summer's heat and winter's frost, after being purged in the tire of sickness and death, repulse and dis aster, and above all in the fiery glow of victory, the British standard floats over Sebastopol. But our army is not the same. l'hysiologists tell us that we undergo perpetual change, and that not a bit of the John Smith of 1854 goes into the composition of the same respected individual in 1884, but we have managed to work up tens of hundreds of atoms in our British army between 1854 and 1855 ; and there are very few indeed to be found in the present body corporate who landed in the Crimea a twelvemonth ago. Some regiments have been thrice renewed, others have been changed twice over. The change is not for the better —the old stuff was better than the new. —lb. JEALOUSIES IN THE CAMPS. National animosities peep out now and then be tween French and English, as may be seen by this paragraph from the Daily News correspondent:— English interests are most unblushingly overridden by those of the French, who, in fact, seem by their effrontery and unconcealed air of ownership, rather to tolerate our presence in the place than to recognise an equal right to a share in it and what it contains. I would again disclaim any ungenerous feeling towards our allies ; but, really, in view of their general bearing since the fall of Sebastopol, one's British " monkey " is often disposed to rise and show itself. Their sentries are posted over quite three-fourths of the entire town, and into these quarters admission is forbidden us, unless armed with a pass from the French commander. Altogether, amity in fact and amity in print are here shown to be distinctions with a difference. Talk as credulous apostles of French and English unity may, the British Lion and Gallic Eagle will cherish antipathies, and occasionally show them, to the end of the chapter: the traditional feelings of more than three centuries are not so easily extinguished, but will retain a smouldering vitality under all the surface of factitious harmony which mere political contingencies may create for the time. The next paragraph is in the same vein : Some of the French soldiers, who only saw part of the operations on the Nth instant, have been inclined to re proach our men with not taking the Redan at the assault on that day. They contrast their own feat in seizing and holding the Malakoff with our failure. Fortunately our men have not understood some of the remarks made by the Frenchmen in reference to this affair, but in a few instances, chiefly where there has been previously a little over-indulgence on both sides in stimulating beverages, there has arisen sufficient understanding, or perhaps mis understanding, to lead to personal encounters. The jealousy of our men has been a little excited by seeing the large number of Frenchmen who have contrived to forage in the town, and who have gained no inconsiderable sums by selling their prizes in the English camps, while they themselves have not been allowed to abstract anything, through the watchfulness of our authorities. When the general nature of the assault is better understood, this jealousy will in all probability mutually disappear. OFFICIAL DESPATCHES. MARSHAL PELISSIER'S DESPATCH. The following is the first despatch sent by Marshal Pelissier to the French Government. In a second despatch the Marshal enters more fully into details, but it is unnecessary to print it ; as all the facts are given elsewhere : Head-quarters at Sebastopol, Sept. 11. M. le Marechal—l shall have the honour to send you by the next courier a detailed report on the attack which has placed Sebastopol in our power. To-day I can only give you a rapid sketch of the principal achievement of this great event of the war. Since the lath of August, the day of the battle of the Tscheruaya, and notwithstanding repeated warnings of a new and more formidab!e attack by the enemy against the positions which we occupy on this river, every preparation was made to deliver a decisive assault against Sebastopol itself. The artillery of the right attack commenced on the 17th of August a well-sustained fire against the Mala koff, the Little liedan, the neighbouring defences, and the roads ; in order to permit our engineers to establish de fences close to the place, from which the troops might be able instantly to throw themselves upon the enceint. Our engineers besides prepared materials for escalade, and on the sth of September all our batteries of the left opened a very violent fire against the town. The English on their side kept up a hot cannonade against the Great netlan and its redoubt, which they were to attack. All being ready, I resolved, in concert with General Simpson, to give the assault on the Bth of September, at the hour of noon. General M'Mahon's division was to carry the works of the Malakoff; General Dulac'e division was to attack the Little Redan ; and in the centre the division of General La Motterouge was to march against the curtain connecting these two extreme points. Besides these troops, I had given to General Bosquet General Mellinet's division of the linable, to support the first three divisions. Thu, tar for the right. In the centre the English were to attack the Great Redan, escalading it at its salient. On the left of the Ist Corps, to which General de la Mar more had wished to join a Sardinian brigade, having at its head General Levetllant's division, was to penetrate into the interior of the town by the Central Bastion, and afte THE PRESS. wards turn the Flagstaff' Bastion in order to establish a lodgment there likewise. Ueueral de Salles had instructions not to pursue his attack further than circumstances might render it advisable. . . . . Farther, the fleets of Admirals Lyons and Bruat were to operate a powerful diversion by firing against the Quaran tine, the Roadstead, and the sea-front of the fortress ; but the state of the sea, agitated by a violent north-west wind, was such that neither the line-of-battle ships nor the frigates were able to quit their anchorage. The English and French mortar-boats, however, were able to go into action. Their fire was of remarkable excellence, and they rendered us great assistance. At noon exactly the divi sions of Generals M'Mahon, La Motterouge, and Duke, electrified by their chiefs, sprang to the Malakoff, the Cur tain, and the Little Redan of the Careenage. After unexampled difficulties, and a most exciting foot-to-foot combat, General M'Mahon's division succeeded in effect ing a lodgment in the anterior part of the Malakoff. The enemy showered down a storm of projectiles of all kinds upon our brave troops. The Redan of the Careenage, es pecially battered by the maison en erois and the steamers, it was necessary to evacuate after its occupation ; but the division of General La Motterouge made its ground good on one part of the curtain, and that of General M'Mahon gained ground iu the Malakoff, where General Bosquet sent continually the reserves which I sent forward to him. The other attacks were subordinated to that of the Mala koff, that being the capital point of the defences of the whole place. Standing in the Brancion Redoubt (on the Mamelon), I considered that the Malakoff was safely in our power, and I gave the signal which had been agreed upon with General Simpson. The English immediately advanced bravely against the salient of the Great Redan. They were able to effect a lodgment in it, and struggled a considerable time to maintain their position, but, crushed by the Russian reserves, which advanced incessantly, and by a violent fire of artillery, they were forced to return into their parallel. At the same moment General de Salles had directed an attack against the Central Bastion. The Levaillant divi sion had begun to establish itself in it, as well as in the Right Lunette ; a tremendous fire of grape was succeeded by the arrival of Russian reinforcements so considerable in number, that our troops, already decimated by the fire of the enemy, and whose chiefs had been disabled, were compelled to fall back on the place whence they had sallied. Convinced that the taking of the Malakoff would be de. cisive of success, I prevented the renewal of any attacks on other points, which, by compelling the hostile army to remain on all its points, had already attained their main object. I then ditected my sole attention to the retaining possession of the Malakoff, which General M'ldahon had been previously enabled completely to obtain. Besides, a great and critical moment was impending. General Bosquet had just Leen struck by the bursting of a shell, and his command I gave to General Dulac. A powder magazine near the Malakoff exploded at this mo ment, from which contingency I anticipated the most serious results. The Russians, hoping to profit by this accident, imme diately advanced in dense masses, and, disposed in three columns, simultaneously attacked the centre, the left, and the right of the Malakoff. But measures of defence had already been taken in the interior of the fortress ; for which purpose. General M'Mahon opposed to the enemy bodies of undaunted troops, whom nothing could intimi date ; and after the most desperate efforts the Russians were compelled to make a precipitate retreat. From that moment the discomfited enemy appears to have renounced all idea of further attack. The Malakoff was ours, and no effort of the enemy could wrest it from us. It was half past four o'clock. Measures were immediately taken fur enabling us to repulse the enemy, in case he should attempt against us a nocturnal attack. But we were soon released from our uncertainty. As soon as it became night fires burst forth on every side, mines exploded, magazines of gunpowder exploded in the air. The sight of Sebastopol in flames, which the whole army contemplated, was one of the most awe-inspiring and sinister pictures that the history of wars can have presented. The enemy was making a complete evacuation ; it was effected during the night by means of a bridge constructed between the two shores of the road stead, and under cover of the successive explosions that prevented me from approaching and harassing him. On the morning of the 9th the whole southern side of the town was freed, and in our power. I have no need of enhancing in the eyes of your Excel lency the importance of so great a success. Neither will it be necessary fur me to speak of this brave army, whose warlike virtues and devotion are so thoroughly appreciated by our Emperor ; and 1 shall have, great as the number is, to name to you those who have distinguished themselves among so many valiant soldiers. I cannot yet do so, but I shall fulfil this duty in one of my next despatches. Deign to accept, Monsieur le Marechal, the expression of my respectful devotion.—The General-in-Chief, PELISSIZR. GENERAL NEIL'S DESPATCH. Sebastopol, Sept. 11. Monsieur le Mareehal,—The place of Sebastopol was stormed on the Sth of September. That assault haft ren dered us masters of the Malakoff work, the occupation of which renders the defence of the suburb almost impossi ble, and enables us to cut off the communications of the town with the north part of the roadstead. After rallying several times, and resuming the offensive with a courage to which we are bound to do homage, seeing that his utter most efforts remained fruitless, he began in the evening to evacuate the town ; during the night he set it un fire, and he employed his powder in destroying with his own hands the defensive works and the great establishments which Russia had been accumulating for so many years in this ' fortress. Hs hoe sunk all his ships, frigates, and other 923 sailing vessels, preserving only the steamers ; lastly, he broke up and pulled after him the bridge of boats by which he communicated with the forts of the north side, abandon ing to us in this way the town, suburb, and everything else on the south side of the roadstead. The defence was energetic; on several points our attacks were repulsed ; but the chief sttack, that which insured our success, was not doubtful for an instant. The first division of the first corps, commanded at present by General M'Mshon, carried at the first onset the Malakofi work, and there maintained itself heroically, understanding that it held in its hands the keys of the place. I am going to give you an account of the dispositions that had been taken for diminishing as much as possible the numerous difficulties attending this terrible assault, made, not ou a place invested, on a limited garrison, but on a vast fortress, defended by an army equally numerous, peruaps, as that which attacked it. In the attacks directed against the town our approaches had been carried to within forty metres of the Central Bastion and thirty metres of the lelagstafi' Bastion. At the attacks of the Karabelnia suburb the English, impeded by the difficulties of the ground and by the fire of the enemy's artillery, had only been able to advance their approaches to about 200 metres from the salient of the Great Bedell. Before the front of the Malakoff we had arrived to within twentyfive metres of the enceint which surrounds the tower, and had carried our approaches to the /lime dia. lance of the Little Itedan of the Careenage. This impor• tart result was due to the incontestable superiority of our artillery over that of the enemy. The generals•inchtef of the allied armies had made the following arrangements:— The general - attack of the place was fixed for the Nth of September at noon. On the morning of the sth the artillery of the attacks against the town and that of the English at tacks, who until then had husbanded their fire, were to re sume it with great energy. Such a cannonade was never heard. We had mounted in our two attacks more than five hundred cannons. The English had about two hundred, and the Russians more than we. The fire of the enemy damaged our trenches, but did us little harm. Ours, notwithstanding the great extent of the place, converged on it, and must have caused immense loss to the Russian army. During the last dajs which preceded the assault, our infantry fatigue parties were principally employed in enlarging the most advanced place d'artnes and the defiles, and in carrying to the spot the means of crossing the ditches. The aim of all our efforts was the capture of the work constructed behind the Malakoff Tower. This work (called the Korniloff Redoubt by the Russians), which is an immense redoubt, a kind of citadel of earth, occupies a mamelon which commands all the interior of the Karabel nia suburb, takes the Redan, attacked by the English, de revers, and is only twelve hundred metres from the south port, on which the Russians had constructed a bridge of rafts, now their only communication between the suburb and the town. The Malakoff Fort is 3M) metres by 150 metres in dimensions. The parapets have more than six metres of relief above the soil, and in front of them is a ditch which before our attacks was six metres in depth and seven in width. It was armed with sixty-two guns of various calibres. In the front part, inclosed by the parapet, is the Malakoff Tower, of which the Russians have only preserved the res de chaussee, which is crenellated. In the interior of the work the Russians had raised a vast number of traverses under which were excellent blindages where the garrison found shelter, and had beds arranged on each side in two rows, one above the other. A Russian officer of engineers, who was made prisoner, states that the gar rison of this part of the Malakoff, which I have just described in order that you may judge of the difilculties which our soldiers had to surmount, consisted of not less than 2,500 men. _ _ The Malakoff front, which is a thousand metres in length, is bounded on our left by Fort Malakoff, and on our right by the Little Redan. This last work, which, at the commencement of the siege, was only a simple redan, was transformed little by little into a redoubt, dosed at the gorge and heavily armed. The exterior fronts of the twa redoubts of ➢ialakoff and the Careenage were connected by a curtain armed with sixteen cannons ; and behind the enceint the Russians had raised a second, which connected the fronts of the gorges of the two redoubts. This second enceint, armed in part, had not, however, a ditch presenting a serious obstacle. The rocky nature of the soil had hindered the enemy from excavating everywhere equally the ditch of the first curtain and of the Little Redau, and on several points the troops were able to pass it without very much difficulty. For passing the ditches, which had a considerable depth, we had contrived a system of bridges which could be thrown in less than a minute by an ingenious manmuvre, to which our sapp ers and soldiers d'ilite had been trained. The French artillery was so superior to that of the Rus sians that it had extinguished the fire of nearly all the guns pointed directly at our attacks. The filled-up embrasures relieved us from the fear that our columns might be as sailed by grape as they issued from the trenches. The parapets were destroyed, and a part of the earth had rolled into the ditch. Finally, the Malakoff Fort had been assailed by so large a number of shells, thrown from our batteries and those of the English, that the guns which did not look directly upon our attacks had their embrasure a also filled up, and everywhere the terrussements had lost their original form. hut, behind the defences situated in the first line, the Russians had preserved a large number of pieces, which we could not cuntre•butire completely, and the columns which proceeded to attack the Malakoff were exposed to the fire of numerous batteries which the Rus sians bad raised to the north of the ro!ttisterd, and which, though fired from a great distance, were nevertheless ... _ dangerous. Yon are aware that ever since my arrival before Sebes. topol I was decidedly of opinion that the tree point 41