The Press. — London, England, 1855-07-07 00:00:00

ttt In the correspondence of the Daily News we find the following narrative of the British assault:— Shortly before three a.m. the attacking columns, supports, and reserves, being in their respective positions in the trenches, before the sun had risen to dissipate the dense vapours which a slight breeze from the eastward failed to remove, and just as the batteries were expected to open in full force, a sudden fire of musketry between the Malakoff works and the Mamelon attracted universal attention. The long lines of ambulance mules of the French were only commencing to thread their way through the ravines to the scene of intended attack, the leading troop of the cavalry expected from below was just ap peering in sight, the reserve of Guards and Highlanders had nut yet arrived. A musketry attack was least of all expected at that hour. The Russians had advanced by the left of the Malakoff-hill, and, taking advantage of the un certain light of the early dawn, had made a sortie against the French in their advanced trenches on the Mamelon. The sortie was repulsed; and had it ended here the chief points in the programme of the day's events need not have been interfered with. But by a fatal mistake the success in repelling the sortie was at once followed up, and, seizing the temporary advantage, the repulse became con verted into an attack upon the Malakoff itself. Some of the French troops mounted the hill, others, pursuing the Russians who had made the sortie, followed them to the gorge of the work, and thus actually gained admission into the work itself. Now the error was discovered ; the Rus sians showed themselves On overpowering numbers, and but few of our allies who had gained admission into the works of the Malakoff effected their escape. At the same time, the enemy crowded upon the parapets, and poured a deadly rifle tire into the troops attempting to mount the hill, while grape and canister were discharged from field pieces placed in commanding positions. Our allies were absolutely forced to retire within the protection of their advanced trench. Before this shelter had been obtained, and while the troops were fighting within and around the Malakoff, the flag was hoisted in the eight-gun battery. The signal for the assault was no sooner given than it was perceived, and at once the storming columns left their shelter in the trenches. Just what the Russians were waiting for: the columns had no sooner shown themselves than the fire from above opened. It was not to be counted by guns—it was a raging storm, an incessant rain of grape and rifle balls. The dead and wounded strewed the ground ; it was a miracle how any escaped. On the left, Colonel Shadforth had fallen ; on the right, Colonel Lysons, wounded in the knee, found himself close to the deep fosse, but, out of his four hundred, with not more than forty around him. Neither the woolsaeks nor the ladders were at hand, but that was a matter of little import, for the parapets were covered with dense lines of the enemy, and on every side the deadly grape swept down its victims. The Redan was filled with troops. Supports sent to the storming parties could nut be of any avail, and nothing was left bet to retire, with the hope of renewing the attack at a more seastseable opportunity. The writer adds in a later communication : So little is ever known of the details of French opera tions here, that I can give few particulars of their attack on the Malakoff; but their plan of assault appears to have consisted in assailing the work on both flanks and the front simultaneously, and with overwhelming numbers — twenty-five thousand are said to have been actually engaged. In just retribution for the disregard of their general to the good to be expected from a short morning's bombardment, they found the redoubt swarming with defenders, and guns bristling from every embrasure. On them, as on our own men, showers of grape and canister were poured out, literally mowing down whole battalions at a time ; whilst from along the whole semicircular line of parapet the crowding riflemen sent volley after volley into their dis ordered ranks, that passed through them like a sheet of molten lead. Three times they gave way, and as often rallied ; but were finally driven back after a struggle, of some three hours and a half, leaving the space between the Mamelon and Malakoff literally covered with the dead and dying. With our own men, the apace to be passed over from our most advanced trenches to the Redan was somewhere about seven hundred yards, and from the first moment of their rushing over the parapet towards the point of attack they were met by the same awful and annihilating storm of canister and grape. Many fell within the first dozen yards, and thence on to some broken ground about mid- way, in which the remainder sought cover ; the field was strewed with the slain and wounded. An officer present in the affair, and who was one of the few who escaped un injured, described the fire to me as being perfectly awful — much more severe than that which greeted our men at Alma, where he also fought, and received a wound. Few of them ever reached the ahattis in front of the work— none, I believe, ever even saw the deep ditch which pro- tests its approaches. During the whole affair Lord Raglan and Sir O. Brown were ensconced within our eight-gun battery ; but though this afl'orded a good view of the scene of the struggle and of the disorder which marked it, for sortie reasons unknown to uninitiated spectators they ap• reared unable to give any efficient directions for the correc tion of our multiplied blunders. When the whole sad scene was ended, our men straggled back by every safe avenue to the camp, in a state of dispirited confusion well in keeping with the mob-like disorder in which they had been throughout the assault. I know not what may have been the feelings of the home public on reading the tele graphic news of our defeat, but here mingled shame and indignation were general throughout the camp. Officers and men alike felt that disgrace had been incurred, and that in consequence solely of the unredeemed mismanage ment of their generals. From drum-boys to colonels a sense of humiliation filled every breast, the deeper that everybody was sensible that neither men nor regimental officers had shown themselves deficient in what, under proper guidance, would have commanded success. II THE PRESS. THE FRENCH ATTACK. Details of the operations of our allies on this day, of which the British despatches contain but a very imperfect account,, are furnished in the official report from General Pelissier, published in Wednes days Moniteur. The following are the most impor tant passages : Before Sebastopol, June 22. Since the capture of the external works on the 7th of June I had rapidly made every arrangement to make them the basis of our attack against the enceint itself of the iKarabelnia. We armed them with powerful ar tillery ; the Russian communications and places d'armes were turned to our own use; the ground plan of attack studied in detail; the allied armies had their respective tasks allotted to them. The English were to storm the great Itedan, and we were to carry the Malakoff Tower, the redan of the Careening Bay, and the intrenchments which cover that extremity of the faubourg. It is super fluous to point out what would have been the result of such an operation if it had succeeded. Since our last successes the attitude of the enemy and the enthusiasm of our troops promised victory. There was no time to be lost. In concert with Lord Raglan, on the 17th we poured a crushing fire into Sebastopol, especially into the works we intended storming. At an early hour the enemy ceased replying from the Malakoff and from the Itedan. It is probable they were economising their batterits and fire, and that they did not suffer so much from the effects of out artillery as we were led to presume. However that may be, the superiority of our guns con firmed us in our plan for making an assault on the 18th, and on the night before we made all the necessary arrange ments for a general movement on the morrow. Three divisions were to take part in the combat—the divisions of Mayran and Brunet, of the 2nd corps; the division d'Autemarre of the Ist. The division of the Imperial Guard formed the reserve. Mayran's division had the right attack, and was to carry the intrenchments which extend from the battery of the point to the redan of Careening Bay. Brunet's division was to turn the Mala koff on the right. D'Autemarre's division was to manoeuvre on the left to carry that important work. General Mayran's task was a difficult one. His first brigade, commanded by Colonel Saurin, of the 3rd Zouaves, was to advance from the ravine of Careening Bay as far as the aqueduct, to creep along the left hill side of the ravine, avoiding as much as possible the fire of the enemy's lines, and to turn the battery of the point by the gorge. The second brigade, commanded by General de Failly, was to make an attempt on the right of the redan of Careening Bay. They were provided with everything ne cessary to scale the works. All these troops were ready at their post at an early hour. I selected the Lancaster Battery for my post, from which I was to give the signal by star rockets for the general advance. Notwithstanding great difficulties of ground, notwithstanding the obstacles accumulated by the enemy, and although the Russians, evidently informed of our plans, were on their guard and ready to repel an attack, I am inclined to think that if the attack could have been general and instantaneous on the whole extent of the line—if there had been a simultaneous action and ensemble in the efforts of our brave troops—the object would have been achieved. Unhappily, it was not so, and an incon ceivable fatality caused us to fail. I was still at more than 1,000 metres from the place whence I was to give the signal when a violent fire of mus ketry, intermixed with grape, apprised me that the combat had commenced seriously on the right. In fact, a little before three a.m. General Mayran fancied he recognised my signal in a shell with a blazing fuse sent up from the Bran• cion Redoubt. It was in vain that he was informed of his mistake. This brave and unfortunate general gave the order for the attack. The Saurin and De Failly columns imme• diatelv rushed forward ; the first rush was magnificent, but scarcely were these heads of columns in march when a shower of balls and grape was poured in upon them. This crushing fire came not only from the works which we wished to carry, hut also from the enemy'ssteamers, which came up at full steam and manoeuvred with great skill and effect. We, however, caused them some damage. This prodigious fire stopped the efforts of our troops. It became impossible far our soldiers to advance, but not a man retired one step; it was at this moment that General Mayran, already hit in two places, was knocked down by a grapeshot, and was compelled to resign the command of his division. All this was the work of a moment, and General Mayran was already carried off the field of battle when I sent up the signal from the Lancaster Battery. The other troops then advanced to support the premature movement of the right division. That valiant division, for n moment discon certed by the loss of its general, promptly rallied at the voice of General de Failly. The troops engaged, supported by the second battalion of the 95th of the line and by a battalion of the Voltiguers of the Guard, under the orders of the brave Colonel Boudville, hold a footing in a bend of the ground where the general places them, and boldly maintain their position there. Informed, however, of this position, which might become critical, I ordered General Regnault de St. Jean d'Angely to send four battalions of the Voltiguers of the Guard, taken from the general reserve, to the support of that division. The attack on the centre had not a better fate. General Brunet had not yet completed alt his arrangements when the signal-rockets were fired. The whole of the right was already prematurely engaged fur more than twenty to twenty-five minutes. The troops, nevertheless, resolutely advanced, but their valour was of no avail against the well sustained fire of the Russians, and against unforeseen ob stacles. At the very outset General Brunet fell, mortally wounded by a ball in the chest. The flag of the 91st was SATIJItDAY I cut in two by a ball, but it is needless to add that its frag manta were brought lack by that gallant regiment. To the left General d'Autemarre could not go into ac tion before Brunet's division, nor could he explain the hasty fusillade he heard in the direction of Careening Bay; but at the signal agreed upon for the attack he threw for ward with impetuosity the sth Chasseurs-i-Pied and the Ist battalion of the 19th of the line, which, following the ridge of the Karabelnia Ravine, arrived at the intrench ment which connects it with the Malakoff Tower, filled the intrenchment, and entered into the enceint itself. The uppers of the Engineers were already placing the scaling ladders for the remainder of the 19th and 26th Regiments, who were hurrying up by order of General d'Autemarre to follow his gallant column. For an instant we believed in success—our eagles were planted on the Russian works. Unhappily that hope was promptly dispelled. Our allies had met with such obstacles in their attack on the Grand Roden, they had been received with such a fearful shower of grape, that, despite their well-known tenacity, they had already been obliged to beat a retreat. Such was the spirit of our troops that, despite this circumstance, they would have pushed on and charged down upon the enemy, but the want of simultaneity in the attack of oar divisions permitted the Russians to fall upon us with their reserves, and with the artillery of the Great Redati, and the enemy did not lose a moment in advancing all the other reserves of the Karabelnia against our brave Chassems-11-Pied. Before so imposing a force Commandant Gamier, of the sth battalion, already struck by five balls, endeavoured, but in vain, to maintain the conquered ground. Compelled to give way to numbers he recrossed the intrenchments. General Niol came up to support his brigade, reinforced by the 30th of the line ; a new offensive movement was attempted to assure the success of the new effort, and on a message from General d'Autemarre to the effect that his reserve was reduced to the 74th of the line, 1 sent him the regiment of Zouaves of the Guard ; but on the arrival of those hardy veterans of our African campaigns, as the movement had no longer any desirable ensemble for so vigo rous a blow, with a single division without support either on the right or on the left, and cut up by the artillery of the Roden, the attack upcn which had been relinquished by our allies, I at once saw that all chance of success was over. Another Obit would only have led to useless blood shed. It was half-past eight o'clock, and I ordered a general retreat to the trenches. This movement was car ried out proudly, and with order and coolness, without the enemy following us on any point. A portion of the Russian trenches remained even occupied by some of our men, who evacuated them gradually, without the enemy daring to turn their advantage to account against them. Our losses have been great. We took care at the very commencement of the action to carry off most di' our wounded ; but a certain number of those glorious dead re mained lying on the glacis or in the ditches of the place. The last duties were rendered to them the following day. We had 37 officers killed and 17 taken prisoners; 1,544 non-commissioned officers and privates killed or missing. On the evening of the 18th 96 officers and 1,644 men went to the ambulances. These losses have not shaken either the ardour or the confidence of these valiant divisions. They only ask to make the enemy pay dearly for this day's work. The hope and the will to conquer are in every heart, and all count upon it that in the next struggle for tune will not play false to valour. PELISSIER. DEATH OF LORD RAGLAN. THE brief announcement of this regretted event, which reached London by telegraph on Saturday morning, and was communicated to our readers in the second edition of the last PREss, was speedily confirmed by the appearance of the following official despatch from the War-office : Lord Panmure has received intelligence from General Simpson, announcing the fatal termination of Lord Raglan's illness. Until four p.m. on the 28th his lordship had been progressing to the satisfaction of his medical attend ants, when alarming symptoms developed themselves, attended with difficulty of breathing, which gradually increased. From five p.m. he was unconscious ; and from this period be gradually sunk, until twenty-five minutes before nine, at which hour he died. The event has plunged the whole army into the most profound grief. Fitzroy James Henry Somerset was the eighth son of the fifth Duke of Beaufort. He was born in 1788, and entered the army at the age of sixteen, as cornet in the 4th Dragoons. He was rapidly promoted to a company in the 43rd Foot, which regiment, however, he did not join, having been attached to the staff of the late Duke of Wel lington, whom he accompanied to Denmark in 1807. The Danish forces made a stout resistance at Mose, but were defeated and driven back upon Copenhagen, the siege and capitulation of which city followed speedily. Lord Fitzroy Somerset subsequently accompanied Wellington to the Peninsula in the capacity of military secretary and aide-de camp, and enjoyed a greater au.ount of the commander's confidence than any other officer in the army. He distin guished himself in the engagements at Fuentes d'Onor, on the 3rd and sth of May, 1811, and in the storming of Badajos on the night of the Bth of April, 1812, when so many gallant British soldiers tell in front of the walls, and in the breach, before the victory was secured. It was to Lord Fitzroy that the governor of the citadel surrendered. On the 21st of June, 1813, the memorable battle of Vittoria was fought, in which Lord Fitzroy Somerset again distin guished himself by his activity and daring. The effect of this battle in which the French were totally defeated, was to compel them to fall back, Brat behind the Ebro, and