The Press. — London, England, 1856-02-09 00:00:00

FEBRUARY 9, 1856. nople towards our relief, and ere two months are over may we not expect great horrors among the townspeople? The passage is followed by a sketch of the four bravo officers upon whom the defence de volved : GENERAL WILLIAMS. Every one felt these facts weigh heavily on his mind, and all lcoked to the general, to the " Ingleez Paella," for encouragement. No sign of despondency clouded that honest face ; his " Good morning " salutation was as cheerful as on the morrow of our first little victory. He was thin, certainly—he could not well be thinner; but, no wonder, for he never seemed to sleep. Long ere daylight broke he was waii the sentries of Tahmasp, the point nearest the Russian camp, and his glass learned every movement ; then he was by the side of the Mushir during the greater part of the day ; anon he was en couraging the Ilashi-13aznuks and settling theirdifferences, or anxiously arranging some plan for feeding the towns people ; and, in our little confidential gossips on the state of affairs, he would impress on us the duty of maintain ing a bright and hopeful bearing, since all the garrison looked up to us for encouragement. CAPTAIN THOMPSON. Thompson lived altogether on the liaradagh, and his glass ranged the horizon from early morning until night; nor did he then go to a quiet couch, for though he turned in certainly, yet, after an hour's slight slumber, he would visit each sentry round the whole works, and no part of our position was better, if as well, guarded as that where this Argus had taken up his quarters. Often have I given him a call at midnight with Colonel Lake, whom 1 very frequently accompanied on his night duties. MAJOR TEESDALE. Teesdale lived with that gallant Hungarian and fitst•rate soldier limety, on Tahmasp tabia. These two had formed a strong attachment, based on mutual admiration ; there was the hero of many campaigns and the young soldier, brimful of courage, hope, and noble aspirations. Teesdale acted as chief of his staff, and, besides his graver duties, he was constantly harassing the Cossacks with parties of riflemen, or menacing and attacking the Russian cavalry with a company of rifles and a couple of guns. The state of blockade to which we were now reduced fretted his ardent spirit not a little ; he wanted to attack almost against any odds, and had each soldier and Turkish offizer resembled himself, I very believe we might have done so. COLONEL LAKE. I find I have been biographising, if I may coin a word. But amid the sketches thus involuntarily falling from my lien. I have omitted Colonel Lake. The truth is he cannot be found either at Karadagh or Tahmasp ; he, like the general, is doing his best to wear out an iron frame ; his couch is his saddle, for alt day long he is working at the entrenchments and all night he is visiting the sentries. The Queen has had many a bad bargain during this war, but I doubt whether more admirable officers are to be found in the English army than the four I have mentioned. At the commencement of September forage for the horses failed, and a thousand cavalry were sent out to cut their way through the Russian lines: other horses slowly perishing from starvation were slaughtered, it being ne cessary now to economise food to the utmost. With scarcity, cholera appeared, but the garri son were cheered with the intelligence that Orner Pacha, with 43,000 men, had landed at Soukham Kale. Movements in the Russian camp led to the belief that the enemy were abJut to depart. In reality, Mouravieff was preparing for an assault. He had heard of the fall of Sebastopol, and he believed that he should soon have to encounter a considerable force sent against him. The author does jus tice to the valour dr obstinacy of the Russians on the 29th of September : Ever obedient to the dictates of a stern discipline, they advanced again and again to the deadly batteries, and were blown from the very mouths of the guns. Their loss was immense ; had the garrison possessed two thousand cavalry, Mouraviefrs army might have been destroyed. The moral effect on the gariison was peculiar. For two days the cholera ceased its ravages. Every one expected that the besieging army would break up, and the advance of aid was regarded as certain. But Mouravieff maintained his position, and no aid came. The reaction on the spirits of the garrison was deadly. Animal food failed for the troops ; each man was placed on an allowance of eleven ounces of bread per diem and a thin flour soup. The citizens were still worse off. They tore up grass from the o p en s p aces that they might eat the roots. Crowds of women besieged the public offices begging for bread. Horseflesh became a fashionable luxury. Twenty men were brought into hospital poisoned by eating the roots of the Hyoscyamus Niger. Some onions smuggled into the town were sold at i SIX shilli ngs t h e poun d . A s t h e scarc ity n creasE d, "an unusual number of soldiers entered the hospitals, dying of starvation." As a remedy for sudden prostration, " sur -44 gFons were posted in every part of the camp, " with broth of horseflesh in the form and THE PRESS. " under the name of medicine." By the beginning of November the emaciation of the troops was frightful. A hundred men died daily from cold and starvation, and, to prevent mutiny or desertion, there was a horrible ac companiment to these deaths from famine. " Some military executions took place to-day " (Nov. 10)." Hospitals could not contain the dying. The mosques, khans, and large houses were full of invalids. Women gathered the dust from before the flour-depots and served it to their families as food. People were prostrated at the corners of the streets groan ing and et.) ing that they were dying of hunger. The streets presented a " soul-harrowing appearance." Children who had died from famine lay unburied in the public places : The most profound discontent exists throughout the city, and the people say they can bear their sufferings no longer. They exclaim, almost in the language of Scrip- ture, " In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us." In truth the scenes of distress are heartrending. Mothers bring their children to the military council, and throw them at the feet of the officers, ex claiming, " Take and keep these children, fur we have no bread to give them." But in the midst of these horrors there was a confident belief entertained almost to the last that succour was at hand. "We have but to " wait a fortnight and our relief is certain," wrote the author in his diary on the last day iu October ; and elsewhere he notes how the men clung to their arms with "hollcw cheeks, " tottering gait, and that peculiar feebleness "of voice so characteristic of famine." But as the suffering each day became more intense, and as the long looked for aid came not, it was impossible to hold out longer. Omer Pacha's diversion, ill-conceived under the peculiar cir cumstances, failed ; and though Selim Pacha still promised to advance from Erzeroum, a note in cypher from Mr. Brant dispelled that allusion : Selim Pacha won't advance, although Major Stuart is doing his utmost to make him. Omer Pacha has not advanced far from Soukham Kale. I fear you have no hope but in yourselves ; you can depend on no help in this quart< r. On the 25th of November, General Williams, conquered at last by famine, rode over to the Russian camp under a flag of truce : They were well received by Mouravieff. The general tells his chivalrous enemy that he has no wish to rob him of his laurels; the fortress contains a large train of artil lery, with numerous standards, and a variety of arms, but the army has not yet surrendered, nor will it without cer tain articles of capitulation. "If you grant not these," exclaimed the general, " every gun shall be burst, every standard burnt, every trophy destroytd, and you may then work your will on a famished crowd." " I have no wish," answered Mouravieff, "to wreak an unworthy vengeance on a gallant and long-suffering army, which has covered itself with glory, and only yields to famine." " Look here," lie exclaimed, pointing to a lump of bread and a handful of roots, " what splendid troops must these be who can stand to their arms in this severe climate on food such as this I General Williams, you have made yourself a name in history, and posterity will stand amazed at the endurance, the courage, and the discipline which this siege has called forth in the remains Df an army. Let us arrange a capitulation that will satisfy the demands of war without outraging humanity." I leave my readers to imagine any thing more touching than the interview between these gal lant leaders, whose eyes were suffused with tears, while their hearts were big with sentiments of high honour and graceful benevolence. The terms of the capitulation were soon arranged, Mouravieff consenting to terms be yond the demands of General Williams, and inserting of his own accord in the capitulation, " that, in admiration of the noble and devoted " courage displayed by the army of Kars, the " officers shall be allowed to retain their " swords as a mark of honour and respect." Dr. Sand with, with the medical corps, and all non-combatants, were allowed their liberty. The account given of the general and his army must not be omitted : GENERAL MOURAVIEFF. The general is a stout and rather short man, whose age is about seventy, but seldom have I seen a more vigorous looking person at his time of life. He bail a decidedly Russian cast of countenance, and belongs to a very old Muscovite family. His staff treat him with the utmost respect, never, unless when bidden, presuming to sit in his presence. He speaks with almost equal fluency Russian, French, English, German, and Turkish ; possibly he may know other languages besides. I leave the reader to imagine how we enjoyed a good and even luxurious dinner. THE RUSSIAN CAMP. We were allowed to walk about the Russian camp, and see what we chose. The men were hutted in a warm and comfortable way, their dwellings being made almost wholly underground, with fireplaces to insure ventilation. All the officers' huts were furnished with glass windows. Anything more admirable than the order, regularity, and well-being 137 of this camp could not be conceived. Each soldier was warmly clad in becoming, well-preserved clothes, and seemed fit for an inspection on parade at St. I'etersburg. It was observed that the Russians had built a much finer city than Kars itself, and it was proposed to call it Yeni Ears, or New Ears. The Russian officers, we are told, treated their British prisoners with the most delicate atten tion, and lavished compliments on their gallantry, endurance, and humanity. But the wrath of the Turkish troops was awful. They broke their arms in their despair, and cursed the sacred Sultan himself. Dr. Sandwith does not say whether the allied Governments came in for any share of these despairing ex clamations. His last chapter is devoted to an examina tion of the question, whether the garrison might not have been relieved by other dis positions on the part of Omer Pacha and Selim Pacha. He is of opinion that it might. The generalissimo's movement seems to have been a false one. Had he landed at Trebizond, he might have marched through a friendly country to Erzeroum, and from thence an ad vance would have been easily practicable. The question which more nearly relates to us is, how came it that the British Govern ment made no effort for the relief of Kars? Why did it not send or insure the sending of an efficient force to Trebizond ? What excuse can there be for its long apathy ? How can it throw on the Turkish Government the blame of this disaster, when it withheld the loan which it urged at the close of last session as necessary to the immediate wants of the Turkish treasury? The delay of the Turks was caused partly by extreme poverty—for even when Omer Pacha's men were at Soukham Kale, he had no money to pay their long arrears—and partly by the superior direction exercised over the Turkish Government. But the hands of our Adminis tration were free, and their means were ample. To recapitulate, they made the struggle their own, by sending General Williams to Kars as British Commissioner; they were kept secretly informed of the state of the siege; they knew that the town must fall unless relieved by a given date ; they could have supplied the means of relief, for a period of no less than ten weeks elapsed between the evacuation of Sebastopol and the fall of Kars. But they did nothing except to send " words of great encouragement" proved by the result to be utterly meaningless, or designedly false, and thus contributed to an event which "must "exercise a damaging influence on the reputa " tion of England." The case calls loudly for inquiry. As for responsibility, there is an end of that, so let us not speak of it. But it is proper that public opinion should know whom to accuse as the real authors of this most humiliating disaster. It is impossible to suppose that it could ever have occurred had England possessed a Minis ter of vigorous mind at the head of the War Department. Dr. Sandwith's book is in other respects valuable for its information as to the country and people of the theatre of war, but the story of Kars is of such exciting interest as to throw all other details into the shade. Noetea Ambroseanm. By Professor Wilson. Edited by Professor Ferrier. Vol. 111. London : Blackwoods. WE have recently seen in more than one quarter some harsh strictures on the memory of Christopher North, and his assistants in the " Noctes." The truth of the charges brought against Wilson is, to say the least, as questionable as their taste, but over a recent grave we shall not aid in raising a controversy. We are entitled, however, to protest against the justice of those strictures. It is not the case that in virulence and personality the lite rary Tories or Conservatives have always exceeded the Whigs or Radicals. Lord Jef frey was the first who made 'that assertion in his superficial, though graceful, essay on Swift. We have since seen his remarks on this point reproduced, and the names of Wilson, Theo dore Hook, and Dr. Ma ;inn quoted as exem plifications of their truth. It may be true that in vitality the Tory pens have often given an undying power to quarrels that would have been forgotten without genius. We are