The Press. — London, England, 1855-04-14 00:00:00

APRIL 14, 1855. THE WAR. The last advices from Balaklava and the camp come down to the 6th inst. They report no occurrence of moment. The Russians continued to make sorties, which were continually repulsed. Fresh movements and fortifications were perceived among the enemy on the side of the Tschernaya. The French held their ground before the Malakoff Tower. General Canrobert has conferred with Admiral Ernst on the subject of a grand movement of the fleets. Admiral Lyons was making the blockade in the Black Sea more stringent. _ _ According to a telegraphic despatch from the Crimea, received in Vienna, the allied armies were quite ready to open their fire upon Sebastopol. The generals probably only awaited the arrival of despatches from home before beginning the bom bardment, which might be expected to take place any day. They wished, it was reported, to spare the town and public buildings. The Russians still shelled the allied camp and batteries, but the guns of the allies were nearly silent. The fire of musketry on both sides was active every night. The weather was fine and dry. Two fires had occurred in Balaklava under cir cumstances which excited suspicions of treachery. The garrison of Sebastopol was on short rations, as the authorities preferred storing up their supplies in magazines to issuing full rations. The following despatches have been received:— Before Sebastopol, March 27. Adverting to my despatch of the 24th inst., I do myself the honour to state that the following officers have been brought to my notice les having distinguished themselves on the night of the 22nd and morning of the 23rd, in midi don to those whose names I have already submitted to yourlordship :—Major the Hon. James Lyon Browne, of the 21st Regiment, brother of the Hon. Captain Browne, of the Royal Fusiliers, who, it has already been my painful duty to report, fell upon this occasion; Captain Butler, of the 20th ; and Captain Rickman, of the 77th. I am happy to say that Captain Montagu, of the Royal Engineers, who was taken prisoner, was not wounded, and that Lientenant•Colonel Kelly, of the 34th Regiment, who also fell into the enemy's hands, is not severely wounded, though he received some injury both in his head and hand. M ajorGeneral Eyre, the General Officer of the Trenches, highly eulogises the dispositions of Lieutenant-Colonel Kelly. and laments the loss of his services. The Major General also speaks in the warmest terms of the conduct of Lieutenant• Colonel Tylden, Royal Engineers, who received a contusion, which, however, I are glad to be able to assure your lordship, does not incapacitate him from continuing those exertions and displaying those qualities which render him so valuable an officer. There was a suspension of hostilities for about three hours on Saturday for the purpose of burying those who had fallen in the late encounters, and it was evident from the numbers of bodies of the enemy, and of the French, to whom the last sad offices had to be paid, that the loss sustained both by the French and the Russians had been very severe, particularly that of the latter. Some French, too, were found lying close to the Mamelon, a proof that their gallant spirit had carriod them up to the enemy's intrenchments. Nothing of importance has since occurred. The siege operations continue to progress, and during the last two nights the interruption from the fire of the enemy has been inconsiderable. The enemy are very assiduous in the improvement of their defences, and in the establishment of a trench in front of the Mamelon, towards which our ally is advancing by serpentine sap. . . The weather continues very fine, and the appearance and health of the troops are manifestly improving. Dr. Gavin, of the Sanitary Commission, and Mr. Raw. linson, civil engineer, have arrived, and are earnestly ap. plying themselves to the discharge of the duties they have undertaken to perform ; and I will take care that they receive every assistance it may be in my power to afford them. The Himalaya has arrived, and has been disembarking her horses yesterday and this day in Kasatch Bay. Since writing the above, I have received the official re port that Captain A. E. Hill, of the 89th Regiment, was severely wounded and taken prisoner last night while posting his sentries in front of the advanced trench on onr extreme left. RitGLA.N. Thursday's Moniteur publishes the following letter of the same date from General Canrobert Monsieur le Marechal,—As I informed you in my letter of the 23rd, a snspeusion of hostilities for a few hours, de manded by General Osten•Sacken, took place for burying the men killed in the combat of the night of the 22nd. The Russians, in our presence, carried off about 400 of their dead who had fallen in front of our trenches. On the preceding n•ght they had been occupied carrying off the bodies of their soldiers killed in the vicinity of their own lines. We were thus enabled to form a pretty exact calculation of their loss It must amount to tioo or 700 killed, and to 1,200 or 1,500 wounded, altogether at least 2,000 killed or lion de combat. Our calculations, therefore, as has in variably been the case after every engagement, were below the mark. Perhaps they are so now. THE PRESS. Our own loss amounts to—killed or dead of their wounds, 13 officers and 169 men ; wounded, 1 . 2, officers and 361 men ; missing, 2 officers and 54 men. We have news of the two missing officers ; the 7 are in the hands of the enemy. One of them, M. de Crecy, Cap tain-Adjutant-Major of the 3rd Zouaves, has had an arm amputated, and has received other wounds ; his health is, however, satisfactory. This officer greatly distinguished himself in the glorious combat of the night of the 22nd of March. The other, Captain Malafaye, of the 82nd, has re ceived two or three wounds, which are not dangerous. I have nothing to add to the details which I have already given you of this engagement, which is really on a great scale. You will certainly appreciate the merit of troops who knew thus how to defend incomplete trenches. I bring under your special notice two officers who have rendered many services already, and who have again distin guished themselves in this brilliant engagement. General d'Autemarre and Colonel 3iimin of the Ist Zonaves. This latter, wounded by two stones and a musket-shot, fought like a lion. The army of support (Russian) is still in the same position Prince Gortschakoff has taken the chief command wielded. ad interim by General Osten-Sacken. Tartar communica tions confirm the death of Prince Menschikoff, which took place when he was on the point of leaving the Crimea. I have to announce a sad misfortune. The steamer Edinburgh, one of the largest English transports ( for horses ), chartered by your Administration, while on her way to Varna to take in the remainder of the horses of the 4th Hussars, mules and artillery horses, got aground north of Baltschik, and was lost, with two vessels she had in tow for the same destination. No lives were lost in this ship wreck, which occured on the 15th of March. The health of the troops is satisfactory ; their morale was never better. CAN ROBERT. SIEGE CHRONICLE. Letters from the camp to the 27th have been re ceived. Respecting the sortie of the 23rd, the Times correspondent writes on the 28th ult.:— The affair of Thursday night and Friday morning last was not so serious for us as was at first imagined. Onr loss, instead of being nearly one hundred killed, wounded, and missing, did not amount to much more than half that number; and Lieutenant• Colonel Kelly, of the 34th Regi- ment, is, I am glad to say, alive in Sebastopol, with a slight wound. Captain Montagu, Royal Etgineers, is also a pri• soner. The French fought with remarkable energy, and repulsed the attack on them with great slaughter. On the 24th a truce of three hours was agreed to, for the purpose of allowing both sides to bury the dead who had fallen during the sortie. While hos tilities thus intermitted, groups of English, French, and Russians intermingled in the space between the trenches and exchanged many courtesies. The fol lowing description of the scene is given in the Herald correspondence : While the distribution of bodies was going forward, I walked away from the trench in the direction of the Mala koff Tower until midway between it and our advanced work, which was as close as it was prudent to go ; for, even though a truce was existing, neither party of course would allow the other to examine its lines minutely. Still I was enabled to get within a very reasonable distance of the tower, and certainly was much struck by the number, strength, and solidity of the earthworks round it. All of them seemed in beautiful repair, and more like the per manent defences of a regular fortress than the mere efforts of a sudden emergency. In front was a deep ditch, with a strong chevaux de frise of rough-pointed timber at the other side ; while above, from the edge of the fosse to the slope of the battery, were pointed stakes about three feet high, set so closely in the earth as to appear at a little dis tance like a dark band all round the work. But with such a commanding point as the Mamelon once in our posses. sion, the whole of these stockades and the batteries behind them could be destroyed in a single day. On the left of Malakoff, but projecting one hundred yards in advance of it, was the Redan. This is now one of the most tremendous of all the Russian works. Its three sides have double tiers of guns, there being in this one battery alone, it is calculated, not less than 250 pieces of ordnance, some of them of the very heaviest calibre used in warfare. This work, like Malakoff, is also defended by a broad deep ditch, with a cheraux de frise, but without stakes, on the slope of the parapet. From between these batteries a most admirable view could be had right down into the town behind them. Even with the naked eye everything could be seen quite distinctly ; but, with a good glass, a minute examination of every house could be made. But the most minute examination which I could make failed to show me that we had inflicted any injury worth speaking of in the town. The little huts of the Turkish and Tartar population outside the walls are destroyed. The handsome town inside the walls is, as a town, uninjured. A barrack and a few warehouses nearest to the wall are much perforated, and the roofs nearly gone, but this is aIL The large public buildings, the barracks, churches, and rows of splendid houses, show no mark of injury of any kind. As I looked at some of the best streets I could hardly persuade myself that I was not gazing at some of the better parts of Bath or Brighton, so white, regular, and handsome was their appearance. Very few persons were in the streets ; probably I did not see more than thirty or forty in all, and of this small number at least two thirds were soldiers. I saw no women of any class. A good many boats were busy about the harbour, and many people seemed at work on shore, a little above the water's edge on the north, where numbers of carts and arabas were passing to and fro, but beyond these signs of life there seemed nothing doing. The town itself ap peared almost deserted. At this inspection I walked past the front of our ad vanced trenches, midway between ours and the enemy's. The truce had now lasted nearly two hours, and as I looked towards the middle ravine, I could see, by the very few of the allies and the Russians who remained upon the spot, that most of the dead had been removed, and that there fore the brief peace would soon terminate. Impressed with this notion I hurried in without further loitering, as, if the flags of truce were hauled down, I should be left alone in open ground in the midst of a cross tire from bat teries and riflemen of both friends and enemies. I there fore turned up in the direction of our lines, so as to pass along the front of our batteries, and came out on the Woronzow road. The ground over which I passed was rough and very stony, without a sign of vegetation beyond a few violets and crocusses here and there. Sometimes it was very rocky, with pits, quarries, and small cairns of stones—the very mo lel of good skirmishing ground, but the last one would choose to conduct a siege on. I was quite surprised as I walked along at the extreme distinctness with which every one of our defences could be seen 4 the enemy. From the pickethouse in rear of our lines tt is only with much difficulty that our trenches can be seen below us, but from the Russian side the profi e of every batttery shows clear and sharp upon the hill sides. As I came nearer to our lines the tokens of the contest and the prodigal manner in which the enemy have used their ammu nition almost hid the ground. In places where there were hollows iu the earth the shot and pieces of shell had rolled into them in such a manner as to quite fill them level with the surface. Everywhere, in fact, along the whole extent of our works the shot lay in thousands and thousands, covering the ground in such a manner as to make it seem of a deep brown colour. A n immense proportion of the Russian shells have never exploded at all, and there they lay just as they had issued from the gun. Within about a hundred yards of our works the ground is quite cut to pieces by the deep shot•furrows, while the balls themselves, coming in contact with others on the ground, have shivered into little fragments in all directions. In the lower parts of the Woronzow road, below Gordon's Battery, the shot and shell have rolled down the bills and almost choke the way. After this tour I returned on the right attack, and waited there until the last stragglers of the enemy had gained the shelter of their lines. Instantly the Russians hauled down their flags of truce ; we did the same. The snap shots of the riflemen began on both sides, our right attack fired a shell, the Mamelon replied, and then everything went on as it has been for the last siz months. The Post correspondent writes on the 20th : This morning a heavy gun on the left embrasure of the Mamelon was opened on No. 3 battery, in the right attack. The electric telegraph has now been completed between Lord Raglan's head-quarters and all the trenches. and by this a message was sent, informing his lordship of the opening of the gun, and asking advice. The reply was, " Fight it," and preparations were made accordingly. A long 08-pounder gun, from the Terrible, was found to bear upon the precise spot, and this, therefore, was the gun selected to fight the Russian one. The practice made with it was perfect—never wadi better firing seen since the siege commenced. The very first shot tore away one side of the Russian embrasure, and laid the enemy's gun coin pletely open. The next struck the gun full in the muzzle, shattering and dismounting it within five minutes after the order had been given to fight the enemy's gun. Lord Raglan was informed by the telegraph that it had been fought, and was then dismounted and broken. Orders were then sent back for the same 104-pounder to fire every half-hour in the same spot for the rest of the day. Before the day was half over the greater part of the earthwork at each side of the embrasure was quite destroyed, and what seemed most strange, after their gun was dismounted, not a single Russian battery fired a shot in reply to oars. This unusual circumstance no one conld account for. The Highlanders now appear in their kilts and feather bonnets, as the weather has much changed and become almost un pleasantly warm. The general condition of all the men improves still more each day. I am now able to tell you that the electric wires are down from head-quarters, and very close to Sir George Brown's quarters. The station at that end will be a wooden hut (Maltese one), close under the brow of the hill, and near to the picket-house in front of the light division, not far from the Womnzoff road. Communica tions can be sent thence down to head-quarters, but diffi culty is experienced at that end from the want of an alarm-bell, but this will soon be obviated. We have now Balaklava, head-quarters, and our extreme right all linked together within a minute's call. The communication will even be carried to the trenches by means of a semaphore which will be erected in the batteries, with one on the top of the hill in front of the light division, and messages taken from thence to the electric—the entire process not occu pying five minutes. The whole is under the management of Lieut. Stopford, R.E. About 400 convalescents have arrived. The army now, of all ranks under arms, falls little short of 30,000 men. Many deaths from low fever still occur. The Himalaya, with her valuable cargo, came off the harbour yesterday but the wind blew so strong she could not get in, and was sent round to Kamisch for shelter. The following extracts are from tho Herald, March 20th : Not ten per cent. of the huts to be erected are yet at the front. The railway, as far as Karani, is used to get them up, and each truck holds two or three; but the steepness of the incline on which the stationaiy engines are situated has, it appears, been much under-estimated, as the engines are not strong enough for their work, and only two trucks at a time can be drawn up very slowly. This is a serions disappointment, as it was fully expected the engines would be able to draw up a dozen trucks at once. Each gun has now 4041 rounds of ammunition, and the store of powder necessary for this amount of shot is also nearly completed. To-day the C'ity of London arrived fmm Malta. Sh brings ten ' - of .n 13. inch mortars awl an immense supply of 10