The Press. — London, England, 1855-01-27 00:00:00

THE WAR. Telegraphic advices from the Crimea to the 12th net. have been received in Paris. They state that no event of serious importance had taken place. The ground was covered with snow. Mortar batteries had been finished, whose fire greatly annoyed the enemy. Prince Menschikoff reports to St. Petersburg that on the 17th the besiegers had made no progress. He adds that in a sortie on the 15th the Russians bad taken fourteen English and nine French prisoners. Other advices state that very considerable rein forcements had arrived to the allies. Liprandi had again advanced his outposts to the Tschernaya. Forty thousand Russians and eighty guns were defending the lines of Perekop. Several vessels, with provisions and munitions for the Russian army, had been captured by the allies near Odessa and Kertch. A letter from Vienna in the Moniteur says that the embarkation of the Turkish troops for the Crimea was so actively carried on that the last convoys had set sail on the 14th. The Moniteur also published the following tele graphic despatch from Vice-Admiral Bruat, the Com mander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean squadron : Montebello, Jan. 13. The Descartes arrived from Constantinople on the 4th, with 1,000 men and ammunition. The Trident and Gorgon arrived on the 9th. Omer Pacha left Kamisch at midday of the 4th, on his way to lialaklava. The cold has been great for some days, but the weather is mild for the winter, and the snow has melted. During the night of the 7th the Russians made a sortie against the parallel in front of the battery No. 19. They were vigorously repulsed by our men, and left many dead on the ground. On the night of the 11th one hundred and fifty Russians attacked our lines. After a contest of some minutes of man to man, they were repulsed, with a loss of seven killed and two prisoners, who were wounded. Our loss was five wounded. On the Bth inst. Lord Raglan issued a general order, publishing to the army the unanimous resolu tions of the Houses of Lords and Commons, express ing their sense of the conduct of the officers, non commissioned officers, and soldiers, in the operations in which they have been engaged in the Crimea, in the brilliant and decisive victory of the Alma, and in the signal defeat of a very superior force of the enemy on the heights of Inkermann. General Can. robert had previously transmitted to the British commander-in chief a letter expressing acknowledg ment on behalf of the French army for the votes of thanks passed by the two Houses of Parliament in their honour. Private letters from the camp before Sebastopol are to the 9th. The health of the troops seemed to improve, although the cold was severe. The daily deaths had fallen to ninety. The sheepskin coats for different regiments were being issued, and also rice to the troops in the usual manner. Lord Raglan has ordered that every man be served out with one pair of boots gratuitously. The weekly average of sick sent to Scutari amounted to something like 700 men. A permanent staff of medical men was appointed to be on board each vessel taking sick to Scutari. About 600 wooden huts had arrived at Balaklava. The Royal Horse Artillery were to be employed to carry them up to the camp. It was intended to establish a depot at head-quarters, with fourteen days' provisions for the whole army always in store. The transport of shot, &c., has stopped fora short time, and the carts were assisting in taking up provisions. The French took down our sick on the morning of the 4th on their ambulance mules, and General Canrobert ordered that the mules should return laden with provisions to the depot at head-quarters. Sixteen hundred hands were em ployed on the 2nd in bringing up provisions to head quarters for the depot. The Paris correspondent of the Times, writing on Wednesday, says : I am credibly informed that official despatches have been received from the Crimea, which speak in a more pos;tive manlier than such communications have hitherto done, of the date fixed for the " assault." From the flth to the 10th of next month it is stated that this long expected event will take place. According to late intelligence from Constantinople, General Canrobert had given orders to momentarily suspend the sending of fresh troops, in order to avoid crowding. Prince Napoleon left on the 11th for France. General Canrobert's popularity in both armies is unbounded : be is seen, day and night, in every direction along the lines, in the trenches, tents, and posts of danger, fraternising with his troops, and consoling them under trials and privations. Their patience is, however, almost exhausted; and they all demand with one voice to assault the place. General THE PRESS. Canrobert, in reviewing on a late occasion his soldiery, was greeted by acclamations of " Vive Canrobert !" and pronounced an eloquent oration, terminating with these memorable words :—" Ne dites pas, mes braves, Vive Canrobert, mais vive l'Empereur ! et que ce cri retentisse jusqu'au cteur de nos ennemis—dont la derniere heure a sonne ! Vous crierez, Vive votre General, lorsque je me le.n cerai a votre tete, et que mon corps vous servira de drapeau sur la breche. Si nous n'avons pas donne encore l'assaut, c'est pour des raisons particulieres a moi connues." A letter from the Crimea, in the Vienna Gazette, says : An experiment as to the range of the cannon on the heights of lnkermann, occupied by the English riflemen, was made on the 4th against the Russian fleet in Sebas• topol. The balls flew in the midst of the fleet, and broke the mast of one of the vessels, A Constantinople letter of the 14th says that Omer Pacha had returned from Eupatoria to Varna to su perintend the embarkation of his troops. Bebram Pacha (Colonel Cannon) remained at Eupatoria with Tefik Pacha, Omer Pacha's son-in-law and 10,000 infantry, with artillery and some squadrons of cavalry. The town had been fortified by the Turks, and surrounded by a ditch, under the direction of French engineers. The Cossacks in the neigh bourhood amounted to 7,000. The Henri IV., stranded near Eupatoria, was occupied by 100 French seamen. The Egyptian ship of the line stranded near the Henri IV. had taken fire, and been burnt to the water's edge. Three hundred Tartar horses had been purchased at Eupatoria, to remount the British and French cavalry. The Vienna Military Gazette states that the Grand Dukes Michael and Nicholas have quitted St. Petersburg to rejoin the Russian army in the Crimea. They were daily expected at Odessa. CHRONICLE OF THE SIEGE. The incidents and prospects of the siege during the opening week of the year are thus recorded by the special correspondent of the Times : NEW YEAR'S-DAY, 1865.—C01d, raw, bleak, and wet. There is nothing to be said about the progress of the siege, but the Russians have not yet abandoned the valley, and have sent back some of their troops to Tchourgoum. Our Rifle pickets yesterday morning were astonished to see the Cossack vedettes within twelve hundred yards of them. There is sad news about our Christmas•boxes and New Year's gifts. It is credibly asserted that the boxes sent out for the use of the Guards and others by the Royal Albert were broken open on board the ship and that the con tents were stolen. Excellent cigars were sold for a penny a piece by the plunderers, and, if the story be true,—and more than one officer of the (3 uards has informed me there is no doubt of the fact,—an inquiry ought to be made, and the offenders, if detected, severely punished. However, the Guards have received their cases of brandy, and the survivors will have one hundred dozen of that very needful stimulant for their use. JAN. 2.—Winter is setting upon us, and we are already in a position to form an opinion of its possible results. I cannot conceal my impression that our army is likely to suffer severely unless instant and most energetic measures be taken to place it in a position to resist the inclemency of the weather. It is uncertain whether the troops will be exposed to much frost or not, but it is beyond doubt that they will have much bad weather—violent cold winds and great wet to contend against, and that, encamped as they are, on the tops of mountain ridges and on an elevated and perfectly bare plateau of rock, they require every artificial aid to keep them in health, and to enable them to survive their hardships, debilitated as they are by insufficient food and excessive watching and labour. We have no means of getting up the huts—all our army can do is to feed itself. Captain Keen, 11 E., is here in charge of four thousand tons of wood for hutting, but he cannot get any one to take charge of it, or unload it out of the ships. Each hut weighs more than two tons, and, somehow or other, I fear it will so happen that no effort will be used to get them up till men are found frozen to death in their tents. As to the " warm clothing." the very words immediately suggest to us all some extraordinary fatality. Some went down with the ill fated and ill-treated Prince, some of it has been lost, and now we hear that a ship with clothing for the officers has been burnt off Constantinople ; that some of it has been saturated with water ; and I had an opportunity of seeing several lighters full of warm great-coats, kc., for the men lying for a whole day in the harbour of lialtiklava beneath a determined fall of rain and snow. There was no one to receive them when they were sent to the shore, or rather no one would receive them without orders. In fact, we are ruined by etiquette, and by " service " regulations. No one will take " responsibility " upon himself if it were to save the lives of hundreds. When the Duke of Newcastle, at the very outset of the expedition, bestowed his approbation on the vigour which characterised the arrangements at Malta, and especially selected for his praise those officers who evinced a disposition to disregard " useless departmental etiquette," we were in hopes that this horrible old hag, who sits brooding over our army with more mischievous results than even that " cold shade " which we have been told on very good authority blighted it in days gone by, would be consigned to the dreary abodes where the spirits of de parted pigtails, regulation coatees, pipeclayed gaiters, and Brown Bess mourn over their former greatness. We are cursed by a system of " requisitions," " orders," and " memos," which is enough to depress an army of scriveners, and our captains, theoretically, have almost as much work to do with pen and paper as if they were special correspondents or bankers' deal; that is, they ought to SATURDAY, have as much to do, but, thanks to the realities of war, the; have now no bookkeeping; their accounts are lost, and the captain who once had forty or fifty pounds weight of books and papers to carry has not now so much as a penny memo randum book. This fact alone shows the absurdity of our arrangements. In peace, when these accounts are of com paratively little importance, we have plenty and too much of checks and returns, but in time of war the very first thing our army does is to leave all its stationery on board the steamer that carries it to the scene of action. There are other evils in our military system which this war will expose—none greater or more patent, however, than that which arises out of the different departments forming what is called " The Army." We have the Ord nance Department, the Medical Department, the Commis sariat Department, and the Military Department pur sang, and all the departments have different " heads," to whom the subordinate officers look as the sole sources of honour and promotion. The formation of our staff is severely criti cised, especially since the brevet, which has promoted the staff en manse, has come out to us. The individual gal lantry and devotion of the officers of the various staffs are not denied, nor can they be questioned; but they are not selected on the score of merit, and general indiscriminate promotion of all these officers as a " body " is regarded with great jealousy and dissatisfaction. There are certainly instances of great luck and good fortune in the list of names selected for promotion on the ground of "distin guished services in the field," while the poor battalion officers who fought at Alma and lnkermann by the side of their men have much reason to complain of neglect, bad luck, and misfortune. The captains of artillery in the trenches have not been promoted ; those who were in com mand of batteries have all received a grade as a reward for their conduct. Many familiar cases of inequality in the distribution of rewards will soon be brought home to our firesides, and will he spoken of throughout the three king dome for many a day to come. JAN. 3.—To-day little was done, because the state of the roads presented the greatest obstacles to the transport of shot or shell, and all that could be done was to get up scanty supplies of food and rum to the camp. The rain, mingled with snow and sleet, fell heavily. There has been a good deal of activity visible on the part of the Russians, not only in Sebastopol, but among the divisions posted over lnkermann. The outlying camp seems to have re• ceived reinforcements, or the army which has been sta. tioned on the Belbeck may possibly have sent down some regiments to strengthen them. There was a vigorous sortie at night on the French right and our left attack, and there was continuous firing of musketry throughout the night, but there was very little execution done by the Rue sian riflemen. The cold is developing itself, and I regret to say our efforts to guard against it have been attended with mischief. Captain Swinton, of the Royal Artillery, a gallant and excellent officer, was found dead in his tent, suffocated by the fumes of charcoal from a stove which he had placed within it for the purposes of warmth. tireat numbers of iron stoves have been brought out here from Constantinople, and are not used with proper caution, and several officers have been half killed by carbonic acid gas generated in these deadly apparatus Fatigue parties from the different regiments are employed every day in bringing up biscuit and provisions to head-quarters, where they are making some attempt to establish a central depot. This duty is very hard on officers and men, and is almost as severe as the labour of carrying up shot and shell. The native drivers, and those we have imported, absolutely re fuse to work any longer. They cannot or will not face the cold and wet, and either rebel openly or hide no one knows where. Sometimes the military escorts miss their way or lose their provisions, and the divisions to which they be long are deprived of their rum and biscuit. JAN. 4.—From all I can bear, the frosts of the Crimea are usually accompanied by extremely strong winds from the northward, which are dry and penetrating, and even the Cossack coastguards retire within their kraals when such weather sets in, Our sentries have got an extra great-coat—a kind of " grego " with a large hood : all our men who are exposed to night duty should be provided with them. What the men require most are warm lung boots to protect the feet and legs. Some few boots of this kind have been served out, and have been found invaluable The mite are also most serviceable. May I ask why are our blankets white? Is it to show dirt and to expose a man who puts one on to the fire of the enemy at night? The French blankets are grey, and look always clean, while they render the wearer almost invisible in the dark. 'this afternoon we had a very important arrival: his Excellency Omer Paella arrived, with his staff from Varna, on board the Inflexible ; but as it was late when the vessel came in, and the weather was very bad, the general did. not land. The transport horses were quite beaten to-day, and dropped and died in the roads by dozens. It is snow ing hard, and the thermometer marks 28 deg. to-night. JAN. 5.-Au extremely hard frost began about midnight, and the thermometer this morning was at 21 deg. 10 mm., or more than l 0 deg. of cold. The result may be imagined. The cavalry division lost about sixty horses during the night, and I dread to think of the number of our noble soldiers who will receive their coup de grace from this weather, if it lasts. lam credibly informed that, out of one division alone 150 men were taken out of the trenches to the hospital tents, seized with cramp and half frozen, not so much perhaps from the cold as from the want of proper clothing and inability to move about to circulate the blood. Lieutenant Ramsbottom, of the 07th Regiment, was found dead in his tent this morning from the vapours of charcoal in a stove, and Mr. Vicars, of the same regi ment, was discovered in a precarious state from the same cause, but is now better. I have heard that an engineer officer is also dangerously ill from similar want of caution, and there arc rumours, to which I do not attach much cre dence, of men having died on their posts last night. The 30th Regiment have not yet disembarked. In the afternoon the Leopard arrived with draughts and stores from England. As an instanoe of the curious hal-