The Press. — London, England, 1855-03-10 00:00:00

THE PRESS. MARCH 10, 1855. clerks in the Treasury, but they did not understand the service. One of them nearly lost his senses from the diffi culties he found himself in. After many conflicts with the commissary-general and others he did get a compe tent deputy-commissary attached to his division, and he was able to provide the men with food. The rations were generally provided, but had heard th sometimes the rum was deficiethe nt. Even up to the 2 nd of February he at by exertions of a competent man the division had seldom been without rations. There was much sickness among the troops; they lost more by disease than by battle ; his division, however, had not lost a fourth so many as some others. The main cause of the evil was overworking the men. The wooden huts were not thought of till after the weather became very severe. But, much as they had suffered from sickness and bad supplies, he thought the principal cause of the losses was the overworit in the trenches. He condemned the rigid adherence to official forms for the issue of forage. The horses of his own staff were kept without food almost a whole day because some body was not on the proper spot to sign some document in an official manner. By Mr. Lsvann.—The interpreters sent him were of no use whatever. He had nothing to do with selecting them. He knew that in the mercantile houses of Constantinople there were many young memo ho could speak Turkish fluently. As to the prepar for the reception of the wounded at Constantinople, it would have been very easy to run up a wooden building for a hospital. He was aware that in the bazaars of C on stantinople there were immense supplies of clothing and bedding. In the means of trans port we were much stronger than our allies. We had by far the best ships ; and he was surprised how the French got on as they did in their little vessels; they had such ships as were never seen in our fleet, ships of 150 tons burdens. They had no vessel to compare with our large transports, such as the Himalaya. The war was com menced as if it were of no moment. His impression was, that the authorities did not make those arrangements which ought to have been made. There were some regiments lie was afraid which had had the same clothes on for two or three months, and the officers had not more than a second change. The troops were landed in cloth pantaloons and cloaks ; but some detachments were sent out who had their summer clothing. Many of the tents were very in different, having been used in the Peninsular war. There was a new description of tent which the 80th Regiment brought with them, and they were a very good pattern. The tents of the men were not lined ; the marquees of the officers had an inner lining. Had visited Balaklava before be left the Crimea, and its condition was very indifferent. The superintendent of the quartermaster-general's depart ment was Dr. Hamilton. Had heard of men being sent down to collect provisions being detained at Balaklava for a whole day, on account of the want of order and regularity within the town. On Se their arriv bore bastopol did not hear of any arrangements hav al ing b oa made to meet any emergency in the event of the communication with Balaklava being cut off, and believed that in that cas toe the the consequen ces would have been very lamentable t roo ps. Did not think the re was any place to could look for supplies but to Balaklava. Great difficulty arose from the want of proper and efficient men to fill the situations of the commissariat department. These com missariat officers were amenable to the commander of the f o rces or Mr. Filder, but a re f e rence, when complaint was to be made, from Mr. Filder to Mr. Filder, could not promise any result. By Lord Sermot-B.—Knew nothing of the regulations of this department ; b ut, assuredly, a very important part o that distress and suffering which characterised the opera tions of the army, he thought, at least had their origin in the offices of the higher authorities, though it was difficult for him to answer that particular point. The whole com missariat was, numerically, completely inadequate for the purposes required, especially in the subordinate appoint. ments. He did not interfere to any extent, except as o the provisions when the y were n ot ready. But o neepoint was the imbecile manner in which matters were con ducted. He believed that matters were conducted as if the war was to be carried on without the necessity of the explosion of gunpowd er or the forming of magazines ; all this was done in connection with the Treasury, where there was a notion that this would be extravagance which was not required by the event. Believed that the Commissariat Department had been removed from tbe the Treasury, but wish ed to see it altogether removed from civil authority, because there was not that cordiality the be tween the offi c er% that was neces sar y for the good of service. The duties of officers in the army were defined, but the operations of t e e commissariat are peculiar in their nature. Commissary Filder never visited the divi sion or the camp ; he resided at Constantinople. When he (Sir De Lacy Evans) was in quarters at Ba la klava, afterwards, he never called upon him to consult with him as to necessaries required. He declined to do so. He thought, however, it was Aunts Filder's duty to do so. The commissry-general was r the direct orders of the commander of the forces. Lord Raglan would have sus pended him without a doubt. The greater part of the comm i s sariat officers kne w litt ofme le d from incomp the field duties. Had no t heard of any ono being disetency. Th e commissaries might be useful were withso v ei e thryr pen—not for as the discharge of duties which arduous those of the commiesariat depent. It was a different thing from at to accaonnrtm ts kept by double entry. There was a great quantity of supplies, &c., in the neigh bourhood of Balaklava. There was no officer appointed to collect them. Did not hear of any such appoin•ment as that of town-major ; but it was necessary to have a suffi cient staff to command the town. By Sir JOUN PAKINGTON.---FOT the general objects of the cempaign he should say they were not in a condition to land in the Crimea. There was no absolute deficiency of the medical staff, for this reason, that they carried the ship off the s ick when they were conveniently situs' When he landed in the Crimea his division consisted of about 4,000 men, and he received reinforcements to the extent of 000 or 700 while there. When he left the Crimea his division did not consist of more than 2,000. General BENTINCK, commander of the brigade of Guards, stated that — The brigade consisted of 2,500 men when it left England ; they landed first at Scutari, and afterwards proceeded to Varna. The transit voyage to Varna was well conducted. Ile could not attribute the sickness that oc curred to any one specific cause. The natives of the country said sickness always broke out at that time of the year, and expressed sur e de, that we should have en. camped there. Out of the 2,500 of the brigade, he thought they lost 100 men. The Guards landed in t he Crimea on the 14th of September ; they landed withou tents, they did not receive till the 17th. The Cruntastr.—What provision was made for attend ing to the wounded after the battle of the Alma ?—They were collected on the field by working parties, sent to the seaside, where they were placed in the charge of medical men, and sent off to the ships in boats. There were six medical men attached to the brigade, but two were in valided; had the men remained in health four would have been enough. That is, if they had not been wanted there would have been medical men enough, but when they were wanted there were not?—Yes. In reality, there was not a sufficient provision of medical men in the brigade of Guards in the Crimea 7—No. He left on the Bth of November, and they had not had an d worky very b a d weather. The troops suffered more from har than from anything else. As to their supplies, they had four rations of fresh meat in the week, and two of sal th t ; the greatest want felt was of veg etables and tobacco. Wi the rations, the ordinary food of the soldier, they were supplied. No fuel was served out, the men had none except what they procured for themselves. No special winter clothing was sent out with the men. The ordinary winter clothing was not sufficient for such a climate; he had never heard that anything had been done to procure a supply. He thought the mortality was principally caused by the want of clothing and exposure under canvas at such a season, the hard work, and want of st. corn Thwasere were no depots in the camp of forage or fue re l ; but fuel there was none to be brought up from day to da y , got. There was also an uncertainty how long they should remain on the ground, which would have prevented depots from being formed. The tools supplied to the pioneers were bad ; they were too few and of inferior quality. The same tools had been tried at Chobham, and tonna ineffi cient, yet the tools supplied to the pioneers in the Crimea were of the same kind. Captain WROTTESLEY, of the Royal Engineers : Was sent to Gallipoli about the middle of March, to pre pare for the reception of troops. He afterwards went to Varna to construct wharfs for landing the horses. He never was in the Crimea. When the troops arrived at Varna there was a great want of means of transport. It was the chief difficulty the English engineers had to contend with ; the French sappers brought their own horses from France, while to convey wood for the wharfs the English engineers, after sending a requisition to the q nai term aster-general' s de partment, whence another requisition went to the commis sariat. had to depend on the native arabas. Five hundred bullock waggons were sent down to Varna by Omer Bache, being all he could spare from his own army ; but when they arr i v ed there were no arrangements for organg them ; the drivers were not regularly fed or paid, and gradually they all ran away. There was an absolute want of horses, though they had officers in Syria and Spain purchasing them. No horse fit for the shafts of an army carriag constructed for English horses could be obtained ; the am• bulance carts sent out could not be used, for there were no means of drawing them. If a Turkish horse were placed in a cart built for the English standard the shafts would be on a level with his backbone ; few horses of the country exceeded eleven hands in height. The mediascine chests and of the army were all too large; they were used tables, would dine four persons very comfortably, but they could not be carried by mules. He thought the mistake of our comm i ssa riat was supposing that what worked well in the high civilisation of Great Britain would do in semi-civilised countries. The siege-train thou not landed at Varna ; it wasisent from England wiut the means of drawing it. Mr. Layard, M.P., was examined at much length on Thursday, and repeated the statements which he has already so often made public in Parliament and else where. AMERICAN JOURNALS contain almost incredible accounts of the effects of snow upon the railroads crossing the great prairie of Illinois. The winds bowl over it with even less broken force than over the ocean, for there are no crests of waves to be gathered up and carried with them to retard their progress. The snow, which has this winter fallen in most unusual quantities, has been piled in solid masses along the railroad lines, sometimes fifteen or twenty feet in height. The deadly cold has frozen the water in the tank, so that the exhausted engines, left in the middle of these prairies without water, found them • selves unable to drag the trains through the snow; and thus in several detached places passengers were s hipwrecked, far from hum an habitation or possibility of human aid. In one case we are told that three cars were split to pieces and burnt to keep warmth in the body, and dogs killed and eaten for food before aid was rendered. A RETURN just printed by order of the House of L or ds shows that on the 31st January there were 5,6R6 convicts under sentence of transpocts rtation large in confi nem ent in England, and 2,369 convi at with tickets of leave. THE WAR. Official despatches frcm the Crimea to the 24th have been received and pubnilied both in London and Paris. The following is from Lord Raglan to the War-office : Before Sebastopol, Feb. 24. The weather has improved since I wrote my despatch of the 20th instant. The snow is still on the ground, and the nights are cold; but the wind has subsided, and we have to-day a bright sunshine. Considerable activity continues to prevail in the move went of the enemy's troops on the north aide of the har bour, and convoys of waggons are constantly arriving, and the object of the Russians would appear to be to fortify the heights extending to their left, and looking upon the valley of the Tschernaya. The troops of the garrison having lodged themselves on the point of the spur of the ridge from lnker m mann over new the Careening Bay, at about 300 yards fro the French parallel, on the extreme right, General Canrobert determined to dislodge them, and this was gallantly effected at two o'clock this morning by 1,600 men, under the imme• diate command of General Monet, andse direction of General Mayan, with , however, 1 regret say, sonic loss, the consequence of the heavy fire which was brought to bear upon the from te enemy's batteries and the ship ping while he nr y h were engaged in demolishing the works. When this object was accomplished they withdrew to the trenches, as had been their intention. The gallant General Monet is, I am much concern ed to have to add, among the wounded. Lieutenant-G'enend Sir George Brown has, I am happy to say, resumed the command of the light division, in per fect health. The railway is getting on remarkably well and the exertions of Mr. Beattie, who is superintending, the work, are unremitting, and entitle him to great ItsuLAN. The following deapatch to the F ren ch Minister of Marine appears in the Moniteur Kamisch Ray, Feb. 24. The Russians appear to have abandoned their positions before Eupatoria, and in their retreat have set tire to the villages they occupied. In the night of thel22nl-23rd February the garrison of Sebastopol had established some important works of mach in face of our lines towards the plain counter-apP leading to Careening Bay. The General-in-Chief caused these works to be carried ou the night of the 23rd-24th February by the troopsof the second corps. This affair reflects the greates t hnn our o n o ur troops, and augments, if possible, thei well-prove superiority over the enemy. Our loss is said to be 100 wounded. The attack of the French on the Russian outworks is very di f f e ren tly reported to St. l'etersburg by Prince Menschikaff, who says that, on the night of the '24th, the allies attacked the left redoubt of the fortifications in considerable force, and were re pulsed by two regiments, after having su a loss of 600 men. He adds that the mining opera tions of the allies are suspended. The Gazette and Moniteur contain some volu minous despatches describing the details of the repulse of the Russians at Eupatoria on Feb. 17, by the Turks and the allied frigates. The The results of th e encounter were rela ted in our last paper. Russian army amounted to '25,000 men. The battle lasted six hours, and ended in the complete defeat of the Russians, who lost 500 men killed and '2,000 wounded. On the 19th of February Sir Colin Campbell attempted a reconnaissance of the Russian position on the Tachernaya. The snow fell heavy on the men as they proceeded. and the weather became fearfully cold. The expedition was obliged to return without having made any effective discovery of the position of the enemy. SIEGE CHRONICLE. The last mail from the Crimea has brought letters of the 24th ult., four da y s later than by previous arrivals. They communicate few facts of importance, the allied armies being chiefl y engaged in making p-eparations for a renewal of the bombardment. The following extracts contain the particulars of most interest:— BALAst.AvA, Feu. IR.—A number of ships' guns, mor tars, and ordinary siege ordnance have recentl the y northbeen landed, with immens e stores of ammunition, on side of the harbour. Some of these are intended for the defence of lialaklava itself, but the majority will go into the new works in process of constructio at lnkong ermann.ls- O n e 13. inch mortar, four Sinch ditto, n ten l pounders, twerity.eight long 112. un ders, and four po S4-punders, sti are here ; nd I believe it is not intended that o any attempt should be a made to f or ward them to the front until sufficient of the tramway has been complet ct ed to take them over the heaviest parts of the road. n ow to do In fa, w e have not sufficient horses in good c more than forward some of the huts of nd keep th still e troops we ll supplied with ration s. Partiesmen are em ployed in carrying up 3•2• pounder shot; but the w-inch, 10. inch, and 18. inch shells are far too ponderous to be transmitted in this manner. Ala inch shell, empty, weighs 1941 b., and a 10-inch one cwt.; so that except the 30 or 40 which , are taken up daily by the artillery waggons, the great mass must wait until the tram Is completed., or at 227 ,