The Press. — London, England, 1856-05-17 00:00:00

MAY 17, 1856. THE CAMP IN THE CRIMEA. TEE latest letters from the camp, of the 3rd inst., mention that great dissatisfaction exists among the men at Lord Panmure's hasty reductions, and among the officers at his ignorant assertion that the home transport cost of a horse is from 471. to 671. each. The men are dissatisfied because their extra sixpence a day was stopped at a moment's notice, and because many of them, most deserving non commissioned ollieers, granted commissions as cornets in the Land Transport Corps, are to be once more reduced to their former position, while their young and ambitious successors are to be pushed back again to the ranks. The officers grumble be cause the same reductions are exercised ruthlessly, and without any expression of regret for the neces sity, or ettlogium for past services. While on "the horse question " there is only one opinion, that if Lord Panmure's rule is to be carried out, some thousands of mules and horses will be left behind to be carried off as trophies by the Russians. At least, the horses should either be taken or compensation given. The attempt to sell off the stock proved a complete failure ; the Russians would not buy, pre ferring to wait tilt necessity should permit them to get their choice for nothing. The Tartar exodus has commenced. The entire population of the valleys outside the Russian lines, about 1,590, have wandered into Balaklava, and are to be earned either to Rutschuck or Kustendjie. The two first English regiments, the 9th and 39th, with one company of the 17th, embarked on the and sailed from Balaklava. - The cavalry, also, has commenced breaking up from Scutari. The 4th and 13th Light Dragoons left on the 4th. The Journal de St. Petersbourg of May 4 contains a long despatch from General Luders, describing, at coniiderable length, the events of the 15th ult.; the vi.it to the camps of the allies ; the review of the French and English troops by the Russian general, and the games in which the Chasseurs d'Afrique took part. General C Klrington's speech (delivered in French), at the dinner given at. the English head quarters, is thus reported : I very much regret t'iat I have to speak in a language in which lam unable to express myself with facility. For a long time we have had before us a formidable adversary, the contest against whom has cost us great difficulties, enormous effort, and immense sacrifices. This adversary has proved tnat he was not so easy to cope with as was at first supposed, and has given us numerous lessons in disci pline, bravery, firmness, and boundless devotion to duty. He has been a terrible enemy to us! But to-day we all wish to become his best friends. I propose to you, gentle men, a toast to the health of General Luders and the Rus sian army. The ace 'tint of the review is strictly confined to the details of the military evolutions—no expression of opinion as to the appearance or quality of the troops tieing offered. THE RUSSIAN OPINION OF THE CONDUCT OF THE WAR. Every day something new is gleaned from the Rus sians upon our conduct of the war : The Russians tell us that they had the most accurate infor mation of every single movement in our camp; that they knew the condition of the English army during the winter (better than it was known at home till some time after wuds ), but 'hat they could not attack owing to the state of the ground ; ebd that they were accurately informed of the armament of our trenches, but that we once opened the bombardment ( April 9) without their being forewarned of it. Just before the battle of the Tschernaya one of their spies came in to say that we had received intelligence that they were going to attack as, and the generals considered whether it would not be right to defer the attempt, but the orders from St. Peersburg were so explicit that no delay was permitted.— Times cur., April 25. Their losses in Sebastopol were enormous : • They say that they bnried in and about Sebastopol 86 . 0 00 men, who were killed or died of wounds and sick ness, and that 100,01)0 more perished in the Crimea who never smelt powder or saw a shot fired. The number in valided from wounds and disease is enormous, and in the Crimea alone and in the provinces abutting upon it the Russian army cannot have had less than a quarter of a million of soldiers put hors de combat. Todtleben's great mistake, the engineers say, was making the Malakoff a closed work : Originally it was open in the rear, and was, indeed, a sort of lunette with strong flanking works, but as the siege Progressed Todtleben grew nervous about the safety of the Work which occupied such an important position in his Ilstem of defence; he closed it in at the rear, and lsbonred at the front and flanks to make it quite unassailable, or at all events inexpugnable, and he overdid the interior with enormous traverses which crowded the men, prevented their working their guns or escaping from shells, so that it soon became terribly bloody, exposed as it was to the Are from the Quarries, from part of oar right attack, from THI PRtgS. the Mamelon and the Selinghinsk and Volhynia redoubts. The men were intimidated by their losses inside the work, and on the very day of the assault it was occupied by a regiment which had never been inside it before, and who were quite perplexed by the traverses and interior works when the French entered it, so that they could not form or make any effectual resistance. " But under any circum stances." added my informant, " the fire of your batteries had attained a great ascendancy. We were expecting a number of mortars and cohorns, some of which a:Aually arrived at Perekop on the Mth of September, and if we had received them in time your victory would have been a bloody one, as we should have established fifty mortars against your trenches."—lb. Desertions from the allied camp they say were very frequent, and a painful story was told of the fate of one deserter : A sergeant of Zonaves, the sergeant tailor of the regi ment, deserted to the Russians, and set up at Simferopol, where he found abundant custom at great profit. He found means to send a letter to the corporal tailor of the regiment, informing hint of his good fortune, and advising him to come and join his comrade as speedily as possible. The corporal listened to the tempter, and started oft at night to cross the Tschernaya. In order to make sore of his way, he was obliged to hide himself till the dawn, and with the first light of day he rose from his bed among the rushes. and ran towards the enemy's sentries. A quick eyed chasseur spied the Zonave as he fled across the open, and fired with such accuracy that the unfortunate wretch fell to the ground with a broken thig 1. In that state he lay on the neutral ground, between the riflemen, for two long days. ll' he tried to crawl towards the French the Russian riflemen opened fire on him ; if he turned towards the enemy the enjans perdus, his countrymen, sent their balls around him. It is not known how lung the miserable being endured this agony—the raging thirst, the frost by night, the son by day,—nor can it be ascertained whether he died from his wound, or if his death was accelerated by some merciful bullet; bat when the armistice was signed his body was found in a hollow in the ground, where he had rolled for shelter ; and even the discovery of a con siderable sum of money which he had stolen did not recon cile his comrades to the specta !le. They were moved to tears as they deposited the weatherbeatern oorpse which had known such dreadful sufferings in the grave.—lb. Of the smallest success of the Russians, had the campaign continued, this correspondent does not believe. His description of the Russian army is lamentable : The impression left on the mind of every person who has made the little tour which our party has just accom plished must be, and is universally, as far as I know. that the resources of Russia in men were reduced to the lowest ebb in the course of this war, and that she would have been utterly unable to maintain an army in the Crimea, or to continue in possession of it, had we made an aggressive movement with all our forces from Thew - Lisle or Eupatoria, or even left her in an attitude of watchfulness along the extended line from the north able of Sebastopol to Simfe ropol I was assured, on authority beyond question. that for two whole days this winter the troops at Mackenzie were left without food, in consequence of the state of the roads. Speaking of the Russian army in the interior, the correspondent says : You do not see regular soldiers in any nambeis till you enter the typhus•haunted streets of Simferopol, or wade through the mud of Brktchi•Serai; and even here the miserable, jaded, utterly spiritless, ill-clad, ill-fed, and broken down militiaman seems to be in the proportion of two to one to the soldiers of the line. THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THE CAMP. Many tours have of course been lately made ; indeed Simferopol and its neighbourhood have never before been so thoroughly ransacked. The beauties of the famous I'horos Pass between Baidar and Aloupka are declared not to have been ex aggerated : The scene which bursts upon the eye on emerging from the arch is one of the finest I have ever witnessed—indeed, I am not sure that it is not the most beautiful and grand that I have ever seen. Yon find yourself standing in a narrow road on the left hand of which a sheer slab of rock rises to the height of 600 or 701 feet above you—its sur face rent with fissures, here and there dotted by stunted firs, which cling like weeds to its surface, diversified with all the tints for which volcanic rocks are remarkable. At the base of this cliff, which stretches further than the sight can trace it, is a ragged fringe of mighty boulders, of frag ments of mountains tossed down in the wildest confusion amid the straggling brushwood. On your "ight, nearly 1,000 feet below you, is the sea, washing the narrow selvage of land which tumbles down from beneath your feet in waves of verdure, covered with thick groves and dotted with rocks, so rapidly that the dark blue waters, which are really nearly a mile distant, seem to be only a few hundred yards from the road. This narrow shelving strip of land, formed of the debris of the mount.an•chain above it, which lies beneath the cliff and de ends to the sea, extends along the coast from Phoros to Demur Kapn, or the Iron Gate, widening as it runs eastward, and losing its distinctive character completely ere it reaches Aloushta, in consequence of the great wall of cliff on the left hand receding rapidly inland and northwards from the point opposite Yalta. The length of this strip is thirty miles. It is nearly a mile broad at Phoros, and thence it gradually expands, till, at Aloupka, it attains a breadth of nearly three miles, and at Yalta it is five miles from the sea to the base of the cliff. The road winds for many miles along the foot of these stupendous crags, but there is a lower road to be reached by zigzags, which leads to the villas situated in the lovely valleys by the coast. This strip of shelving ~~.,.... land is of the most varied formation. It is tossed about into hill and dale, and is seamel with shady ravines and deep woody dells, which are watercourses in winter. As it is quite sheltered by the cliff from northerly winds. and is exposed to the fell power of the sun, the climate here is beautifully mild until the heats of summer begin, and the land produces in great perfection art astonishing variety of vegetable productions.—lb. The Cossacks are, of course, very plentiful—never having lost more than " one " iu each engagement. They must present a curious appearance : They wore heavy curved swords, without guards to the }undies, in large sheaths of wood covered with leather. Their heads were covered with sheepskin cape, the top being formed of red cloth, and slightly conical in shape. Their coats were like those of the infantry of the line— long garments of grey cloth, fastened by a strap at the back, and their trousers were tucked into their boots, more Maiecovilornm. Each man had a long carbine slung over his shoulder, and I was rather surprised to observe that they had percussion locks. Thi4 armament was com pleted by a long and very light lance. The edges of their swords were as sharp as razors—their knee points were equally keen. Their hair was closely cut, and they had th whiskerless cheek, the beardless chin, and the mnstaehioed lip of " the regulation." Their horses were barely fourteen hands high, and were high in the bone and low in the flesh, but their speed and endurance are un deniable. The Cossack rides high above his horse—he sits in the hollow of a saddle which looks like two pillows of black leather, at such a height that his heels are against the horse's flank, and when the animal trots his rider's head is thrown forward over the shoulder, so that a right line let fall from his head would be in advance of his toes by some inches. The manes of the Cossack horses are very long, and their tails often sweep the ground. We soon found they were very quick walkers, and got over the ground with rapidity and ease.—Times cor., April 25. NAPOLEON 111. ON THE CRIMEAN CAIIIPA IG N. THE following are the outlines of a plan of campaign drawn by Napoleon 111., and transmitted to General Canrobert when the Emperor abandoned his original design of commanding the army in person. The extract is made from the second volume of the Baron deßazancourt's " Memoirs of the Crimean Expe- dition," just published in Paris : THE EMPEROR TO GENERAL CANRORERT, CHIEF OF THE AP.= OF THE EAST. April 28, 1854. The fire which has been opened against the place will by this time have been successful or unsuccessful. In either case, it is absolutely necessary to leave the defensive position in which the army has found itself during the last six months. To this end, in agreement with the English Government, I should have divided the troops into three armies, one of siege and two of operations. The first army would guard Karniesch and blockade the garrison of Sebastopol. The second would operate at a short distance from Flalaklava, and in case of need take possession of the Mackenzie heights. The third army would effect a &version.• _ _ If, as think, the Russians have 35,000 men in Sebes.. topol, 15,000 to the north of Enpatoria, and 70,000 between Simferopol, the Belheck, and the Tschernaya, 60,000 good troops would suffice to destroy all the Russian army, which might be taken in reverse before it had time to concentrate all its forces. And even should it succeed in concentrating them, we should be able to meet it with equal numbers ; for we must never lose sight of that great principle in war, that, if a diversion be effected at a certain distance from one's base of operation, the troops effecting the diversion must be numerous enough to resist those of the enemy, who can concentrate all his efforts in opposition. All this being well considered, I should have advanced 40,000 men from the army of Sebastopol into the valley of Haider, and, supported by Lord Raglan, would have occu pied from Skelia to the bridge of Tonle and Tchorgoun, the four roads which cross the Tschernaya. We shonld thus have as many tiled de pont, menacing the lett of the Russian position on the Mackenzie heights. After these movements, I should leave Lord Raglan master of all the positions on the left of the Tschernaya from Skelia to Tchorgoun. I should combine, in rear of the English lines. the 40,000 men of the active army with the cavalry, and the means of transport at my disposal, and posting scouts on the cliff, I should await the arrival of my corps d'armee of reserve, which, coming from Constanti nople, would receive orders to reconnoitre the Pharos headland.f What would then be our position with respect to the Russians? The movement upon Haider, in giving ns the passage of the Tachernaya, would have menaced their left, and caused them to think our intention was to dislodge them trom the hont of the heights of Inkermann and Mackenzie. The enemy thus would be held in check, and their attention be attracted to Inkermann and Perekop. Our positions would be excellent, my plans unknown, and if anything happened to derange them, nothing would be compeismised. But supposing that nothing interfered with the general plan, it would be followed out in the manner following. • 1. The siege army, composed of 30,000 French soldiers and 30,000 Turks, not reckoning 10.000 non•efectives. 2nd. The first army of operation under Lord Raglan, 25,000 English, 15,000 Piedmontese, 5,000 French, and 10,000 Turks. Brd. Second army of operation, 40,000 French from the army of Sebas topol, and 24,000 French composing the army of reserve at Con stantinople. 4. 2. The active army would be thus organised:—General Can robert. commendrr•in-chief first corps d'arnibe; General Ban quet, four divisions of infantry, one of light cavalry. Two oorps d'armee, General Jean d'Augely, two divibious of infantry, one division of the guard, one of heavy cavalry. General Palisade, would continue oorninand of the siege army.