The Press. — London, England, 1855-01-06 00:00:00

JANUARY 6 $ 1855. THE WAR. The French Government have received and pub lished in the Moniteur the following telegraphic despatch, dated Dec. 27, from the Charge d'Affaires of France at Constantinople : General Canrobert writes to me on the 25th:—" We shall very soon be in a position to assume the offensive. We are renovating our condition much faster and more effectually than the enemy can do with his. We are full of confidence." The French commander has also forwarded to Marshal Vaillent, the Minister of War, his chronicle of siege operations down to the 22nd ult. He re ports as follows . : — The bad weather has been prolonged until now, with rare and brief intervals of improvement; nevertheless we con. tinue as much as possible the work of inclosing the place with our trenches, and although the rains make the move ment of vehicles difficult, all the siege works are growing to completeness and consolidation. The two armies reciprocally waist each other. To the English army I am indebted for the conveyance, by water, of nearly all the cavalry at my disposal in the Crimea, and on my part, I have placed at Lord Raglan's disposal sump•. ter horses for removing his sick to Balaklava. and teams for the conveyance of his supplies. These exchanges con tribute to keep up excellent relations and perfect cordiality between the two armies. Hardly a night passes in which our advanced works are not attacked in a sortie of the enemy. These attempts generally cost the assailants dear. Yesterday, at 2 o'clo.ik in the morning, the Russians, after making a sortie against the third parallel of the English, who vigorously repulsed them, made a sirnilardemonstration against the centre and left of our works. Received with a very lively and well. directed tire, they retired before our soldiers, who pursued them with the bayonet. The enemy left a great number of dead upon the field. In order to render the protection of the trenches more efficient, I have organised a corps of volunteers, whose peculiar duty it is to reconnoitre the approaches to our works daring the night. This institution completes that of the sharpshooters (francptirears) organised at the coin mencement of the siege, and who do duty by day in our trenches themselves. They have already done a great deal of harm to the enemy. As I have already announced, our works now extend to the bottom of the Quarantine Bay. The enemy shows that he is not inattentive to our progress on that side, and his guns hotly dispute the ground with us, where we are obliged, as we are nearly everywhere, to dig into the solid rock. But our progress is not the less real, and we remain in possession. I believe that, on the left bank of the Tschernaya, the enemy has only a few soldiers posted to observe our posi tions at a distance. A movement has evidently been pro duced in the Russian army. the probable cause of which is the debarkation of the Turkish troops still going on at Eupatoria. I shall soon receive positive information on this head. Although the number of the sick has slightly increased, in consequence of the constant dampness in which we live, the sanitary state of the army is satisfactory, and the moral spirit of the troops is perfect. Although the soldiers have been heavily inconvenienced by the rains, there has yet been no cold weather ; the snow, which for a long time past has covered the tops of the mountains in the interior, has not appeared in the hill. playa we occupy, and the thermometer has not once fallen below zero. These general conditions are improved by the :are we take of our soldiers ; and, thanks to the 2rudent foresight of the Emperor and his Government, the army enjoys a relative degree of comfort that makes it gaily sill • port with a light heart its fatigues. The number of the sick in our military hospitals at Con stantinople amounts to 3,794, of whom 1,387 are wounded. Out of this total, 266 are Russians. I have established a convalescent depot in the Crimea, near the Bay of Karatch. Here the men who leave the army ambulances, and who unly require a little repose before they return to their duty, will have their recovery promoted. This measure will liminishi our draughts to Constantinople. H. L H. Prince Napoleon, still detained at Constantino ple by the illness that compelled him to leave the Crimea, wished to come and rejoin us. I was hound to oppose this return, which compromised the health of the Prince. (Signed) CANZOBERT. Despatches have been received in St. Petersburg from Prince Menschikoff, announcing that nothing remarkable had taken place at Sebastopol between the 20th and 20th of Decemberrwith the exception of 'wo sorties on the 21st. • In one of these sorties eleven Russian officers and thirty-three soldiers were made prisoners, and a considerable number killed. In consequence of the bad weather, the siege operations were progressing slowly. The only despatch published on this side, is the following brief letter from Lord Raglan to the Duke of Newcastle, which was printed in an Extraordinary Gazette on Saturday last:— Before Sebastopol, Dec. 13, 1851. Your grace will be happy to hear that the wea ther has continued fine since I bad the honour to address your grace on the Bth instant. The enemy has made no movement of importance, and nothing of any material consequence has taken place before Sebastopol. The Russians moved upon our advanced pickets, in front of our left attack, the night before last, in some force ; but they were instantly driven back by a THE PRESS. detachment of the Ist battalion Rifle Brigade, on the right, and by one of the 46th on the left. The firing, however, was kept up for some time, and the 3rd and 4th divisions were held in readiness to support, in case their assistance should have been required. I inclose the return of casualties to the 10th inst. RAGLAN. Accounts have been received from Constantinople to the 25th ult. At that date, a number of wooden houses for the troops had arrived there. Eighteen battalions of Turks had disembarked at Eupatoria. When the remainder of the 30,000 shall have arrived, great operations were to be commenced. The, weather had improved, and navigation was again regular. From the Crimea it is reported that the extension of the allied lines very much interrupted the com munications and the transport of provisions between Sebastopol and the Russian corps near Balaklava. The allies had 250 guns in battery, ready to open fire against Sebastopol. General de Montebello has delivered to General Canrobert twenty crosses of officers, and 125 chevaliers in the Legion of Honour, to be distributed to the army. These letters mention also the arrival of the first detachment of Messrs. Pete and Co.'s navvies, who without loss of time proceeded on to Balaklava to commence their railway operations. The Moniteur has the following respecting the diversion which Omer Pacha is L to effect in the Crimea: — We have made known the resolution of the Sultan to send to the Crimea, under the orders of Omer Pacha, a corps destined to second the operations of our generals-in chief, by means of an important diversion in the rear of the Russian army. The news we receive under date of the 25th ult. from Constantinople announces that a ministerial letter, addressed to the Ottoman generalissimo, enjoins him to hasten the embarkation of his treops, and to repair immediately in person to the allied generals,in order to concert with them his future movements. Respecting the recent conduct of Omer Pacha, we find the following statement in a letter from Con stantinople, dated December 25 : General Canrobert and Field Marshal Lord Raglan had demanded of the Porte that Omer Pacha should head the reinforcements conveyed to the seat of war, with a view of operating a diversion on the right flank of the Russian army. To this the Porte assented necessarily without hesitation, and transmitted to the Serdar the requisite orders to this effect. Omer Pacha, however, to the utter astonishment of all, refused to conform to the instructions of his Government, founding his objections on positive information from the camp respecting the critical position of the allied armies, and his reluctance to take part in an enterprise likely to result in absolute failure, and finally demanded permission to return to the capital and confer with the Grand Vizier on this important subject. On the receipt of this astounding intelligence, the Grand Council assembled at once. and in pursuance of a resolution unanimously adopted, orders have been transmitted re quiring the Turkish generalissimo to proceed forthwith to Sebastopol at the head of his contingent, and there to expose to the commanders-in-chief of the allied armies his motives and opinions—the Porte being no longer in a position to modify a resolution which had been adopted in common with them. These stringent orders were yester day forwarded to Omer Pacha, and which, it is hoped, will finally terminate this painful little episode. Admirals Dundas and Hamelin were both on their return home, having left Admirals Lyons and Bruat 'ln command of the fleets. Before quitting the sta tion, Admiral Dundas addressed the following letter to the officers and men belonging to the British squadron H.M.S. Britannia, in the Bosphorus, 22nd December, 1854. My term of service as commander-in-chief in the Me diterranean and Black Sea having drawn to a close, I am about to return to England and give up the command of this fleet. During the past year many trying circumstances have occurred—pestilence in its most aggravated form ; action with the enemy against land defences such as ships hardly ever encountered ; and a tem p est of the most awful iolence. In all those events the good conduct and gallantry of the fleet have been evinced and proved. In taking an affectionate leave of the officers, seamen, and marines of the fleet, I can hereafter experience no higher gratification than the assurance that . they preserve their high character for discipl ine, enterprise, and devo tion to oar Sovereign and country. J. W. D. DUNDAB. 711ANAGENIENT OF THE RECRUITS. The reckless manner in which the new recruits from England are treated on their arrival in the Crimea, with the result in too many instances of ' decimating their numbers by sickness almost before they have actually reached the scene of service, is thus described by a "Field Officer "of distinction in a letter published by the Times : Camp before Sebastopol, Dec. 12.—We are going on much as usual, receiving reinforcements, sometimes by a regiment or two, sometimes by draughts, hit in both cases burying them or sending them to hospital quite as fast as they arrive. A ship comes in to lialsklava with men on board, it is raining in torrents, but a staff officer in snug quarters shows his zeal and his smart manner of doing his work by sending an order for their immediate disembarka tion and joining the camp. It is promptly obeyed. A. hundred or a thousand men, as the ease may be, wet throngh and through, and np to the tips of their shakos in mud, sometimes without blankets, often without tents, take np their ground at a late hour, and there they lie. If they have something to eat, they are lucky; if they have not, they go without. They grumble and swear Tin lently, and that is all they have for it. They thus begin to learn to be reckless at starting. Their frightful exposure brings on certain disease, and in a few days the dying and the sick are the exclamation of every one. Lord Raglan (if Lord Raglan be really here, and not in London) is never seen. Whether he knows anything of how things are guing on or not .I do not know; lam sure he ought to do so. I have drawn anything but an exaggerated picture of what happens over and over again. The 9th Regiment marched up without a medical officer at all ; they had several cues of serious illness the next day, and when a medical officer came there was no medicine. The medicine-chest had not accompanied the regiment, because they had no draught animais or means of carrying it. This is precisely the way in which everything is conducted, and yet Lord Raglan has been made a field marshal. The blood of his otfi:ers kind men has won it for him, and not his own abilities. lam told Sir De Lacy Evans will speak out, and I most earnestly hope he may. Re can make great exposures, and do much good, if he will. It is generally understood that he has gone home in the greatest disgust with everything. It will hardly be credited that, although the exposed state of our right flank before the lnkermann battle was the subject of frequent comment, Lord Raglan never once rode over the ground, or knew anything of it until atter the Russians attacked us. Everything about the French contrasts with us most strongly. Their sick are not numerous; their men are always clean and uniformly dressed. They seem to have good rations, cook them well, and seem a happy set. Oar men are a mass of dirt, rags, and misery. They seem sunk in despondency and indifference ; nothing moves them but an alarm, for they have no hope bat to fight it out and get it over. They think, poor fellows, that another good fight must decide it. Our sick yesterday under uwvas, excite sive of the shiploads at Balaklava and in the hospitals of the Bosphorus, were :1,181. The French, with their large army, take charge of 1,000 of them for us to-day. The 46th Regiment disembarked on the 10th of November 708 strong. They have lost 114 men up to to-day, and they have at this moment '257 sick. This regiment has neva yet been engaged with the enemy further than in the trenches. They lout twelve men iu one day from sickness alone. I saw six dead bodies lying in their camp this morning. if things go on as they are doing—and as the winter advances there is every chance of their being worse rather than better—we shall have no army left. The :14th and 90th Regiments have arrived, but, owing to the want of transport, they are unable to get beyond Bala klava. The French have batteries with 147 guns ready to open on the place at from 200 to 600 yards. They only wait for us to get up some guns to draw off a portion of the enemy's fire. If the flue weather we have just now holds fur but a few days you will soon hear of the assault being given. The Russians have certainly shown a great want of enterprise in leaving us so long unmolested, situated as we are. We are most careless, and court rain over and over again. The indomitable courage of men and officers alone saves us. I have never heard of anyone getting an order yet in any action I have been in. We all do as we like. We have had two alarms lately—the one last night, the gusts of wind preceding the storm. We shall have a decisive affair before long. It is, however, a very dreary prospect before us. It is said that the Emperor Nicholas engages to send all that are left of us in the spring away in a single line-of-battle ship. Our encampment is one mass of graves and dead bodies of horses and cattle, but there is no offensive smell. There is a portion of the Russian army strongly intrenched still in our rear ; but they are on the right bank of the Tschernaya, and their works command the bridge that gives us the only means by which they could be attacked. RUSSIAN SORTIE ON DECEMBER 10TH. The Russian Invalids gives the following account of a night enterprise undertaken by a party from the glirrison of Sebastopol on the night of the 10th ult.:— Since the sth of December the fire from the besiegers' batteries has been as feeble as before, and dues us little damage. Although the enemy continues his trench opera tions on his left, in despite of being annoyed by our Rites, who are advantageously posted in advanced positions, the works do not come nearer, but stretch to his lett think. On our side the defences are strengthened, and at night con stant sorties are made. On the night of 10th-lith Deeem bet, among others, the midshipman Titoff, of the 40th naval equipage, availing himself of the darkness, sallied forth from one of our redoubts with two mountain guns, each carried by twenty men, and successfully fired several rounds of grape lengthways into the French trenches, where the men were at work. Having done this, he retired without loss. At the same time Major Golovinsky, com manding the 2nd battalion of Black Sea Cossacks, threw himself upon another part of the French trenches with a few brave Cossacks, made eight men and one officer pri soners, carried off three small mortars, and spiked all the large ones. The captured mortars were i m mediately brought into play against the trenc hes whence they had been taken. The Sikcle publishes a letter from Constantinople describing the same affair, which, however, appears to have been but a portion of a combined sortie against the English and French lines in which the Russians generally were repulsed with heavy loss. The writer says : Unfortunately a battery of mortars, held by the French, was surprised, the men being asleep, and three pieces carried off. The French, suddenly awakened by