The Press. — London, England, 1855-10-20 00:00:00

1$ V,1855. our head:ifttaitiiii; thiise w'ho suirender i`o the - I`nrAtii are brought to the French Quartier-Gineral. The last two who arrived at General Sinipson's were a Pole and a Russian, and bdth were in Ruch a condition as to excite the liveliest compatsion amongst our soldiers. Their cloths were in rags, and the fragments of their boots scarcely clung to their feet. They came from the army near Balder, and they stated that the whole of the men were in the same state ; that all they had to eat was bread or biscuit and barley, and that they get no meat, and had only occasional issues of quarter rations of vodka, or spirits. Their officers told the troops that the allies were Starving, and had no forage for their homes ; and these two men were observed to laugh and throw up their hands in supriae as they passed the great piles of provisions accu• mulated at our depot on the Col. They said they were laughing at the lies which had been told to them.—Timer C or., sth. - - A correspondent from Varna writes— The Russian army is divided into three corps. The corps on the northern plateau of Sebastopol and in the remaining forts is composed of a reserve division of the sailors' detachment and the Greek volunteers, with the Tchernomorish Cossacks (infantry). The second corps, nnder General Osten•Sacken, which forms the centre, is near Mackenzie's Farm. The third, under General Liprundi, has its head•quarters at Kerman. The reserves are at Duvankoi, under the special command of Prince Gortschaltuff. In consequence of want of water, General Wrangel in the south has been compelled to withdraw twenty-five miles in land. THE EXPEDITION BY SEA. The quidnuncs of the camp seem to have been taken by surprise on the morning of the 4th by the order for the fourth division to prepare for immediate embarkation. The Daily News correspondent writes on the sth : After much expectation, some delay, and the loss of some favorable weather, an expedition has started. General Spencer's brigade of the fourth division left cninp yesterday morning to embark at Balaklava. Captain Johnson's bat tery of field artillery accompanied the brigade. These troops are to be joined by a strong body of marines, and the force will then consist of five thousand fighting men, the whole being under the command of Brigadier• General the Hon. Augustus Spencer, C.B. Dr. Gordon, the prin cipal staff•surgeon of the second division, goes in medical charge. It was anticipated that the expeditionary force would be much stronger, and the third division were fully expecting to be ordered to take part in it. The French, it is said, are to send ten thousand men. The Times correspondent of the sth adds : The exact number of French J do not know, but I have heard that they will number fifteen thousand. We know there is no water to be found there. Hence the small number of horses taken. The Leander and Triton will be obliged to supply the Indian and Charity with water. This is a serious want. It is understood the men remain out for the winter. The light cavalry brigade was also under orders at that date:— The light cavalry brigade, under Lord George Paget, C. 8., is said to be destined for Eupatorin, and it is evident that a strung demonstration is intended against the Rus sian convoys westward of the Tchongar route into Russia. —lb. PROBABLE OPERATIONS OF THE EXPEDITION. The expedition to Odessa and Kherson has called forth an elaborate article in the Constitutionnel upon the situation of affairs, and the chances of success attending this expedition. The position of Nicolsieff, according to this writer some distance up a shallow river, precludes the possibility of its attack by the allied fleet, and landing any force short of a very powerful army is characterised as at least ha zardous:— It is positive that the fleets cannot attack Nicolaieff. The town can alone be carried by a land force disembarked from the shipping. This disembarkation does not appear judicious to us at the present moment, when the allies are compelled to make face with their main strength to the Russians on the Tschernaya and at Eupatoria. It would, therefore, be hazardous to despatch the thirty thousand to to forty thousand men that could be spared to a distance of twenty-five to thirty leagues in the interior of the country, where they would encounter the Russian army of reserve which occupies these provinces, and also be deprived of regular communications with the fleet which would have transported them. Still he admits that the presence of the allied fleets in the lagoon of the Bug and Dnieper would seriously interrupt communication between the Crimea and the western provinces of Russia, destroy the timber trade of them, increase the previous difficulties of Nicolaieff, and lead at once to the fall of Otchakov. A coup de main upon Kberson ife Con atitutionnel does not considerat all improbable : Kherson is situated at the mouth of the Dnieper. The river is broad, but contains sandbanks which render its navigation to Kherson impossible for vessels of large ton nage, except at the period of the great rise, which takes place in the spring. The allied ships would, therefore, not be enabled to appesr before Kherson, but, on the other hand, a distance of only five leagues separates that town from the spot where the Dnieper flows into the sea, and thus a coup de main, if undertaken at a favorable moment, might be successful. The value of Nicolaieff to the Russians is inestima ble since the loss of Sebastopol, and their prevision in sestuing so inaccessible a refuge for their stores and THE PRESS . i+hips is another 'prod their Government : If Nicolaieff (continues the writer) be inaccessible to the vessels of an enemy approaching from the sea, it is no less in direct communication with the Euxine, and can despatch thither the largest bulls that are launched from its dockyards. The Bug is deep enough even at Nicolaieff, to carry vessels of that description before they have re ceived their armament. The vessels launched at Nicolaieff are neither armed nor equipped until they arrive at Gin bokoe At the latter point the river is deep, but owing to the existence of sandbanks at its mouth, it is customary to transport the ships full rigged and armed to the Black Sea on a species of raft. The Russians employ the same method on the Neva, in transporting to Cronatadt the ves sels constructed at St. Petersburg. It is therefore evident, in the event of the allit:s taking to-morrow their departure from the Black Sea, that on the morrow a Russian fleet, armed and ready to engage a less powerful navy, would appear in the Euxine, to the great astonishment of those Who are under the impression of having annihilated the Russian navy in the port of Sebastopol. It is therefore certain that, unless the victorious powers adopt certain measures, the Russian Government will possess on the es tablishment of peace a navy no less powerful than the one it has lost, and one no less menacing to the Turkish empire. PREPARATIONS FOR WINTERING. The English seem to have been principally busied in road-maliing : Actually the work of the army is one of preparation, not for motion but for stagnation. The men are engaged on great roads from the ports to the front, which will be per manent marks of the existence of the allied armies on this spot for centuries ; in fact, with so much labour at their disposal, our authorities are determined, if possible, to atone for the apathy of last autumn. It must lie remem bered that the enemy has en equal amount of labour set free for the accumulation of stores and the formation and repair of roads, and that they can now cover the Crimea with depots and fortified lines from Simferopol to the Belbeck. The roads which we are making are almost be yond the requirements of an army of temporary occupation. They are broad and well paved so far as they have gone— in some places they are levelled through the lock, which here and there can only be removed by heavy blasting charges. The railway is now assuming an appearance of great solidity. Beside it winds the central road, and from tile new central depot. under Mr. Brew, which has been re moved from the Col de Balaklava to an open space in the rear of the second division and between the Guards brigade and the fourth division, there are divisional roads in pro gress, which will also communicate with the divisional depots. When the railway is worked by locomotives, in stead of horses, the permanent way will endure much better, and a great deal more work will be got out of the line. All these preparations are being made to enable the army to exist comfortably in its winter cantonments, to bring up huts, food, clothing, and fuel, and to remove guns, mortars, and materiel from the front. The trenches will be left as they are, except in so far as the parapets will be affected by the removal of the gabions which the men are permitted to take away for firewood. For these peaceful labours we have been blessed by the most lovely weather. The days are warm, and the air is charmingly fresh and pure.— l'imeit Gar., Oct. lst. The French, too, have been busy road-making : The French have now nearly completed the road across the valley which connects the Feduikhine heights on the bank of the Tschernaya with their main road from Kam ieseh, which hitherto did not go further than the Col de Balaklava. —lb. The Piedmontese seem to have mainly occupied themselves with getting ready huts for the winter : The Piedmontese are busy with the railway and with hutting. If one sees the huts gradually rising, and seem ingly without trouble, one cannot help making melancholy reflections, remembering the difference from last year, when trenches, and want of tools and materials made the construction of the most wretched hovel appear a work of gigantic efforts. But the difference suggests, on the other hand, an agreeable prospect for the winter; plenty of wood and leisure enough for the construction of a town. The Sardinians have evidently followed in the construction of their huts the system of Tartar sheds—sticks planted in the ground, and interwoven with branches, the whole plas tered over with mud, and then the roof covered with earth, or, if possible, with tiles collected from the ruined houses in the neighbourhood.—D. News Cor., Oct. t.lnd. The reinforcements which have been sent out, according to the correspondent of the Daily News, consist of more awkward recruits than good or effi cient soldiers : I may not, however, omit to add that advantage of the present lull is very wisely being taken by the com manders of most of the regiments, to drill their raw drafts, who may be seen at all points along the front, three or four times between sunrise and sunset each day, obeying the stern behests of the drill-serjeants by the per formance of the simplest, up to the most difficult, pas d'etereice. The rapidity with which very many of these new comers must have been passed through the hands of the " soldier-makers " at their various depots may have been justified by the exigencies of service out here ; but it cer tainly has had the effect of sending us, in many cases, very awkward and inefficient squads.—D. News Cor. Oct. 4th. THE ALLIED BATTERIES. Although the range is too great to admit of much precision of aim, the French in the mortar battery behind Fort Nicholas reply with great vigour and no little success to the north batteries. At the same time new batteries are being thrown up near Fort Alexander and Fort Paul by both French and English : 4. rsut will be ready to commence their share in the long-range farce about the middle of the present week, with, 1 believe, six or eight heavy mortars and a dozen of long sixty eights. To these the French are busy in preparing to add one or two other mortar batteries on the rising ground which overhangs the harbour behind the Ilalakot, and designed, I should say, to play upon the long line of re doubt which I mentioned in my lut letter as crowning the moat elevated of the undulating heights on the north aide. They are also throwing up another mortar work still further up the harbour, and to both are making roads, which seem to give promise of artillery practice through out the winter. Neither by them nor ourselves, however, has anything yet been done in the way of dismantling or levelling the enemy's works, both trenches and redoubts at present remaining as when we first entered them on the 9th News Cor., Oct. 2. The erection of these new batteries, according to the Times correspondent of the Ist instant, was disturbed by the Russian fire, but little injury was done. FIRE AT KARABELNAIA SUBURB. A serious fire broke out in the Karabelnaia suburb on the 90th of September, and, in destroying the Large barrack buildings, inflicted a serious loss of wood and material upon the " hutting interest" : A shell from the Russians burst close to the barrack► and a merchant sailor ran to look at the crater it formed in the ground. Thence he entered the building itself, and sauntered about smoking his pipe till he came to some loose gunpowder, on which, being of a scientific and expert• mentalising turn of mind, he tried the effects of dropping several sparks from the burning tobacco. The powder, u is not unusual in such cases, exploded with violence, and blew up the sailor and a sentry outside. They were both dreadfully burnt. As the floor was covered with cartridges and loose powder, the fire caught, and went leaping on by fits and starts to a large quantity of tho same combustible matters. No one could approach to stop the fire. It at last caught the magazine, and the explosion blew out the walls and ceilings of the central barrack. The dames set fire to the dry woodwork, and in a abort time the whole pile of buildings, which were of admirable construction, was in a blaze. The conflagration lasted till all that could be burnt was consumed, and lighted up the sky at night to a great distance. All that remains of the Imperial liar racks of Sehastopol is a mass of charred and blackened stones, split by the action of fire. The Russians, thinkin that the accident had been caused by their own fire, plie their guns with increased rigour, and threw shot and shel around the place, but did no damage. It is not quite cer tain that the man who caused the accident was a sailor. Some people say he was a navvy of the Army Works Corps. Whoever he was, by the act for which he so dearly paid he destroyed not less than thirty thousand cartloads of wood, which would have been made available for hutting and fuel. It is, on the whole, a miracle that more accidents of the kind do not occur, owing to the neglect of the autho rities and the carelessness Of the men. No ono seems to take any care to destroy the great quantities of powder, loose and in cartridges, which is to be found in all the Russian batteries, and in every nook and corner of the place. It was only the other Jay a naval officer pointed out to me the danger arising from the number of live shell lying inside the Medan. The fuses are open tubes of wood, and have no caps, so that a spark setting fire to one flise would blow all the shells up. The live shell■ are to be found in all directions, and are generally nicely imbedded near small magazines or piles of cartridges. It is now supposed that the explosion which took place in the Strand Battery, and hurt so many men, was a fougasse. The Russians seem to be strengthening their camps near Mackenzie's Farm—Times Cor., Oct. Ist. THE TURKISH CONTINGENT. The Turkish Contingent has been sent upon active service at last. The Times correspondent at Con stantinople writes on the 4th : It seems the fate of the unfortunate Turkish Contingent to be kicked about like a football from corner to corner. After such long detention at the liuyukdere camp that It began to doubt whether an Intention of ever mOving it thence really existed, it was told that it was going to Ha laklava. This anticipation, unpleasant to the Turks, sufficed to produce, or, at least, greatly to increase desertion. When this crime, favored by the vicinity of the capital, had taken ten per cent. from the numbers of the force orders came to embark for Varna. A battalion accordingly de• parted, but before a second could sail down comes an order to embark for Kertch. Eager for motion and action, the leaders of the contingent lost no time, and in a very few days the whole of the first division, part of the second, and some artillery went on board in good spirits, band playing and men cheering, and quitted the Bosphorous for the Western Crimes, when, behold ! again the wires quiver, and General Vivian is informed that he is forthwith to embark his corps for Shumla, via Varna! What wonder that the general, although the most amiable of men and obedient of soldiers, lost all patience, vowed that he would not be thus treated as a shuttlecock, and hurried off to the British Ambassador to tell bim so, with a decision and energy that are said to have somewhat startled that diplomatist. A message from the Crimea then summoned him to the head-quarters of the allied armies, where it is to be hoped he will be able to convince the commanders•in•chief that it by no means conduces to the good condition, comfort, or contentment of troops to be bowled about the Black Sea at the time of the equinox from south to north and from west to east, and then off to the west again. Ido not speak of the unnecessary expense thus incurred, since there seems a sort of tacit convention that John, who pays for all, is to grumble at nothing. It is reported that the last order— countermanding the troops from Kertch to Shumls--bact its origin in a belief that it would be impossible to provision -