The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1855-09-18 00:00:00

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TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1855.

FROM OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENT,

MONDAY MOBBING.
THE past week has been a demonstration of nearly frantic
joy throughout the British Isles. Early on Monday last the
inhabitants of the metropolis were roused to an ecstasy of delight
by receiving intelligence that the Allies, after a severe struggle.
on the preceding Saturday, had obtained the mastery and retained
possession of the Malakhoff Tower and batteries. As every
one had been fully informed that this dominated all the de-
fences of the city, and commanded the batteries on the south
side of the harbour of Sebastopol, no doubt was entertained
that, ere many days were over, the doomed city would be in
full possession of the Allies; and this conviction afforded uni-
versal delight. Some diminution of the general joy was felt
on account ;of the inexplicit yet conclusive announcement of
General SIMPSON, which merely stated that " The attack of
the English against the Redan did not succeed." While men
of all ranks were anxiously canvassing the meagre brevity of
this ominous intimation, a second communication spread with
lightning speed in all directions, creating such a tumult of
excitement as has not been witnessed in the metropolis for
two-score years at least. The report this time was, that the
Russians, driven to desperation, had abandoned the town of
Sebastopol, and that the whole south side was actually in pos-
session of the Allies. At first the impression created was
that the news was too good to be true; the rumoured capture
of the stronghold immediately after the battle of the Alma
had not ceased to act as a caution on the public mind, and a
feat predominated widely that there was some exaggeration
if not absolute mis-statement in the report. The publication
of the despatches in the evening papers, which were eagerly
devoured, gave an air of stability to the rumour, and when,
about nine o'clock, the Tower guns, as well as those
of St. James's-park, gave utterance to their thundering
notes of victory, the tidings were no longer doubted,
and the people gave themselves up to tumultuary expressions
of delight. At all the theatres the intelligence was communi-
cated to the audiences, by the respective stage managers, and
in each instance cheered till the walls vibrated with the wild
acclaim of joy : the " National Anthem," "Partant pour la
Syrie," " See the conquering Hero comes," being instantly
performed by the orchestras, and re-demanded by the excited
audiences. Joy is rarely niggard in its expression, and as
each delighted individual earnestly and quickly communicated
the welcome news to all he met, a whirling wave of enthusi-
astic happiness was speedily in motion through all the arteries
of mighty and sensitive London. The welcome news was
speedily flashed along the electric wires, and with a speed
which rivals thought the grateful accents of the hymn of
victory were poured into the royal ear in the Highland home
of our beloved Sovereign amidst her domestic circle at Bal-
moral. Ever mindful of her people's pleasure, the QUEEN
caused the gratifying intelligence to be spread as fast as
possible in all directions. Adopting the ancient telegraph of
the country, the joyful tidings were speedily proclaimed by a
vast bonfire kindled ow-the summit of Craig Gobbain, under
the immediate auspices of Prince ALBERT and the Prince of
WALES, which was replied to by many an answering blaze
from the peaks along Braemar, spreading southwards and
westward through the craggy Grampians, and the rolling
Ochils, till the fiery signal was replied to by the joy-bells of
the Scottish capital. Through every town in England the
news spread and was welcomed with a kindred joy ; and long
before the echoes of the night had died away, the fall of
Sebastopol was known from thi;Land's End to John O'Groat's ;
and from Dingle-head to Yarmouth. A little before tweilve
o'clock the whole concourse of gillies and peasantry descended
from Craig Gobbain, and, assembling before the castle windows
of Balmoral, invoked a blessing on the royal slumbers, finish-
ing with " God save the Queen" as a mountain serenade, and
concluding their lullaby with three stentorian cheers.
The first and gratifying burst of satisfaction over, the sober
inquirer, civilian as well as military, propounds to himself and
to his neighbours the questions, what has been gained by this
decisive stroke of prowess ? What will be its immediate effect
and ultimate result upon the issue of the Crimean campaign
and upon the war itself ? The first question is much more
easily answered than the second. The stronghold of Russian
power in the Black Sea, and in the south of Europe, has been
rescued from the de;pot's grasp, by the perseverance and ener-
getic bravery of the allied armies after a siege of three hun-
dred and twenty-seven days. After this protracted conflict,
the first great prize of the war has been won. The sanguinary
struggle has ended in a victory, no longer honoured with
merely barren laurels, as the other Crimean victories had been.
In this instance the victors can point to substantial trophies,
which include all the bastions, earthworks, and granite forts
south of the great harbour—the Malakhoff, the Great and
Little Redan, the Flagstaff, the Central Tower, and Quaran-
tine Batteries—the sea defences, including Forts Alexander,
St. Nicholas, and St. Paul; the second line of defence, con-
sisting of the Garden and Barrack Batteries, the dockyard,
harbour, and Careening Bay, together with the full cannon
sweep of Sebastopol Roads. All these are in the hands of the
allies ; but a triumph, probably not inferior in value to all
these, will be found in the entire destruction of the Russian
Black Sea fleet, which has utterly perished. In addition to

all these solid spoils of the conflict, the enemy was compelled
to evacuate the strongholds with a celerity so striking as to
prevent the possibility of his destroying the vast stores of war-

like materiel which had been concentrated in the city. Stores
so vast and valuable to the conquerors, as to have seemingly
bewildered the comprehensive faculties of General PELISSIER,
Dow created a Marshal, who after a casual inspection of them

writes on Monday, " The imagination would strive in vain to

realise the full extent of our victory ; nothing short of actual
inspection on the spot could supply an idea of the extent and

multiplicity of the works and material means of defence, which

very far surpass all that is recorded in the history of war."
Defences so multiform, and an arsenal so stored, were not
likely to be abandoned by the Russians without a desperate
and a deadly struggle ; and, even when their defenders could

no longer hold them, to quit them in an ordinary evacuation

of the place would have been antagonist to all the policy of
Russian tactics. To destroy what they can neither use nor

carry off, has always been a portion of the military strategy of
_ _

Russia, and this was attempted on a large scale in Sebastopol.
Long before the close of the seige operations, Prince Gonrs-

CIUKOPF declared that, if the Allies were ever successful in

capturing Sebastopol, they would find it only a " heap of

blood-stained ruins," and after his defeat in the Malakhoff he
did his utmost to reduce it to that condition. The conflict

was too sharp—the victory too decisive—to enable him to
carry his threat into execution. The assault, it now appears,
was made on four different points, viz., on the Malakhoff, the
Great Redan, the Little Redan, and on the Centralßastion. The
English portion was to storm the Great Redan, the other assaults
being undertakenby the French. All the attacks were in the first
instance successful. The redoubts of theMalakhoff, andthe sali-
ents of the Great and Little Redans were all of them carried
in the first impetuous onset ; the first only, of all the positions
named, proved tenable, but that fortunately was sufficient to
ensure the triumphant issue of the siege. " Six times," says
the Russian commander, "we repulsed the enemy." This,
indeed, was true; from the peculiar construction of the de-
fences of the Great Redan, after our brave soldiers had carried

the salient of this battery, it was exposed to the sweeping

storm of heavily-armed lines of earthworks, and in endeavours
to hold the position they had won and silence these earth-
works, two thousand English heroes fell before the command
to retire was obeyed. A similar cause compelled the French
also to abandon the Little Redan after they had gained a
footing similar to that obtained by the English. The Malak-
hoff was three times stormed by the French, and twice re-

taken from them, even the desperation of the Russians being
unable to repel or withstand the determined gallantry of the

third attack. From point to point the French troops advanced,
the Russians contesting every inch of ground, and resisting,

vainly, as Prince GORTSCIEAKHOFF writes, "to the last ex-
tremity ;" in spite of which the French flag was borne slowly
but steadfastly onward till at last it was planted securely on
the summit of the tower. The carnage in the different as-

saults was terrific, but the victory was won. The French
remained masters of this important work ; the other portions
of the allied forces returned to their entrenchments, leaving
eight or nine thousand killed and wounded on the mounds

and walls of the fortress. The Russians, driven at the Malak-
hoff Tower from their last hope of effectual resistance, re-
turned into Sebastopol.
The curtain of night now fell upon the exhausted com-
batants. The Russians, dispirited by their defeat at the

Tchernaya, had proposed to evacuate the town of Sebastopol in
the event of any decisive reverse, and before Saturday
morning had prepared the means for doing so. Reduced to
utter despair by the capture of the Malakhoff—the fort which

commanded all their works—it only remained for them to
abandon what they had so long and so resolutely struggled to
retain. The town, in fact, was ours before a street of it had
been entered by the allies. This important fact was revealed
to the slumbering camps of the victors during the silent
watches of that memorable night ; vast conflagrations threw
their lurid light on the sky over and around Sebastopol, and
these, accompanied by the dull rumbling concussion of enor-
mous and violent explosions, told too surely that the work of
voluntary destruction had commenced. Impelled by a resist.
less panic, the defeated Russians were hurriedly, and conse.
quently imperfectly, destroying the defences and the
stores they could no longer hold, While the artillery of the