The Press.
London, England, 1855-09-29 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

wards turn the Flagstaff' Bastion in order to establish a
lodgment there likewise.
Ueueral de Salles had instructions not to pursue his
attack further than circumstances might render it advisable.
. . . .

Farther, the fleets of Admirals Lyons and Bruat were to
operate a powerful diversion by firing against the Quaran-
tine, the Roadstead, and the sea-front of the fortress ; but
the state of the sea, agitated by a violent north-west wind,
was such that neither the line-of-battle ships nor the
frigates were able to quit their anchorage. The English
and French mortar-boats, however, were able to go into
action. Their fire was of remarkable excellence, and they
rendered us great assistance. At noon exactly the divi-
sions of Generals M'Mahon, La Motterouge, and Duke,
electrified by their chiefs, sprang to the Malakoff, the Cur-
tain, and the Little Redan of the Careenage. After
unexampled difficulties, and a most exciting foot-to-foot
combat, General M'Mahon's division succeeded in effect-
ing a lodgment in the anterior part of the Malakoff. The
enemy showered down a storm of projectiles of all kinds
upon our brave troops. The Redan of the Careenage, es-
pecially battered by the maison en erois and the steamers,
it was necessary to evacuate after its occupation ; but the
division of General La Motterouge made its ground good
on one part of the curtain, and that of General M'Mahon
gained ground iu the Malakoff, where General Bosquet
sent continually the reserves which I sent forward to him.
The other attacks were subordinated to that of the Mala-
koff, that being the capital point of the defences of the
whole place.
Standing in the Brancion Redoubt (on the Mamelon),
I considered that the Malakoff was safely in our power,
and I gave the signal which had been agreed upon with
General Simpson.
The English immediately advanced bravely against the
salient of the Great Redan. They were able to effect a
lodgment in it, and struggled a considerable time to
maintain their position, but, crushed by the Russian
reserves, which advanced incessantly, and by a violent fire
of artillery, they were forced to return into their parallel.
At the same moment General de Salles had directed an
attack against the Central Bastion. The Levaillant divi-
sion had begun to establish itself in it, as well as in the
Right Lunette ; a tremendous fire of grape was succeeded
by the arrival of Russian reinforcements so considerable
in number, that our troops, already decimated by the fire
of the enemy, and whose chiefs had been disabled, were
compelled to fall back on the place whence they had
sallied.

Convinced that the taking of the Malakoff would be de.
cisive of success, I prevented the renewal of any attacks on
other points, which, by compelling the hostile army to
remain on all its points, had already attained their main
object. I then ditected my sole attention to the retaining
possession of the Malakoff, which General M'ldahon had
been previously enabled completely to obtain. Besides, a
great and critical moment was impending.
General Bosquet had just Leen struck by the bursting
of a shell, and his command I gave to General Dulac. A
powder magazine near the Malakoff exploded at this mo
ment, from which contingency I anticipated the most
serious results.

The Russians, hoping to profit by this accident, imme-
diately advanced in dense masses, and, disposed in three
columns, simultaneously attacked the centre, the left, and
the right of the Malakoff. But measures of defence had
already been taken in the interior of the fortress ; for
which purpose. General M'Mahon opposed to the enemy
bodies of undaunted troops, whom nothing could intimi-
date ; and after the most desperate efforts the Russians
were compelled to make a precipitate retreat. From that
moment the discomfited enemy appears to have renounced
all idea of further attack. The Malakoff was ours, and no
effort of the enemy could wrest it from us. It was half-
past four o'clock.
Measures were immediately taken fur enabling us to
repulse the enemy, in case he should attempt against us
a nocturnal attack. But we were soon released from our
uncertainty. As soon as it became night fires burst forth
on every side, mines exploded, magazines of gunpowder
exploded in the air. The sight of Sebastopol in flames,
which the whole army contemplated, was one of the most
awe-inspiring and sinister pictures that the history of wars
can have presented. The enemy was making a complete
evacuation ; it was effected during the night by means of
a bridge constructed between the two shores of the road-
stead, and under cover of the successive explosions that
prevented me from approaching and harassing him. On
the morning of the 9th the whole southern side of the town
was freed, and in our power.
I have no need of enhancing in the eyes of your Excel-
lency the importance of so great a success. Neither will
it be necessary fur me to speak of this brave army, whose
warlike virtues and devotion are so thoroughly appreciated
by our Emperor ; and 1 shall have, great as the number is,
to name to you those who have distinguished themselves
among so many valiant soldiers. I cannot yet do so, but
I shall fulfil this duty in one of my next despatches.
Deign to accept, Monsieur le Marechal, the expression
of my respectful devotion.—The General-in-Chief,
PELISSIZR.
GENERAL NEIL'S DESPATCH.
Sebastopol, Sept. 11.
Monsieur le Mareehal,—The place of Sebastopol was
stormed on the Sth of September. That assault haft ren-
dered us masters of the Malakoff work, the occupation of
which renders the defence of the suburb almost impossi-
ble, and enables us to cut off the communications of the
town with the north part of the roadstead. After rallying
several times, and resuming the offensive with a courage to
which we are bound to do homage, seeing that his utter-
most efforts remained fruitless, he began in the evening to
evacuate the town ; during the night he set it un fire, and
he employed his powder in destroying with his own hands
the defensive works and the great establishments which
Russia had been accumulating for so many years in this
' fortress. Hs hoe sunk all his ships, frigates, and other

923

sailing vessels, preserving only the steamers ; lastly, he
broke up and pulled after him the bridge of boats by which
he communicated with the forts of the north side, abandon-
ing to us in this way the town, suburb, and everything else
on the south side of the roadstead.

The defence was energetic; on several points our
attacks were repulsed ; but the chief sttack, that which
insured our success, was not doubtful for an instant.
The first division of the first corps, commanded at
present by General M'Mshon, carried at the first onset
the Malakofi work, and there maintained itself heroically,
understanding that it held in its hands the keys of the
place.
I am going to give you an account of the dispositions
that had been taken for diminishing as much as possible
the numerous difficulties attending this terrible assault,
made, not ou a place invested, on a limited garrison, but on
a vast fortress, defended by an army equally numerous,
peruaps, as that which attacked it.
In the attacks directed against the town our approaches
had been carried to within forty metres of the Central
Bastion and thirty metres of the lelagstafi' Bastion. At
the attacks of the Karabelnia suburb the English,
impeded by the difficulties of the ground and by the fire
of the enemy's artillery, had only been able to advance
their approaches to about 200 metres from the salient of
the Great Bedell.

Before the front of the Malakoff we had arrived to
within twentyfive metres of the enceint which surrounds
the tower, and had carried our approaches to the /lime dia.
lance of the Little Itedan of the Careenage. This impor•
tart result was due to the incontestable superiority of our
artillery over that of the enemy.
The generals•inchtef of the allied armies had made the
following arrangements:—

The general -attack of the place was fixed for the Nth of
September at noon. On the morning of the sth the artillery
of the attacks against the town and that of the English at-
tacks, who until then had husbanded their fire, were to re-
sume it with great energy.
Such a cannonade was never heard. We had mounted
in our two attacks more than five hundred cannons. The
English had about two hundred, and the Russians more
than we. The fire of the enemy damaged our trenches,
but did us little harm. Ours, notwithstanding the great
extent of the place, converged on it, and must have caused
immense loss to the Russian army. During the last dajs
which preceded the assault, our infantry fatigue parties
were principally employed in enlarging the most advanced
place d'artnes and the defiles, and in carrying to the spot
the means of crossing the ditches.
The aim of all our efforts was the capture of the work
constructed behind the Malakoff Tower. This work
(called the Korniloff Redoubt by the Russians), which is
an immense redoubt, a kind of citadel of earth, occupies a
mamelon which commands all the interior of the Karabel-
nia suburb, takes the Redan, attacked by the English, de
revers, and is only twelve hundred metres from the south
port, on which the Russians had constructed a bridge of
rafts, now their only communication between the suburb
and the town. The Malakoff Fort is 3M) metres by 150
metres in dimensions. The parapets have more than six
metres of relief above the soil, and in front of them is a
ditch which before our attacks was six metres in depth and
seven in width. It was armed with sixty-two guns of
various calibres. In the front part, inclosed by the parapet,
is the Malakoff Tower, of which the Russians have only
preserved the res de chaussee, which is crenellated. In the
interior of the work the Russians had raised a vast number
of traverses under which were excellent blindages where
the garrison found shelter, and had beds arranged on each
side in two rows, one above the other. A Russian officer
of engineers, who was made prisoner, states that the gar-
rison of this part of the Malakoff, which I have just
described in order that you may judge of the difilculties
which our soldiers had to surmount, consisted of not less
than 2,500 men. _ _

The Malakoff front, which is a thousand metres in
length, is bounded on our left by Fort Malakoff, and on
our right by the Little Redan. This last work, which, at
the commencement of the siege, was only a simple redan,

was transformed little by little into a redoubt, dosed at the
gorge and heavily armed. The exterior fronts of the twa
redoubts of ➢ialakoff and the Careenage were connected
by a curtain armed with sixteen cannons ; and behind the
enceint the Russians had raised a second, which connected
the fronts of the gorges of the two redoubts. This second
enceint, armed in part, had not, however, a ditch presenting
a serious obstacle.

The rocky nature of the soil had hindered the enemy
from excavating everywhere equally the ditch of the first
curtain and of the Little Redau, and on several points the
troops were able to pass it without very much difficulty.
For passing the ditches, which had a considerable depth,
we had contrived a system of bridges which could be thrown
in less than a minute by an ingenious manmuvre, to which
our sappers and soldiers d'ilite had been trained.
The French artillery was so superior to that of the Rus-
sians that it had extinguished the fire of nearly all the guns
pointed directly at our attacks. The filled-up embrasures
relieved us from the fear that our columns might be as-
sailed by grape as they issued from the trenches. The
parapets were destroyed, and a part of the earth had rolled
into the ditch. Finally, the Malakoff Fort had been
assailed by so large a number of shells, thrown from our
batteries and those of the English, that the guns which did
not look directly upon our attacks had their embrasure a
also filled up, and everywhere the terrussements had lost
their original form. hut, behind the defences situated in
the first line, the Russians had preserved a large number
of pieces, which we could not cuntre•butire completely, and
the columns which proceeded to attack the Malakoff were
exposed to the fire of numerous batteries which the Rus-
sians bad raised to the north of the ro!ttisterd, and which,
though fired from a great distance, were nevertheless

... _
dangerous.
Yon are aware that ever since my arrival before Sebes.
topol I was decidedly of opinion that the tree point 41