The Express.
London, England, 1855-12-29 00:00:00

&mg pa
ew contracted long before they entered bd.
Ensh
Well y. fed well clothed, and compelled to obese%
proper sanitary habits, the men Sr. all but entirely
free from sickness. Having more than once befeee
bad occasion to animadvert on the error of Gwent
Vivian's not enforcing the study of Turkish—et
least, to the extent of acquiring a conversational
facility in the use of it amongst his officers, I am glad
to be able to give Dr. M•Pbenon credit for recog.
siting the especial necessity of such a knowledge
amongst the members of his staff, and of making it a
cardinal condition of promotion. The result is, WA
there are few of the whole medical corps who can.
not make, at all events, the most usual inquiries of
their patients in intelligible Turkish ; whilst some
are able to speak it ins manner that loaves littls to
be desired for the fall discharge of their medical
duties.

Little or nothing is here known of the whereabouts
of the nearest Russians. On Sunday week an alarm
was raised throughout the town and camp " that the
Philistines were upon us," and a general turiKat of
the troops took place; when it was for the first time
discovered that the men's cartridge-pouches wore
main all bet empty l However, bullock and mule
sorts were hurried off to Fort Paul for supplies, and
returned some three hours afterwards to find that
the enemy had not come on. The commandant of
one battery of artillery assured me that hie
men possessed just a single pistol-cartridge
saoh—a fact which, though in itself of no
importance—inasmuch as when artillerymen re-
quire the aid of their pistols, the game may be fairly
considered lost—was illustrative of the amount of
forethought doing duty at head-quarters. As it
was, the alarm bad ()masted in the appearance of a
few Cossacks, whom the frightened optics of some
outlying Tartar villagers magnified into a column of
twenty thousand Russian regulars. On the strength
of the Tartars' statement, our own and the French
pickets—without waiting to see for themselves—
fell back upon the town, and so confirmed
the fears of everybody generally, and of
the Commander-in-Chief in particular. Fortu-
nately, however, the enemy kept away ; and
thanks to concentrating movements incident on their
appearance, the Cossacks succeeded in destroying a
vast quantity of forage in the neighbourhood, and in
sweeping away several droves of bullocks belonging
to natives under contract with the Commissariat.
Since then, they have made another foray during
the night into some villages within three miles of
Hertel, and run a muck amongst the female pop's.
tion of those which have at any time furnished sup-
plies, or otherwise aided the enemies of the Czar.
Dsc. 6.
I open my parcel to say that, owing to the non-
arrival of the French steamer from Lamina, the
mail which should have left this on the morning of
the 3rd will not be despatched till to-metrow, win
the Pomone, French frigate, soils for Sebastopol.
The mail steamer from the latter place to Constaati-
nople will thus be missed, and as extra week's delay
arise in the forwarding of the begs from this. With
this break-down in the very mead week of its este-
blishment, the winter postal service to Latch pea
mime to be most doubtfully saint.

RUSSIA.
PLAN OF NEXT YEAR'S CAMPAIGN.

(PROM A COSILVIPONDENT.)
MOSCOW, Dec. 20.
It was amusing enough for an impartial observer to
witness the excitement that prevailed in this Lucien
capital of Muscovy on the receipt of the /made
with General Monravieff's despatches about the Inc.
render of Kan : for the inhabitants of this city, is
'their ignorance, firmly believe their favourite Mon.
ravieff—who belongs to the old Muscovite party—
to have achieved a moat brilliant victory and covered
himselt with glory, and cannot see the difference be.
tween taking a fortress by storm and waiting pas-
lively at a distance till the garrison are obliged to
surrender for want of food. The Muscovite, or war,
party are loud in expressing their enthusiasm and
extoding the present Emperor's foresight and saga-
city at superseding Count Woronoff and giving the
supreme command of the army in the Caucasus to
General Mouravieff, from whom they expect great
things. Their great object is now no other then to
get him the command of the army in the Crimes, nee
Prince Clortchakoff, and to effect this various intrigue
are being spun and different important influents
celled into play, which have their ramification at
Bt. Petersburg amongst the very highest psr-
magas in the empire. In spite of the
flaming. Imperial "Orden of the day," es
industriously spread by the Northern Bee, and
praising the state of the army in the Crimea, it is so
secret here that the Czir was most deeply affected
at what he saw with his own eyes, and on his return
here expressed hie astonishment that after the im-
mense losses they had sustained, and the almost in-
aredible privations to which the survivors were ex.
lased, there should be any army left at all.
The grand council of generals lately convoked at
St. Petersburg under the personal presidency of the
Emperor have settled the principles on which the
forthcoming campaign shall be carried on. St Peters-
bwrg and Moscow are to be fortified, and, together
with Warsaw, will form the three first-class fortresses
of the empire. General Todtlebeu has arrived bars,
sad, notwithstanding
.the extreme rigour of the
weather—the frost having set in here with all the pro.
werbial violence of a Russian winter—may be sera
every day, accompanied by his stiff of enginessoll
wrapped up in bean' skins, surveying the ground end
fixing the poles to designate the line of circeimvalle•
Lion, which will be commenced on the breaking up al
the frost.
Besides this, other fixed principles of strategy have
bees agreed on foe the prosecution of the war, thoegh
it meet be confessed that as it Mao essentially adobe;
sive war on the part of the Russians, all them
pleas mpy be completely upset, or at all eats
greatly modified, by any change in the system of at-
tack on the part of the Western Powers. It is fall/
expected in Russia that next year the principal seat
of the war will be transferred to the north, and the
greatest exertions are making for an efficient defence.
For the safety of Cronstadt and Releingfors no fears
are entertained, as the experience of the last two
years has shown that the enemy are not able wildlife
much damage ; nor is it feared that even if the &ell
are increased by a couple of hundred steam gunboats
they could take either of these strongholds engem
with the cceoperatices of a numerous and will-
appointed army on shore. The system of tactics ro
solved on by the great council of war may be summed
op
se follows:—The fortification of St. Pstersbarg,
Itessew, Kiew, Warsaw, and Nicholaieff; secondly,
the concentrateoa of few bat imposing armies; ands
thirdly, the abandonment of all the minor places/ 90.
that Liebeu, Riga, and even Odessa, will be deprivn
of regular garrisons, and left to their fate and the
tender mercy of the enemy.
The cold is so severe that several sentinels hen
beet found frozen to death in their sentry-box"
although they are relieved every half-hour.

- -----
On the 4th of this month there were 50 cued a
Odors at St. Petersburg, notwithstanding the coldnusei

the ursatber.
The gaming-honeee of Aix-lee•Bains, in Snlol
(says the Union), have last been suppressed. It is Is ter
sequence of an order of the day motive of the council growl
of the provincial division that the Ministry has put ea oil
to this source of irentorahty, and this muss of rain te

many families.
A letter from Cease, in the Monitor, WV
" IL di Baumbeek has just bees ward Envoy Binsme•
dimly and Meister Plenipotentiary to as Ella*
NoPaliten. The Idea of the Elmer, in raising his ler*.
at Pule to this rank of a mission of the fint amebas*
dared as an evident mark of his wish to be egremble tho.
Emperor Napoleon."
MONO/dila TO ALEIERI.—The committee fOllOOl
many yeses ace at Asti, for the purpose of getherioll otb"
scripting' towards a monument to Alfieri, have colletlia
stun sufficient fir their object.
THE WEATHER IN THE BALTlC.—Lubsek, Dec. 25.
—A thaw set is the 24th December, which still ccer
en
Urines, and the scow end ice are disappearing fest.---010"
Dec. 25.—A complete thaw ha set in sins the 24th Derear.
bee., sad still oontiones.—Hembing, Deo. 26. e
MOWN have broken away from the firm ice and efu"..
down the river, there is consequently a large. soresslstios
of drift is in the fairway off Breashausen.--Clabin •
Dec. 26.—A motherly wind and continued thaw menu.••
' the fairway in this roidstead clear of lee, but it has
eonsiderably ea the math side of the Elbe.