The Express.
London, England, 1855-01-08 00:00:00

THE ARMY BEFORE SEBASTOPOL.

CllOlll Til IPICIAL

saws.)

DAILY

BALAHLAVA, Dsc. 17

I The siege of Sebastopol makes but little progress,
and every one is more or less dispirited, because the
1

commander-in-chief seems determined to reduce the
place by artillery, and because, to all appearance, he
will not allow our men to go in and fight it out with
the Russians. Our Muscovite foes sally out
night after night, and about twice a week a grand
sortie is made—usually against the French lines. On
these occasions the Russians are invariably driven
back with • good deal of slaughter and the loss
of prisoners, but these small affairs have
no longer any interest, even for those who
take an active part in them ; and the camp,
at least our own part of it, looks in silent and sullen
expectation to some event calculated either to make
or mar the fortunes of this campaign. In the mean-
while everything is more or lest, at a standstill ; the
generals are waiting for the arrival of the fresh
siege train and the completion of the mortar bat-
teries. These, it is expected, will open about the
middle of next week, a day or two before Christmas.
Notwithstanding the enormous difficulties, from bad
roads and limited means of transport, a good many
13-inch mortars have been taken up to the front,
and the huge shells they are about to throw are
just now being sent up after them. For the want
of something better to look forward to and hope for,
every one seems agreed to expect something very
wonderful from this mortar practice, though few are
bold enough to confess to the hope that the
mortar batteries will bring matters to a crisis.
A large Russian army is said to be advancing from
Perekop. The advance of this army is the most
cheering news we have heard for a long time, and the
general wish is that they may come on, and make
another Inkermann of it, with the Russians on
the wrong side of the hedge. For over and above
the natural strength of our position, we have now
deep ditches, wolf-traps, earth walls, and batteries
bristling with cannon : and it is not boasting when I
say, that no power on earth can wrest these works
obt of the hands of the troops who stood the brunt of
battle on the smooth assent of Inkermann.

We shall eventually take Sebastopol. It may take
another week, or fortnight, or month, or even quarter
of a year—who can hazard a guess when all is
doubt, confusion, and uncertainty? Bat Sebastopol
will, and must, be taken—there can be no doubt
about that. We are safe from any cumber of Rus-
sians that may come into the Crimea to attack us;
and all our men wish is that they may come on—the
more the merrier, and the sooner the better. It is
not in that direction that the grumblers in the
army find matter for their unwelcome occupation.
This day, the 17th day of December, is the 62nd
day of the siege ; aid yet, from all accounts, the real
work of the reduction of the town has hardly com-
menced. We are to set about that work in the midst
of winter, with a transport fleet greatly reduced by
late accidents, with an army small compared to the
vastness of the undertaking and the enormous extent
of the lines which we must hold, if we mean to hold
anything. Up to the present that army is
exposed to the severity of the season, with nothing
but old leaky tents in lieu of houses. It is true that
the first batch of wooden houses came in three days
ago, but I understand insuperable difficulties are in
the way of their being of immediate service to nt least
part ot the army. There is something so profoundly
absurd about the reason why, that I almost hesitate
to give you the story as it is current in the camp. It
is said that the houses cannot be put up for want of
nails—that the army has no nails whatever; that the
Commissary General wished to buy nails from some
vessel, where, it seems, seven tons of them
can be bought, but that the superior officer to the
Commissary General scouted the proposition, and
chose to wait until nails can he sent out front Eng-
land. It remains to be seen whether these facts, the
truth of which I still must doubt, are correct;
but, if they are, I shall certainly not ex-
press my opinion of the merits of such management.
I have not the least doubt that my statements less
than the conclusions I drew from them in former
letters, have met with much disbelief and contradic-
tion on the part of the quand mane admirers of oar
military system. lam therefore justified in remind-
ing you that about six weeks ago I expressed my
opinion that those who decided that this should be a
long artillery siege, should at the same time have
made sufficient preparation for wintering the troops
on Sebastopol heights, while I predicted that hardly
a regiment would be housedbefore the end of Decem-
ber, and that by the middle of January one half ot
the army might possibly have got under shelter. We
are now in the wrong half of December and every
day contributes to the fulfilment of my prediction.
I claim no credit in this matter beyond a very mode-
rate share of common sense.

I have already spoken in former letters of the bad-
ness of the roads, the knocking up and death of oar
beasts of burden, the necessity of shortening the
rations of our troops, and the fact that fatigue parties
from the front had to come down and carry the food
for the regiments up to Sebastopol heights. I again
mention these facts merely to add that they still exist,
and that our men, overworked already, are fast sink-
ing under this additional infliction, which, though
unavoidable now, might certainly have been spared
them if prudence and foresight had had any voice in
the management of these matters. It is above three
weeks since many of the regiments in the Sebastopol
front have been on half rations and now quarter
rations—that is to say, a quarter of a pound of salt
meat and a quarter of a pound of bread, are all the
fatigue parties can manage to carry up for their com-
rades. Given this limited quantity of not very nutri-
tious aid very indigestible food,and given the concomi-
tant evils of long watches, constant exposure to wet
and cold, and the impossibility of changing clothes,
and then let the gentlemen of the faculty decide what
per oentage of the men is likely to die of scorbutic
dysentery.
It should be recollected that on an average we
have three heavy rainy days and nights in the week.
On these days no fires will burn in the camp, and
the men have to make their meals on raw meat,
dry biscuit, a shortened allowance of rum, and
muddy water. And this with wet clothes day and
night, and night and day, and so hope of a change
for the better, until a requisition has gone home and
a cargo of nails can be sent out from England.

We have now been near ten weeks at ilalaklava
and on Sebastopol heights, and up to this day we
have not established a single bakery in the camp.
Exult rations, which should be reserved for excep.
tional cues, are the general rule from which there is
no exception. Now, her Majesty's ration biscuits,
though excellent in their way, are not exactly the
sort of food which will assifit in preserving health
under difficulties. I bat quote my own experience'
when I assert that the dysenteric tendency prevail-
ing in the camp may, among other causes, be traced
to the exclusive consumption of this hard and indi-
gestible dough, which in a relaxed and weakened