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

THE ANGLO.TURKISH

020111 001 03X

Dso. 2.
The recent establishment of a weekly mail semis
between, Sebastopol and this, afforded see an owf
lenity, some eight &ye ago, of running up hither
feseathe former plass to gather for your readout some
information is to the condition and esquieyment of
General Vivian's force eines its transform* bun the
gibs= above Boyukdere. I reckoned:that a wore
love dimes 'tight be profitably taken from the
dell inactivity of the everlasting " heights," whisk
as not heights, where one's ingenuity was racked,
aril attar mail, even to exhanatioo, to eztraet from
the monotonous routine of roadmaking and hut build-
ing subject-matter for a readable paragraph ; and the
smolt has been in no way disappointing.
Of the two out-stations of Fort Paul and Yeniluile,it
h detest to say that the former is a naturally strong
soar point, about four miles down the bay, at pre-
sent garrisoned by the French, whose senior officer is
is command—sad two regiments of the Contingent,
by the united labour of whom, under a French engi-
neer, the position has been so fortified as to render it
impregnable by any force the enemy could bring
against it, some of its defending redoubts on the top
of the old Roman tumuli being regular Malakhoffs
In their way. Yen ikale, on the opposite northers
horn of the bay, though quits as strongly entrenched
by the Contingent engineers, and posKesing, in addi-
tion, en old Omens fort, which has been turned to
gad ohm% Is yet, on its land aide, by far the weak-
est of the three positions, and would need all the aid
the off-lying gunboats could render it, in case of a
sufficiently strong and well-directed attack. Cat off,
as it might easily be, from any relief from Leta,
en ancaulting force of 20,000 men, well supported by
heavy field artillery, would give its garrison, of one
fourth that number, quite enough to do to hold their
ground. The troops now holding Yenikale are the
Sword Division of the Contingent, commanded by
General Neil, a picket of the 71st Highlanders, and
a few Royal Artillerymen ; all of whom will be under
house or hat shelter before these lines reach London.

Hitherto the Contingent has dragged on the slow
rums of its costly existence, without rendering
much public account of either the time or the mosey
spent in its formation, and it may, therefor% be
worth while to supply the payers of double imams.
tax at home with some information as to how the
public cash has been laid out. I pretend to no
knowledge of the number of millions of pounds
sterling expended, but I have endeavoured to make
what use I here could of my eyes and ears to learn
sleuthing as to the fighting value of the
brie, and of the manner in which the du-
ties of its various departments are carried out.
Long before the troops left Buyukdere, the news-
papers gave expression to more thm one complaint
of extravagance and inefficiency in its administra-
tion ; and so far as my own personal opportunities
of knowing anything on the point enabled me to
judge, the strongest of such charges went in no way
beyond the facts. Time was grossly wasted, money
spent as lavishly as if the Chancellor of the Exche-
quer had possessed Fortin:etas wishing-oap, and a
general laxity indulged in by all ranks, from the
" gallant, gay " chief down to the youngest adju-
tant in the force, that will," long keep their memory'
green " in the minds of husbands and wives
on the Bosphorus. However, after more than six
months of this state of things, the pleasant but costly
pic-nic on the wooded heights of Yelikoi was broken
up towards the end of October, and the foram was
finally transferred Dither. With a remissness that
augured badly. for the foresight of those in command
under other circumstances, no steps whatever appear
to have been taken to ascertain the actual resources
of the place in the shape of supplies for men and
animals; and accordingly, when the cavalry arrived,l
after knocking about in bad weather in the Black
Sea for more than a fortnight, the discovery was for
the first time made that Kertch itself and its neigh-
bourhood could not supply the necessary forage. The
men and horses were therefore re-embarked, and,
after another two weeks' cruise, landed whence they
had come. Oa a par with, or even worse than,
this, was the utter neglect of ammunition
for the infantry, who, I am credibly assured,l
had only some ten ball-cartridges a man for more
than four days after they reached the place; at the
end of which interval supplies tardily arrived in
steamers that had left the Bosphorus more than teal
days after the last of the railing ships that conveyed
the troops themselves. Why a reasonable quantity
of ammunition was not taken in the latter vessels
seems strange to civilian judgments, though, perhaps
—like so many mysterious eccentricities practised by
our Generals elsewhere—the fact may, for aught
common intellects can understand, be an instance of
high military wisdom. Soon after General Vivian's
arrival, his force was augmented by 9,000 additional
infantry, who bad been here from the time of the first
expedition, under the command of Mehemet Pasha,
by whom hey were given over, with all their officers
up to the grade of bimbashi ; and nearly immediately
atter—in the beginning of last month—a Orman ar-
rived from Constantinople, conferring on the two se-
nior English officers of each regiment the respective
ranks of Kaimakan and Idiralksi (lieutenant-colonel
and colonel) in the service of the Porte—a judicious
measure, which has tended not • little to reconcile
both officers and men to the authority of "infidel"
commanders. Besides this assignment of brevet
Turkish rank to the regimental officers, the various
Brigadiers Major-General.. and the Lieutenant-
General Brigadier,
have also been
named, respectively, lino, ferns, and mushir,
pashas. The only class of English military officers
attached to the force to whom no Turkish rank has
been given, are the adjutants; and out of this excep-
tional withholdment of a brevet grade has arisen a
source of complaint and difficulty to which I shall
presently have occasion to refer.
Thus, on the Ist of November, General Vivian
found himself at the head of nearly seventeen thou-
sand men of all arms, made up, as I have said, of
two divisions of infantry, under Mejor•Generals Cun-
ningham and Neil. three batteries of artillery, under
the command of Brigadier Hall, and a most efficient
English engineer corps under Major Stokes, besides
having the auxiliary presence of a strong squadron
of the 10th Hussars, the whole of the 71st High-
landers, and some 1,800 Pruett. Afloat, he was
supported by a strong flotilla of watmeamers, under
the command of Capt. Hall, of the Miranda, who has
from the first been most indefatigable in the landing
of stores and materiel, both at Fort Paul—beyond
which the large vessels oannot come—and at Kertch ;
indeed, the untiring energy whish both officers and
men of the Miranda have displayed in this service is
spoken of by every one here in terms of the highest
praise. Unprovided with proper lighterage, and
aided by only one steam-tog, the boats of this ship
have performed an amount of labour that deserves
more than the feeble reward of public mention in the
columns of a newspaper. At the head of his:medioal
Ottlmt the General was further fortonate enough
ergentleman in every way qualified by energy,
experience, and high professional skill, for the new
and by no means easy serves called into existenee by
the formation of this corps-1 refer to Dr. McPherson,
the Inspector General of Hospitals to the Contingent,
sad as officer to whose indefatigable energy and
gnat mom I am able to bear the testimony of a
perfectly impartial eye-witness.
Dr. Wl'llsracte Amid ready to kis band tballasisa
bospitat in the tows, a large sad sonmesdione bad-
tag that essresly needed an alteration to maks It all
that could be desin4 Loft, wall-ventilated, and
supplied with all the requiem fixed fittings, it is.
gaited only the furniture of beds, medicines, sad the
nasal minor moveables to supply ready assommods-
ties for nearly 500 Quintet. The Inspsotor•Genstal
bad taken care to come provided with hospital
states in &bandanas ; and, accordingly, in less
than a week after the troops landed in tench, the
sesauseaspiattes"wordeariewithc oytedf
fro
„e kola.the reception
a lo ta
yadet et as many
h malysalia.
its
Unties; for at the present time only sliest NO
patients, or father leas than one per osataithrnbals
,strength et the corps, are on the doctors' books, sad
nen of this small number many are suffering from