The Express.
London, England, 1855-09-27 00:00:00

LONDON. THURSDAY. 88PTBMBER 27.

LET due honour be paid to every meritorious
quality, even in an enemy. We have not been slow
to comment upon thefonfaronnades in some of Prince
GOIITCRAKOFT'S despatches, the insidious perversions
of truth and the downright falsehoods in others.
But it is impossible to read the letters of our Crimean
Correspondents, giving an amount of the last days of
South Sebastopol, without arriving at the conclusion
that the man is a consummate general. It is now

clear that the evacuation of the south side of the
harbour was not the result of sudden panic. Arrange-
ments must have been deliberately made some time
before for retreating as soon as it was no longer
tenable. As far as the safety of the Russian
troops is concerned, these arrangements were
completely successful. Every man who could
be moved was conveyed acrose the harbour
in the face of a victorious enemy. The
colossal preparations for inflicting destruction on
a great scale upon the conquerors who should first
enter the abandoned forts happily failed in a great
measure, -bat they were skilfully designed. The
calm foresight of the chief was worthily seconded
by the devoted valour of his soldiers. The assailants
were obliged to fight hard for every inch of ground
on the day of the assault, and only in the Malakhoff
' were they able to maintain the positions which their
impetuous onset bad wrested from the enemy. Se-
bastopol has been won by fair fighting : its late de-
fenders have shown that they are " no babes to play
I withal."

This simply just tribute to the valour and skill
of our foe is the best sulogium that can be pro-
nounced on the victors. The masterly de.
spatch of General Nut (which, along with the
despatch of General Pautistxx, appeared exclusively
in the whole of our morning impression of yesterday)
shows that the conquest of Sebastopol is the result
of a plan adopted at the first, and steadily persevered
in. The storming of the Malakhoff, and still more
the storming of the Central Bastion by the division
under General DE &um, are feats that would
have added to the laurels of the armies which

conquered at Austerlitz and Jena. The share taken
by our countrymen in the exploits of the day affords
aoom foe diversity of opinion ; but no stain has been
left upon British courage—on the fame for nnblench-
ing valour acquired by the present generation on the
fields of Alma, Balsklave, and Inkermann ; whilst the
regimental officers engaged have done all that could
be expected of gallant gentlemen and ripe soldiers.
The truth, however, must be told. The English
soldiers who fell at the Redan are victims to the in-
capacity of those in command. We publish this day
letters from three correepondents—all of them men of
intelligence, observation, and a high sense of honour
and veracity, but differing widely in natural tem-
perament, acquired habits of viewing the events of
life, and the point of view from which they observe
the proceedings of the Bth of September. From a
careful collating' of their communications it is appa-
rent that there has been a wanton and needless waste

of British blood. It is allowed on all hands that the
French assailants of the Malakhoff, whose trenches had
been pushed close up to the ditch, reached the breach
almost unscathed by the enemy's fire. Their trenches
were extensive and roomy—capable of sheltering
large numbers of soldiers, perfectly protected from the
fire, without being crowded; and thus the column of
assault could be made strong and the supports move i
up with perfect regularity and promptitude. The
English trenches, on the contrary, were twice or
thrice as tar from the point to be assailed u the
French, and were se narrow and inconvenient that
the troops assembled in them were so crowded
as to render the preservation of order utterly impos-
sible. Either from this cause, or from gross ignorance
of their business on the part of those in command, the
assailing column was deficient in numbers, and it
was left unsupported to maintain a hope-
less struggle under a deadly fire. Yet we
learn from oar Correspondent late on the
Danube that reiterated remonstrances bad

been made by the French commanders on the
groundof the danger and impolicy of not pushing the
sap close up to the ditch, but in vain. Our publicly
accredited Correspondent for the Crimea affirms that
General CODIUNOTON, for some mysterious reason.
kept back the troops which crowded the trenches till
the Russians had time to bring up their reserves, and
that his aides-de-camp, ignorant of the topography of
the trenches, carried his orders to the wrong regi-
ments. And lastly, our third Correspondent—who has
traced the events of the whole siege in what we may
all a regular journal, compiled from actual °beer's-
doe—states, that owing to want of proper command
the most complete and paralysing confusion pervaded
the wholeof the attack. These three gentlemen move in
entirely different eircles,and their letters were written
and despatched before they could have any communi-
cation with each other. Their views, too, are corro-
borated by two witnesses, who are animated by
sentiments the reverse of inimical to those in com-
mand. General ISrmrsort, in bin confused and un-
communicative despatch, admits the damning fact
that the trenches wore so over-crowded that the
supports weld not be moved up. The principal cor-
respondent of the Times—we are certain, from sin-
cere conviction—labours hard to show that the fault

in the assault of the Roden lay with the met, not
with the commanders. Opposed to this view there
are numerous circumstances that cannot be over-

looked. The writer to whom we allude would seem
to imply that the assailing column was composed
exclusively of raw recruits. If this had been the
case such a selection would reflect severely on the
judgment of those in command. But our own Corre-
spondent, who visited the scene of slaughter about
noon on the day after the assault, writes: " By the
time I reached the fatal open in front of our fifth
parallel the dead had been gathered off the ground—
the officers having been taken to the camp and the
men thrown into the broad deep ditch of the
Roden. • • Those who had died within the Roden
had also been gathered into the ditch; so that I
looked upon nearly all the British who had fallen
in this last seeneof an eleven months' tragedy. The
fret fact 461 struck an observer was. that nearly all
who lay than were old soldiers, men who had borne as
klat and burden of the day: hardly a beardless face
'am to be wee And for a proot that these veterans
foal ht bravely, we need only refer to the fact that
the tone they are estimated, by Generals Szapeoa
and Nur" to have kept their ground against over-
powering olds varies front one to two home. And
there is mother fact, stated by the cotrespnedent of
the 2ews Usual!, that forbids Is to attribute to tie

pliant dead the blame which must rest elsewhere
"Colonel WINDHAM saw there was no time to be
loot. Hs had sent three officers for reinforcements
• • and new he resolved to go to General Cop-
antorox himself. Seeing Captain CREALOCH, of the
90th, near him, busy encouraging his men, and exert-
ing himself with great courage and energy to get them
into order, he said, " I must go to the General for
support. Now, mind, let it be known, is case lam
killed, why I went away." It is the old story over
again. We have soldiers and regimental oeloers in
the Crimea unequalled by those of any army of pre-
sent or former times ; but we have men in command
who are utterly incompetent to make a proper use of
such an army.

Now, as from the beginning of the war, the fault
is is the Home authorities. They have learned
nothing by the experience of last winter; they have
remained unmoved to penitence and amendment by
the dread revelations elicited by the Sebastopol
Committee. We have heard the remark
made by veteran foreign officers of high
reputation, that, in their intercourse with our
Banisters, they have been impressed with the painful
conviction that there is only one man among them—
Lord HARDINGE—who understands anything about

military affairs. How could it be otherwise? The
only other soldier among them is the MINISTER AT
WAR, and his experience is confined to what he ac-
quired u a subaltern officer in a marching regiment
in country quarters long years ago—before he had
laid down the sword to devote himself to party poli-
tics. When Parliament meets, the public will look
for another Sebutopol Committee; and if the people
are true to themselves they will take good care that
their representatives in the Hones of Commons do
not follow up the investigation by a scandalous
shrinking from pronouncing a well-deserved condem-
natory judgment.