The Express.
London, England, 1853-11-17 00:00:00

,at erprelOS.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.
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HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Tau Div—Merulai, 211. Oa. . Afternoon. lb. 40.
To-sioirow—Mlungsg, 3b. urn ..... AItRIDOUS. Sh.

LONDON, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 17.

ALLOW kNCE being made for one obvious blunder,
the telegraphic news announcing that the Russian
army in Wallachia was in full retreat towards
the Transylvanian frontier carries probability on
the face of it. l'revious despatches had put us
in possession of the facts that the Turks who I
bad crossed the Danube at Oltenitza had re-
pelled several attempts of the Russians to dis-
lodge them, and had increased their force to a num-
ber equal, or nearly equal, to that of the enemy, and
that the Russian head-quarters had been advanced
from Bucharest to Budcschti, about half-way to Ohs-
nitza. It was further reported that a somewhat strong
Turkish force having been assembled between Bas-

wawa and leaktchi, the Turks intended to cram the
Lambe a little above Galatx, with a •iew to cut off

the Itussian

with Moldavia. Let us

now examine the bearing of these facts end rumours

upon yesterday's telegraphic news. It is to the effect
that Bucharest had been set on fire in more
than one quarter, that the Russians were retreat-
ing northward to the Transylvanian frontier,
and that the pursuing Turks had already left
Bucharest behind them. Oltenitzs, Budeschti, and
Bucharest are all situated east of the river Argiach.
A hoe drawn from the first to the last-mentioned

place through the second has a direction nearly north-
west. In the event of a battle between the Russians
and Turks, a great object with the latter would be,
in their advance, to keep well to the east, both for
the purpose of keeping out of the low marshy ground
near the river (already flooded with the rains), and
for the purpose of outflanking the enemy. The
Itemises, if driven to retreat, would naturally fall
back in the first instance upon Bucharest, to retain
the facilities afforded by the high-road, the country
in that vicinity after the commencement of the

autumnal rains being almost impracticable. Arrived
at Bucharest, two great lines of road would present
themselves for their further retreat. One leads in a
north-eut direction, and divides into two branches,
—one running nearly east to the Danube and
Ibrail, the other more northerly to Fokschan
in Moldavia. The second road from Bucharest
that would present itself to a retreating Russian
force leads directly north to Cronstadt in Transyl-
vania. There is a third road, leading also to the
Transylvanian frontier, to the east of this, but the
accounts formerly received of the movements of the
Russians west of Bucharest render it probable that
tt was already in possession of the Turks ad-
vancing from Kalafat. There are two pro-
bable reasons why the Russians should not
take the road to Moldavia: their being out-
flanked by the pursuing Turks and cut off from it, or
their having received intelligence of the crossing of
the Danube by hustle forces above °slats. It is
obvious from these considerations that, assuming the
Turks to have been again victorious, the line of re-
treat adopted by the Russians would of necessity be
that attributed to them in the telegraphic despatch
received yesterday from Vienna.
The palpable blunder in this intelligence is
the statement that fifteen thousand Turks had
been despatched " through the principality of
Servia" to intercept the fugitive Hussite.. This
would be a most unaccountable movement. The
pursuers would have to march in the first place
some three or four hundred miles in a direction at
right angles to that of the retreating force, and then
rather more back again. The electric telegraph,
however, may be allowed in its hurry to make an
occasional slip of this kind, seeing that our contem-
poraries are in the habit of making equal or still
greater blunders in their deliberate comments and
summarise of news. For example, one of these
erudite luminaries announced yesterday that the gar-
rison of Sebastopol had " marched' against the
Caucasian. (" walking the waters like a thing of life,"
it is to be presumed); and another gravely ap-
pended to the news that the Turks had obtained
possession of several Russian forts in Georgia and
the Caucasus the most owl-like remark, " This seems
decisive of the falsehood of the news that the Otto-
mans had suffered a defeat under the walls of Bu-
charest." It is not easy to extract a meaning from
what hits obviously none; and yet this story of a
detachment marching through Servia in pursuit of
an enemy retreating upon Transylvania may have
originated in some blunder of the mknager of the
electric telegraph, in transmitting a statement that
13,000 men had been detached from the Turkish
force advancing from Sophia (which is near the
Servian frontier) upon Bucharest by Kalafat and
Kralove'.
This, however, is a matter of little moment; a few
days at furthest will clear up all doubts. But even a
" rumour " that the Russian. are retreating upon the
Transylvanian—the Austrian frontier—is enough to
make men ask themselves seriously, "how will
Austria act, it this be baser By her professions of
newrality, Austria is entitled, or allowed, to permit
both Russians and Turks to enter her territory, but
to insist upon their abstaining from hostilities while
within it. When the army of the Faith was driven
out of Spain by the Constitutionalists, the French
allowed the beaten soldiers to take refuge in their
territory, but disarmed every man of them as soon
as he entered it, retaining the arms until
they again left it. Austria, as • neutral, would
not be entitled to do more in the case of a
beaten Russian army crossing its frontier. It would
have a right to say to the Turks, " you shall not
follow these men ireo our territory and attack them
there," but it would have no right to foster an
armed and banded Russian force, watching an op-
portunity to re-cress the Turkish frontier and assail
the Turks as soon as it tad been refreshed and re-
organised. If the Russians take refuge in Transyl-
vania, the Austrian Government is only entitled to
afford them hospitality on the condition that tl.ey
give up their arms, to be restored to them when they
shall either leave the country to enter the Russian
dominions, or alter they have re crossed
as unarmed and unregimented individuals the
Turkish frontier. We frankly admit that we enter-
tain a very strong suspicion that Austria may seek
some equivocation or pretext to enable it to
escape the performance of this its duty as a neutral.
The ostentatious communication by Austria to the
Germanic l)iet, at this moment. of its intention to
prove the sincerity of its professed desire to remain
neutral by disbanding part of its army, looks very
like a preparation to plead that it has not disarmed
the fugitive Russians entering Transylvania, because
it had not a sufficient military funs• there to effect
the disarmament. Yet the joggle would be so palpable,
that the only serious anxiety arising from the direction
ascribed to the Russian retreat is lest the 'finks,
in the heat of pursuit, might do something to enable
the Austrians to allege that the neutrality of their
territory bad been violated, and thus obtain a pretext