The Sun.
London, England, 1855-06-11 00:00:00

less brilliant, are no less important. Taganrog
Marionpol, and Gheisk were attacked on the 3d,
sth, and 6th instant. The public buildings and
numerous Government magazines of provisions
have been burnt, and an immense loss of supplies
has thus been inflicted on the enemy. In all
these transactions the Allies had but one man
wounded, and that notwithstanding the presence
of a garrison of 3,500 men at Taganrog. In
these important depots were stored the provisions
collected from the districts watered by the Don
and a large portion of the Dnieper. From thence
the Russian troops in the Crimea, and even in
Sebastopol itself, were chiefly supplied with pro-
visions, and now that these important sources
have been cut off, it is by no means improbable
that the Russians may be compelled to risk all on
the chances of a decisive battle, of the result
whereof we cannot for a moment doubt.
There may now be something less of arrogance
on the part of their diplomatists. They may now
be quite willing to accept the terms se contume-
liously rejected at Vienna, but the hour for re-
pentance has passed by. Nothing less than the
disarmament of all the Russian strongholds in
the Euxine and the Sea of Azoff, the destruction
of all her ships of war, and an ample pecuniary
indemnity for the expenses of the War, will now
suffice. Nor will these be all. We must not
limit our securities to the vicinity of the Black
Sea, but must look to the West as well as
to the East, and obtain satisfactory guarantees
against the restoration of Bomarsund, or
the pursuit of an aggressive policy in the neigh-
bourhood of the Baltic. We may, ere many
days' time have elapsed, receive intelligence from
that quarter that will paralyse the friends of Rus-
sia, and teach the Autocrat a salutary lesson as to
the dangers incidental to such a career as that
which he had marked out for himself, and the
signal punishment that awaits a detected and con-
victed plunderer of his neighbours.

According to the latest accounts from the
Crimea, the force directed against the Russian
army in that peninsula may be estimated at some
200,000 men altogether ! We are not, we
believe, in any way exaggerating the amount of
the aggregate strength of the Allies when we

speak of it, in round numbers, as somewhere about
200,000. Let us explain the matter in two
minutes by analysing that rather ample sum-

total. There are, in the first instance, not less
than 130,000 French soldiers under the orders of
General PELISSIEB, according to the statement put
forth by the new Commander-in-Chief himself in
the address to his troops, announcing the volun-
tary resignation of the supreme authority by his
gallant predecessor. There are under the direc-

tion of the Field-Marshal, the Lord RAGLAN, as
nearly as can be well calculated, under the cir-
cumstances, 30,000 of our brave countrymen.
There are the 10,000 picked veterans from Pied-
mont recently despatched to the seat of war as the
Sardinian Contingent, under the direction of
General DE LA MARMORA. There are, besides all

these, about 30,000 Turks, under °MEP. PACHA,
either at Kamiesh or at EupAtoria. And a very
simple sum of addition demonstrates with arith-
metical precision the rather indubitable fact that
130,000 French, and 30,000 English, and 10,000
Sardinians, and 30,000 Turks, mAke up a c3m-
prehensive total of just 200,000 at present in the
Crimea at the disposal of the Allied Commanders-
in-Chief.

Now, the task entrusted to this somewhat im-
posing force we cannot for an instant regard as at
all disproportioned to its capacities. We cannot
for one moment regard it as a labour beyond the
reach of its powers of accomplishment. We can-
not for a minute imagine that what is required to
be effected by those 200,000 men—the flower of
the French, English, Turkish, and Sardinian
armies—is in any respect more than can be readily
effected by so considerable a body of heroic and
well-disciplined troops, directed by the united
abilities of PELISSIER, RAGLAN, 011 ER, and MAR-
MORA. What is the precise nature of that task ?

What is this new labour of HERCULES ? It may
be readily enough explained. The Allies are
striving all this while to inflict a blow, a mortal
blow if possible, upon the Northern CoLossus by
whose vast bulk, and mighty energies, and gigan-

tic ambition the liberties of Europe are threatened,
and through those •liberties the fabric of modern
civilisation. And at what chink in the armour
of that Northern CoLossus is the blow directed ?
Not at its heart—Moscow. Not at its head—
St. Petersburg. But at what was finely called
by Cardinal WISEMAN, during the course of last
March, in his eloquent and patriotic lecture upon
the War, in St. Martin's Hall, Long-acre—" the
only vulnerable point it presented, like ACHILLES
—that Crimean heel with which it pressed upon
the neck of Turkey !" It is to bring the COLOSSUS
of Russia, clad in all its panoply of steel, clashing
down upon the dust, wounded and humbled
that the Allies are, with the aid of 200,000 men,
aiming such deadly blows at that "Crimean heel,"
striking chiefly all the while at what may be
called the veritable tendon-Achilles Sebastopol,
and yet pressing hard at the same time to the
right upon Kertch and to the left upon Eupatoria.
No doubt at all the task is difficult, restricted
even to these narrow limits, concentrated upon
this one paramount object—nevertheless, while
acknowledging its difficulty, we believe that it
may reasonably be regarded as capable of accom-
plishment. We believe that it cannot possibly
baffle the powers of England and France united,
aided as the armies of those two chief nations of
the earth are by noble contingents from Turkey
and Sardinia. Sixty thousand men were more
than sufficient to carry the banners of England
and France in triumph up the almost impreg-
nable heights of the Alma. A mere handfull of
the Guards and the Zouaves was enough to
scatter the legions of Russia among the ruins of
Inkerman. A grand army of 200,000 men, such
as that of the Allies now in the Crimea, will be
ample, we cannot but believe, with all the fullness
of implicit credence, to inflict the desired wound
upon the Northern COLOSSUS at Sebastopol.
It may be interesting to compare at this mo-
ment the relative positions of the two great Euro-
pean armies directed against Russia within the
last half century. Contrasting for a moment the
objects aimed at by the Allied army in 1854-55,
and by the army of NAPOLEON in 1811-12, it
must be remembered, in the first instance, that
while we strike the blow at the heel, NAPOLEON
aimed his, and with deadly effect, at the very
heart of the common enemy of civilised Europe.
We have our fleets to fall back upon for supplies,
and for retreat, too, in case of any extraordinary
emergency, and continually also for rein force-
men ts. He had no naval armaments to aid him
in his operations—he had to trust only to his
land forces, and to that incomparable genius for
war which has given him a name amour, the coi.-
querors of the earth beyond those even of tll9
i cR eommi-agn and
a
o d antiquity—beyond the accomplished
the daring Macedonian. By reason
of which, because he had no Euxine for his base
of operations_because he had to attack Russia,
not on the margin, but far in the interior
—NAPOLEON required a mightier land arma-
ment than can be well regarded by the Allies