The Sun.
London, England, 1855-09-29 00:00:00

THE FAILURE AT THE REDAN.

An old soldier remarks that the failure of the English
attack on the Redan ought to open the eyes of the
British people to the following startling facts :
That the military engineering department is deficient
in skill and practical knowledge. That the mismanage-
ment of the army by the governing powers is fearful to
contemplate. That thousands of veterans are first
slaughtered by the criminal incapacity and negligence
of the Government ; and raw recruits are called upon
to attack a strongly fortified position, defended by pro-
perly trained troops, and under disadvantages arising
from engineering deficiencies sufficient to defeat the
best-conducted operations. That the English Staff, as
at present constituted, are absolutely destructive. That
there is a deficiency of regimental officers with their re-
giments ; and that, whilst the conduct of those officers
who have stuck to their men anti done their duty is Lighly
meritorious, there is a large class of men in the British
army, holding commissions, who have deserted their
regiments, and shirked the perils of the service in the
field, in a way which requires immediate correction,
both for the credit of the service, and as a fair compli-
ment to their more honourable compeers.
What has poor England done that she should be
humbled in the eyes of the world ?
She has delivered herself up, bound hand and foot, to
a helpless aristocracy, and has not the courage to break
her bonds !
In the meantime, all honour and glory to our brilliant
allies, who have nobly won Sebastopol !

ORIGINAL ANNEXATION Or THE
CRIMEA TO THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE.

The manifesto published by the Empress Catherine
upon the occasion of her troops entering the Crimea, to
annex it, in 1783, has more than an historic interest at
the present moment. The following is a trans:ation
Petersburg, August 1.
We, Catherine 11., by the Grace of God, Empress
and sole Monarch of all the Rnssias, &c.

Our last war against the Ottoman Empire having been
attended with the most signal successes we had cer-
tainly acquired the right of reuniting to the territories of
our empire the Crimea, of which we were in possession :
we, however, hesitated not to sacrifice that, with many
other conquests, to our ardent desire of re-establishing
the public tranquillity, and of confirming the good under-
standing and friendship between our empire and the
Ottoman Porte. This motive, induced us to stipulate for
the freedom and independence of the Tartars, whom we
had redaced by our arms ; hoping to remove for ever,
by this means, every cause of dissension, and even of
coolness, between Russia and the Ottoman Porte, ex-
posed too often to these inconveniences by the form of
government which then subsisted among the Tartars.
Great as were our sacrifices and our efforts for realising
those hopes, they were soon, to our great regret, consider-
ably diminished. The restlessness natural to the Tartars,
fomented by insinuations, the source of which is not un-
known to us, caused them easily to fall into a snare laid
by foreign hands, which had sowed amongst them the
seeds of disturbance and confusion to such a degree as to
induce them to labour for the weakening, and even the
total ruin of an edifice which our beneficent cares had
erected for the happineSs of that nation, by procuring
them liberty and independence, under the authority of a
chief elected by themselves. Hardly was their Khan
established according to this new form of government,
before he saw himself deprived of all authority, and even
obliged to desert his country, to give place to an usurper,
who would again subject the Tartars to the yoke of a do-
minion from which our beneficence had released them.
The greater part of them, as blind as they were ignorant,
had submitted to that usurper; the rest, thinking them-
selves too weak to resist, would infallibly have yielded to
his yoke ' • and thus we should have lost the fruits of our
victories, and the principal recompence for the sacrifices
which we willingly made at the last peace, if we tad not
instantly taken under our immediate protection such of
the well-disposed Tartars who, prizing the blessings of
their new political existence, lamented their being forced
to submit to the usurper who had expelled their lawful
Khan. By thus effectually protecting them, we furnished
them with the power and the means of choosing a new
Khan in the room of Sahib Gheray, and of establishing
an administration analogous to this state of affairs. It
was to attain this end that our military forces were put
in motion ; that a considerable body of our troops were
ordered, notwithstanding the severity of the season, to
enter the Crimea, where they were subsisted at our ex-
pense, and obliged to exert the power of our arms for
the support of the good cause, in order to recall such
of the Tartars as were estranged from it by their revolt.
The public is not ignorant tbat a rupture between
Russia and the Ottoman Porte had very near ensued upon
this occasion ; but thanks to the Divine assistance, we
disposed matters in such a manner, that the Ottoman
Mete again acknowledged the independence of the
Tartars, and the validity of the election of Schaghin-
Glieray, their lawful sovereign. Notwithstanding all
the inconveniences above mentioned, as long as we were
sustained and animated by the hope of re-establishing
the repose necessary to the advantage and preservation
of good neighbourhood with the Ottoman empire, we
regarded the Crimea, according to tenour and letter of
the treaties, as a free and independent country, confin-
ing ourselves solely to appeasing the troubles which pre-
vai'ed amongst them. From our love of peace we found
in this conduct a sufficient recompence for the great ex-
penses incurred by it ; but we were soon undeceived in
this respect by the fresh revolt occasioned in the Crimea
last year, the encouragement of which always flowed
from the same source. We have been obliged, in conse-
quence, to have recourse again to considerable arma-
ments, and to cause troops to enter into the Crimea and
the Cuban, whose presence is become indispensable for
maintaining tranquillity and good order in the adjacent
countries. The sad experience of every day demon-
strates more clearly that if the sovereignty of the Otto-
man Porte in the Crimea was a perpetual source of
discord between our two empires, the independence of
the Tartars exposes us to subjects of contention no less
numerous and important, since the long servitude to
which that people have been accustomed has rendered
the greater part of the individuals incapable of valuing
the advantages of the new situation procured for them
by that independence of which we sought to give them
the enjoyment ; and which, laying us under the neces-
sity of being always armed, occasions not only great ex-
penses, but also exposes our troops to inevitable and con-
tinual fatigues.

The efforts they made to extinguish the flame of dis-
cord, in succouring the well•intentioned of that nation,
exposed them to the violences of the seditious and
ill-in-
tentioned, whom we were willing to leave unpunished,
in order to avoid even the shadow of an act of sovereignty,
so long as we could cherish the least hope of at length
restoring good order, and preventing, by this means, the
essential interests of our empire from being injured.
But to our great regret, all these measures, dictated
solely by our love of humanity, tended only to bring upon
us losses and damages, which we have the more sensibly
at heart as they affected our subjects. The loss in men is
not to be appreciated—we will not attempt to estimate
it ; that in money, according to the most moderate calcu-
lations, amounts to upwards of twelve millions of roubles.
To these particulars is to be added another of the utmost
importance, both in its object and with regard to its
consequences. We have just been informed that the
Porte has begun to lay claim to the exercise of sove-
reignty in the Tartar dominions, by sending one of its
officers at tb e head of a detachtnent of troops, to the island
of Taman, who has even proceeded to cause the officer to
be publicly beheaded who was sent to him by the Khan
Schaghin-Gheray with a commission only to inquire of him
what were the motives for his arrival in that island ; and
what evidently proves the nature of the mission of this
commandantof the troops is, that he made no difficulty in
declaring openly to the inhabitants of Taman that he
looked upon them as subjects of the Porte. This decisive,
though unexpected step, convincing us of the inutility of
the sacrifices we had made upon the last peace, annuls, in
consequence, the engagements we had contracted, with
the sole intention of firmly establishing the freedom and
independence of the Tartars, and sufficiently authorises
us to enter again into the enjoyment of those rights which
we had lawfully acquired by conquest ; the more so as it
is the only means remaining for us to secure hereafter a
solid and permanent peace between the two empires.
Animated, therefore, with a sincere desire of confirming
and maintaining the last peace concluded with the Porte,
by preventing the continual disputes which the affairs of
the Crimea produced, our duty to ourself and the pre-
servation of the security of our empire equally demand
our taking the firm resolution to put an end, once for all,
to the troubles in the Crimea ; and for this purpose we re-
unite to our empire the peninsula of the Crimea, the island
of Taman, and all the Cuban, as a just indemnification
for the losses sustained, and the expenses we have been
obliged to incur in maintaining the peace and welfare of
these territories.

In declaring to the inhabitants of those countries by
the present manifesto that such is our Imperiai pleasure,
we promise them, for us and our successors in the Im-
perial throne of Russia, that they shall be treated upon
an equality with our ancient subjects ; and that in
taking them under our high protection, we will defend
against all people their persons, their estates, their tem-
ples, and the religion they profess; that they shall enjoy
the most absolute liberty of conscience, without the least
restriction, in the public exercise of their worship and
their ceremonies, and that i
not only the nation in gene-
ral, but also each individual n particular, shall partici-
pate ia all the advantages enjoyed by our ancient sub-
jects. But we also expect, from the gratitude of our
new subjects, that, touched with these favours, they will
be sensible of the value of this fortunate revolution,
which removes them from a convulsed state of disturb-
ances and dissensions, to one of entire security and per-
fect tranquillity, under the protection of the laws ; and
that, striving to imitate the submission, zeal, and fide-
lity of those who have long had the happiness of living
under our government, they will render themselves wor-
thy of our imperial favour, beneficence, and protection.
Given at our Imperial residence of St. Petersburg, the
Bth of April, in the year of grace 1783, and in the 2lst
year of our reign.
(Signed with her Imperial Majesty's own hand)
CATHERINE (L. S.)