The Sun.
London, England, 1855-09-21 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF

( From the Times of this day.)
The arrival of the official despatches containing
the reports of the Allied Generals on the glorious
events of the Bth and 9th of September has been
delayed somewhat longer than had at first been
anticipated, because, altnough they were sent off
on the 11th in the Telegraph steamer, which is one
of the swiftest vessels in the navy, yet, owing to
the state of the weather, or to some other reason,
that ship did not reach Marseilles till yesterday
morning, and the despatches cannot reach London
before Saturday morning. The communications
transmitted by the Indus, which brought the mail
of the 9th from Balaklava, are of inferior interest,
for, owing to the state of the weather, that vessel
appears to have had no communication with the
shore after noon on the Bth, when the assault had
not actually taken place, and she therefore brings
no details of the destruction of that vast fortress
which had defied for nearly a year the confederate
armies of the Western Powers.
We learn, however, by a telegraphic despatch
from Marshal Pelissier, that, although the actual
occupation of the town by a portion of the Allied
forces has never been formally stated to have
taken place, and we do not know in what order
it was effected, yet that the whole of the
arsenals and works mast now have been minutely
visited by the Anglo-French Commission ap-
pointed to draw up the inventory of our
trophies of war. It seems that no less than 4,000
cannon, 50,000 cannon balls, powder, grapeshot,
and many other stores of war were still found un-
injured and in great abundance. The immense
supplies of the arsenal of Sebastopol were, there-
fore, not exhausted even after this terrific and pro-
longed struggle ; and as long as men could be
found to renew the shattered or dismounted guns
and to repair the works the resistance of the town
continued. Down to the very last Sebastopol con-
tained nearly ten times the number of cannon
which had been placed in the batteries of the be-
siegers—a fact which is not surprising when it is
remembered that the fleet alone mounted more
than 1,000 guns, and that everything had certainly
been prepared by the Emperor Nicholas in Sebas-
topol for a final attack on the Ottoman empire. It
must always be remembered that these warlike
stores accumulated in the Crimea could have been
brought there for no other purpose than an ag-
gressive war on Turkey. The probability of a com-
bined attack by sea and land upon the Crimea
itself seems never to have occurred to the Russian
Government, but against a maritime attack only
they were fully provided. The marine forts of
Sebastopol served to cover a huge mine, destined
one day to spread devastation over the East ; and
it was while he was slowly and laboriously com-
pleting these preparations that the Emperor Nicho-
las claimed the especial confidence of Europe as the
protector of established institutions, the champion
of order, and the friend of peace. The docks, it
seems, remain—a magnificent work, due to the
engineering abilities of Colonel Upton, which was
only finished in 1853, after having cost enormous
sums to the Imperial Government ; indeed, as a
great portion of these works is excavated out of the
solid rock, and the remainder lined with the hardest
cement, the destruction of them is no easy under-
taking. After having provided for the armament
of the forts, which will be occupied by the Allies
for the defence of the place, the greater portion of
these trophies will doubtless be removed in trans-
ports to the dockyards and arsenals of the Allied
Powers, to prevent the possibility of their falling
hereafter into the hands of the enemy. We pre-
sume that, in conformity with precedent, the prize
and booty of this vast capture will be distributed
to the army and navy of the Allied Powers; in agree-
ment with the arrangements previously taken with
the French Government, her Majesty having re-
served to herself the distribution of booty to the
British troops upon any conjoint expedition of the
sea and land forces. And certainly if the value cf
the spoil turns out to be considerable, it most justly
belongs to the gallant soldiers of both armies and
to the combined fleets which have participated in
the capture.
The Emperor of Russia has not hesitated to
acknowledge, in an order of the day addressed to
the Imperial army, the magnitude of the blow
which has struck the defences of the empire ; but
he has attempted to lessen the humiliation in-
flicted on his arms by a tribute, not certainly un-
deserved, to the unhappy victims of his father's
policy. We have at all times really admitted the
skill and perseverance with which the Russian
troops raised a formidable sytem of fortifications
round an undefended town, and continued with
great tenacity to maintain the advantages of their
position. Their artillery was also well served, and
the efforts made to bring up fresh troops to the
scene of action were extraordinary. Here, how-
ever, the consideration we are willing to empress
for a brave enemy ceases. We do not think that
the conduct of the garrison of Sebastopol entitles
them to rank with the soldiers who at Pultowa
defeated the Swedish infantry, which was then the
best in Europe, or with that army which in 1812
disputed the honours of the Borodino to the last
gasp against the genius of Napoleon and the legions
of France. The present Russian army has on no
one occasion during the present war measured itself
successfully against any part of the Allied forces.
The battles of the Alma, the Inkerman, and of
the Tchernaya were all won by the manifest supe-
riority of our troops ; and even on the two occa-
sions when our attacks upon the redoubts of Sebas-
topol were not altogether successful we were re-
pulsed entirely by the superior cross-fire of the
enemy's batteries. When, therefore, the Empe-
ror asserts that his troops "beat the enemy, or
died with indomitable courage, and without a
thought of surrendering," we are constrained
to reply that they did not beat the enemy
on any fair trial of strength ; that they
retreated beaten, though not routed, from three
pitched engagements ; and that, though they did
not surrender Sebastopol, they evacuated it, and
left not only " blood-stained ruins," but the spoils
of an enormous arsenal in the possession of the
enemy. The time is long since past when the
enemies of the Czar were to be swept away by the
breath of his nostrils, and we do not find in this
production of the reigning monarch any expression
which rises above a dignified resignation to an in-
evitable calamity.
We learn, however, by the last accounts from
Berlin, that the Emperor has already renounced
his intended journey to Warsaw, and that he will
shortly proceed with the Grand Dukes to Moscow,
and thence to the governments more immediately
contiguous to the seat of war. There seems, as far
as we can judge from the very _faint indications
which reach us, to be something irresolute and
weak in the character of the present Autocrat.
Had he seized the conditions of peace offered him
at Vienna, he would have saved Sebastopol and
have placed us in a very awkward predicament.
Yet his Generals ought to have foreseen that the
place could not hold out more than four months,
and that the increasing hold of the Allies on the
coast of the Crimea was of all things the most fatal
to the " territorial integrity" of Russia. He con-
tinued the struggle, however, not from confidence
in the result, but from the want of courage to ter-
minate it. Even now it may be doubted whether
his Government has really grasped the onerous and
embarrassing inheritance to which he was suddenly
called, and it is not improbable that his position
may become a dangerous one. It has certainly
become an unfortunate one, for when called upon
to mount the throne he was condemned by no
fault of his own to witness within a few months the
destruction of his greatest southern fortress and of
the Black Sea fleet, while Sweaborg was bombarded
and Cronstadt threatened within sight of the gar-
dens of Peterhof. An Emperor of Russia cannot
afford to lose the reputation of invincible power
within his own dominions. A Government resting
on force alone perishes in the presence of superior
force, and we question whether the patriotic en-
thusiasm of the Russian nation will be roused by
the reverses they have sustained in
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was invaded : Holy Moscow was
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no effort will shake off the army
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peace which we have a right to demand.
the terms of

(prom the Times of this day.)

Want of water is what we should fear in any ad-
vance from Eupatoria. From this even the Rus-
soiladn,sfrsora theuffer; andyet they have a line, eighty years
Belbec in the south, straight almost
as the crow flies, to Tchongar-bridge, leading into
Russia by Perekop. Along this line are occasional
wells. At Bakshi-Serai and Simpheropol they are
abundant ; the Salghir river, moreover, supplies
that indispensable requisite of human life. But
the enemy suffers along that line for want of water,
and what towns he meets have risen on the waste,
as.children of the fountain. The gushing spring
has been the parent of the city. There, first a halt,
then a habitation, then a collection of stationary.
dwellings ; a town, a fortress, a periodical en-
campment, an establishment and splendid
buildings.
On the other hand, the Tchernaya yields plenty
of water for man and beast. Beyond it is the Belbec;
beyond that the Salghir. The Russians quitted
Sebastopol because they could not stay in it. It
was no strategic movement in any profounder sense
than a well-grounded panic is strategic. The Bay
of Inkerman hissed with denuding shells ; a few