The Sun.
London, England, 1855-04-12 00:00:00

OUR ARTILLERY 1N THE CRIMEA.

The follovvirg letter 117--"'--om a Prussian Engineer has
beesuira,_ddFreosrsedfivetemaoncothnstethe
Alliedbym ea
contemporary :--
Armiesmeans hoafve artillery. carried
on their attacks on Sebastopol
..Ac eirding to all report., when they first sat down before
the piaw, its s,,uthere side was nearly open and defen
less, a .d the Russians gained time for the construction of
some earthwork", chiefly through the delays of their ene-
iniee. On the 17th of October the English and French
having erected a number of batteries, and armed them
partly with heavy ordnance, opened fire, and sneeeod:.•d
in inakieg some impression on the badly devised and
worse executed stone towers, hut et the end of the
day their guns were nearly silenced. The blame was
cast upon the French ; their breastworks were said to
he weak, their magazines not sufficiently protected, and
their antis unable to cope with the heavier metal of the
Russians. After the failure of the bombardment regular
parallels were opened against the place, and trenches
were carried forward considerably, and some new bat-
teries constructed and armed • but to all appearance the
fortress is still as far as ever from being taken.
A result so contrary to every expectation would endue
rally lead military men to inquire whether the resources
of modern artillery were duly made UPI of by the be.
siegers in this memorable contest ;" or whether there
were natural and insurmountable obstacles which pre.
vented these resources from being effectively employed.
Nor can there be any harm. in this particular case, by
openly scrutinising the'scientific merits of proceedings
which, however recent of occurrence, are historical facts
already; for never were siege operations conducted with
greater publicity than those for reducing Sebastopol.
Tbat the work undertaken was, from natural causes,
a very difficult one nobody will deny ; but to consider
it impossible would involve a severe stricture on the con-
duct of the commanders who still persevere in their endea-
vours. On the other side, not a few unavoidable causes,
which prevented the artillery of the allies from making
a more sensible, as. well as speedy, impression on the
fortress, may be pointed out. Amongst them the great
extent given to the siege works appears t 3 occupy a most
conspicuous position. The French undertook to attack
the western part of the town, whilst the English directed
their separate efforts against the eastern porno ~ In
both cases the whole line of the Russian fortifications
was embraced.- To•inquire (whether this multiplicity cf
points of attack originated from a contempt for the
e firth works hastily thro A n up by the enemy, or from
other causes, is irrelevant for the present purpose ; evi-
dently it must have been possible to contract the lines,
and to concentrate the efforts for reducing the place.
After the experience gained oa the 17th of October,
every artillery officer in the allied camps must have been
aware that the Russians were superior in the number
and calibre of their guns, and that they wanted neither
men nor ammunition to serve them properly. In
consequence of the affair of Balaklava the English,
moreover, were excluded. from the use of the most
convenient road for carrying- stores to the camp, and
the difficulties of bringing up in front of the town more
numerous and heavier pieces of ordnance were immensely
increased. How then could the Allies hope speedily tee
obtein a superiority in artillery fire all over such extended
lines as they still persevered in occupying 1 It may be
said that as siege works advance they wilt of themselves
'contract laterally, that the second parallel will of ne-
ce,seity be' shorter than the first, and the third still
shorter than the second. But a second parallel cannot
be opened with a reasonable hope of gaining much by so
doing, nor even of maintaining it intact in the face of a
numerous and active enemy, before the ricochet and en-
filading batteries have done a good deal of the work
allotted to them, that is, destroying the traverses and
dismounting the guns of the fortress. - Besides, it is not
enough to open a second parallel; it must also be armed
with Runs of large calibre, part of them very heavy, in
order to be capable of withstanding the shock of acharge
of powder even heavier than one-third of the weight
of the solid ball which must be projected with great
force. In the face of the immense- difficulties
in bringing up the great guns for properly arming
the second and third parallels, would it not.have been
better for the allies to have given up one of their lines
of attack, and to have directed their combined forces
and energies upon one or two points of either the east-
ern or the western parts of the town ? By such a con-
centration the besiegers might not only have reasonably
expected to be able to silence the Russian artillery at
those points by means of such guns as they could bring
into position, but the ruinous labour of making, watch-
ing, and defending uselessly extensive lines of trenches,
would have been lessened by at least one half. The
British army would have escaped being decimated by
incessant watching, exposure, and fatigue ; Russian
sorties might far more easily have been guarded
against or repulsed, End the necessity of interrupting
the progrees of the siege for want .of guns and am-
munition either totally obviated or greatly di-
minished in duration. It need scarcely be men-
tioned
Rheuyssiwaneywe
works that
aPlaccw'rectill:lawtasidgcaih.e.ge,:as -11:1--,
that in order to blockade that part of the town
where the direct attack was abandoned whitb had
better never have been undertaken—a chain of closed
redoubts ghoul I bare been . established. But which
part of the town--the eastern or the western---should
have been attacked directly and which one
blockaded ? On this question there could exist but little
doubt, if any, after the battle of Inkerman. It is but
natural for a strong garrison' to try to proceed from de-
fensive to offensive operations at that spot where de-
fence is weakest and most difficult, and the Russians
attacked the heights of Inkerman under great 4 lisadvan- .
tages, with a view to prevent the English from approach-
ing nearer in the direction of Mount Sa.pone, on the
eastern side of the Careening Bay, and from thereby out-
flanking Fort Malachow. This pelt of th,sir lines of de-
fence was so weak and insufficient originally that thee, ,
never ceased in their efforts to strengthen it until they ae.
tually succeeded in establishing new and advanced fedi&
cations for its protection. By permitting them so to do,
the French now appear to have lost the very spot for
placing to the best advantage an enfilading battery,which
would have been of the greatest service, .zuit, only bi.
cause its well-directed fire would have, ep read annoy-
ance over a great extent of the enemy's works, but 'also
because it was not liable to be masked by the a'diance Of
the direct attack upon Fort Malachow,
would have been kept in constant play to the veil end
of the siege. and.consequ.ently
Secondly, a large proportion of the Fratch,arti.llery
have
acnorisitnecad
poafbloardonfanscteanodilcnogi n.paarastttrienisl;
a chargepsmallpear s o
calibre,tfo powder.
wci preCISO
ffruol,mbtuhtit
quite unroautgtaihonuatbltenh•oei.l3:ei:-.ogi-ueita
ji,lannctiodrt
gunnii.riestativiukeng:urdsesfbaolk°7lthweenca,:, fabligit:
lities of the Lancaster
ornagkroeoa d
asrwaenhendame tes effectiveis"toi popularlydhe ae
v hea asprungfiring
wl
proved fromee were
f seeal
io
id obn's r
ti avg i and
tb h
a r 1
then.elvae
dr
di was
C ow. der, an:
the Lancaster gd
_se:Nu Mien
sham.
tonal disadoa:lylet:elosi
l
l
s
a
rages
let
vf pr: :tut lCde m shooting at very distant objects •
these
hi
oni
gunallesef
se.greaosi
eefsnpo:aeutfa9o::
ntlat:bgwntYtPei:et:e:gl'atec. rhsa as
real
distinct
tauntfibci correct
t9ll T naiBfenbnntbrpsll:ltle,iyal nclitnl endBc. eel
t uertf al.v:
inch ieoeumf fnia
eil :'it°taat irivri 33Y1yd:ey(1 matterssl:lre.stHoyAial
a
s
, er, and a null
5 sisnotof defects.
the very best results have been expected om the greatest
accumulationl ra
this
bu
In siege of e: ations,
strongly garrisoned ane
men.ts,
keptsortterse. darrsioe do
poenn atgoa i
rnescte
iav e f orretirnefsosr c
es o.
all possible precautions ought to be taken against
a dßy
,ti
et w
h are do
g e
d withno t g
grape
-shot,
tfloesel do artilleryscour
tti e
ggrouw1111:1
in advance of the trenches, nor that redoubts were con-
structed at the wings of the parallels, in order to pre-
vent the enemy from getting in between them, and
taking the more advanced one in the rear.
It would be invidious to follow up every shortcoming
of minor importance, but it must be Mentioned that the
reports are ominously silent about the existeinece.flo:
bullets of the enemy, and aboutvfishsiiambnii:l:
blinds or screens for the embrazures to keep
protections
in the
against the pieces of burst shells flying
however,tla
theiPho affnttdect
oppositefight-
inginons said
is going on in the dark, not a
i batteries. The most unaccountable thing, is
tbatalthough the far greater
means employed on
during the whole siege about
ti
paartnyC'werd has been •
either side for making distic?
_y
time.nitglibteselines to be written
ednugeagrespect
mafo consum-
materexthtreaordin y
works
hope,and
sir, you
will
in a spirit of candour,
milithearybrirati.sovhpeotaernoifloitnh,4ye efoodoirp:sfyour
obedient
sermnt,