The Sun.
London, England, 1855-02-20 00:00:00

An imperial ukase has appeared, decreeing a
forced loan.

All landed property is to pay fifteen silver

roubles per acre.

Fresh contributions of provisions are also
ordered, four times larger than at first.

The Moniteur of yesterday contains the fol

lowing :

CONSTANTINOPLE, FEB. 8.

The news from the Crimea is highly satisfac-
tory. The weather continued favourable. The
siege works were nearly finished, and it was posi-
tively ascertained that the number of the rein-
forcements received by the enemy had been greatly
exaggerated.

The fine weather here continues ; the winds
are southerly and all the vessels that were in the

Dardanelles are coming up. The Breslaw and
Inflexible have arrived here from Algiers, after a
passage of eleven days. The Louis XIV., coming
from Toulon, was two days before them. The
temperature is exceedingly mild.

VARNA, FEB. 12.
Ismail Pacha leaves to-day for the Crimea with
a contingent df Ottoman troops.
The Russians have tried in vain to disturb the
Allies at Eupatoria. The position of the Turks
is made stronger every day.

The Post Gazette of Frankfort publishes a letter
from Posen (misdated) Feb. 17, in which we
read, "The rumour runs in military circles that
orders to assume the offensive have been received
from St. Petersburg. However this may be, the
army of Poland has again been set in motion
within the last few days, and the troops previously
withdrawn from the frontiers of Gallicia are again
marching towards the south. The main army
seems as if it were about to take up its position
on the right bank of the Vistula, along the fron-
tiers of Gallicia and the Bukowina. On this side
there will only remain a corps of 30,000 men at
the central point of Czentochau."

THE TURKISH EXPEDITION
TO THE CRIMEA.
VARNA, FEB. 7.
Omer Pasha goes to-day, at four o'clock in tho
afternoon.

9 P. M

Omer Pasha is just now embarking, amid the
glare of blue lights. He is going with Colonel Sim-
mons and Colonel Le Dieu on board the Colombo,
which will sail in about two hours. The departure
of the Marshal took place sooner than was expected.
Orders were given very suddenly. It is commonly
attributed to the illness of Terpik Pasha at Eupa-
toria that OmerPasha has accelerated his departure.
Mnhlis Pasha (Prince Stourdza) remains at
Varna as Omer Pasha's Lieutenant, which seems to
me rather strange, as he is the Chef d'Etat Major.
He has attached to himself for the service of em-
barkation Murad Effendi' (Major Wiorzbicky) and
three other officers belonging to the staff. Mashir
Pasha (Sir S. Lakeman) has the direction of the
embarkation of cavalry at Bourgas.
Yesterday a large quantity of wires for the tele-
graph with the Crimea was landed here, so that
we may now soon expect to have a direct com-
munication established between the seat of war and
France and England.

Unofficial intelligence from the Russian positions
in the Crimea seldom reaches the west. The Vienna
and Berlin papers, nevertheless, favoured by the
settlement of Germans in Russia, are occasionally
able to publish a letter, throwing light upon the
situation of the enemy. The Ost. Deutsche Post of
Vienna publishes two such communications. The
first, from St. Petersburg, is to the following
effect :

The situation of the Allied armies in the Crimea is not
so bad as the English journals affirm. Their effective
amounts to 120,000 men—French, English, and Turks.
The victualling of this force becomes easier every day.
The French in particular, who farm the most numerous
portion of the army, are amply provisioned in every re-
spect. The Allies have collected in the Crimea the finest
war materiel ever seen. This is the reason why we at
St. Petersburg are so anxious about the fate of Sebasto-
pol, notwithstanding the confidence se ostentatiously
displayed. The Emperor is much irritated against the
officers of the staff, who declared last year that the dis-
embarkation of more than 40,000 men in the Crimea was
impossible ; and hence it was deemed sufficient to aug-
ment the army by a third. It has been raised to 100,000
men now, and possesses an excellent body of cavalry ;
but a large portion of the latter has been necessarily
withdrawn, on account of the scarcity of fodder and the
great difficulties in the way of the commissariat—diffi-
culties which prevent a larger number of troops being
sent thither. From Simpheropol to Sebastopol the way
lies across salt steppes devoid of vegetation, and you are
obliged to carry water with you for man and beast.
Nearly 7,000 draught horses have already died along
that route, and they now use oxen instead: It is, there-
fore, impossible to support an army in the Crimea, unless
one has the sea ; and if the Allies succeed in cutting off
the communications of the Russian army by land, albeit
for a ♦ery short period, the fate of Sebastopol will be
soon decided.
They are making unheard-of efforts for the spring
campaign, and, every day we expect extraordinary mea-
sures. Ne one desires a peace prejudicial to Russia, and
mere especially because the war is considered over all
the empire as a holy one. They will cheerfully give up
to Austria the protectorate of the Principalities, because
they feel sure of getting back again before long, provided
Russia's power remain intact. We consider the free
navigation of the Danube a mere verbal order, with
which Russia will willingly comply. The main point is
the domination of the Black Sea. This domination was
the first cause of the war, and it will be defended to the
very last. The Black Sea lost, all is lost ; but the Black
Sea saved, all is saved. Such is the rallying cry of Rus-
sian policy.

The Ost. Deutsche Zeitung publishes an Odessa
letter with news from Sebastopol, which, although
only of the 23d ult., is interesting on account of
its source. On the 22d the Russian generals held
a council of war, at which General Osten-Sacken's
proposition for keeping on the defensive met with
the warmest opposition. He urged that it was more
advantageous to remain on the defensive, since the
Allies were so strongly intrenehed as to render a
successful attack almost impossible, and that they
would be therefore forced to take the offensive
themselves. Admiral Stansikovitch now commands
in Sebastopol. The frost has carried off a great
many victims.

It is stated that sixty men of the Greek ScJimmie
volunteer legion had been frozen to death while on
the march to Perekop, and the lit brigade of the
Grenadier Guards which were also marching to
Nicolaief, and which are to be at Sebastopol by the
end of the month, have also met with heavy loss.
They complain a good deal at Sebastopol of the way
in which the troops are lodged. Although it had
been
long known beforehand whatnumber of troops