The Sun.
London, England, 1863-05-13 00:00:00

CRACOW, April 7.
The local news this evening is very bad. All the
detachments that have left Cracow during the pre-
sent week and since Friday last have been driven
back without having produced any impression
upon the Russians. The official journals of 'War-
saw will tell the truth for once if it states that
the insurgents have ths.B time been dispersed along
the whole line of the Cracow district. If they
had been sent out for the very purpose of being
beaten affairs could not have been better managed
to that end. Mieroslawski, aiming still at an im-
possible dictatorship, and refusing to accept any
lower position at the hands of the National Go-
vernment, sent off on his own responsibility the
greater portion of his corps (about 250 men) to
Igolomia, a village about 20 miles to the east of
Cracow, on the Vistula. This was the beginning of
the last Cracow campaign, and it led to a rout,
which would have been more disastrous had it been
less sudden and less complete. Nevertheless, a por-
tion of the Mieroslawski corps contrived to bury
their arms in the Kingdom before recrossing the
Galician frontier. Mieroslawski himself had not
yet taken the field, but was waiting to superintend
the departure of his last companies. If the Russians
had also waited all might have gone well; but
knowing, as hundreds of persons in Cracow knew
that an expedition had started for Igolomia they
prepared to meet it, and, concentrating an over-
powering force near the threatened point, found no
difficulty whatever in repelling the Poles, almost
before they had thought of attacking. At the
frontier post of Michalowice, about six miles from
Cracow, there were only 20 soldiers on the day of
the fight, whereas the number generally there
amounts to from 200 to 300. Troops had also been
severalcollect proprietorsparts,edfromotherlivingbetween an
Igolomia and ad, curiously enough,
military station some 25 miles distant in the interior
took refuge in Cracow the very day that the expe-
dition was to start. They were under the impres-
sion that the Russians would be beaten, and would,
according to their custom, burn, plunder and massacre
in the course of their retreat. But, on the contrary,
the Russians were victorious, and committed no out-
rages whatever. I believe all the atrocities of which
they have been guilty were perpetrated by them
after unsuccessful attacks or disappointments of
some kind. In these instances they have vented
their rage, sometimes on prisoners, sometimes on the
wounded lying on the battlefield, sometimes even
on the dead.
The second of the recent defeats was that of
Miniewski and Nullo, with the Zoaaves and the
Franco-Italian company, near Olkusz. Here again
the Russians were quite prepared for their visitors,
and assembled in due time and in great force to
receive them. It would have been strange had it
been otherwise, for the departure of the Zouaves
from Cracow was quite a public affair, and their
friends went to see them off, and parted from them
in the plain of Wola just outside the city, as though
they had been starting on some expedition recog-
nised and encouraged by the State. The Poles say
there were Russian spies in the corps, which is pos-
sible enough, but without that some account of the
march of the Zouaves would have been sure to reach
the enemy. Besides the spies who enlist in insur-
gent regiments, there are resident spies in Cracow,
and there are the Gallician peasants, who are always
willing to give information to the Russians about
the insurgents, and never to the insurgents about
the Russians. The " Zouaves de la Mort" did not
quite justify their melodramatic title at their fight,
near Olkusz. They neither gave death, nor did
they in large numbers receive it. I believe they
Lad scaro,7!:7 any chnice but to cross the frontlet—
that is to say, their position would have been hope
less if they had remained in the Kingdom opposed
to a force which they could not possibly overcome.
At the same time, it is admitted by every one that
the frontier is a great temptation to inexperienced
troops, who, if they find themselves engaged in an
altogether unequal struggle, have a very easy way
of getting out of it. The most lamentable thing in
the battle of Olkusz was the loss of Colonel Nullo,
the celebrated Garibaldian chief. His horse had
been shot and had fallen with him, and he was
being raised by his men when he was himself struck
in the breast with a rifle bullet. He died calling
upon the Italians to rush forwards, and they obeyed
the order, and avenged him in the most heroic man-
ner—sacrificing themselves, but also killing an im-
mense number of Russians. The grief caused among
the Italians by the death of Nullo is said to have
been most heartrending, and it attracted universal
attention in the midst of the battle. They called
out his name, sobbed, shrieked, and by a general
from Zabierzow,
impulse rushed upon the enemy, when they for the
arecrothss
most part met the same fate as their leader:
The third repulse of the :nsurgents took place at
arithfievceoumni and
country)
sy)from Cracow
aSbieoeuit nthetreeme(
the first station on the Cracow-Vienna Railway.
Sice is a frontier village, and hundreds of insurgents
had scarcely entered it when they were driven out
again. About 120 laid down their arms on re-
crossing the frontier and surrendered to the Aus-
trians, who were waiting for them, and who had
watched the combat from the beginning.
Against these disadvantages T may mention a
great victory gained by Jszioranski in the province
of Lublin. Three hundred Russians were left on
the field, and buried by the Polish general. The
insurgents lost 50 killed, and about the same nuna
bee wounded.

April 8.
Fugitive insurgents continue to arrive, and before
to-morrow morning it may be expected that all who
had left Cracow for the kingdom during the last few
days, and who have escaped the Russian bullets,
will be on this side of the frontier again. The num.
ber of killed it is impossible to ascertain. The most
desperate fighting seems to have been done by the
Franco Italian company, under the immediate orders
of Nullo ; and one of the foreign officers, who has
just found his way back to Cracow, declares out of
a band of 30, 26 were left on the field of battle.
Other companies stood the first discharges of mus-
ketry well enough, but broke and fled directly ar-
o f various
etrest
ed ; and, as usual, kinds with their
etiolmlepryanwieass,
composed
posed of students, sons of proprie-
ought against them. At Sice three
servants, kept up a very unequal contest for nearly
three andhou r
s gentlemen
before
they ey r
the loss in men of education and position has been
out of all proportion with that sustained by the great
body of the insurgents. The workmen have often
fought quite as well as the members of the nobility,
and the peasants have on many occasions done won-
ders with their sithes. As for the servants, they
have not only followed their masters faithfully,
but as a rule have preceded them—in so far that
they took up arms before them, and really proved
that they had more of the Don Quixote than of the
Sancho Panza element in their composition. But
a certain number of servants without places and
workmen without work enlist in every detachment
that goes forth from Cracow, and these persons have
no scruple in availing thenaseives of the security of
the Austrian frontier as soon as they find themselves
at all hard pressed by the Russians. Of course, too,
the men who Lold out the longest are those who
would feel most keenly the misfortune of being
beaten ; and it may be fairly said that the loss of
50 men on the side of the Poles is a greater loss to
Poland than that of many hundreds on the Russian
side is to Russia.

It
isreported vperrelpared for the proprie-
good authority, that
tors of the Kingdom of Poland to sign, in which
they are to state whether they are for or against
printed
been
the Russian Government. If they declare against
will be published, and
theth e
R insurrectioneeeieh
Governmenttheir nameswill maintain that the
most influential class in the country is on its side.
If, on the other hand, they Pronounce against the