The Sun.
London, England, 1855-12-29 00:00:00

RUSSIA.

PLAN OF NEXT YEAR'S CAMPAIGN.
A letter has been received from Moscow, dated
Dec. 20th, which says :—lt was amusing enough
for an impartial observer to witness the excite.
ment that prevailed in this ancient capital of
Muscovy on the receipt of the Invalide with
General Mouravieff's despatches about the surren-
der of Kars : for the inhabitants of this city, in
their ignorance, firmly believe their favourite Mou-
ravieff—who belongs to the old Muscovite party—to
have achieved a most brilliant victory and covered
himself with glory, and cannot see *he difference be-
tween taking a fortress by storm and waiting pas-
sively at a distance till the garrison are obliged to
surrender for want of food. The Muscovite or war
party are loud in expressing their enthusiasm and
extolling the present Emperor's foresight and saga-
city at superseding Count Woronzoff and giving the
supreme command of the army in the Caucasus to
General Mouravieff, from whom they expect great
things. Their great object is now no other than to
get him the command of the army in the Crimea, vice
Prince Gortschakoff, and to effect this various in-
trigues are being spun and different important in-
fluences called into play, which have their ramifica-
tions at St. Petersburg amongst the very highest per-
sonages in the empire. In spite of the flaming
Imperial "orders of the day," so industriously
spread by the Northern Bee, and praising the state
of the army in the Crimea, it is no secret here that
the Czar was most deeply affected at what he saw
with his own eyes, and on his return here expressed
his astonishment that after the immense losses they
had sustained, and the almost incredible privations
to which the survivors were exposed, there should
be any army left at all.
The grand council of generals lately convoked at
St. Petersburg under the personal presidency of
the Emperor have settled the principles on which
the forthcoming campaign shall be carried on. St.
Petersburg and Moscow are to be fortified, and,
together with Warsaw, will form the three first-
class fortresses of the empire. General Todtleben
has arrived here, and, notwithstanding the extreme
rigour of the weather—the frost having set in here
with all the proverbial violence of a Russian winter
—may be seen every day, accompanied by his staff
of engineers, all wrapped up in bears' skins, sur-
veying the ground and fixing the poles to designate
the line of circumvallation, which will be com-
menced on the breaking up of the frost.
Besides this, other fixed principles of strategy
have been agreed on for the prosecution of the war,
though it must be confessed that as it is so essen-
tially a defensive war on the part of the Russians,
all these plans may be completely upset, or at all
events greatly modified, by any change in the sys-
tem of attack on the part of the Western Powers.
It is fully expected in Russia that next year the prin-
cipal seat of the war will be transferred to the north,
and the greatest exertions are making for an effi-
cient defence. For the safety of Cronstadt and Hel-
singfors no fears are entertained, as the experience
of the last two years has shown that the enemy are
not able to inflict much damage ; nor is it feared
that even if the fleets are increased by a couple of
hundred steam gun-hoats they could take either of
these strongholds unless with the co-operation of a
numerous and well-appointed army-on shi:fre. The
system of tactics resolved on by the groat council
of war may be summed up as follows :—The forti-
fication of St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kiew, War-
saw, and Nicolaieff ; secondly, tho concentration
of few but imposing armies ; and, thirdly, the
abandonment of all the minor places, so that Lie-
ban, Riga, and even Odessa, will be deprived of
regular garrisons, and left to their fate and the
tender mercy of the enemy.
The cold is so severe that several sentinels have
been found frozen to death in their sentry-boxes,
although they are relieved every half-hour.

THE BALTIC.
KIEL, Dec. 25.—We have already bad a return
of mild weather, and frost and snow have quite
disappeared. The upper portion of this bay,which
was a few days ago so completely frozen over that the
ordinary winter sledge ferry had superseded the one
generally occupied by boats between the opposite
sides, is now so far open again that the mail steamer
which arrived from Copenhagen this morning had
no difficulty in reaching her usual berth in the
harbour, and the regular communication between
the continent and the Danish islands has con-
sequently been re-established. It can scarcely
yet be e±pected that navigation should not again
be interrupted, but as it is always considered a
sure sign of the open parts of the upper Baltic
being open when; the bays here are free from ice,
there is good ground to believe that the intercourse
of the Prussian as well as the Swedish ports with
those of Russia will at this time be carried on
without any impediment, and indeed we already
know that in some quarters this is actually the
case, several vessels having arrived both at Bol-
deraa and Port Baltic with cargoes for Riga and
Revel, which had for some time been watching
their opportunity when the English and French
cruisers should have left the coast. A double
temptation is at present offered for such enterpriges,
for not only do those engaged in them derive
large profits from their importations of salt and
other comforts and necessaries, but they have an
almost equal advantage from the very favourable
conditions on which they are granted the privilege
of exporting rye and linseed, of which the stocks
in Russian ports are very large, and of which, as
the general exportation is prohibited, the proprie-
tors are glad to find any opportunity of disposing,

A letter from Cassel, in the Moniteur, says :--" M.
de Baumbach has just been named Envoy Extraordinary
and Minister Renipotentiary to the Emperor Napoleon.
The idea of the Elector in raising his legation at Paris
to the rank of a mission of the first class is considered as
an evident mark of his wish to be agreeable to the Em
peror Napoleon,"
TURKISH REFORMS.—Lieut.-General Stephen Lake.
man, with respect to the legal reforms in Turkey, says
that the present laws are very much on a level with the
morality of the Turkish population ; and if at present
you were to enact other laws, founded even on the
strictest principles of justice, they would be hut little
appreciated either by the servile Christian or haughty
Turk. A most favourable opportunity now presents
itself to supply in a great measure a remedy for this de-
plorable state of the Turkish population, and which
might, under proper management. be immediately °I,-
plied—namely, to enlist the Christians of Turkey in our
o
Contingent. Nothing would be so likely to raise those
people to a proper sense of their own dignity as the
manly pride engendered by being calledtoar:,ho hadsbya
Christian nation such as England. No Rayah
once fought in our ranks and experienced our impartial
treatment and justice would ever after allow himself to
be trampled on and brutalised by a Turk or any other
humea power.