The Sun.
London, England, 1854-11-16 00:00:00

A RUSSIAN COUP DE MAIN.

On the night of the 20th the Russians attempted a coup
de main. About a hundred of them, all volunteers, arrived
by the embrasures in one of our batteries. The lieutenant
of artillery on duty, M. Clarin, cried out Qui wive ! and
received the answer, Nous sommes Anglais ; me tire: pas.
The next moment the Russians dashed forward. The
lieutenant, however, at once gave the order to his men to
fall on the assailants, and a band-to-hand contest ensued.
The Russians at last fled, leaving seven men dead, and four
taken prisoners, and amongst them an officer speaking
French perfectly well, and who died the day after of six
bayonet stabs which he received. The other three pri-
soners have stated that our mortars, in particular, do the
fortifications of the town much damage.

The Czar, I learn, says the writer of a letter at Marseilles,
is said to have commanded the garrison to hold out and dis-
pute every inch of ground to the last man ; and the later
information I shall now place before you will prove the
correctness of this report. But brat, as to the battle of
Balaklava :—On the morning of the 25th October, an army
commanded by General Luders, of not less than 35,000
men, attacked the outworks of the Allies, protected by
Tunisians, who were compelled to retreat. Immediately
General Bosquet's division and the English corps advanced
to meet the enemy. The engagement commenced with a
splendid cavalry charge, executed by the Cbasseurs
d'Afrique and the light cavalry of the English. Nothing
could be more brilliant ; the weight and metal of the
British cavalry was as imposing
as our own was impetuous.
The Russians retired in order. The victory was for tie
Allies. The English suffered most. Seen after two other
sorties were made from Sebastopol, both of which were
vigorously repulsed by the Allies, our enemies on each oc-
casion suffering immensely, whilst the loss on our side was
but trifling, considering the numbers engaged. The only
real disaster during these events has been the loss of a regi-
ment of cavalry, which I am sorry to say was nearly de-
stroyed from having advanced so as to come within the fire
of the Russian artillery. Here I must observe that the cavalry
force of the Allies is not by any means competent to gain per-
manent advantages over the clouds ofßussian horse, who can
outnumber us beyond all proportion. We want, too,
reinforcements of all arms. Remember, we have not only
to conquer, but to destroy

Forming 33,000
Artillery : 8 batteries, that is, 84 pieces.
Such were our forces, whereas to judge by the indica
'ions of the press and the depositions of the prisoners, as
well as by the data obtained from our own sources of in-
formation, the troops of the enemy must have nearly
attained the strength of 70,000 men.
"All the heights," says the Marshal, " were capped
with redoubts and formidable batteries." In reality the
whole was reduced to two simple 6paulements, one of
which was at our centre with 12 guns of position, the
other on our right flank with 10 light field pieces.
" Prince Menschikoff," says the Marshal, "left his
carriage. I have taken it with his portfolio and corres-
pondence. I shall profit by the valuable intelligence I
find in it." The following is the truth. Prince Mens-
chikoff lost no carriage, nor any correspondence belong-
ing to him. Every equipage belonging to head-quarters
had been previously taken to a place of safety. The only
capture that could therefore have fallen into the enemy's
bands was a clerk attached to head-quarters, who left
Sebastopol on the very day of the battle to rejoin the
prince. This clerk was the bearer of a certain number
of route papers in blank, and a few other papers of no
great importance. Nothing has been known hitherto re-
specting his fate. The probability therefore is, that it is
his capture that has occasioned the mistake.
The enemy's commanders professed to have lavished
the most prompt attention on our wounded. We do not
deny in any manner their humane feelings, nor their sin-
core wish to put them in practice. But it is publicly no-
torious that the enemy's army was without a sufficient
number of surgeons. His own wounded would very na-
turally have the preference before our own. Hence, it is
but too true that several of our wounded who remained
in the power of the enemy, rejoined our army during
the course of the following day, of the day after that,
and even of the fourth day after, without having hail
their wounds dressed. Among our soldiers who were
the most severely wounded and who remained on the
field of the Alma, 320 received no succour from the
enemy ; out of this number 70 contrived to drag them-
selves as far as Baktchi Serai, and the ()there were con-
veyed by ourselves to Simpheropol. Another very sad
testimony to the little care bestowed on our wounded is
the state of suffering and exhaustion those were in, who
were landed at Odessa by the English steamer Evans,
on the 16th (28th) of September. They were 353 in
number; having been carried, after the combat, to the
banks of the !Alma, they remained there for six days
without shelter, and almost without help ; a few of them
The following is andstraw instead of lint, which could but render their
an extract from a letter of' an officertherefore the • dat Odessa
of the 17th Lancers :
post, as, being always in momentary state worse. When ey arrive essa,
only had their wounds dressed, and even then with hay
almost all the wounds presented symptoms of gangrene,
"My dear Father,—As usual, lam hard pressed to say and by tho 23d of September (October 5), 31 of the
the
e had already succumbed.
being turned out, it is just as much as we have time to do The proportion of one French corpse to seven Russian
to get our horses fed and watered, and eat our own rapid dead bodies, admitted by Marshal Saint Arnaud, is also
h thelo alto
loss
000 f O
the men,
Frenchand among
isest
i.
" I fear that before you receive this letter y*ou will have
meals.i. lam at present commanding-officer of the 17th incorrect. According to the unanimous depositions of
men and horses fit for duty, and three officers. this
at 1,800 men. Ours, even according to the
heard some bad news of the light French official reports, would amount to 5,000 men. It
cavalry brigade. How- prisoners,
number
1 et
oh the
officers Eng English s;
is hence evident, that the real proportion is very different
ever, not to kee ou in
that lam p y suspense, I will begin by saying from the one assumed by the French commander.
the
safe and well in my own person, having come As for the Russian general and the five guns,
out from that gallant, brilliant (but, as all add, useless) taken by the French, as asserted by the letter pub-
charge, under a tremendous fire of all arms from front and lished in the Moniteur Universes, the fact is equally
flanks, and a perfect forest of swords anel lances
gs (his charger'
untoucheds
inexact' Excepting Generals Gozuinoff eni Stchel-
with only a sabre cut on poor old Sir Brig g's , k
ano
ff , both dangerously, wounded and left on the
l
head, just over the right eye. t' ' field of battle, there was no Russian general taken
"On the 25th about half-past prisoner. In so far as the guns are concerned
, five a.m., when about tothese was
only were abandoned. But even one of
file in from our usual morning parade, we heard the report twe:tr dismounted, and the other bad been previously
and saw the smoke of a gun from a Turkish redoubt, and spiked by our brave artillerymen.
soon perceived the Russians advancing, supported by heavy Lastly, Marshal Saint-Arnaud asserts that it was the
artiiicry, in ::amber believed to be about 20,000 infante ,lr that prevented his pursuing us. The
y want of Leo? a y
and 3,000 cavalry. truth is • that the enemy's cavalry did indeed try to attack
" At the first sight of them the Turks ' cut and rut
earnus and even to turn our right flank, but it was our kus-
-I"64ing
t 1194
gels,andthQ
AliniPaTh
quickly braugh wthat Weed it to retire.
-- - -

A letter from before Sebastopol, dated the 28th ult., in
the Semaphore of Marseilles, says :
When you receive this letter matters will be terribly
advanced, if not terminated. It is from a fear of pledging
myself to too much that I do not venture to affirm that all
is finished. The duty of the artillery will soon cease ; our
infantry will then have theirs to perform, and are all im-
patience to see their turn come round. The day before
yesterday a Russian column advanced towards Balaklava
near the heights occupied by the English, opposite ours.
Unfortunately, the English had entrusted these heights
and the redoubts which they had constructed to battalions
of Tunisians. These poor devils, at the approach of the
Russians, withdrew, leaving the redoubts in the hands of
the enemy. The English were magnificent in their display
of courage, but unfortunately they for a moment lost their
customary sang freid, and a regiment of Hussars got them-
selves cut to pieces by the enemy's artillery at the bottom
of a ravine, when pursuing a regiment of Russian Lancers.
The artillery of the Russians did not spare their own men
more than the English, firing on the general mass. Yes-
terday the Russians wanted to continue, but the English
drove them back with great loss. The weather continues
to be magnificent.