The Sun.
London, England, 1854-08-02 00:00:00

TACTICS OF l'Ar; RUSSIANS.

A letter from Warsaw, of the 25th ult., in the
• Ost Deutsche Post of Vienna, says :—" It is certait,
that new orders have reached Prince Gortschakof
from St. Petersburg to withdraw his troops in :f
north-eastern direction, following the course of tin,
A uta, the first stations heitilr Vrestie, Slobosie
and Salt!. It is consequently certain that tin
Russians will not accept a battle offered to them.
Tile disposable troops in .Poland have received
orders to march towards the South. Titere remain
at Warsaw only the number of men necessary foi
the service of the citadel. The last assemblages of
troops on the Northern frontier of Gallica have
been carried more to. the South, and are at present
to oplete. Prince Gortschakoff has 950 pieces of
is .non and 200,000 men under his orders."

The German Journal of Frankfort contains p
letter from St. Petersburg of the 22d ult., whit),
says:--'" The corps of Orenburg has been put in
movement. The fortresses of Aralsk, Uralsk..
Orenburg, the fort Perowski, the forts Nos. 1,2,
and 3, that of Karsbutak, and that of Nowo-
Petrowski are subjected to a severe inspection.
The garrisons have been reinforced and replaced
by others. A part of these corps can in case 01
need be employed on the theatre of war in Um
west."

LETTER FROM. SILISTRIA.
We find the following interesting detail iu a
sini
works..
ba itdPt e x letter
e andr noetrenches
d there July n
cBh of the fortress, and Up
. I. have just come to Silistria,
es which the Russians raised
against them. The first impression on my mind
was, and the chief impression still is, one of ex-
treme wonder. liow was it possible that such a
Place could resist, even for a couple of weeks, the
and examined
ni
assaults of a 9 large
and well-disciplined army of
80,000 men . The Turks have made of Silistria what
the European engineers never intended it to be—a
place of great strength, fit to repulse the attack o
divisions of infantry, and to defy the destructi
powers of numerous batteries of enormous
strength. To take Silistria, a third-rate fortress,
the Russians, mustering on the whole 80,000 met,
ou either bank of the Danube, lay two month-
before Silistria, and bombarded that fortress for
thirty. nine days. In the course of that time they
threw 50,000 shot and shels. They had 16 batte
ries on the islands of the Danube, coinmandi►►:,.
the water-side, the 'weakest of all the weak point:
of Silistria. They stormed almost every (Abet
day with large storming columns of sixteen batta
lions, and always led fresh troops into the fire,
while the besieged had to repel these attacks with
the same troops that fought and bled in the previ-
ous encounters. And for all that, at the end of 30
days, the Russians, after having two of their gene
rals killed and one wounded, were compelled t,
raise the siege, Without having gained possession of
a single
glut—without having established them
selves, even for a day, in any one of the en
trenchments3 and without carrying off a baske
even front that A; ab Tabia against which thei
chief assaults had been directed. The Aral
Tabia is a mere sandhill, open at the gorges
surround.-d by a small ditch, and inward by
earth baskets with embrasures for six pieces o;
artillery. Of these, four were always cousidereo
to be silenced by the heavy fire of the Russian bat-
teries, and there was hardly a day when more than
two guns were Liebeg worked in the Arab Tabia.
The gallantdefenders of this entrenchment—Turk
ish artillerymen formed in the school of Genera,
Rutshkowski and Captain Wendt, supported by-
ArnoutS and Arab sharpshooters—held out to the-
last amidst an incessant shower of shells, balls, and
bullets, which literally rained down upon them.
The troops, that had no space to move in the Tabia,
and the small ditch at its left flank, lay in holes
which they had dug into the earth, waiting anti:
their turn came to advance and belabour the Rus
sians. The artillery of the Tabia did good execu
tion, especially when loaded with grape and cards-
ter; it poured its contents at a deadly vicinity int,.
the ranks of the storming columns. Bat what
chiefly arrested the progress of these columns was
the incessant and well-aimed musketry fire which
the Arnouts and Arabs kept up from the battery,
and their ditch. They singled out the officers, and
thus spread consternation among the ranks of the-
RUsSiaTIS. Still the enemy forced their way more
than Once into the battery and the ditch ; but on,
each occasion the Arabs and Arnouts, returning to
the char,-e, expelled them again, and even pursueo
thetu into their own trenches.
The town of Silistria, itself, exposed to the fire
from the Russian batteries, is in a lamentable con-
dition. Tuere is scarcely a house but has had a
shell through its roof, or a couple of round balls
having split its sides, and forced their way through
and through. The mosques and public buildings
are in part unroofed; the church, which the Em-
peror Nicholas built fur the Christians of Silistria,
has been burnt by his own artillery. The streets
fire full of large holes, where the bombs forced

their way into the ground, and the pavement is
torn up and the stones strewed about with the ex-
plosions. Of course, the inhabitants of the town
were not safe in their lath and plaster houses,
which were about the worst places they could be
in. They dug holes in their gardens and yards,
covered them with rafters and layers of earth, and
they lived, an extemporised nation of troglodites,
and quaking with fear at night when the bombs
and rockets illumined the sky, and the shells fell
and burst in every direction around them. Con-
sidering the heaviness and frequency of the Rus-
sian fire, the list of eventualities is very small. The
besieged had 500 killed on the spot, and 630 wounded.
A great many of the wounded died afterwards, for
all their wounds, especially those from the 'conical
balls of the Minie rifles, are very severe. No
account could be kept of slight casualties,
as the men never gave in, or reported their wounds,
if they could by any means keep on their legs.
The Russian losses are far more severe, and on
a moderate computation have been estimated at
12,900. They lost two generals—Selwa,n, who was
killed in an assault, and Schilders, who died after
wounds he received. Prince Gortschakoff himself
was wounded—whether dangerously or not is not
known in Silistria. The reports of the spies on his
Serene Highness's condition were confused and
contradictory. The Russians had made about 12
miles of lines and trenches round the town, in
which they established their batteries and collected
their forces previous to the assaults. All the
trenches are deep, large, and comfortable, with broad
steps, leading up, and in the flanks. The highest
credit is due to the Russian engineers for the
solidity, and, I might almost say, the finish of their
earthworks. Vaults, with divans made of earth,
are dug out at the most interesting spots, to serve
as resting-places for the generals, on their rounds
through the trenches. The last graves dug in
the hurry of departure are close by, and,
from their extent, show that the losses in the last
Clays of the siege must have been severe. The last
of the dead were buried with great carelessness. I
saw arms and legs sticking out of the graves, and
actually lying on them. The earlier graves of the
Russians, near their chief camp, show that the for-
mer burials were conducted with more care and
decency. The graves were well covered with earth,
and no traces of defunct mortality remain. The
camp itself must have been splendid. The Russians
nave done there what they never, by any chance,
do in their own country—they haVe dug wells and
made roads, and excellent roads too. The tents of
the generals must have been perfect palaces, the
traces on the ground give such indications of size
and roominess.