The Sun.
London, England, 1854-11-10 00:00:00

RUSSIAN TACTICS.

formidableebseesepogei,.
know whether the assault of the town
c; The generals in-chief," writes a French officer,
(t do not yet
possible or not ; for not only ara the forts under-
mined, the houses also, and the streets are furnished
behind which there are batteries of
with barricades,
inwiilnlebde,
I
cannon loaded with grape. 'We must, therefore, calcu-
latethe probable loss of 15,000 men if we storm this
place. The enemy had intended to push the
army into, a corner from which it could not
besieging army
if possible, to catch it between the relieving
army which is still in the field and the batteries of the
town. For that purpose a Russian corps d'armee of from
30,000 to 35,000 Ellen are on our rear ready to attack
us, and in the event of our being forced to retreat,
should be caught between their fire and that of the town.
But from the beginning this was foreseen, and strong re-
doubts have been constructed on the points commanding
the back of the town (at a distance of two leagues),
which will keep the Russians at a respectful distance,

for with 50,000 men we can in this position make good
our ground against more than 100,000 men. For this
purpose the army has been divided into two parts—the
besieging army, and the army of the reserve and defence.
Our general-in chief is a very able man, and the army
has the utmost confidence in him."
WHAT'S TO BECOME OF US

I cannot help asking myself sometimes, what is to be
the Jesuit of all this--what is to become of us after the
taking of Sebastopol ? For, presuming the place taken,
after we have got in there will be no possibility of re-
treating for our army. The winter is coming on ; the
communications by sea will become very difficult, or,
more correctly speaking, impossible. Consequently,
the supplies for the army will become a matter of the
greatest difficulty, and I fear we shall find ourselves
in a very false position. Where are we to take up
our winter quarters ? Sebastopol is at the present
moment nothing but a large quarry of stones. Or
shall we go to Sinope, or Constantinople ? The Black
Sea is in winter very dangerous ; and even for the mere
embarkation of such an army, with all its materiel, the
danger is not a slight one.

THE BELLEROPHON IN ACTION.
We were sometime picking up a position, but at last
we anchored head astern, within 900 yards of the heavy
fort. We opened fire, and kept it up capitally ; our
rigging suffered a great deal, our mizen topsail yard,
fore and main topmast were shot through ; the two
latter are now of course entirely useless ; we shall
get them down to-day. We had been firing about
two, hours when a red-hot shot came in close to where
I was, and set us on fire. We lowered the ports,
rigged the 'engines, and put it out in ten minutes. They
got our range so exactly, and fired with such precision,
that we were obliged to slip our cable, and shift our
berth. Two shells came through the main deck, burst,
and killed three men and wounded five. A shell also
burst in my quarters, but luckily only wounded one man.
We caught fire a second time on the main deck, but it
was sooh put out. We hauled off at 6.15, and anchored
where we were before, off the river Katcha. Our hull
was hit from about 15 to 20 times ; our largest boat (the
launch) was sunk ;we towed her astern. We have
four men killed and fifteen wounded. Foster, one of
our midshipmen, is so severely wounded that we fear
he cannot live. A shell burst close to him. He was
a particular friend of mine. I shall feel his loss
greatly. Our firing throughout was beautiful. The
admiral made signal, " Well done, Bellerophon ! " We
were the closest in of any ship. I had four shot at the
forts. We silenced two forts. The Albion suffered
tremendously. She wag obliged to haul off. The Retri-
bution has lost her mainmast. The Sanspareil was once
on fire, and lost one mid., 10 men killed and 30 wounded.
I do mot know the damage of any ether ships yet, but
in my next you shall know more. We have got a great
deal of work—repairing damages ; two of our guns are
disabled; our wheel is completely smashed. We gave
the forts a tremendous battering.

THE WAR ON THE DANUBE.

The Austrian Correspondence has the telegraphic
intelligence of the 4th from Jassy, that General
Count Coronini arrived there on the date of the
despatch, and was received with due ceremony.
The Austrian civil commissioner, Baron von Bach,
was expected on the following day ; and also the
commissioner of the Sublime Porte, Dervish Pacha.
A Berlin letter of the 6th says :
" The Austrian Government has given orders for
blowing up the rocks and clearing away the shoals
which impede the navigation of the Danube near
Orsova, and some officers of the enginners and 300
men have gone there from Semlin for that purpose.
They will begin by what are called the Rocks of
the Iron gate, which only have a passage of about
200 paces to the river. Austria had proposed to
effect this operation in 1840, but the Porte then
refused to acquiesce in it.

A Galatz correspondent of the Presse says it is
rumoured at Tultscha and Isatchka that the Rus-
sians will probably soon leave the Dobrudscha.
This is a matter of course, if the Allies should
succeed in taking Sebastopol, for then the Do-
brudscha would be altogether untenable for the
Russians. The Russian commandant at Isatchka
is reported to have announced that he had orders
from St. Petersburg to allow neutral vessels to
trade in the Lower Danube, but this has not been
officially notified at Galatz, and is no doubt untrue,
as there are several Greek ships at Ismail, and
these have not left that place.
A letter from Jassy states that the Moldavian
Government has issued a decree, according to
which the police and other authorities are to come
to an understanding with the commanders of the
Austrian troops on everything connected with the
maintenance of order, public security, dic. It is
thought that the object of this order is to limit the
powers of the Austrian military commanders. It
appears that the military chiefs and the Turkish
authorities do not perfectly agree together.