The Sun.
London, England, 1871-01-05 00:00:00

THE EVACUATION OF MONT AVRON.

In describing Mont Avron after the bombardment, the
special correspondent of . the Daily News at the Crown
Prince of Saxony's Headquarters thus writes from Clichy,
December 30th Working roundAoto the left, we
reached the crest of the hill on that ace of the plateau
which looks out on Montfermeil, and where the summit
is marked by the batteries. Once inside them, there met
our eyes one of the weirdest scenes that imagination could
conjure np. Ground ploughed with §jaells, embrasures
stove in, parallels all but obliterated, and yet not
a single cannon left behind. But if the French have
removed their cannon, they have left their dead. One
slides a:i l stumbles over a little ice puddle. The ice
blushes up rid in his face—it is frozen human blood.
Behind the batteries and inside the breastworks the dead
lie thick. Dead ! No man who has long followed this
war but must be so familiar with the aspect of stain
men that the original thrill and turn of the blood at
,he sight is a memory of the past at which he
all but smiles. But the terrible ghastliness of these dead
;ranscends anything I have ever seen or even dreamt of in
e shuddering nightmare after my first battlefield. Re-
,maber how they were slain. Not with the nimble
I 'llet of the needle-gun, that drills a minute hole
through a man and leaves him uudisfigured, unless it
has chanced to strike his face; not with the trenchant
re cut 'of the dragoon, not with the sharp stab
of the bayonet, but slaughtered with missiles of
terrible weight, shattered into fragments by ek:
plosions of many pounds of powder, mangled and torn by
massive fragments of iron. There lay behind one of the
embrasures a form perfectly headless—l suppose the
shell had struck the hapless being 'full in the face, and
carried head and throat in its fierce rash. The guillotine
could not have performed the operation more cleanly.
But what need to dwell in detail on such a topic ?
Let it suffice that there lay the unburied and
abandoned dead among the snow stained with
their blood, and with the depressions in those
ghastly faces turned up to the calm moonlight, drifted up
by the snowflakes which had fallen since they had beet
shot down. When will they be buried ? When will these
wan faces cease to look up into the eyes of the moon, in
silent but eloquent protestation against the institution
called war? When will the stray human fragments over
which one stumbles as he goes be gathered together
and their ghastliness be hidden beneath friendly
earth? Not yet. Men will not dig graves as if
they were blasting tunnels, and the earth is as hard as the
bowels of Mont Cenis, The corpses on Mont Avron
must lie there till a thaw comes. How long after it
would be rash to prognosticate. That gruesome group in
the camp here who had been sitting round the fire when
the shells came and burst in it and blew one and all of
them into the other world, must remain as it is—a
horrible mockery of conviviality, for a time at
least. To look at the group from a little distance one
would conclude that its members, lying or seated in a
circle, were .hobnobbing genially round a common pot or
eating out of one dish. Come nearer and look inside that
ring of squatting men, or what once were men. I care
nvt how inured you are to sights of horror, you will turn
away sick and scared from that circle of carnage.
Behind the batteries, besides the relics I have
alluded to, were found many evidences of the precipita-
tion with which the French had evacuated the posi-
tion. There were lots bf wine—we drank some of
it standing there among the dead—and piles of
loaves, which the Saxon soldiers skewered on
their bayonets. There were blankets, too, and
military saddles. Both in and about the camp lying fur-
ther back, there was a considerable quantity of rice,
and also many blankets, shoes, and soldiers'
knapsacks. Lumps of horseflesh lay about or
hung on cross-sticks. 'lnvestigations amongst the
tents and mud huts brought to light bottles of
rum and bags of peas. The ground was strewn with
Chassepots, and behind the batteries, as well as in the
battery magazines, 'were gunpowder bags containing each
a charge as well as many projectiles. The camp, and
indeed the whole of the plateau, bore numerous traces of
lengthened occupation. .The French are the beastliest
campers in the world, and they seem to have been excep-
tionally beastly in Mont Avron. Behind the camp lay
the little straggling village of Avron, still smoking
from the fire that raged in it during the
morning. Whether kindled by a Prussian shell
or by the last Frenchman I do not know.
How often during this month have I looked up at Avron
from these spots—at Avron hostile and dangerous ; and
now, here I looked down upon them from that very
Avron, with its fangs drawn, and not a French near its
summit. It may not be generally known that on the
morning of the 27th, the day we opened our fire, the
French asked for a day's armistice. As there appeared
no grounds for such a request, and many reasons against
granting it, it was refused.

THE GERMANS AND THEIR SIEGE WORKS.
The special correspondent of the Telegraph, writing
from the Headquarters at Versailles on Christmas Eve,
says :—Extraorditaly precautions have of late been taken
by the German commanders to prevent anybody not im-
mediately engaged in the execution of their plans from
observing the progress made in the construction of the
siege works ; and such impenetrable discretion has
been observed by the few people in authority
who really know what is to be done that, not being
in
.relation with supernatural influences, nor endowed
with the prophetic faculty, I am utterly unable to furnish
any definitive information about coming events. It is my
opinion that the attack upon Mont Avron, which has
turned out so brilliant a success, was the first in a series
of carefully planned offensive operations, having for their
primary object the expulsion of the French from all
the outworks constructed and occupied by them since
the completion of the investment ; and that the rest
of those operations will be undertaken each in its ap-
pointed order, and probably with more satisfactory re-
sults. lam also inclined to think that, in the course of
executing these operations, certain suburbs of the capital
will be subjected to bombardment—a measure of ex-
treme severity, designed to exercise a supreme
pressure upon the civil population of Paris, as
well as the town of St.- Denis; which may one
of these days make the unpleasant discovery that it
stands in much the same relation to Paris as did
the youthful Malagrowther, subsequently Sir Mungo,
to Prince James Stuart, sometime King of Great
Britain, France, and Ireland, when his Royal Highness
proved recalcitrant in the Latinities. I furthermore
believe that the buildings of the summit of Mont Valerien
will shortly be burned down—already the citadel. has
twice been stung within its enceinte by audacious Prus-
sian shells, pitched into it "by mistake ; " that
Reuil—in which is packed a good deal of French artillery
—Chatou, mid one or two other villages at present within
the French lines, will be knocked to atoms ere many days
shall have passed over our heads ; and that, in short,
every means of active annoyance within their power
will presently be adopted by the German comman-
ders in the hope of hastening the fall of Paris. Ido not
believe that they will attempt the impossible. What can
humanly be done by the forces at their command, I feel
assured they will do ; but they are far too wise men and
experienced soldiers to run any unnecessary risk, or
squander the precious material committed to their discre•
tion, becouse the Fatherland is angry and impatient of
further delay.

THE OPENING OF PARLIAMENT.—T Ile Guardian
seems to believe the Queen will certainly open Parliament
in person on the 31st inst., or 2nd proximo.

THE WEATHER.—The wind has again changed in
an eastern direction in the South of England, and there
was last night every appearance of continued frost. Tem-
perature continues to rise slowly on the Irish stations,
while a slight fall has occurred in most parts of the
east of England. Scarborough is 20 degrees colder than
Ardrossan.

A. SQUABBLE IN CHURCH.—New Year's day was
commenced in St. Ouen's Church, Jersey, by a squabble
respecting the playing of the organ. The churchwarden
of the parish had placed a lock on the instrument to pre-
vent its being played, pending the settlement of some
dispute concerning it. The rector had ord6red the lock to
be removed, and on the organist commencing to play on
Sunday morning, the churchwarden prevented the
" blower " from proceeding, and effectually stopped the
playing. After a protest from the rector, the service pro-
ceeded without the aid of the organ.

THE QUEEN'S CHAPLAINS.—The death is• an-
nounced of the Rev. John Vane, 8.D., one of her Ma-
jesty's chaplains. He was educated at Trinity College,
Cambridge. There are forty-eight Royal Chaplains, and
until within the last few years they received from the
Crown the annual payment of .£3O each. According to
late changes there will be 36 " Chaplains in Ordinary "
with salaries, and 12 "Honorary Chaplains in Ordinary"
without salaries. It is not unlikely that the Rev. B.
Morgan Cowie, or the Rev. Stopford Brooke, both of
will succeed to the vacant
whom are honorary chaplains,
chaplaincy in ordinary.
BREAKFAST. —EPPS'S COCOA.- -GRATEFUL AND COM-
FoRTING.—The very agreeable character of this preparation has
rendered it a general favourite. The Civil Service Gazette re;
marks :—" By alliorough knowledge of the natural laws which
govern the operations of digestion and nutrition, and by a
careful application of the tinesproperties of well-selected cocoa.
Mr. Epps has provided our breakfast tables with a delicately
favoured beverage which may save us many heavy doctors'
bills. Each packet is labelled—JAMES EPPS it CO., Homoeo-
pathic Chemists, London. Also, makers of Epps's Caeafdne, a
very inn evening beverage.—Advt.

OUR COT EMPORARIES---This Morning

THE ALABAMA QUESTION.
The Times remarks that, before the end of this month
the new American Minister will in all probability have
reached England, and by the time Parliament has fairly
set to work upon the active business of the session he
will doubtless have broached the substantive issues
of his mission to Lord Granville. The irritable
feelings which were prevalent three years ago
in the United States have in great measure sub-
sided. The disappointment which we, on the other
hand, suffered by the unexpected rejection of the
Clarendon-Johnson Convention has been healed by the
lapse of time. Around us we see the horrid realities of
war, the disruption of the European State System, the
palsied commerce of two great nations. Although the
United States are separated by a broad ocean from these
melancholy spectacles, they have only to look back a few
years to warnings scarcely less urgent and appalling.
In spite of angry politicians and thoughtless publicists,
England and America are two well convinced of
the unfruitful miseries of war to challenge
it rashly. Of course, the one nation as well as the other
cherishes its just pride, its dignified resentment of insult,
its resolution to repel dictation. But when intelligent
and high-minded statesmen govern affairs, either at
Washington or at Westminster, we may reasonably hope
that national susceptibilities will not be rashly wounded.
What is called " the Alabama Question" has
dragged its slow length along ever since 1863, when
Mr. Adams began to remonstrate against the negligence
of the British Government. More than once since then
we have had a glimpse of a satisfactory settlement, but
we have never hitherto reached a point at which we could
command a prospect morehopeful than that we have now
before us. General Schenck, representing the best and
most honourable section of the dominant party in the
United States, is probably one of the most useful repre-
sentatives America at this crisis could send to England.
We may be hopeful, lob ns trust, of a settle-
ment which, without compfonising our honour, may
satisfy all the legitimate claims of the United States.
On our side, we are well assured, there is nothing but
a desire to attain by fair concessions or frank allowances
the settlement of a foolish quarrel which has alienated
two great nations allied by blood and by intellectual sym-
pathies.