New-York daily tribune., 1854-09-04


ture not usually seen in fortfcations liz
may, therefore, be presumed that the towers were
taken By scaling the soldiers entering through
the embrssures, and by bursting open the gsIeS'
This presuppeses very Intellectual hankins me-
snd as il appears that the large fort has no osE
teres in the rear to assist the towers, each tower
was fanked By the FIRE of the other only. Ihls
fault is the greater. IS from the sketches II woud
appear that the ground was very uneven, Allow
Ing storming parties to creep up, covered ey 80
cidents of ground, to pretty close proximity.
Then. 10 Judge from the sketches and from the
event, preparations against coup de main must
have been altogether neglected. There is no trace
of redoubt thrown up around the towers and
the redoubts which the Russians had constructed
in front of them were abandoned almost without
resistance. There WAS il is said, ditch around
each tower; but it must have been very shallow
with no contrivances for infantry defense within
il. The towers once taken. the larger tort,
which they command, was necessarily at the
mercy of the Allies. 1t consequently fell, very
likely with no more than 4 show of resistance.
Judging these Notifications from what this short
siege makes them appear to be, 1t would almost
seem that their constructors never calculated
upon a serious attack on the land side. They
must have built the towers with view merelyfo
resisting the attacks of parties of marines which
at the most could not exceed couple ofthousands,
and not muster in sufficient strength either to at
tempt an assault or TO conduct to its close regu-
lar siege. Consequently the waterfront was the
strongest. and the land. front formed by the
towers, more show than reality. And yet the re-
suit would almost show that party OF l'OOO
marines might have stormed the towers many
months ago. and thereby reduced the main fort
As TO the storming itself it must have been
done very well by both French and English.
The English are well-knOwn stormers; IT is their
fsvorte maneuver, and hardly ever fails them.
The French prefer TO charge body of troops In
the open field; and in sieges their mathematical
turn of mind prefers the methodical march OF
that eminently French science which Vauban in
vented. But the ardor Of British veteran seems
TO have driven them on. There was at Bomar-
sund an old Colonel Jones-the man who i'm
proved upon Vauban, when, with hardly half
sufficient means, and against brave and deter
mined garrisons, at Badsjos, Ciudsd Rodrigo aud
Saint Sebastian, he contrived TO shorten siege
by about one-third Of its prescribed Duration
Col. Jones is not q common engineer He does
not, like the rest of his profession see in siege
mere school festival in which the chief engineer
is under examination, and must prove before the
eyes of the army how far all the rules and regu-
lations of formal sieges and of Vauban's I" at.
"taque des places ortes" are retained and properly
arranged in his memory He does not think that
the whole army 10 there for the sake of the en-
gneers, to protect them while they exhibit their
tricks. Instead of this, Col. Jones is first
soldier, and then an engineer. He knows the
British soldier well, and knows what he
can trust him with. And the short de-
termined and yet unpretending way in which
Bomarsund was taken in half the prescribed
time is so much like the preaching and storm
ing of the Spanish fortresses that nobody but
old Jones can be at the bottom of 1t. Az to the
French, they could never have invented this way
of taking fortress. 1t goes against their grain;
it is tos blunt, too destitute Of manners and po.
iteness. But they could not contest the authority
Of the man who had tried his irregular way Of
taking fortresses upon themselves fifty years be-
fore, and found it to answer in every case.
And when they came to the storIning, they appear
not to have been behind the English in resolution.
IL is singular that the Russians, who have
prided themselves so much upon their storming
capacities, from Perecop and Otschakof down to
Warsaw and BlstritZ these Russans have been
repulsed in every assault upon field works, and,
Indeed, were not able, before Silistra, to reduce
a feldwor by a regular siege, and had to de-
camp without the fortress being relieved; while
on the other hand the very first act of the war
was the storming by the Turks of permanent
Russian fortifcatiOn-St. NicOai-while the cell
ebrated fortress Of BOmarsund has been taken by
assault almost without the honor of an open
trench. We must not forget to note that the
fleets appear not to have in any way efTectually
contributed to this victory. They seem, after
all to shun the neghborhood Of casemated bate
rles as much as ever.
This success of the allies, however, is of such
nature that it will very likely induce them to do
nothing more in the ensuing autumn. At all
events, the grand expedition to Seyastopol has
not yet sailed and few weeks more delay is
already promised. Then it will be too late, and
thus that repose and relaxation during the winter
which is so necessary after the fatigues of the
camp at Varna, will be secured to the heroes of
the allied forces
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