New-York daily tribune., 1854-09-04
TIE CAPTURE OF BOMARsUND.

| tuDOOltu IN tie NtUfhshh Olli }
TIE CAPTURE OF BOMARsUND.
The allied armies have at length begun 10 act.
| They bsvetaken Bomarsund. On the Sd or 18th ult,
the French troops aud British marines were
landed on the island of Aland; on the 10TH the
place was invested; on three succeeding days the
| batteries were erected and armed on the lith
the FIRE was opened; on the 18th the two round
towers were taken by storm, one by the French,
the other by the English; on the 10th, after
short engagement in which the allies lost very
few men, the large casemated fort surrendered.
| This short way of proceeding certainly looks
rather spirited. From all the information We
possessed, it was 10 be expected that regular
siege, with at least one parallel and about fort
night Of open trenches, would be necessary to
reduce tie place Even The London Tunes
which for a long time had talked in way as il
the allied infantry had but to charge the stone
walls with the bayOnet in order to make them
crumble, had to admit, that after all siege was
inevitable, and that this tedious operation would
probably lasha fortnight.
| Ii, then, the attack has been brought to sue
uent, aud on the sixth day after breaking ground,
the natural inference is that the besiegers must
h;ve found far less difficulty than they expected.
F.. hat it was that facilitated the attack, We Of
course can merely guess until the detailed sc-
/ counts Of tie siege arrive; but there are many
circumstances which may have operated in their
favor. A considerable number of the garrison
]
| They certainly were not yery much inspired with
| Russian patriotism, and if the reports from de-
serters may be trusted, they were even resolved
not to fight if they could help it. The inhabit-
ants of the leland appear TO have received the
allies, soob as they saw they were about to at
tack Bomarsund seriously, as deliverers from
! the Russian yoke and must have given them all
kinds of information and assistance. But the
main point after all, must have been something
very defective in the construction Of the fortress
itself. As no ground plans of it are to be had
and all our knowledge Of it is derived from views
and sketches, and from non-professonal, (at least
as far as engineering is concerned) descriptions,
which are necessarily very vague, and as both
views and descriptions are of a somewhat con-
| ficting nature in the details, we cannot
pretend 10 state where the defect lay
To Judge from the sketches, however, the two
round towers flank each other by their fire in
certain degree but as in every round fortifcation
the guns must have a radiating position, and
their fire must be exceedingly eccentric the
the smaller the fort, and with it the number of
guns, the greater becomes the eccentricty and the
less efectual is the FIRE. Montalembert, there
fore, took great care not to propose the employ
ment Of such towers unless this eccentricity was
eounteracted by the strong support which each
tower would receive from its neighbors on the
right and left and from the main fortress in the
rear. If FIVE or six such towers could concentrate
their fire on one point, the fire would then be-
come as concentrie and eiectual as it would be
eccentric and weak before. Montalembert be-
sides, knew very well that in the last stages Of
siege, whenever il comes 10 storming, infantry
FIRE is the most effectual that can be brought to
bear Oh the sssailants. Therefore, beside the
eOntriysnees in his towers for admitting infantry
defense, be generally connected the separate tow
ers by sort Of covered way or trench, not for
safe communication only but also for infantry fire.
What such trench can do We have just seen
atArab Tabiass where the whole hanking defence
was confined to such trench, and where the
Russians were driven back, time after time by
mere handful of Arnauts. Finally, Montalembert
tried to make his towers entirely safe against
coup de maiz. lie surrounded them With ditch.
with acovered way and sometimes considered them
merely as the rtdHit, or last reserved position in
large, strong redOubt. This was bis maturest
plan, and evidently the best. 1t has been adopted
with more or 'ess alteration in almost all recent
Publications wh4re the smaller towers Of Mont
slembert were adopted. Beside these difficulties
Of access he has the whole of the lower story or
cellar Of the tower arranged for infantry defense
in very ingenious way.
Now, in every one Of these respect. the Rus.
slams appear to have omitted important features.
The time occupied BY the preaching FIRE, twenty