LATEST EUROPEAN INTELLIGENCE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume V, Issue 266, 19 May 1855, Page 8

LATEST EUROPEAN INTELLIGENCE.

By the Zingari, which arrived at Lyttelton, on Thursday last, we hare received Wellington and Australian papers. The latter furnishes a few days later intelligence from England, the most important of which will be found below, extracted from the Sydney Empire, of the 18 th ult. The Australian mail was brought to Wellington by the William Alfred. Sydney, May 18</t, 1855. By the arrival of the steam ship Yarra Yarra at midnight, we have received news from England to Jan. 24, which was brought to Melbourne by the immigrant ship Frederick (the vessel spoken by the Telegraph at Port Philip Heads). The following summary is compiled from our Melbourne contemporaries. The sum of the later intelligence from the seat of war is stated, with much truthfulness, by the Melbourne Herald as follows :—" Sebastopol has not fallen, and peace is not concluded. Everything, however, is proceeding at the seat of war with the fiercest activity, and the most obstinate perseverance. The French are ready on their side, and the English have nearly completed theft- third parallel. Three hundred pieces of artillery, of the heaviest calibre, besides mortars aud a vast nuinher of smaller guns, will soon be ready to discharge a storm on the devoted eiiy, such as, we are assured, will not leave one stone upon another of the buildings within the fortifications. The military works themselves, being bombproof, will have to be reached in the usual way, but this of course can be done to a certaintyj whenever the allied commanders desire it; whenever the rest of their task is completed, and they think the stronghold of the enemy is ripe for perdition. When the whole city is in flames, and the Pmssian force is sufficiently exhausted and disorganised to invite the attack, a breach is to be effected, and the allied armies are to enter, amid the salvos of at least one thousand pieces of artillery, including their own, those of the enemy, and ihe co-operating fleets. " This is the picture drawn by the more sanguine and enthusiastic correspondents of the Lmvlcm press. But there are many drawbacks to be made, from these calculations of infallible success. The invisible enemy is at work in our camp ; and the ravages of disease and death continue to h e so frightful, that the wonder is, how the army can be preserved from a fatal demon;isation. The horses have nearly all disappeared, through absolute starvation,' from the iujj.')-siitiltty of bringing up forage in the ab-senc-of roads; and of the men, fifty, on the ay(.;•;, go, die daily, whilst of those who remain, one ■invd are totally disabled from sickness. JNot--.-ithsianchng all this, every duty is per-ioruM-d with the strictest punctuality and a cool galiomry that win the constant admiration of our Allies. The trenches are always manned, tbe s i iokets kept, and the Minie directed with a sleep :ess vigilance and a deadly precision, agau:<st the embrasures of the enemy; whilst

every roan in the allied armies looks forward to the day when the assault is to be made, with an eagerness that is the guarantee and presage of victory. ''The Russians are evidently preparing: for the worst. They are multiplying their earthworks, and doubling their batteries, in face of the allies; but they are at the same time, forming a bridge of boats, connecting the side of the harbour which is besieged with the north shore as if to secure the opportunity of escape, at the last moment ; and they are bringing down to the Crimea such immense bodies of men, from all parts of the empire, as will render it a perfect miracle for us to retain our conquest alter we have gained it. They are fortifying the isthmus of Perekop, and are laying the whole south of Russia, the greatest food producing country in Europe, under contribution to supply their commissariat. Fresh levies are ordered throughout the empire. Poland is garrisoned in every corner, and the frontier of Austria is threatened on its whole length with armies, which may well account for the timid movements of the Cabinet of Vienna. On the other hand, France and England are throwing reinforcements into their camp, and the Turks have sent to the Crimea their greatest commander, Omer Pacha, and the only body of troops they have capable of fighting. The Turkish soldiers are just what their officers make them, and Omer Pacha, with 40,000 of those men who gained so many victories over the Russians in the plains of the Danube, will be no trifling addition to the allied forces. He has himself arrived at Balaklava, and his forces are being lauded at Eup.ttoria, where it is expected that a desperate attack will be made upon them by the Russians under Liprandi, who is despatched with 40,000 men, for that purpose. The same troops who defended Silistria will do their duty at Eupatoria, with this advantage, that they will have the co-operation of 6000 French and English, and of the allied fleets." With reference to the prospect of peace, and the interests of Russia in that issue, the Daily Nevis says:—"Amongst the best informed circles, political and mercantile, the opinion is that Russia sincerely desires peace to predominate. The condition of the Russian army is said to be deplorable. Again, from St. Petersburg, we are assured that the Czar is hard up both for men and money. He is said, moreover, to feel acutely the isolation in which he is placed, after having been so long accustomed to the deferential attention of the European courts. Lastly, it is reported that the Empress, who is rapidly ] sinking, is importunate in her entreaties that he will put a stop to the effusion of blood. All these things are represented as having contributed to dispose the Emperor to lend an ear to pacific councils." A Berlin letter in the Gazette de Cologne says :—" We learn from a good source that the Prussian government has, in a decisive manner, advised the Russian cabinet to conclude an immediate peace; intimating that any longer delay would not be tolerated much longer \v the States to which the war has not yet extended." The French and English ambassadors at Vienna, had forwarded couriers to their respective Governments, in order to procure authority to entertain certain proposals of Prince Gortscbakoff. The Turkish ambassador had received an intimation that he might be called upon to assist at the conference, in consequence of the point at which affairs had arrived. The silence of the Moniteur and the semiofficial journals of Paris was regarded as an indication that the Government'did not expect any satisfactory results from the Vienna negotiations. The reference made by the Emperor in his speed), addressed to the Imperial Guards, as to planting their eagles upon the walls of Sebastopol, is also not taken in a pacilic sense. The Austrian Government had issued a confidential circular to the federal conns to the effect that the late pacific declarations of Russia made it expedient to suspend any such measure, so that for the present no motion for mobilisation would he made at Frankfort. The Moniteur says, on the subject of the operations of the forces in the neighbourhood of Sebastopol, at the latest date :— " We hiive received letters from Balaclava, daled Ist January, announcing that the Russian column which was at Kama™ in front of Balaclava had been driven out by the English troops. lhe Russians burnt their provender before evacuating the village."

The Brigade of Guards has received a reinforcement of 600 fresh men within the last fortnight, yet now the whole effective strength of the three regiments is, I believe, only 1,150. Had not the reinforcements arrived, this, which was the finest brigade in the service, would have rendered about 500 serviceable men. In other corps the mortality has been even greater. I am well aware that ajarge per eentage must always be allowed for the accidents and hardships of a campaign, yet I think if any one will take the trouble to compare the number of troops which have left England with the number who are now actually serving there, they will find that the mortality in this expedition exceeds by about 5,000 that of the most disastrous campaign, even including Walcheren. The causes of this are sufficiently obvious to all who are not here. Bronze men would have sunk under the work, and the complete and incessant privation. In England, groom, or fanner, would have been thought insane who exposed his cattle to half the privations which our poor troops have been compelled to undergo unnecessarily. I say unnecessarily, for all our disasters have arisen not only from the neglect of the most common and easily adopted precaution, but actually irom the hindrance of them when they would have been adopted by others. It will now, I suppose be said, that it never could have been foreseen that our being always wet and cold, and living entirely on salt pork and biscuit, would get the scurvy, though it was spoken of everywhere as a thing which must occur, even as late as the end of October last. Here we are now at the commencement of January, with the scurvy rife among us and nothing done. Twenty thousand pounds judiciously expended in the purchase of fresh meat and* vegetables two mouths ago would have kept our troops healthy. Now it will require nearly £100,000, and even from this the loss from the want of these timely preventitives will be little short of 10,000 men. Among the other projects for promoting the comfort of the army in the East is one from M. Soyer, thf> celebrated cook, who says that great complaints having been received of the want of facilities for cooking the food of the soldiers, he has contrived a moveable kitchen, whereby three or four persons may cook the food of one thousand. The following is a description of the above kitchen : —The carriage is made of sheet iron, weighing, with water, "fuel, &c., little more than one ton. The lower part consists of a circular steam-boiler, and the upper part of an oven. Over the oven are placed the various pans containing the rations required to be cooked by steam, and on each side is a hanging shelf, which will also hold steam saucepans ; in front and round the driver's seat is a reservoir for water, and a place to hold the condiments, &c. The plan of working it would be to draw it near a stream or reservoir of water —if brackish or muddy it does not matter,— there fill the boiler and reservoir, and remove it to any convenient spot. The fuel may consist of wood, coal, turf, &o. Within one hour after the fire is lighted the steam would be up, and the oven hot, and with one six feet long and three feet wide, rations for one thousand men could be cooked by biking and steaming in about two hours, and the apparatus moved on again, or it would cook whilst on the march, if on an even road. Its advantages are—saving of time, labour, men, and food, and the certainty that the men could get their food propeny cooked. The cost of each apparatus would not exceed £100.