OUR ARMY IN THE CRIMEA.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XIV, Issue 61, 27 October 1855, Page 4

OUR ARMY IN THE CRIMEA.

[From tho Special Correspondent of the Daily JVcics.]

Heights before Sevastopol," June 21.

As the ►hortness of llie interval between the re cent attempt at storming and the closing of tbe mail liajis only permitted of my giving you, in my l^t letter, such an outline of ilio fact 9 connected wnh that unfortunate affair as could be learnt d and put together in an hour or two, I may supplemrnt what I then communicated by Borne further detail*, and add a memorandum of what has since taken place. I have no reason to believe that my former hurried letter contained any material mac curacy; hut it was impossible, 60 soon after the mishap, to learn all the details, or the real causes \n which )be signal failure was io be attributed. \ The original plan of attack, as I mentioned in the letter of Monday, contemplated a joint English and French assault of the Malakhoff, which, a« commanding the Redan and forming the grand key to the whole net-work of redoubts and bat teries in front of the place, would, if taken, have at once rendered the former untenable, and placed the whole town nnri harbour at the mercy of the raptors. For reasons, however, which nobody can understand, this very sensible and apparently roost practicable design was abandoned, and the plan was changed into one of a simultaneous attack of the two great works — the Mnlakhoff being under* tnken by the French and the Redan by ourselves. The first manifest disadvantage of this arrangement was the spreading of our forces over a field of difficulties nearly double in extent, and enabling the enemy to bring a vast number of guns into play ■gainst v«, which, in the former case, could not have injured a man. To vastly enhance the chances of failure involved in this plan to ourselves, our whole attacking force, including sup* ports and everybody el»e, was limited to some 4,000 men ; whilst the French, with a much juster appreciation of the difficulty that fell to their share, told off 25.000 men. Of our handful again, a large proportion consisted of raw recruits, recently arrived to fill up the gaps in the regiments selected for tbe service— regiments (which, with one or two exceptions, have borne the whole brunt of out trench fighting, and suffered accordingly. This was done through no want of old soldiers, of whom tho third and fourth divisions could have furnished abundance— men who have been kept comparatively idle whilst their comrades of the light and second divisions have been worked like gallej'-'hres. Sir George Brown, I believe, is to he thanked for this t election ; anxious as he was to gain freih laurels for his own command, though he wtll knew the untried materiel of which so large a proportion of its strength is comnosed. I hnve already mentioned that the 23rd Regiment had been chosen to lead the attack, nnd that, through s similar motive of mistaken desire to bring glory to his own favourite corps, General Airey was, at the eleventh hour, permitted to assign this place of honour to the 34th — a regiment which, whether justly or not, enjoys only a moderate reputation amongst the others now in camp. Later still in the evening preceding the assault, Sir George discovered that the mttjor commanding the 23rd was mill laid up with a wound received in the attack on the Quarries, and that the senior captain— an officer, by the w»y, of some eighteen years' service —would have charge of tie corps during the Ktortning. "Impossible; thU will never do," said tho friend of apoplectic rierk furniture, " another regiment, with a field-nfficer in command, must be HutißtitutenV' A message to thin effect was telegraphed to head-quarters; but Lord Raglan, with a degree of common sense which was quite unmilitary, overruled his second* objection, and replied that an officer of Captain 's length of service, he his rank what it might, nhould be quite a« fit to lead his regiment into action as any fieldofficer in the service, and accordingly, that no substitution should be made. I merely mention these trifles to chow the state of uncertainty and confusion in which our preparations were till almost an hour before tho assaulting force inarched down toward* the pcene of its struggle and defeat. Tben another deviation from the original plan of ftttick teas made, also, Bt the eleventh hour, by General Ptlisfeier, to which both military sense and common sense agreo in attributing no small share of both the French and our own failure. Though the bombardment had been kept up vigorously the whole of Sunday, night npcessanly compelled a blackening of the allied fire, and during this respite there was reason to expect that the Russians would employ themselves in miking good the injuries done to their batteries during the day. It wai, therefore, arranged that at daybreek. on Monday, a terrifio fire of shot and (.hell should be pourfil into the R«-dan and Malakhoff, to render as many of their guns as possible incapable of mischief. An hour or bo, however, before the combined forces marched from the camp, the French Coramander-in-Cliief rode over to our own head-quarters and declared that he could not wait for this preliminary assault of artillery, as he would have so many men in his trenches before the Malakhoff that there would be no covtr for them ; and, consequently, they (and we) must attack at daybreak, at all hazards, and tako the chance of finding the enemy's guns in the moot favourable condition in which our bombardment and their owners' subsequent idleness might have left them. Of course Lord Raglan complied, though fortynine out of fifty of the subalterns in his camp would have foretold the consequences to be expected; and accordingly, soon after the first •treaki of sunlight broke over the horizon, the doomed thousands rushed to, defeat and death. So little is ever known of the details of French operations here, that I can give you few particulars of their attack on the Malakhoff; but their plan of asdHult appears to have consisted in assailing the work on both flanks and the front simultaneously, anil with overwhelming numbers— 25,000 are ea d to have been actually encaged. In just retribution for the disregard of their gener&l to the good to be expected from a short morning's bombardment, they found the redoubt swarming with defenders, and guns bristling from every embrasure. On them, as on our own men, showers of grape and canister were poured out, literally mowing down whole battalions at a time; whilst from along the whole semicircular line of parapet the crowding riflemen sent volley after volley into their disordered ranks, that passed through them like a eheet of molten lead. Three times they gave way, and a« often rallied; but were finally driven back after a struggle of some three hours and a-hslf. leaving the space between the Matnelon and Malakhoff literally covered with the dead ami djing. With our own men, tho space to be passed over' from our most advanced trenrbea to iha Redan! was somewhere about 700 yard*-, and from the first moment of their rushing over the parapet' towards the point of attack, they were met by the same awful and annihilating storm of canister and grape. Many fell within the fin>t dozen yards, and thence on to some broken ground about midway, in which the remainder sought cover, the fitld was strewed with the tlain and wounded, An officer pretent in the affair, and who was one of the few' who ebcapeil uninjured, described the fire to me asbeing perfectly awful— much more severe, be assured me, than that which greeted our men at Alma, where he also fought, and received a wound. Few of them ever reached the abaitis in front of the work— none, I believe, ever even saw the deep tlitcb which protects iv approaches. I have already mentioi.ed the confusion which characterized the first commencement of our movement; and coupling this with the murderous preparations made by the eneicy, you will beat no lots to uadeibtand that success waa most itsprobable. I shall pre- j

sertly mention what the Russians thought of our genpralship, as repeated in my own hearing by one of themselves. During the whole affair Lord Haglan and Sir G. Brown were ensconced within our 8-gun haitery ; but though this afforded a good view of the scene of the struggle and of the disorder which marked it, for some reasons unknown to uninitiated spectators they appeared unable to give any efficient directions for the correction of .our multiplied blunders. When the whole sad scene was ended, our men straggled back by every safe avenue to the camp, in a state of dispirited confusion well in keeping with the mob-like disorder in which they bad been throughout the assault. I know not what may have been the feelings of your hotre public on reading the telegraphic news of our defeat— for I pTeßUine the scribes at head-quarters made no attempt to conceal the naked fact tbat our repulse was neither more nor less than a defeat— hut here, mingled Ehame and indignation were general throughout the camp. Officers and men alike Me that disgtace had been incurred, and that in consequence solely of the unredeemed mismanagement ot their generals. From drum-boys to colonels a sense of humiliation filled every breast, the deeper that everybody was sensible that neither men nor regimental officers had shown themselves deficient in what, under proper guidance, would have commanded success.

About midnight of Monday I was roused up by the sound of a terrific cannonade and sustained musketry fire, along the whole fronr, from our left to the French right, apd on hastening out to the height in advance of the Victoria Redoubt, heard and witnessed whnt induced me to believe that a night attack had been made by ourselves and the French to retrieve the fortune of the day. From the Malakboff to the eitreme left of the Redan — a space of about a mile— whole clouds of flame burst along the line, from the sustained discharges of some two hundred cannon, whilst musketry fified up the 6uorl intervals from both our own and the enemy's ground. The night was pitch dark; and as the storm of shells whistled through the air, nothing could be grander than the fiery parabolas of these terrible messengers, from battery to re doubt, and from redoubt back again to battery. 1 have neither time nor power to describe the mag. nificent but awful pyrotechnic scene. A badly aimed shell from the Malakhoff passed high over the Mamelon, and fell Rome sixty yards from where I stood ; but though this was safe enough, I deemed it best to shift my ground, and so retired. Aloud "three limes three "rose upon the raidnight air from the direction of the Redan ; and as one can never be mistaken in this peculiar vocal product of BritUh lungs, I jumped to the pleasant conclusion that the day's stain had been wiped away, end that the Redan was our own. I was, however, mistaken; and the explanation of the whole affair was this: during the night, the French, endeavouring to take advantage of the darkness, had crept out from the Mamelon to recover a number of Bcaling ladders which they had been compelled to abandon during the. attack. The Russians perceived them, and opened a smart fire of grape from the guns of the Malakhoff, which was replied to by shell from the Mamelon. Almost simultaneously, a parly of the enemy emerfed from the Redan, in expectation of whnt they deemed a similar attack to that attempted by the French, and being perceived by our men, a volley of musketry was poured into them, and chase given wivh the bayonet. After a short stand, the Russians turned and fled, and it was at this juncture that the hurrahs I have mentioned were sent after them. After this the cannonade waa kept up for some time from both lines, in the manner I have remaiked.

Nest morning there was hardly a %\m fired on either side; and about 12 o'clock we hoisted a fliß to request the necessary truce for the burial of our dead. A delay of some minutes having occurred before an answer was given — but during which messengers were seen hurrying from the redoubt towards where we supposed the general of (he Russian trenches to be— the wiseacre of an officer in command on our side, a guardsman of more height than apparent intelligence, ordered the flag to be pulled down. Five minutes after, several Russian officers mounted the parapet and waved their caps, as if inviting us to renew the request; but Captain refused, alleging that he must "wait for further ordirs;" and this, though many of our poor wounded fellows were lying within sight, writhing in pain and thirst under a broiling sun! "Fuither orders" were waited for, and no truce was again asked till 4 o'clock, when it was at once granted, and when our dead and wounded, the latter in a most painful 6tate, were brought in. The Russians threw out an advanced line of sentries to keep off prying eyes from the Redan, and a eimilar precaution having been taken on our bide, the neutral space was thus narrowed greatly. The scenes of battle carnage have been often enough described, so I need only pay that this one ivas like the reet—harrowing to look on. Dead and djing lay all over the ground. During this proceeding a number of Russian officers mingled amongst our party, and as several of them spoke English fluently, a gcod deal was said. Their "pumping" inclination, however, was bo marked as in most cases to defeat itself; though one of our officers was guilty of the indiscretion of informing a very suave interrogator that their grape did sad injury to our men in possession of the lately taken Quarries— a remark which procured his instant order to the rear by General Airey. It was by one of these polite foes that the inquiry was made of an Englibhinan at my side, "whether our generals had really been drunk or not during the recent assault ?'* The Russians having helped us to gather in the dead, the whole sad duty was soon performed, and the truce brought to an end. Since then, nothing of interest has occurred, and the firing has nearly been suspended altogether.