FROM the English papers you can scarcely form an idea of the gloom which pervades society. Many aristocratic families are in mourning for their relatives who have perished in the Crimea by the sword of the enemy, or by fearful disease; and the letters of the survivors are so frightful that they are kept back from publicity in order to prevent a panic. Still, the public mind is sufficiently prepared for some dreadful disaster looming in the near future. The mismanagement of the expedition is palpable enough, and the mortality in the camp and at Balaklava, arising from sheer neglect and want of organizing talent, excites the indignation of the people against Lord Raglan and all the Crimean Generals.
It cannot be disguised that Sevastopol, after a siege of ten weeks, is far stronger than it was on the first day when the Allies arrived at Balaklava, and that it is altogether impossible to reduce it by bombardment, while an assault becomes, day by day, more dangerous.
As to the hopes of peace in consequence of the treaty of Dec. 2d, they grow fainter and fainter. By the 2d of January they will reach their last stage, and the Czar does not seem inclined to accept conditions, which he rejected in Sept., now, that his chances are better than ever. Austria's position at the same time becomes more critical. She must now, soon, either disappoint the Allies, or declare war against Russia, while her object is to maintain her neutrality.
I am assured by influential persons here in London, that it is a pledge on the part of Austria to declare war on March 2d, in case the negotiations should fail to lead to a result this year.
Prussia likewise feels that she must soon be drawn into the whirlpool of war, and has therefore sent Count Usedom to London to ascertain the position of affairs.
In Italy, Mazzini is trying to make the most of the present opportunity. Still, his chances are not favorable. Sardinia will soon accede to the treaty of Dec. 2d, and will be ready to put down any movement in Lombardy or in the Romagna, in case the French and Austrian armies of occupation should be called away from the Peninsula.
As to the seat of war, we know, by the Russian dispatches, that up to the 20th, nothing had happened at Sevastopol, and that the Russian artillery is beginning to subdue the fire of the besiegers.
Extract from the Times, Dec 23.
THE STATE OF THINGS BEFORE SEVASTOPOL.—There is no use disguising the matter. We are not speaking from our own correspondence only. We are not saying what we think alone. We say, on the evidence of every letter that has been received in this country, and we echo the opinion of almost every experienced soldier or well informed gentleman, when we say that the noblest army England ever sent from these shores has been sacrificed to the grossest mismanagement.
What becomes of everything sent to Balaklava nobody knows, but, while they are rotting, thousands are perishing for want of them. Everybody can point out something that should be done, but there is nobody to order it to be done; and fifty thousand men, or what now remains of them, are drifting with their eyes open, but hand-bound, spell-bound, toward destruction.
It will be of little use to send out reinforcements by thousands unless we take steps for their better management. As it is, they march to their graves, and begin to perish by scores from the hour they land. Misrule receives them on the beach, and wearies them, worries them, drenches them, shivers them, and so destroys them, till a few spectral figures are all that remain.
The mortality among the Turks has now assumed all the dimensions of a plague.
Yesterday, ere evening, upward of seventy bodies were carried to their long home, and deposited in shallow graves not above a few inches deep, and were left with a shovelful or two of earth and pebbles over them, as close together as they could be packed. To-day the same process is going on. The dead are frightful to look upon—emaciated in the last degree, with the faces and heads swollen and discolored, and drops of blood stealing down from nose and ear; there they are, lying out in ranks on the hill-side, while the living, who seem soon about to follow them, dig their graves.