Operations have commenced in the Baltic. Revel has been carefully reconnoitered and will shortly be bombarded. The Magicienne has already thrown some shells into the outworks. Admiral Dundas had reconnoitered Sweaborg.
According to the Constantinople papers, all the troops concentrated at the camp at Maslak were about to sail for the Crimea, on board of fourteen ships-of-war, and an immense fleet of transports with vast supplies of provisions and munitions of war, and that the expedition is destined either for Odessa or the Lower Danube.
All the French and nearly all the Sardinian troops had left Constantinople for the Crimea. The cholera had disappeared at Constantinople. Six thousand men were promised at once for the Turkish contingent.
The Trieste papers publish the following dispatch, dated Eupatoria, May 4.—Eight thousand Russians are menacing Omer Pasha. Their cavalry is endeavoring to cut off the allies' communication by land. The bulk of the Russian army, 150,000 strong, having taken up a position near Simpheropol, is in non-interrupted communication with Sebastopol.
A letter from Frankfort of the 17th ult., in the Rhine Gazette, says:—A new Austrian note has just been dispatched to the German States, declaring that Austria remains faithful to the alliance of the Western powers, but that the Cabinet of Vienna has not given up the hope of seeing peace re-established. It is said that the question of mobilization is again brought forward in this dispatch.
Accounts from St. Petersburg of the 18th announce that Cronstadt is declared in a state of siege. No person can hereafter enter the place without a special permission from the Governor.
The recent new combinations of Russian troops and some newly created commands have led to some changes in the designation of the corps d'armee. The army under the command of Prince Paskeiwitch will henceforth be called the Army of the West, Prince Gorchakoff's, the Army of the South, Gen. Rudiger's the North, and a new corps in the course of formation at Kiess and in Volbynia will be called the Army of the Centre.
Letters from Odessa state that the artificers of the dockyards at Nicolaieff are working early and late for the new ships of the Russian Black Sea fleet. Each vessel will have a screw propellsr.
It is calculated at Berlin, that the addition to the Russian army to be made under the last ukase, will consist of about 250,000 men. Twelve in a thousand is the ratio, and the levies include the most populous governments in the Empire.
A private letter from St. Petersburg, dated the 10th, from a high mercantile house, gives a deplorable account of the pressure on all classes in that capital; business being comparatively at an end, and the continuance of the present state of things is regarded with the greatest dread in all quarters.
TROOPS FOR THE CRIMEA.—By the recent arrival at New York, we learn that the Allies intend to change their plan of operations. What that change will be is not known. At any rate, large bodies of troops were to be embarked immediately for the seat of war. Gen. Canrobert, before resigning his command, had announced that 80,000 more troops would come from France, 10,000 were expected still from Piedmont, 16,000 from Egypt, and Omer Pasha was rapidly organizing a Tartar force at Eupatoria. The allied forces would then amount to nearly 300,000 men. The health of the army was good—the greatest enthusiasm prevailed among the troops. With an army of such magnitude the whole Crimea ought to be swept, though Sebastopol shows no disposition to capitulate.
THE EARTHQUAKE AT BROUSSA.—The shocks still continue, which may well be believed, as there is scarcely a day that some susceptible oscillation does not take place at Constantinople. Abdel-Kader was still at his farm in the plain of Broussa; indeed, no one who is able to leave the city will remain in it. All the European residents have left.