RUSSIAN PREPARATIONS.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XII, Issue 842, 24 July 1855, Page 2 (Supplement)

RUSSIAN PREPARATIONS.

A letter from Odessa of the 16th of March, appears, in the •' New Munich Gazette." "The cavalry corps concentrated around Odessa under the orders of General Schabelski, is exclusively composed of dragoons, to the number, it is said, of 12,000 men. It has received orders to proceed immediately to the Crimea, and a part of the corps left yesterday. The seventh army corps, stationed at present in Bessarabia, will also leave for the Crimea. The troops remaining in Bessarabia will be placed under the orders of General Luders, who will fix his head quarters at Bender. " According to reports received at Vienna and there held worthy of credit, Sebastopol is provisioned for three months. The garrison is only 12,000 strong, but may easily be reinforced, whilst the bulk of the army, under the immediate command of General Osten Sacken, numbers 40,000 men at the Belbek. The Russians have cut down all the trees in the district behind Inkermann, and behind the trunks they have, during the winter, constructed entrenchments and batteries in excellent positions Prince Gortchakoff intends, it is said, to operate from Perekop and Simperopol against Upatoria at the head of 60,000 men." The following appeared in the " Invalide Russe " of the 23rd ultimo :— " In order to complete the telegraphic despatch from Sebastopol, relative to the erection of a new redoubt in front of the Korniloff bastion, during the night between March 10 and 11, A.D.C. General Baion Osten-Sacken announces, under date of March 14, that notwithstanding the heavy fire of the besiegers, the works are being successfully carried on in the new fortification. " Tne fire of tlia enemy's artillery does us scarcely any harm; thus^ for instance, on the 11th March last no less than 60 bombs, lell on one of our bastions, and yet only ons man was wounded. "The galleriea of the besiegers' tniue, which we discover, are constantly destroyed with unvarying success. 41 Nothing remarkable has. occurred in the neighbourhood of Eupatoria. According to the statement of the prisoners, the Turks had about 1000 men killed and as many wounded in the affair of February 17."