EUROPEAN NEWS. THE WAR IN SCHLESWIG.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XXXIII, Issue 75, 23 June 1864, Page 3

EUROPEAN NEWS. THE WAR IN SCHLESWIG.

[Abridged from the Some News.~} Diippel has fallen at last under the persevering efforts of the Prussians. We trace the main features of the Mege leading up to this result. On the 28th March the Prussians a second time .ittempted to carry Diippel by assault, and were again repulsed. The German papers appear to lay great stress - on the fact of the first parallel before Diippel having been completed in the night of the 30th March, without the work having been discovered by the Danes till the next morning. Five battalions of General Yon Canstein's brigade were detailed for this duty, which they succeeded in accomplishing with great celerity and in perfect silence, two battalions of the same brigade being pushed forward for the protection of the working party. The soldiers in the trenches were agreeably surprised the next morning to receive a visit from the Crown Prince of Prussia, who came down to inspect the work, and spoke a few kind words to the men. The Danes fired a few shells into the trenches, but, according to the Prussian accounts, without any effect. The Prussian outposts on duty on the other side of the village of East Diippel, had reached so -close to the forts that they exchanged signs with the Danish sentinels on the ramparts, and facetiously drank each other's health out of their field-bottles. The bombardment of Diippel continued to be constantly kept up by the Prussians with more or less force from day to day. The famous windmill on Diippel-hill was burnt down early in April. This building used to serve the Danes as a powder magazine and an observatory. The seige works before the Danish redoubts were so far advanced on the 10th that a general attack appeared imminent. The Prussian trenches extended along the whole line from the Strait of Alsen to the Wenningbund. The second parallel had been finished for some days before. A telegram from Copenhagen reported that, on the morning of the 11th April, the Prussians attempted an assault upon both the Danish wings at Diippel, and that the attempt was in each instance a complete failure. The commander-in-chief of the Danish forces had made a report to the same effect. The cannonade from the batteries and approaches, he stated, drove- back the Prussians. The bombardment of the place was continued during the subsequent part of the day, and is represented to hare been at least quite as violent as on any former occasion. About sixty of the Danes were wounded. Intelligence from the Prussian head-quartera states that on the night of April 13, some of the Prussian forces drove in the Danish outposts again, and entrenched themselves within 100 yards of the works. A tolerably sharp action seems to have taken place, and the Prussians positively acknowledge a loss of about twenty-eight men. The nearer the besiegers approach the Danish works the greater relative advantage to the Danish artillery, which, at long range, appears to have been almost ineffective. Sonderborg was said to have been again in flames. Copenhagen telegrams, of April 15, deny that there exists any intention whatever to surrender or . evacuate the Diippel entrenchments. The besiegers may have the place when they can get it — not before — appears to be the determined reply of Denmark to all suggestions of surrender. Fresh troops are accordingly being despatched to the seat of war. The proximity of the island of Alsen and the sea affords peculiar facilities for removals and reinforcements. At last, on the morning of April 18, the place felL On the morning of that day, at 10 o'clock, says a Prussian telegram, Dybbol was lost by the Danes. The tete-de-pont was gallantly defended, but was abandoned in the afternoon. The bridges were destroyed. One general, six colonels, several officers, and above 2,000 men are dead, wounded, and missing. Alsen is still defended by the Danes. The Prussians are advancing on Dybbol-hill. A Prussian telegram of the 19th of April estimates the Prussian loss at 60 officers, and upwards of 1,000 men, and that of the Danes at 4,000, including upwards of 2,000 prisoners. The King of Prussia had gone to join the army. The Danish accounts, in the main, confirm these statements. At present the remains of what was the Danish army in Schleswig are in the Island of Alsen, where they will endeavour to make a stand at the works which they are said to have been long preparing. | Should the war continue, there can certainly be no doubt as to the fate of their army. The allied forces will be, sooner or later, able to cross the Sound, and compel a retreat to the Danish ships, or a capitulation. But time is necessary for such a design. Baron Beust, the plenipotentiary of the Germanic Confederation to the Conference, arrived in London late on April 22nd, from Germany. His Excellency had a meeting with other diplomatic members of the German States, on the afternoon of the 23rd, at the Prussian embassy. Precisely at 1 o'clock yesterday afternoon the several members accredited by their sovereigns to the Conference assembled at the First Lord of the Treasury's official residence in Downingstreet, Whitehall. The Earl Eussell, KG., Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, accompanied by the Earl of Clarendon, K.G., appointed to assist in the deliberations, were first to arrive. There were present Baron Brunnow, the Eussian Ambassador; Prince de la Tour d'Auvergne, the French Ambassador, accompanied by Baron Balan ; Count JR. d'Apponyi, the Austrian Ambassador ; M. de Bille, the Danish Minister, accompanied by M. de Quaade, the Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs ; Count Wachtmeister, the Swedish Minister ; Baron de Beust, Plenipotentiary from the Germanic Diet ; and Count Vitzthum, &c. The Conference was held in one of the large apartments looking over the St. James's-park. A circular table, with seats fc#fourteen persons, was placed in the centre of the room. We understand that the Conference did not yesterday arrive at any decision as to an armistice. The Paris Memorial Diplomatique of April 24, in an article on the Conference, says :—: — " Lord Clarendon has returned to London, having, in the name of his Government, formally engaged to support energetically the demand for an armistice, which the Prince de la Tour d'Auvergne has been instructed to make at the first sitting of the Conference. In other words, France and England have mutually bound themselves to declare war against that Power which should refuse to agree to a truce. We believe ourselves able to state that no mention of an armistice was made .at the first sitting of the Conference, since so important a question could only be negatively discussed by the representatives of Germany. We believe that the armistice will be based upon the uti possidetis principle, unless Denmark should refuse to evacuate the Island of Alsen. Austria and Prussia will then, on their side, evacuate the territory of Jutland. FRANCE. Lord Clarendon has been on a special mission to the Imperial court. The Emperor received the noble earl on April 14. His lordship subsequently had an interview with M. Drouyn de Lhuys. One of the Pari9 papers announces that the object of his mission is to establish a complete understanding between France and England on Danish affairs. The Times Paris correspondent is assured that a very friendly understanding, instead of the coldness which prevailed since the affair of the Congress, now exists between the Governments of France and England. This statement has been confirmed by Lord Palmerston in Parliament. It is rumoured that the French Government have already pointed out to Her Majesty's Ministers that the presence of Mazzini on British soil was a source of danger and anxiety to the cabinet of the Tuileries, and applied for bis expulson. AUSTRIA. According to intelligence from Dresden, Austria appears decided to place Venetia in a state of siege. Precautionary measures continue to be taken in Southern Tyrol. The fortified places, especially Kufstein, are receiving strong garrisons. Mountain defiles and gorges are carefully watched. News from the Roman frontier gives reason to apprehend a rising in that quarter. The military governor of Transylvania, in accordance with order*

from Vienna, is taking precautions in order to protect the province against any coup de main. Strong bodies of troops aro being concentrated on the Wallachian frontier. Letters from Vienna state that the parting of the Emperor from his brother, the Archduke Maximilian, was rather cool. The idea of a Mexican empire, with an Austrian prince as sovereign, met with decided resistance up to the very last moment in the official circles of the Austrian capital. The firmness of character of the Archduke alone was able to triumph over that opposition, and now that the uselessuess of all those efforts has been proved, the watchword in tho regions of Vienna is, " Mexico and its Emperor are strangers to Austria and her interests." SWITZERLAND. The Federal Council have decided upon enforcing the decree of expulsion against Mazzini, on the ground that he has several times lately abused the right of hospitality. Orders to this effect have, therefore, been despatched to the different cantons. POLAND. The insurrection still continues, characterized by all its former horrors. Telegrams from Breslau report that a strong detachmcut of insurgents recently crossed the frontier from Gallicia, and, after a protracted engagement with tho Eussians, succeeded in penetrating into the Government of Lublin. Another engagement, described as still more important, is represented as having taken place near Woochack, in the Palatinate of Radom, and tho result is stated to have been favourable to the insurgents. It is affirmed that the Austrian authorities are expelling from Gallicia all the Polish refugee families ; and, in fact, only allow them forty-eight hours to leave the province. Several other insurgent bands have made their appearance in various directions, and with success. A Warsaw letter says : — " A terrible but authentic piece of news has come to hand. In the western portion of the Q-overnment of Warsaw are three villages almost exclusively inhabited by Russian peasants, only a few families of Poles remaining there. An official report states that all these latter have been massacred, without exception, by the Russian peasants, who also set fire to the houses of their victims. The cure of the Catholic Church, the only one remaining in the three villages, shared the fate of his parishioners, having been thrown into tho flames by the Russians." ITALY. The preparations for war already announced as actively going on in Venetia have excited the liveliest attention at Turin, the journals of which city are earnestly urging the Government to arm at once and stand ready to repel a probable attack upon Austria. The accounts received from Rome respecting the health of the Pope are still contradictory and disquieting. That he is in a precarious state is not doubted. At least, the French Government thinks so, and thinks it necessary to prepare for the worst. Instructions have been transmitted to the French ambassador to concert with tho general commanding the army of occupation as to the precautions to be adopted in case of the death of the Holy Father. It is believed in Paris that that event would be a signal of a rising in Rome, or at least of an attempt to create disturbances ; and both the ambassador and general are enjoined to maintain, at all hazard, the tranquility of the city while the Conclave are choosing the successor of Pius IX. • MEXICO. Tho Archduke Maximilian formally received tho Mexican deputation and finally accepted the Mexican crown on April 10, at Miramar. In the speech which lie delivered the new emperor announced that he was convinced that the resolution of the Mexican Notables had been confirmed by an overruling majority of the inhabitants of that country. He asserted that the independence and welfare of Mexico should be placed on a firm basis, and that the confidence reposed in him would not be misplaced. He added that he intended to depart almost immediately for Mexico, calling, however, at Rome on his way, to receive the " blessing of the Holy Father." He has since been to Rome, received the " blessing," and taken his departure. AMERICA. Tho President, by an official order, promulgated on March. 14, assigned Lieutenant- General Grant to the command of all the armies of the United States. President Lincoln had called for 200,000 more men, to be raised by April 15. Both Houses of the Federal Congress have passed the bill authorising the sale of the gold in the Treasury. Generals M'Clellan and Fremont had both been nominated for tho Presidency by meetings held in New York. The Free State Government has been publicly inaugurated at New York with imposing solemnities. A conspiracy has been discovered in Kentucky, having for its object the annexation of that State to the Southern Confederacy. On the 26th March, the Confederate General Forest, with a force of cavalry, infantry and artillery, estimated at 7,000 men, attacked and captured the city of Paducah, Kentucky, fifty miles above Cairo, on the Ohio river, at the mouth of the Tennessee. A fort below the river, garrisoned by 800 men, repulsed three attacks. General Forrest sacked and plundered the Government stores, and secured a largo amount of plunder. The Federal gunboats Pawpaw and Peosta opened fire on the rebels, driving them out of the city, the greater part of which was destroyed by the Federal fire. At last accounts, Forest had retreated to a position about ten miles south of Paducah, where he was reinforced by General Faulkner, and it was expected that their combined forces would attack Columbus or Clinton. The Confederates aro reported to have left 300 killed at Paducah, and in front of the fort A portion of Forrest's command, before the attack at Paducah, attacked tho Federal position at Union City. They were twice repulsed, but finally took the place, capturing the garrison, which consisted of 600 of the 7th Tennesseo Union Regiment. President Lincoln, on March 26, issued a proclamation, defining and restricting hia previous amnesty proclamation. Various continental journals allege that Her Majesty is engaged in writing the memoirs of her life and times, giving this as the reason of her close and long-continued Beclusion. It may be remembered that in 1834 there appeared a small volume of poems, from the hand of the Princess Alexandrina Victoria, then in her sixteenth year. This first and only literary effort of our Sovereign was distributed to the immediate members of the Royal circle only. A new Order in Council has been issued respecting the " Passengers' Act, 1855," which revokes the Order in Council, dated the 25th of February, 1856, and directs that another, now published, shall henceforth be observed for preserving order, for promoting health, and for securing cleanliness and ventilation, to bo observed on board every passenger ship proceeding from the United Kingdom to any port or place in her Majesty's possessions abroad, out of Europe, and not being within the Mediterranean Sea. It is specified amongst other rules, that passengers shall rise at seven a.m., nt which hours the fires shall be lighted. The breakfast hour is between eight and nine o'clock ; and before that time all the emigrants, except those under medical orders, are to be out of bed and dressed, and the beds rolled up, and the deck on which they sleep, properly swept. Dinner is to be at one o'clock, and supper at six ; fires are to be put out at seven o'clock, and the emigrants are to be in their beds at ten. On Sundays the passengers are to be mustered at ten a.m., and are expected to appear in decent apparel. The day is to be observed as religiously as circumstances will admit. "No smoking shall be allowed between decks. The following kinds of misconduct are strictly prohibited :— All immoral or indecent acts or conduct, taking improper liberties, or using improper familiarities with the female passengers, using blasphemous, obscene, or indecent language, or language tending to a breach of the peace, swearing, gambling, drunkenness, fighting, disorderly, riotous, qWtfrelwnw, <n insubordinate conduct.