Our journals and letters by the Europa contain a_ positive 
confirmation of the reported bombardment of Odessa. The 
present advices on that subject are official and leave no possibility 
of doubt as to the event. The works of the harbor have been 
destroyed, two powder magazines blown up, twelve small Russian 
vessels-of-war sunk and thirteen transports captured, all with the 
loss of eight men killed and eighteen wounded in the allied fleet. 
This trifling loss of men proves that it was [by] no means a 
formidable achievement. After it was done the fleet sailed away 
for Sevastopol, the destruction of which we fancy they will find to 
be a different sort of work. 

From the Danube there is a new report of a decisive victory 
gained by Omer Pasha over Gen. Liiders, but of this affair we 
have nothing beyond a telegraphic dispatch by way of Vienna,’ the 
great manufactory of stock-jobbing hoaxes. The story runs that 
the Turks, 70,000 strong, overhauled Liiders somewhere between 
Silistria and Rassova, the latter being a place on the Danube some 
ten miles above Chernavoda, and that while Omer Pasha was 
pressing the Russians in front, another corps, sent around for the 
purpose, fell upon their flank, and so between the two fires they 
were used up. This is not an impossible thing, but we do not see 
how Omer Pasha could concentrate so large a force at any point 
below Silistria with such rapidity as to take Liiders unprepared.'”” 
According to the last previous advices, the gross of his army,— 
which altogether cannot be more than 120,000 strong, including 

“ “Defeat of the Russians”, The Times, No. 21732, May 4, 1854.— Fd. 

the garrisons that must be provided for along his extended 
line,—was being collected at Shumla, some hundred miles from 
the scene of the reported battle, and it is not an easy thing to 
surprise an enemy at such a distance where 70,000 men have to be 
brought upon the field to do it. Still we repeat, it is possible; the 
next steamer will probably inform us whether it is true.’” 

The Greek insurrection has suffered another defeat, but that it 
is extinguished by the disaster it would be impossible to believe. 
Men and leaders will no doubt appear to renew the contest and 
carry on a harassing guerrilla war at least against the Turkish 
forces on the frontiers. Whether it will become anything more 
serious must depend upon circumstances; as our readers will see 
in another column’ an extensive conspiracy of Greeks and 
Russians came near exploding in the midst of Turkey; accident 
put the whole into the hands of the Porte,’* but other such 
conspiracies may occur without any interposing event to hinder 
their course. Meanwhile the allied powers ply the Greek Court 
with menaces, and land troops in Turkey as if to take final 
possession of the country for themselves. Most of these forces still 
remain near Constantinople, though at the instance of the French 
Embassador,* a detachment has gone north to Varna, where there 
is likely to be fighting any day. It is doubtful, however, whether 
the body of the allied forces will so soon engage in the active work 
of the campaign. This point cannot be determined till the 
commanding generals arrive at Constantinople.” 

In the Baltic Sir Charles Napier still remains in the vicinity of 
Stockholm, attacking none of the Russian strongholds on the coast. 
It appears that he is anxious with respect to the gun-boat flotilla 
with which the Russians propose to operate against him in the 
shallow waters and among the islands of the Gulf of Finland, and 
has sent to England for small steamers of light draught, which can 
pursue these boats to their places of refuge. On the other hand, it 
is reported by the St. Petersburg correspondent of a journal of 
Berlin‘ that the Russian Court is fearful that Kronstadt cannot 
stand the onslaught which is expected from the British Rough and 
Ready,‘ that the men-of-war in the harbor do not succeed well in 

No. 21732, May 4, 1854.— Ed. 

maneuvering and firing even for the purposes of a review; and 
that preparations are even [in] making to resist the debarkation of 
a hostile land force at that place. 

It is not likely, however, that any attack will take place in the 
Baltic until the French fleet has also arrived, and then Kronstadt 
will very probably receive the honor of the first bombardment. Its 
capture or destruction is another question; but before such means 
of destruction as the allies will bring against it, its fall would not be 
surprising. 

The western powers flatter themselves that Austria is coming 
over to their side, and derive encouragement from agreeable 
things said to the Duke of Cambridge at the festivities of the 
Emperor’s* wedding. But from Prussia there is no such pleasing 
intelligence. Altogether, Germany stands just where she did 
before, and the allies have no prospect of drawing her into any 
engagement in their favor. There is no doubt that Austria will be 
ready to occupy Serbia and Montenegro,—where a _ positive 
rebellion has broken out against the Sultan,”—but such an 
occupation, as we have previously shown,’*° would only be another 
step toward the partition of Turkey, and would be, in fact, more 
favorable to Russia than to her antagonists.