While war was raging on the eastern side of the Russian and Turkish empires, the western waters and shores of Russia were also the scenes of sanguinary contests. The vast fleet which, under the command of Admiral Dundas, proceeded rather too late in the spring to the Baltic, accomplished some important enterprises. The troops and stations of the Russians on the shores of Finland were shelled. Landing-parties ascended the creeks and rivers, and burned great quantities of naval stores, and destroyed or captured numerous small vessels, military or commercial. Sweaborg was bombarded, and a large portion of the fortifications destroyed, and many of their defenders slain. Cronstadt was approached as in the previous year; but was pronounced to be impregnable to the means at the disposal of the allies, vast as they were. The want of gun-boats and vessels of light draught was the chief ingredient in the elements of discomfiture which affected the allies. Throughout the year the allies hemmed in the Russian ships in their unassailable harbours of refuge, or as at Sweaborg, destroyed them by the fire of their gun-boats.
OPERATIONS IN THE WHITE SEA.
These were similar to what took place in the Baltic. Inaccessible harbours defied the allied fleets. Want of vessels of small draught rendered pursuit impossible when Russian ships made the sinuosities of the coast, and shallow rivers, available for retreat. Still great havoc was effected, and the loss of property sustained by the Russians was very severe. Both in the Baltic and White Seas the allies arrived too late in the season, and left too early.
OPERATIONS IN THE PACIFIC, AND AGAINST THE RUSSIAN SETTLEMENTS IN KAMTSCHATKA.
As in the previous year, the Russians showed superior foresight, activity, and intelligence to the allied naval forces in the Pacific. In vain the powerful squadrons of France and England pursued their enemy hither and thither; little was accomplished—incapacity and tardiness marred all enterprise. The allies, however, inflicted a heavy chastisement upon the settlement of Petropaulovski, but more by causing the Russians themselves to accomplish the work of destruction than by inflicting it through the agency of the allied arms. The Russians, unable to cope with the allies, sought safety in flight, both by land and sea; but always effected their retreat with so much courage, deliberation, and yet promptitude, as to leave no great renown to their foes. Everywhere, on every sea and shore, England and France, on the whole, triumphed; and the close of 1855 saw Russia beaten and humiliated, but still great in strength and wanton in defiance.
COLONIAL AFFAIRS.
Little occurred in the colonial history of 1855 suitable to a general work such as the present. There was, however, one sphere of English influence where opinions and feelings were working, and events were preparing the way for great results—that sphere was India.