NEWS OF THE WEEK.
WE are at length put in possession of positive intelligence from the theatre of the war. On Monday, by an .extraordinary supplement to the Prussian States Gazette, we received the report of General Diebitsch to the Emperor, giving the particulars of an important action that took place between the forces under his command and those of the Grand Vizier in the neighbourhood of Pravadi, in which the latter was defeated with considerable loss. General Diebitsch, it appears, broke up from before Silistria on the 5th of June, leaving to Lieutenant-General Krassoffsky the further prosecution of the siege. By extraordinary efforts he Contrived to reach a position between Shumla and Pravadi, on the night of the 10th, having previously formed a junction with a part of Roth's corps. The Vizier was so intent on the siege of Pravadi, which he had left Shumla for the purpose of pushing, that he was not aware of the movements or numbers of the enemy until they had occupied the important defile of Marda (Madam of the maps), and thus cut off his retreat to Shumla.
When the Vizier first received intelligence of the occupation of Marda, he was led to suppose that General Roth had detached apart of his troops, in order to threaten his communications ; and he raised the siege of Pravadi, and fell back on the enemy, for the purpose of driving them from their position ; but to his astonishment he found himself in the presence of nearly the whole of the Russian army. General Diebitsch proceeds:— " About one hundred prisoners, who were picked up on the 28th and 29th by my vanguard under Lieutenant-General Baron Kreutz, on the road from Turk-Arnautlar to Jenibazar, and farther towards Shumla, unanimously affirmed that the Grand Vizier, with an army of more than forty thousand, was in perfect security near Pravadi, without the least notion of our approach. This favourable circumstance enabled me to have all the roads by which the retreat of the Grand Vizier seemed practicable most carefully reconnoitered at day-break on the 11th instant, and about nine o'clock on the same morning to undertake a strong reconnoissance with ten battalions of infantry, four squadrons, and twelve cannon, on the road which leads from Monkovtscha through Kopareva to Marasch. This last measure was founded on the information of several prisoners taken in the defile near Madre, who said that the Grand Vizier had resolved to take that road with the body of his army. The enemy at first did not oppose more than about three thousand men, infantry, cavalry, and artillery, to the above-mentioned strong reconnoitering party. But, on the nearer approach of our columns, he displayed all his forces in regular squares of infantry and well-disposed columns of cavalry, supported by numerous artillery. According to the account of the prisoners, this army consisted of twenty-two regiments of regular infantry, some regiments of regular cavalry, and above fifteen thousand Anatolian infantry and cavalry."
The Turks, though thus surprised, fought with great obstinacy ; but were compelled, after a contest continued for four hours, to retreat in confusion, abandoning forty cannon, and having lost 2000 men killed, and 15 00 prisoners. The Russians are admitted to have suffered very severely also ; but neither their numbers nor their losses are specified. In his despatch of the 12th, the day after the battle, General Diebetsch announces his intention of immediately following up his victory, with a view to prevent the Vizier from returning to Shumla. A subsequent despatch, dated the 14th, still leaves him at Madara ; but the advanced corps under Prince Mendatof had come up with the retreating Turks, had taken two redoubts, and put 600 of their defenders to the sword. Rucliger was in the meanwhile pushing forward detachments to Eski-Stamboul, in the rear of Shumla, with a view to drive the Vizier over the mountains. From the time, however, that had elapsed since the battle, and the slowness of the Russian advance, (the Vizier reached Marasch on the 11th, and I he Russians had not reached it on the 14th,) there seems every reason to conclude, that neither he nor Mendatof would succeed, and that the Vizier would contrive to reach the camp before Shumla without much difficulty. The plague, according to the last accounts, is again raging in the Principalities. The news of the battle of Madara had not reached St. Petersburgh on the 17th.
