NEWS OF THE WEEK.
EARLY on Sunday morning Kars surrendered to the Russians. General Loris Melikoff, aware of the demoralised condition of the garrison, had decided on the daring plan of an attack by night, and on the night of Saturday, the 17th, the assault was delivered. Two of the redoubts were carried by escalade, three more were entered from the rear, and the two still remaining surrendered in 'the morning. The defence appears to have been stout, but con- fused and irregular, and when 2,700 Russians and 5,000 Turks "had fallen, the survivors of the garrison, 7,000 in number, fled towards Erzeroum. They were pursued by Cossacks, and dispirited, hungry, and probably short of ammunition, surren- dered en masse. The Russians, therefore, took 300 guns, all the military stores, and the whole of the garrison left alive. Leaving only a garrison in Kars, General Melikoff ordered 17,000 men at once to proceed to Erzeroum to reinforce the besiegers there, and set off himself on Sunday evening to assume the direct command before that city. Ills arrangements cannot be complete before next Saturday, as his reinforcements would take ten days on their way, but by that time he should have made a final assault upon the capital of Armenia, where Mulditar Pasha, "the Victorious" and the Unlucky, has only 20,000 soldiers, of a very miscellaneous sort.
