No. 375.
Mr. Schuyler to Mr. Fish.
St. Petersburg, March 25, 1872. (Received April 19.)
Sir: I have the honor to inform you that at a recent meeting of the council of the empire the project for the reorganization of the city and port of Sevastopol, which has been for some time under consideration, was decided on. The dock-yards of the Black Sea fleet will be established at Nikolaieff. Sebastopol will be a merchant-port, but fitted for the anchorage of ships of war in case of necessity, and everything will be concentrated there which is necessary for the support and repairs of the fleet, including docks, store-houses, and barracks.
The east side of the South Bay will be occupied for military and naval purposes, and the west side will be devoted to the merchant fleet. The city of Sebastopol and all the surrounding territory will be governed by an official who must be at the same time a naval officer and commandant of the port, and, as regards the civil administration, will depend On the general-governor of New Russia, The municipal organization of the city will be of the same exceptional character as that of Cronstadt, Tagaurog, Nikolaieff, and Kertch.
The railway which is now being built between Sebastopol and Lozovo, on the line from Moscow to Tagaurog, will make a strategical difference to the city, and as it is difficult to suppose that it will ever again be attacked [Page 487] as it was in the Crimean war, it is proposed only to protect Sebastopol against a coup de main in consequence of a landing of troops on a point of the coast distant from the city; with this view the peninsula of Cherson will be especially fortified. The plan of the defense of Sebastopol consists, consequently, of the following general dispositions:
- 1st.
- Defense of the roadstead by means of advanced batteries, constructed on the promontories which form the entrance to the port.
- 2d.
- Defense of the city on the south side, by means of separate forts and coast batteries along the Kozatsky, Karnisheff, and Streletsky Bays, with the establishment of a fortified work on Mount Sapon.
- 3d.
- Defense of the city on the north side, by means of two detached forts commanding the delta of the river Belbeck.
We learn by the telegrams received here that this re-establishment of Sebastopol causes some uneasiness in London, and that the English and French press are discussing the subject. It is now, however, too late to object, for by the first article of the treaty of London of March 13, 1871, article 13 of the treaty of Paris, which forbade the fortification of the coast of the Black Sea, was abrogated. Russia has therefore a fail right to do as she pleases.
I have &c,
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