A change for the better—Visit to Balaklava—Devastation—Affair of Pickets—Newspaper Correspondents in the Crimea—Difficulties they had to encounter—False Hopes—A smart affair—Death of Lieutenant Tryon—Flattering Testimonies—Want of Generals—Attack on Oupatoria—Affair between the Chasseurs de Vincennes and the Russian Riflemen—The Ovens—A Deserter's Story—Movements of the Russians—A Reconnaissance—Suffering caused by hard work and scarcity of supplies—Warnings—Cholera—Dreadful Scenes amongst the Turks in Balaklava.
A change for the better—Visit to Balaklava—Devastation—Affair of Pickets—Newspaper Correspondents in the Crimea—Difficulties they had to encounter—False Hopes—A smart affair—Death of Lieutenant Tryon—Flattering Testimonies—Want of Generals—Attack on Oupatoria—Affair between the Chasseurs de Vincennes and the Russian Riflemen—The Ovens—A Deserter's Story—Movements of the Russians—A Reconnaissance—Suffering caused by hard work and scarcity of supplies—Warnings—Cholera—Dreadful Scenes amongst the Turks in Balaklava.
BALAKLAVA AFTER THE STORM.
With the morning of the 15th of November, came a bright cold sky, and our men, though ankle deep in mud cheered up when they beheld the sun once more. The peaks of the hills and mountain sides were covered with snow. As rumours of great disasters reached us from Balaklava, I after breakfasting in my stable, made my way there as well as I could. The roads were mere quagmires. Another day's rain would have rendered them utterly impassable, and only for swimming or navigation. Dead horses and cattle werescattered all over the country, and here and there a sad little procession, charged with the burden of some inanimate body, might be seen wending its way slowly towards the hospital marquees, which had been again pitched.
In coming by the French lines I observed that the whole of the troops were turned out, and were moving about and wheeling in column to keep their blood warm. They had just been mustered, and it was gratifying to learn that the rumours respecting lost men were greatly exaggerated. Our men were engaged in trenching and clearing away mud.
The Russians in the valley were very active, and judging from the state of the ground and the number of loose horses, they must have been very miserable also.
Turning down by Captain Powell's battery, where the sailors were getting their arms in order, I worked through ammunition mules and straggling artillery-wagons towards the town. Balaklava was below—its waters thronged with shipping—not a ripple on their surface. It was almost impossible to believe that but twelve hours before ships were dragging their anchors, drifting, running aground,, and smashing each other to pieces in that placid loch. The whitewashed houses in the distance were as clean-looking as ever, and the old ruined fortress on the crags above frowned upon the sea, and reared its walls and towers aloft, uninjured by the storm.
On approaching the town, however, the signs of the tempest of the day before grew and increased at every step. At the narrow neck of the harbour, high and dry, three large boats were lying, driven inland several yards; the shores were lined with trusses of compressed hay which had floated out of the wrecks outside the harbour, and pieces of timber, beams of wood, masts and spars, formed natural rafts, which were stranded on the beach or floated about among the shipping. The old tree which stood near the guard-house at the entrance to the town was torn up, and in its fall had crushed the house into ruin. The soldiers of the guard were doing their best to make themselves comfortable within the walls. The fall of this tree, which had seen many winters, coupled with the fact that the verandahs and balconies of the houses and a row of very fine acacia trees on the beach were blown down, corroborate the statement so generally made by the inhabitants, that they had never seen or heard of such a hurricane in their life time, although there was a tradition among some that once in thirty or forty years such visitations occurred along this coast. TheCity of London, Captain Cargill, was the only vessel which succeeded in getting out to sea and gaining a good offing during the hurricane of the 14th, and the Captain told me, in all his experience (and as an old Aberdeen master, he has passed some anxious hours at sea) he never knew so violent a gale.
There was an affair of pickets during the night of the 15th between the French and the Russians, in which a few men were wounded on both sides, and which was finished by the retreat of the Russians to their main body. This took place in the valley of Balaklava, and its most disagreeable result (to those not engaged)was to waken up and keep awake every person in the town for a couple of hours.
During this winter newspaper correspondents in the Crimea were placed in a rather difficult position. In common with generals and chiefs, and men-at-arms, they wrote home accounts of all we were doing to take Sebastopol, and they joined in the prophetic cries of the leaders of the host, that the fall of the city of the Czar—the centre and navel of his power in those remote regions—would not be deferred for many hours after our batteries had opened upon its defences. In all the inspiration of this universal hope, these poor wretches, who clung to the mantles of the military and engineering Elijahs, did not hesitate to communicate to the world, through the columns of the English press, all they knew of the grand operations which were to eventuate in the speedy fall of this doomed city. They cheered the heart of England with details of the vast armaments prepared against its towers and forts—of the position occupied by her troops—the imbecility of the enemy's fire—of the range of the guns so soon to be silenced—of the stations of our troops on commanding sites; and they described with all their power the grandiose operations which were being taken for the reduction of such a formidable place of arms. They believed, in common with the leaders, whose inspiration and whose faith were breathed through the ranks of our soldiers, that the allied forces were to reduce Sebastopol long ere the lines they penned could meet the expectant gaze of our fellow-countrymen at home; and they stated, under that faith and in accordance with those inspirations, that the operations of war of our armies were undertaken with reference to certain points and with certain hopes of results, the knowledge of which could not have proved of the smallest service to the enemy once beaten out of their stronghold.
Contrary to these hopes and inspirations, in direct opposition to our prophecies and to our belief, Sebastopol held out against the Allies; and the intelligence conveyed in newspapers which we all thought we should have read in the club-rooms of Sebastopol, was conveyed to the generals of an army which defended its walls, and were given to the leaders of an enemy whom we had considered would be impuissant and defeated, while they were still powerful and unconquered. The enemy knew that we had lost many men from sickness; that we had so many guns here and so many guns there, that our head-quarters were in one place, our principal powder magazines in another, that the camp of such a division had been annoyed by their fire, and that the tents of another had escaped injury from their shot, but it must be recollected that when these details were written it was confidently declared that, ere the news of the actual preliminaries of the siege could reach England, the Allies would have entered Sebastopol, that their batteries would have silenced the fire of their enemy, that the quarters of their generals would have been within theenceinteof the town, that our magazines would have been transferred to its storehouses, and that our divisions would have encamped within its walls.
MISERABLE STATE OF OUR ARMY.
How much knowledge of this sort the enemy gleaned throughtheir spies, or by actual observation, it is not needful to inquire; but undoubtedly, without any largely speculative conjecture, it may be inferred that much of the information conveyed to them, or said to have been conveyed to them, by the English press, could have been ascertained through those very ordinary channels of communication, the eye and ear, long ere our letters had been forwarded to Sebastopol, and translated from Englishin usum superiorum. However, it is quite evident that it was not advisable to acquaint the enemy with our proceeding and movements during a siege which promised to assume the proportions and to emulate the length of those operations of a similar character in which hosts of men conveyed by formidable armadas from distant shores, set down to beleaguer some devoted fortress.
Although it might be dangerous to communicate facts likely to be of service to the Russians, it was certainly hazardous to conceal the truth from the English people. They must have known, sooner or later, that the siege towards the end of November had been for many days practically suspended, that our batteries were used up and silent, and that our army was much exhausted by the effects of excessive labour and watching, to which they have been so incessantly exposed. The Russians knew this soon enough, for a silent battery—to hazard a bull—speaks for itself. The relaxation of our fire was self-evident, but our army, though weakened by sickness, was still equal to hold their position, and to inflict the most signal chastisement upon any assailants who might venture to attack it. In fact, I believe nothing would have so animated our men, deprived as they were of cheering words and of the presence and exhortations of their generals and destitute of all stimulating influences beyond those of their undaunted spirits and glorious courage, as the prospect of meeting the Russians outside their intrenchments. Rain kept pouring down, the wind howled over the staggering tents—the trenches were turned into dikes—in the tents the water was sometimes a foot deep—our men had neither warm nor waterproof clothing—they were out for twelve hours at a time in the trenches—they were plunged into the inevitable miseries of a winter campaign. These were hard truths, which sooner or later must have come to the ears of the people of England. It was right they should know that the beggar who wandered the streets of London led the life of a prince compared with the British soldiers who were fighting for their country, and who, we were complacently assured by the home authorities, were the best appointed army in Europe. They were fed, indeed, but they had no shelter. The tents, so long exposed to the blaze of a Bulgarian sun, and drenched by torrents of rain, let the wet through "like sieves."
On the night of the 20th of November, three companies of the Rifle Brigade (1st battalion), under Lieutenant Tryon, displayed coolness and courage in a very smart affair. In the rocky ground in the ravine towards the left of our left attack, about 300 Russian infantry established themselves in some caverns and old stone huts used by shepherds in days gone by, and annoyed the working and covering parties of the French right attack and of our advances.These caves abounded in all the ravines, and were formed by the decay of the softer portions of the rock between the layers in which it is stratified. It was found expedient to dislodge them, and at seven o'clock this party was sent to drive the Russians out. The Rifles soon forced the enemy to retreat on the main body, but when the Rifles had established themselves for the night in the caves, they were assailed by a strong column. The action ended in the complete repulse of the Russian columns, but we had to deplore the loss of a most promising and excellent officer, Lieutenant Tryon, who was killed by a shot in the head. Seven men killed and eighteen or nineteen wounded.
General Canrobert issued a very flatteringordre du jour, in which he especially eulogized the intrepid bravery and noble energy of the three companies of the 1st battalion of our Rifle Brigade in the action, and Lord Raglan mentioned it in very handsome terms.
Our army was in a strange condition now. The Light Division was provisionally commanded by Codrington, Sir George Brown being on board the "Agamemnon."
The Duke of Cambridge was on board the "Retribution." The Brigade of Guards appeared to be commanded by Colonel Upton.
The Brigade of Highlanders was down at Kadikoi, under the command of Sir Colin Campbell.
The Second Division was commanded by Brigadier-General Pennefather, in the room of Sir De Lacy Evans, who was on his way home unwell.
The First Brigade was under the command of a Lieutenant-Colonel.
The Second Brigade was without a brigadier, General Adams' wound was more serious than was supposed.
The Third Division was under the command of Sir Richard England, and was fortunate in not being much engaged.
The Fourth Division, deprived of all its generals, was commanded by Sir John Campbell.
Brigadier-General Lord Cardigan was unable to leave his yacht. The Artillery was under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Dacres during the absence of Lieutenant-Colonel Gambier, who was wounded, after having succeeded to the command left vacant by the death of Strangways.
Our cattle at Eupatoria were by no means in high condition; they perished from hunger. It may readily be guessed that joints from the survivors were scarcely in such a condition as would justify the least conscientious of London waiters describing them as being in "prime cut."
COMPANION OF THE GRAND DUKE.
Early in November a body of Russian cavalry appeared before Eupatoria to attack our stock, and a French colonel, with eighty horse, pushed forward to save his beeves and mutton from the gripe of the hungry Cossacks. The Russian cavalry always screen field guns, and on this occasion, as at the Bouljanak, plumped round shot and shell into the Frenchmen. The colonel was dismounted, seven men were killed or wounded, and, as the Frenchwere retiring, a polk of Lancers made a dash at them. Our rocket battery was, however, near at hand, and one of these fiery abominations rushed right through their ranks. The horses reared, and the Lancers "bolted," leaving several dead upon the field.
On the 24th there was a brisk affair between the French and the Russians in front of the Flagstaff Battery, and the Russians dispelled all myths about their want of powder and ball by a most tremendous cannonade. Assaults and counter-assaults continued amid a furious fire, which lighted up the skies with sheets of flame from nine o'clock at night till nearly four in the morning. The French at one time actually penetrated behind the outer intrenchments, and established themselves for a time within theenceinte, but as there was no preparation made for a general assault, they eventually withdrew.
The struggle between French and Russians was renewed on the night of the 25th. The great bone of contention, in addition to the Ovens, was the mud fort at the Quarantine Battery, of which the French had got possession, though, truth to tell, it did not benefit their position very materially.
A Polish deserter came in on the 27th with a strange story. He said that on the 25th the Grand Duke Michael reviewed a strong force of Russians (as he stated, of 12,000 men, but no reliance can be placed on the assertions of men of this class with regard to the numbers of a force), and that he addressed them in a spirited speech, in which he appealed to them to drive the heretics out of Balaklava into the sea. At the conclusion of his harangue the Grand Duke distributed two silver roubles to each private.
Areconnaissanceof our lines was made on the 30th of November by Grand Duke Michael and a very large staff, among whom our knowing people said they could see Prince Menschikoff and General Liprandi. The Grand Duke was recognisable by the profound respect paid to him—wherever he went hats were taken off and heads uncovered—and by the presence of a white dog which always accompanies him. While making his inspection, the enormous telescope through which he gazed was propped upon muskets and bayonets, and he made frequent references to a very large chart on a portable table. The Grand Duke rode back up the hills towards Tchergoun.
As the year waned and winter began to close in upon us, the army suffered greatly; worn out by night-work, by vigil in rain and storm, by hard labour in the trenches, they found themselves suddenly reduced to short allowance, and the excellent and ample rations they had been in the habit of receiving cut off or miserably reduced. For nine days, with very few exceptions, no issue of tea, coffee, or sugar, to the troops took place. These, however, are luxuries—not the necessaries of military life. The direct cause of this scarcity was the condition of the country, which caused a difficulty in getting food from Balaklava, and there was besides a want of supplies in the commissariat magazines. But though there was a cause, there was no excuse for the privations to whichthe men were exposed. We were all told that when the bad weather set in, the country roads would be impassable. The fine weather was allowed to go by, and the roads were left as the Tartar carts had made them, though the whole face of the country was covered thickly with small stones which seem expressly intended for road metal. As I understood, it was suggested by the officers of the Commissariat Department that they should be allowed to form depôts of food, corn, and forage, as a kind of reserve at the head-quarters at the different divisions; but their carts were, after a few days' work in forming those depôts, taken for the siege operations, and were employed in carrying ammunition to the trenches. Consequently, the magazines at headquarters were small, and were speedily exhausted when the daily supplies from Balaklava could no longer be procured. The food, corn, and hay were stowed in sailing vessels outside the harbour, where they had to ride in thirty or forty fathoms of water on a rocky bottom, with a terrible coast of cliff of 1,200 feet in height stretching around the bay: it was notorious that the place was subject to violent storms of wind.
As to the town, words could not describe its filth, its horrors, its hospitals, its burials, its dead and dying Turks, its crowded lanes, its noisome sheds, its beastly purlieus, or its decay. All the pictures ever drawn of plague and pestilence, from the work of the inspired writer who chronicled the woes of infidel Egypt, down to the narratives of Boccacio, De Foe, or Moltke, fall short of individual "bits" of disease and death, which any one might see in half-a-dozen places during half an hour's walk in Balaklava. In spite of all our efforts the dying Turks made of every lane and street acloaca, and the forms of human suffering which met the eye at every turn, and once were wont to shock us, ceased to attract even passing attention. By raising up the piece of matting or coarse rug which hung across the doorway of some miserable house, from within which you heard wailings and cries of pain and prayers to the Prophet, you saw in one spot and in one instant a mass of accumulated woes that would serve you with nightmares for a lifetime. The dead, laid as they died, were side by side with the living. The commonest accessories were wanting; there was not the least attention paid to decency or cleanliness—the stench was appalling—the fœtid air could barely struggle out to taint the atmosphere, through the chinks in the walls and roofs. The sick appeared to be tended by the sick, and the dying by the dying.
MOVEMENTS IN RUSSIAN CAMP.
A False Alarm—The Russians retire—Skirmishes—Orders to turn out—The French and English make a Reconnaissance in force—A Brush with the Cavalry—Reinforcements—Winter—System of "Requisition," "Orders," and "Memos"—Our friends the Zouaves—Grievances—Christmas and New Year—The Times Commissioner—Arrival of Omar Pasha—First Week in January—Trying Duty of the Fatigue Parties—Terrible State of the Trenches—Louis Napoleon's Presents to the French Army—The Siege—Russian Prospects.
A False Alarm—The Russians retire—Skirmishes—Orders to turn out—The French and English make a Reconnaissance in force—A Brush with the Cavalry—Reinforcements—Winter—System of "Requisition," "Orders," and "Memos"—Our friends the Zouaves—Grievances—Christmas and New Year—The Times Commissioner—Arrival of Omar Pasha—First Week in January—Trying Duty of the Fatigue Parties—Terrible State of the Trenches—Louis Napoleon's Presents to the French Army—The Siege—Russian Prospects.
ATtwelve o'clock, on the night of the 5th of December, there was a great stir down in the valley of Balaklava. The hoarse hum of men was heard by the pickets, and they reported the circumstance to the officers of the French regiments on the heights. Lights were seen moving about in the redoubts occupied by the Russians. It was supposed that the enemy had received reinforcements, or were about to make a dash at our position before Balaklava. The Hospital Guards and the invalid battalion were turned out, the French shrouded in their capotes grimly waited in their lines the first decisive movement of the enemy. The night was cold, but not clear; after a time the noise of wheels and the tramp of men ceased, and the alarm was over. Ere morning, however, we knew the cause. About five o'clockA.M.an outburst of flame from the redoubts in which the Russians had hutted themselves illuminated the sky, and at the same time the fire broke out in Komara. When morning came, the Russians were visible in much-diminished numbers on the higher plateaux of the hills near Tchorgoun and Komara. The faint rays of the morning sun played on the bayonets of another portion of the force as they wound up the road towards Mackenzie's farm, and passed through the wood over the right bank of the Tchernaya. They had abandoned the position they had won on 25th October.
With the exception of the advance of the army in the rear on the 25th October, and the grand sortie on the 5th of November, no movement of any moment was attempted during the latter part of 1854 by the Russians to raise the siege.
On the 20th of December, the Russians succeeded in penetrating our lines where they were in contract with the French. In order to deceive the sentries they commanded in French, whichrusewas successful; they killed and wounded sixteen men—among the latter Major Moller, of the 50th—and carried away eleven men and two officers, Captain Frampton and Lieutenant Clarke, as prisoners, but were driven back by the 34th regiment before they could do any further mischief, not without inflicting a loss.
On the 29th December, Sir Colin Campbell made a reconnaissance with a part of his force the 79th and Rifle Brigade. Soon afterseven o'clock the French proceeded towards the hills recently occupied by the Russians, with General Bosquet, the Rifles and Highlanders turning to the right and covering the flank of the expedition. As the force approached Komara, the Cossack vedettes came in sight, retiring slowly from the village, which has been in a ruinous state since the storm of the 14th of November. The vedettes fell back on a strong body of Lancers and Light Cavalry, which seemed disposed to await the shock of the French Chasseurs.
Cavalry skirmishers exchanged a few shots before they fell in with their respective squadrons, and when the French had arrived within about 800 yards, they broke from a trot into a gallop, and dashed right at the Russian cavalry. The latter met the shock, but made no attempt to charge the French, who broke them in an instant, and chased them back on the infantry, who were assembled in three small bodies on the hills, close to the village of Tchorgoun. As the French approached Tchorgoun, they were received with a brisk fire of shot and shell from some field-pieces, to which their guns were unable to reply; but they pushed within range, and the Russians again retired, and abandoned the village of Tchorgoun to our allies, as well as the line of cantonments and huts which they had constructed subsequent to Liprandi's advance in October.
The object was to beat up the Russian position and to ascertain the strength of the enemy. Our allies at once burst into the village, but the Cossacks had been there too long to leave anything to plunder, and so the French set it on fire. The whole cantonment was in a blaze, while volumes of white smoke curling up into the air, and spreading in sheets along the crests of the hills, indicated the destruction of the village, and informed the Russians that they could no longer hope for snug quarters there. The huts were very commodious and comfortable. Each was capable of containing twenty or thirty men, and held an oven for baking, which also warmed the room at the end. The object of thereconnaissancehaving been accomplished, the expedition was halted, and the men set to work at once to avail themselves of the abundance of wood along the hill-sides, and to make enormous fires, which almost obscured the retreat of the Russians. It was ascertained that they did not number more than 5000 or 6000 men. The French remained upon the ground till it was almost dark, and then returned to their camp. The French lost two officers, wounded (one since dead) and about twenty men puthors de combat. They took seventeen of the Russian cavalry and a few infantry prisoners.
ACTIVITY AND UBIQUITY OF THE ZOUAVES.
We were cursed by a system of "requisitions," "orders," and "memos," which was enough to depress an army of scriveners, and our captains, theoretically, had almost as much work to do with pen and paper as if they had been special correspondents or bankers' clerks; that is, they ought to have had as much to do, but, thanks to the realities of war, they had no bookkeeping; their accounts being lost, and the captain who once had forty or fifty pounds' weight of books and papers to carry, had not so much as a penny memorandum-book. This fact alone showed the absurdity of our arrangements. In peace, when these accounts were of comparatively little importance, we had plenty and too much of checks and returns, but in time of war the very first thing our army did was to leave all its stationery on board the steamer that carried it to the scene of action.
The cold was developing itself, and efforts to guard against it were attended with mischief. Captain Swinton, the Royal Artillery, was suffocated by the fumes of charcoal from a stove, several officers were half-killed by carbonic acid gas.
We were obliged to apply to the French to place guards over the line of march, for the instant a cart with provisions or spirits broke down it was plundered by our active friends the Zouaves, who really seemed to have the gift of ubiquity. Let an araba once stick, or break a wheel or an axle, and the Zouaves sniffed it out just as vultures detect carrion; in a moment barrels and casks were broken open, the bags of bread were ripped up, the contents were distributed, and the commissary officer, who had gone to seek for help and assistance, on his return found only the tires of the wheels and a few splinters of wood left, for our indefatigable foragers completed their work most effectually, and carried off the cart, body and boxes, to serve as firewood.
They were splendid fellows—our friends the Zouaves—always gay, healthy, and well fed; they carried loads for us, drank for us, ate for us, baked for us, foraged for us, and built our huts for us, and all on the cheapest and most economical terms. But there were some few degenerate wretches who grumbled even among thiscorps d'élite. An officer commanding a fatigue party, who happened to fall in with a party of Zouaves engaged in a similar duty, brought them all off to the canteen to give them a dram after their day's labour. While he was in the tent a warrior with a splendid face for a grievance came in and joined in the conversation, and our friend, seeing he was not a private, but that he had a chatty talkative aspect, combined with an air of rank, began to talk of the privations to which the allied armies were exposed. This was evidently our ally'schamp de bataille. He at once threw himself into an attitude which would have brought down the pit and galleries of the Porte St. Martin to a certainty, and, in a tone which no words can describe, working himself up by degrees to the grand climax, and attuning his body to every nice modulation of phrase and accent, he plunged into his proper woes. Our gallant friend had been expatiating on the various disagreeables of camp life in the Crimea in winter time: "C'est vrai!" quoth he, "mon ami! En effet, nous éprouvons beaucoup de misère!" The idea of any one suffering misery except himself seemed to the Zouave too preposterous not to be disposed of at once. "Mais, mon lieutenant," cried he, "regardez moi——moi! pr-r-r-r-remier basson 3me Zouaves! élève du Conservatoire de Paris! après avoir sacrificé vingt ans de ma vie pour acquérir un talent—pour me—r-r-ren-dr-r-re agréable a la société—me voici! (with extended arms, and legs) me voici—forcé d'arracher du bois de la terre (with terrible earnestness and sense of indignity), pour me faire de la soupe!"
At the close of the year there were 3500 sick in the British camp before Sebastopol, and it was not too much to say that their illness had, for the most part, been caused by hard work in bad weather, and by exposure to wet without any adequate protection. Think of a tent pitched, as it were, at the bottom of a marsh, into which some twelve or fourteen miserable creatures, drenched to the skin, had to creep for shelter after twelve hours of vigil in a trench like a canal, and then reflect what state these poor fellows must have been in at the end of a night and day spent in suchshelter, huddled together without any change of clothing, and lying packed up as close as they could be stowed in saturated blankets. But why were they in tents? Where were the huts which had been sent out to them? The huts were on board ships in the harbour of Balaklava. Some of these huts, of which we heard so much, were floating about the beach; others had been landed, and now and then I met a wretched pony, knee-deep in mud, struggling on beneath the weight of two thin deal planks, a small portion of one of these huts, which were most probably converted into firewood after lying for some time in the camp, or turned into stabling for officers' horses when enough ofdisjecta membrahad been collected. Had central depôts been established, as Mr. Filder proposed, while the fine weather lasted, much, if not all, of the misery and suffering of the men and of the loss of horses would have been averted.
It may be true that the enemy were suffering still more than our own men, but the calculation of equal losses on the part of England and on the part of Russia in the article of soldiery, cannot be regarded as an ingredient in the consideration of our position. Our force was deprived of about 100 men every twenty-four hours. There were between 7000 and 8000 men sick, wounded, and convalescent in the hospitals on the Bosphorus. The 39th Regiment before it had landed was provided with some protection against the severity of the weather—not by government, but byThe TimesCommissioner at Scutari: and I heard from the best authority that the bounty of the subscribers to the fund intrusted toThe Timesfor distribution was not only well bestowed to the men, but that the officers of the regiments had evinced the greatest satisfaction at the comfort.
When the various articles sent up byThe TimesCommissioner arrived at the camp, there was a rush made to get them by the regimental medical officers, and no false delicacy was evinced by them in availing themselves of the luxuries and necessaries placed at their disposal, and of which they had been in so much need.
We had rather a dreary Christmas. Where were the offerings of our kind country-men and country-women, and the donations from our ducal parks? The fat bucks which had exhausted the conservative principles of a Gunter; the potted meats, which covered the decks and filled the holds of adventurous yachts; the worsted devices which had employed the fingers and emptied the crotchet-boxes of fair sympathizers at home?
CRAVING OF THE ARMY FOR ARDENT SPIRITS.
Omar Pasha arrived on the 4th of January, on board the "Inflexible," and landed at the Ordnance-wharf. A council of war?—was held, at which the French General-in-Chief, the French Admiral, Sir E. Lyons, and Sir John Burgoyne, were present.
Next day, 1600 French were sent down to Balaklava to help us in carrying up provisions and ammunition. Each man received from our commissariat a ration of rum and biscuits.
The scenery of our camping ground and of the adjacent country assumed a wintry aspect. The lofty abrupt peaks and sharp ridges of the mountains which closed up the valley of Balaklava were covered with snow. On the tops of the distant mounds black figures, which appeared of enormous size, denoted the stations of the enemy's pickets and advanced posts.
The 63rd Regiment had only seven men fit for duty; the 46th had only thirty on the 7th. A strong company of the 90th was reduced in a week to fourteen file, and that regiment lost fifty men in a fortnight. The Scots Fusileer Guards, who had 1562 men, mustered 210 on parade. Other regiments suffered in like proportion. The men sought after ardent spirits with great avidity, and in carrying out rum to camp broached the kegs when the eye of the officer in charge was off them.
The duty of the fatigue parties was, indeed, very trying. A cask of rum, biscuit, or beef was slung from a stout pole between two men, and then they went off on a tramp of about five miles from the commissariat stores at Balaklava to head-quarters. As I was coming in from the front one day, I met a lad who could not long have joined in charge of a party of the 38th Regiment. He had taken the place of a tired man, and struggled along under his load, while the man at the other end of the pole exhausted the little breath he had left in appeals to his comrades. "Boys! boys! won't you come and relieve the young officer?" Horses could not do this work, for they could not keep their legs.
Hundreds of men had to go into the trenches at night with no covering but their greatcoats, and no protection for their feet but their regimental shoes. Many when they took off their shoes were unable to get their swollen feet into them again, and they might be seen bare-footed, hopping along about the camp, with the thermometer at twenty degrees, and the snow half a foot deep upon the ground. The trenches were two and three feet deep with mud, snow, and half-frozen slush. Our patent stoves were wretched. They were made of thin sheet iron, which could not stand our fuel—charcoal. Besides, they were mere poison manufactories, and they could not be left alight in the tents at night. They answered well for drying clothes.
I do not know how the French got on, but I know that our people did not get a fair chance for their lives while wintering in the Crimea. Providence had been very good to us. With one exception, which must have done as much mischief to the enemy as to ourselves, we had wonderful weather from the day the expedition landed in the Crimea.
One day as I was passing through the camp of the 5th (French)Regiment of the line, an officer came out and invited me to dismount and take a glass of brandy which had been sent out by the Emperor as a Christmas gift. My host, who had passed through his grades in Africa, showed me with pride the case of good Bordeaux, the box of brandy, and the pile of good tobacco sent to him by Napoleon III.—"le premier ami du soldat." A similar present had been sent to every officer of the French army, and a certain quantity of wine, brandy and tobacco had been forwarded to each company of every regiment in the Crimea. That very day I heard dolorous complaints that the presents sent by the Queen and Prince Albert to our army had miscarried, and that the Guards and Rifles had alone received the royal bounty in the very acceptable shape of a ton of Cavendish.
Although he was living in a tent, the canvass was only a roof for a capacious and warm pit in which there was a bright wood fire sparkling cheerily in a grate of stones. We "trinqued" together and fraternised, as our allies will always do when our officers give them the chance.
It must not be inferred that the French were all healthy while we were all sickly. They had dysentery, fever, diarrhœa, and scurvy, as well as pulmonary complaints, but not to the same extent as ourselves, or to anything like it in proportion to their numbers. On the 8th of January, some of the Guards of Her Majesty Queen Victoria's Household Brigade were walking about in the snowwithout soles to their shoes. The warm clothing was going up to the front in small detachments.
Road made for us by the French—Hardships—Wretched Ambulance Corps—Mule Litter—Heroism of the Troops—A speedy Thaw—Russian New Year—A Sortie—Central Depôt for Provisions—Disappearance of the Araba Drivers from Roumelia and Bulgaria—Highlanders and the Kilt—The Indefatigable Cossacks—Frost-bites—Losses in the Campaign—Foraging—Wild Fowl Shooting—The "Arabia" on Fire—The Coffee Question—Variableness of the Crimean Climate—Warm Clothing—Deserters—Their Account of Sebastopol.
Road made for us by the French—Hardships—Wretched Ambulance Corps—Mule Litter—Heroism of the Troops—A speedy Thaw—Russian New Year—A Sortie—Central Depôt for Provisions—Disappearance of the Araba Drivers from Roumelia and Bulgaria—Highlanders and the Kilt—The Indefatigable Cossacks—Frost-bites—Losses in the Campaign—Foraging—Wild Fowl Shooting—The "Arabia" on Fire—The Coffee Question—Variableness of the Crimean Climate—Warm Clothing—Deserters—Their Account of Sebastopol.
MORE HARDSHIPS, BUT NO DESPAIR.
The road which the French were making for the English from Kadikoi, by the Cavalry Camp, towards the front progressed, but not rapidly. The weather was so changeable, and was in every change so unfavourable for work, that it was hard to expect our allies to labour for us with their usual energy. However, they did work. They built huts for our officers, when paid for it, with much activity, and their aid in that way was invaluable. Some of the warm coats sent out for the officers were much too small, and I heard a pathetic story from a stout Highlander respecting the defeat of his exertions to get into his much-longed-for and much-wanted garment.
There was only one officer in the whole regiment that the largest of the great coats fitted, and he was certainly not remarkable for bulk or stature. The men were far more lucky, and their coats were of the most liberal dimensions, however eccentric in cut and device they might be.
As the Ambulance Corps were quitehors de combatin weather of this kind—as the men and horses were nearly all gone or unfit for duty, our sick were subjected to much misery in going from the camp to be put on board ship. But for the kindness of the French in lending us their excellent mule-litters, many of our poor fellows would have died in their tents. Captain Grant, at the head of the Ambulance Corps, was a most excellent, intelligent, and active officer, but he had no materials to work with, and this was no place for intelligence and activity to work miracles in. Experience had taught our allies that the mule-litter was the best possible conveyance for a sick or wounded man. A movable jointed frame of iron, with a canvass stretcher, was suspended from a light pack saddle at each side of a mule. If the sick or wounded man was able to sit up, by raising the head of the litter, a support was afforded to his back. If he wished his legs to hang down, the frame was adjusted accordingly, and he rode as if he were in an arm-chair suspended by the side of a mule. When the invalid wished to lie down, he had a long and comfortable couch—comfortable in so far as the pace of a mule was easier than the jog of an ambulance, and he was not crowded with others like hens in a coop. These mules travelled where ambulance carts could not stir; they required no roads nor beaten tracks, and they were readily moved about in the rear when an action was going on.
It was right that England should be made aware of the privations which her soldiers endured in this great winter campaign, that she might reward with her greenest laurels those gallant hearts, who deserved the highest honour—that honour which in ancient Rome was esteemed the highest that a soldier could gain—that in desperate circumstances he had not despaired of the Republic. And no man despaired. The exhausted soldier, before he sank to rest, sighed that he could not share the sure triumph—the certain glories—of the day when our flag was to float from Sebastopol! There was no doubt—no despondency. No one for an instant felt diffident of ultimate success. From his remains, in that cold Crimean soil, the British soldier knew an avenger and a conqueror would arise. If high courage, unflinching bravery—if steady charge—the bayonet-thrust in the breach—the strong arm in the fight—if calm confidence, contempt of death, and love of country could have won Sebastopol, it had long been ours. Let England know her children as the descendants of the starved rabble who fought at Agincourt and Cressy; and let her know, too, that in fighting against a stubborn enemy, her armies had to maintain a struggle with foes still more terrible, and that, as they triumphed over the one, so they vanquished the other.
On the night of the 12th of January the wind changed round to the southward, and the thermometer rose to 34°. A speedy thawfollowed, and the roads and camp once more suffered from the ravages of our old enemy—the mud. The Russians who had been very active inside the town during the day, and who had lighted great watchfires on the north side of the place, illuminated the heights over Tchernaya with rows of lights, which shone brilliantly through the darkness of the cold winter's night, and were evidently with all possible pomp and ostentation celebrating the opening of their new year. Lights shone from the windows of the public buildings, and our lonely sentries in the valleys and ravines, and theenfans perdus—the French sharpshooters lying in their lairs with watchful eye on every embrasure before them—might almost fancy that the inhabitants and garrison of the beleaguered city were tantalising them with the aspect of their gaiety. At midnight all the chapel bells of the city began ringing. On our side the sentries and pickets were warned to be on the alert, and the advanced posts were strengthened wherever it was practicable.
About a quarter past one o'clock in the morning the Russians gave a loud cheer. The French replied by opening fire, and the Russians instantly began one of the fiercest cannonades we had ever heard. It reminded one of those tremendous salvoes of artillery which the enemy delivered on two or three occasions before we opened our batteries in October. The earthworks flashed forth uninterrupted floods of flame, which revealed distinctly the outlines of the buildings in the town, and defences swarming with men. The roaring of shot, the screaming and hissing of heavy shell, and the whistling of carcases filled up the intervals between the deafening roll of cannon, which was as rapid and unbroken as quick file-firing. The iron storm passed over our lines uninterruptedly for more than half an hour, and the French, whose works to our left were less protected by the ground than ours, had to shelter themselves closely in the trenches, and could barely reply to the volleys which ploughed up the parapets of their works.
While the firing was going on a strong body of men had been pushed out of the town up the face of the hill towards our works in front, and on the flank of the left attack. As it was expected that some attempt of the kind would be made, a sergeant was posted at this spot with twelve men. Every reliance was placed upon his vigilance, and a strict attention to his duties, but, somehow or other, the enemy crept upon the little party, surprised, and took them prisoners, and then advanced on the covering parties with such rapidity and suddenness that the parties on duty in the trenches were obliged to retire. They rallied, however, and, being supported by the regiments in rear, they advanced, and the Russians were driven back close to the town.
MORTALITY AMONGST THE TURKS.
In this little affair one officer and nine men were wounded, six men were killed, and fourteen men taken. The French had to resist a strong sortie nearly at the same time; for a short time the Russians were within the parapet of one of their mortar batteries, and spiked two or three mortars with wooden plugs, but the French drove them back with loss, and in the pursuit got inside the Russian advanced batteries. The soldiers, indeed, say they couldhave taken the place if they had been permitted to do so. At two o'clock all was silent.
A heavy gale of wind blew nearly all day, but the thermometer rose to 38°, and the snow thawed so rapidly that the tracks to the camp became rivulets of mud. The establishment of a central depôt for provisions had, however, done much to diminish the labours and alleviate the sufferings of the men engaged in the duties of the siege; but the formation of the depôt and the accumulation of the stores wore out and exhausted many of our best men. Out of a batch of 500 or 600 horses brought up from Constantinople, 279 died between the 16th of December and the 16th January. In fact the commissariat consumed and used up horseflesh at the rate of 100 head per week, and each of the animals cost on an average 5l.The araba drivers from Roumelia and Bulgaria disappeared likewise—out of the several hundreds there were very few left; and of the Tartars of the Crimea in our employ the majority were unwilling or unfit to work in cold weather, accustomed as they seemed to be to sit all day in close rooms provided with large stoves as soon as winter set in. Disease and sickness of all kinds swept these poor people away very rapidly. The mortality of the Turkish troops, which had, as I before stated, assumed the dimensions of a plague, had now begun to be attended with much of the physical appearances of the same terrible disease, and their sanitary condition excited the liveliest apprehensions of our medical officers in Balaklava, who had, over and over again, represented to the authorities the danger of allowing the Turks to remain in the town.
TheAdelaidearrived in Balaklava on the 17th of January, after a splendid passage from England, and the passengers must have been a little astonished at the truly Christmas aspect presented by the Crimea; somewhat more real and less jovial they found it than the pictures which represented florid young gentlemen in gorgeous epaulettes, gloating over imaginary puddings and Christmas presents in snug tents, and ready to partake of the fare that England had sent to her dear boys in the Crimea, but which none of them had then received, and which none of them would ever eat in such comfort and with such appliances of luxury. There was a wind that would have effectually deprived, if wind could do it, any number of rats of their whiskers. Anxious to see what things were like on the heights above Balaklava, I started, with my gun upon my shoulder, through the passes across the hill, knee-deep in snow; and after a shot or two at great, raw-necked vultures, and stately eagles, and some more fortunate cracks at "blue rocks," scraping the snow off the points of the cliffs, I arrived in the camp of the Highlanders, several hundred feet below the elevated position of the Rifles, but quite high enough to induce me to accept a hearty invitation to stop to dinner, and rest for the night. Oh, could "Caledoniensis," "Pictus," "Memor antiquæ virtutis," or any of the high-spirited Celtic gentlemen who are fighting about lions rampant and Scottish rights, and the garb of that respectable person, Auld Gael, but have seen what their countrymenwere like as they faced the Crimean winter, how shamed they would have been of their kilt and philibeg and stocking declamation! All such things were clean gone, and if the gallant Highlanders ever wore the kilt'twas for punishment! Breeks—low-lived breeks—and blanket gaiters, and any kind of leggings over them, were the wear of our Scottish Zouaves, though, in good sooth, they were no more like Zouaves, except in popular modern legends, than they were like Dutchmen,à laRip Van Winkle.
Over the waste or snow, looking down from the heights towards the valley of the Tchernaya, I saw those indefatigable Cossacks riding about their picket ground, and a few waggons stealing along from Mackenzie's Farm towards the heights of Inkerman. A vedette or two were trotting up and down along a ridge, keeping a bright lookout on our movements, and through the glass we perceived them flapping their hands under their armpits, as London cabmen do on a cold night when waiting for a fare. Towards Baidar, pickets of the same active gentry were moving along to keep themselves warm. We had no cavalry posts advanced towards them. In fact we could not conveniently send any out. Those ragged ruffians, in sheepskin coats and fur caps, mounted on ragged ponies, with deal lances and coarse iron tips, were able in drifting snow and biting winds to hold ground which our cavalry could not face.
In the middle of January there were severe and sudden alterations of temperature. Men were frozen in their tents, and several soldiers on duty in the trenches were removed to hospital with severe frost-bites, but the frost enabled the men to get up considerable supplies of warm clothing, though the means at our disposal did not permit of the wood for huts being sent to the front. When a path had once been trodden through the snow, men and horses could get along much more easily than if they had to wade through mud or across a country in a state of semi-solution. Many thousands of coats, lined with fur, long boots, gloves, mits, and socks were served out, but there were regimental hospitals where they had only one blanket to lie upon.
Our army consisted of officers and regiments almost new to this campaign. The generation of six months before had passed away; generals, brigadiers, colonels, captains, and men, the well-known faces of Gallipoli, of Bulari, of Scutari, of Varna, of Aladyn, of Devno, of Monastir—ay, even of the bivouac of Bouljanak, had changed; and there was scarcely one of the regiments once so familiar to me which I could then recognise save by its well-known number. What a harvest Death had reaped, and yet how many more were ripe for the sickle of the Great Farmer! It was sad to meet an old acquaintance, for all one's reminiscences were of noble hearts now cold for ever, and of friend after friend departed. And then came—"Poor fellow! he might have been saved, if——"