Early on the morning of the 23rd September, 1854, the allied armies left their camp on the battlefield of Alma, and marched northwards towards Sebastopol. Traces of the haste in which the Russian army had retreated were at hand on every side. Here a sword, there a pistol, a belt, or even a tunic; the broad track, strewn with such relics, showed clearly the path of the retreat.
At length the valley of the Katcha was reached, and the camp pitched for the night. The advance was resumed early next morning, and about mid-day, from the ridge of hills separating the valley of the Katcha from that of the Baltic, the armies looked down upon their goal, Sebastopol.
During a brief halt, Marshal St. Arnaud, whose bodily weakness was increasing day by day, dismounted and lay upon the ground. Men noticed that he looked sad and worn. He was, in fact, within a few days of his death.
Here a council of war was held, and it was determined that the northern side of Sebastopol was too strong to admit of an immediate assault, and finally the decision was arrived at of executing a flank march inland and attacking Sebastopol from the south. By the 26th September this somewhat perilous movement was carried out with success, and the little seaport of Balaclava surrendered to Lord Raglan without bloodshed. On the same night, Marshal St. Arnaud resigned his command to General Camobert, and three days later he died on board ship, whither he had been carried for passage to France.
Balaclava was of vast importance to the allies, as its tiny harbour gave them a means of communication with their fleets whilst these were still out of the range of the guns of Sebastopol. Accordingly the place was garrisoned by troops under Sir Colin Campbell, whilst the main army moved northward a few miles to within a convenient distance of Sebastopol, where they spent many days, some twenty in all, disposing their forces, erectingbatteries, and making all the necessary preparations for a prolonged and persistent siege. Meanwhile, the Russians busily fortified the place, glad of the unexpected delay, since they had anticipated an immediate assault. Several of the finest ships were sunk at the mouth of the harbour to keep the allied fleets at bay, and works of counter-fortification went busily forward. Admiral Korniloff and Colonel Todleben were the two chief officers in command, Prince Mentschikoff having withdrawn the main portion of his army to the Baltic, where he remained for a considerable period in a state of extraordinary inactivity. By the 6th October, however, he was prevailed upon to increase the garrison of Sebastopol to some 53,000 men.
On the 17th October, 1854, the allied armies opened fire upon Sebastopol, and the deafening cannonade was maintained daily till the evening of the 25th October. An account of the siege and final surrender of Sebastopol is given in a later chapter.
In the meantime, on the 18th October, a Russian field army was observed to be manœuvring on the allied flank and rear, and threatening the somewhat isolated garrison of Balaclava. The defensive measures taken for the defence of Balaclava consisted of inner and outer lines of defence. The town and harbour themselves were protected by steep hills, except at the gorge of Kadikoi, towards the north. Accordingly, these hills were fortified by the marine artillery, and held by marines and two companies of the 93rd regiment, while the gorge of Kadikoi itself was defended by six companies of the 93rd Highlanders and a battalion of Turks, with artillery, the whole constituting the inner line of defence.
Now the gorge of Kadikoi opens out into a more or less level plain known as the plain of Balaclava, a mile north of the town. It was here that there was destined to be fought the great cavalry battle which holds so glorious a place in annals of the British army. Right across the centre of this plain, which is three miles long by two broad, and hemmed in on all sides by hills from 300 to 400 feet high, is a low continuous chain of hills or ridge dividing the plain of Balaclava into two portions, called respectively the north and south valleys, and carrying the main Woronzoff Road or Causeway. This ridge of hills was known to our men as the Causeway heights, and constituted the outer line of defence, by which the enemy might be hindered from even penetrating to the south valley. A chain of redoubts were thrown up along the Causeway heights by our engineers and manned by Turks. The only supporting force available in the event of an attack was the cavalry, under Lord Lucan, some 1500 strong, which was encamped in the south valley within the outer line of defence.
The cavalry force consisted of two brigades—the Heavy Brigade, composed of the Scots Greys, Enniskillens, 1st Royal Dragoons, and 4th and 5th Dragoon Guards, under General Hon. James Scarlett, and the Light Brigade, under Lord Cardigan, consisting of the 4th and 13th Light Dragoons, the 8th and 11th Hussars, and the 17th Lancers. The whole garrison of Balaclava was, as before mentioned, under the chief command of Sir Colin Campbell.
On the evening of the 24th October, the troops of all divisions turned in for the night as usual, little conscious of the fact that a force of 25,000 Russians was advancing stealthily towards them from three different directions, their object being to seize the outer line of defence. Arising an hour before daybreak, Lord Lucan and his staff, mounted and moving slowly along in an easterly direction, perceived, in the dim light, two ensigns flying from the easternmost redoubt! Instantly all was activity, for the flying of two ensigns from the fort was the signal prearranged with the Turks to announce the Russian advance in force. The Light Cavalry Brigade was sent forward to support the Turks, and an aide-de-camp was despatched at full speed to Lord Raglan informing him at once of the turn of affairs.
Says a private soldier of the Black Watch:—“It so happened that all our regiment was in camp, and we were expecting to get that day’s rest, but the rations were scarcely served out when the words came, ‘Fall in! fall in at once!’ I need not say that the order was obeyed in all haste by the whole division, and His Royal Highness (The Duke of Cambridge) and Colonel Cameron marched us off in the direction of Balaclava.” Thus the 1st and 4th Divisions with Bosquet’s forces were promptly despatched to the scene of action, but meantime, in the plain of Balaclava things were happening.
The Turkish defence had not lasted long. Contrary to popular opinion, the historian of the war extols the bravery of the Turkish troops at this juncture, who, if they were compelled to beat an ignominious retreat, did so at least in the presence of overwhelming numbers of the enemy, and practically without support from our troops. In a very little while the outer line of defence was captured, the Russian cavalry in the meantime proceeding down the north valley towards the gorge of Kadikoi. Here, it will be remembered, Sir Colin Campbell stood awaiting them in person with the 93rd Highlanders.
As the foremost Russian horsemen appeared heading towards the gorge, the eager Highlanders began to spring forward, but the angry voice of their veteran commander held them in check, and saved them from being cut to pieces by the cavalry in the open plain. Meanwhile the Turkish fugitives streamingdown the south valley towards Kadikoi, had been formed up into some sort of order by Sir Colin, and together with the 93rd they stood awaiting the Russian cavalry charge. That charge never came. But while the steady line of Highlanders poured a heavy fire into the advancing force, without waiting for its effect, the Osmanlis turned and fled, falling over each other in their haste. The Highlanders alone confronted the foe. “Remember, there is no retreat, men!” said Sir Colin, as he rode along the line; “you must die where you stand!” “Ay, ay, Sir Colin,” came the quick reply, and a second later the order rang out clear and sharp, and a second heavy volley met the advancing enemy.
It proved too much for the dreaded horsemen of the Czar, and in a few moments they turned and retreated in confusion, another volley helping them on their way. The strain relaxed, the victorious Highlanders turned their faces to watch the retreating soldiers of the Sultan, and in a moment, where had been set, stern faces and lips drawn tight, were seen countenances convulsed with laughter and powder-stained cheeks furrowed by tears of uncontrollable merriment.
For in their retreat past the camp of the Highlanders some of the Turkish soldiers had paused for a second with intent, it is supposed, to pillage. Judge then of their amazement when from out of one of the nearest tents emerged a stalwart and furious Scottish “wife,” who seized the nearest of the Faithful by the ear and with stout stick and sturdy arm belaboured his back and his red trousers till the blows resounded far and wide. Not once, but again and again did this angry lady (“she was a very powerful woman,” said an eye-witness) belabour the soldiers of the Sultan, and long and loud was the laughter of the 93rd as Turk after Turk fled screaming from her fury, bawling, “Ship! ship!” as he sought a safer refuge at the harbour of Balaclava. “Then, if ever in history,” says Kinglake, “did the fortunes of Islam wane low before the manifest ascendant of the Cross!”
In the meantime in the other part of the field events moved quickly. The defeated squadron of Russian horse rejoined the main body in the north valley, and under General Ryjoff moved up to the crest of the Causeway heights, between the captured redoubts, with the intention of falling upon our troops in the south valley. By this time Lord Raglan had arrived upon the scene, and from a position where he could view the whole field observed the Turkish flight at Kadikoi. Quick as thought he directed the Heavy Brigade under General Scarlett to proceed to their support. As the brigade rode along the south valley in execution of this order, they were suddenly aware of a squadron of Russian cavalry gazing down uponthem from the Causeway heights upon their left, and about to hurl itself upon their flank. To face about was the work of an instant, though the odds were about ten to one, and for a few seconds our cavalry awaited the Russian charge. At a well-governed speed and in splendid order the Russians rode down the slopes of the hill, gradually gathering impetus to press the charge, when, from some unexplained cause, their trumpets sounded, the pace gradually slackened, and the whole squadron came to a standstill within some four hundred yards of our troops, and slowly opened out their front as if to envelope our forces.
Scarlett was quick to seize this advantage accorded to him as if by a miracle. Turning to his trumpeter, he called out, “Sound the charge!” and in an instant, with their gallant General several paces in advance, the Heavy Brigade hurled themselves up the hill straight at the halted Russian line.
The front of our “three hundred” was composed of the Scots Greys and Enniskillens, regiments long associated with each other in battle, and old comrades in arms. Side by side they dashed up the gently-sloping ground, and “the Greys with a low eager moan of outbursting desire, the Enniskillens with a cheer,” met the enemy with a terrific shock.
Well was it for the gallant General Scarlett that he had ridden several paces in advance of his men, and, hacking and hewing his way single-handed, had cut deeply into the mass of Russian horsemen. For their very numbers became a source of safety instead of danger to him, so that he was enabled completely to escape the shock of the charge of his own devoted troops, which completely crushed the first few ranks of the Russians. After the first fierce shock, the fighting became individual. Here a single scarlet horseman engaged with three or four of the enemy, preserving his life solely by the strength of his sword-arm. There a little knot of three or four cut a pathway through overwhelming odds. “I never felt less fear in my life,” wrote one of the Scots Greys after the fight; “I felt more like a devil than a man. I escaped without a scratch, though I was covered with blood.”
General Scarlett himself received five wounds, none of which was he conscious of at the time, while Lieutenant Elliot, his aide-de-camp, had no fewer than fourteen sabre cuts, through which he not only lived, but lived to be returned as “slightly wounded”!
The Russians suffered heavily, as our frenzied men cut their way through and through their overwhelming mass. Spectators have described the awe with which they watched this devoted body of scarlet-clad men merge themselves into the sea of Russian grey, and many thought they must be lost indeed. Butthe keen and practised eye of the commander-in-chief saw that, far from being overwhelmed, our men, though scattered, were more than holding their own. It was indeed the first step to victory if it could be pushed home without delay. The joy with which the order to support “the three hundred” was received may be well judged from the spirit of Lord Cardigan, who, with the soon to be famous Light Brigade, was halted watching the combat, and eagerly awaiting the order to “go in.”
“Damn those Heavies!” cried the Earl many times, as in sheer rage at the enforced inaction, he cantered furiously up and down the lines of his squadron; “Damn those Heavies; they’ll have the laugh of us this day!” A spirit shared, it may be stated, by every British trooper on the scene. But it was not to the Light Brigade that Lord Raglan sent the order “to support,” but to the comrades of the three hundred—the Heavy Dragoons and Royals.
With wild cheers, and a charge which developed in many places into a neck-and-neck race, these drove in upon the flanks of the Russian horse, and beset the sorely-pressed Cossacks at many different points. Till at length attacked both from within, where the acting-adjutant of the Greys, Alexander Miller, towering on his enormous horse and holding aloft his reeking sword, was collecting his regiment with a stentorian, “Rally, the Greys!”—attacked from without by the Royals and Dragoons, and again charged from within by the Enniskillens—the Russian horsemen began to back, their ranks loosened, and soon they galloped up the hill for dear life in full retreat.
Then, as our Heavy Brigade, slowly and laboriously reformed, there went up such a cheer from the 93rd and all who had witnessed the fight as could be heard afar and all across the plain. A French General exclaimed generously, “The victory of the Heavy Brigade was the finest thing I ever saw.” Sir Colin Campbell, galloping up to where the Greys were reforming, uncovered and spoke to the regiment. “Greys! gallant Greys!” he said, according to one version, “I am sixty-one years old, and if I were young again I should be proud to be in your ranks.” Nor was this all. As General Scarlett, blood-stained from head to foot, having cut his way from one end of the Russian cavalry to the other, emerged upon the scene, an aide-de-camp tore up to him from Lord Raglan, and nearly throwing his horse upon its haunches, with hand at the salute, delivered in the ears of the regiment the chief’s gracious message of “Well done!” which caused the hearts of all to swell with pride and eyes to gleam with joy.
But Lord Raglan was not the man to waste precious time, and instantly comprehending that now at once was the occasionto push home the cavalry victory, sent two successive orders to Sir George Cathcart, whose 4th Division was by this time approaching the scene, to at once press on and recapture the redoubts. These orders for some reason were somewhat sluggishly obeyed, and so great was the delay that Lord Raglan, growing impatient, determined to use his swifter cavalry arm.
An aide-de-camp with written instructions was despatched post haste to Lord Lucan, to order that the cavalry should advance and recover the heights. Here again the order was misunderstood, Lord Lucan being indisposed to move too far forward without supports, and a delay of half an hour occurred.
Minute after minute passed by as Lord Raglan and his staff from the higher ground swept the field with their glasses, and still no cavalry appeared. Then all at once it was perceived that the enemy with ropes and horses, was preparing to drag off the captured British guns.
Instantly Lord Raglan despatched the world-renowned “fourth order,” the text of which was clear and unmistakable. It ran as follows:—“Lord Raglan wishes the cavalry to advance rapidly to the front, and try to prevent the enemy carrying away the guns. Troops of horse artillery may accompany. French cavalry is on your left. Immediate.”
To Captain Nolan—“the impetuous Nolan”—was entrusted the carrying of this message, and many have recorded the dangerous and breakneck speed at which he set off upon his errand, riding straight down the steep face of the hill, turning his horse’s head neither to right nor left, on his urgent journey to Lord Lucan. As one who had been with Lord Raglan watching and waiting for the appearance of the cavalry who never came, it may be readily imagined that Nolan was in a temper, and briefly and uncompromisingly he thrust the order into the hands of his superior officer.
Once again Lord Lucan conceived the enterprise a dangerous one, and ventured unwisely to say so. Nolan, by this time thoroughly roused, blurted out, “Lord Raglan’s orders are that the cavalry should advance immediately,” and, says Lord Lucan in his narrative, pointed to the north valley, where the Russian guns were dimly seen in battery. It is probable, nay, almost certain, that Nolan merely waved his hand in a general forward direction, but Lord Lucan conceived him to indicate the north valley.
Stung by the implied reproach of his inferior, Lord Lucan resolved to carry out the order at once, as he conceived it, and straightway commanded Lord Cardigan that the cavalry were to advance, not, as Lord Raglan had intended, up the Causeway heights, to recapture our own lost guns, but up the deadly north valley, where the enemy’s guns were in position on every side.
Well did the Earl of Cardigan know the awful danger of the task thus erroneously allotted to him, but to Lord Lucan’s order he returned a cheerful “Certainly sir!” and, placing himself at the head of his men, quietly gave the order, “The Brigade will advance!”
Again and again poets and historians have placed on record the fearless devotion to duty thus called into play, and if the advance of the Light Brigade was one of the gravest military errors ever made, yet its achievement forms one of the noblest pages of the national military history.
“Gallop!” came the order, short and sharp, and as one man the 673 of all ranks bent to the saddle, and, with Lord Cardigan at their head, swept over the grassy sward straight to where the Russian guns stood, backed by five and twenty thousand horse and foot.
For a moment the foe were paralysed at the awe-inspiring folly of the British. They gasped to see the small body of cavalry, with faces set, their chargers with manes and tails streaming in the wind, galloping down the deadly valley to their death. Then their wonder gave place to rage. From right and left and straight in front burst forth a sheet of flame, and with a deafening crash the hail of lead tore through the devoted ranks.
One of the first to fall was Nolan, who had joined the charge, a volunteer, and right in front of the division rode with uplifted sword, to the intense fury of Lord Cardigan, who claimed that proud position for himself. There is little doubt that Nolan intended to change the direction of the charge, seeing at last the full extent of the error which had been made, but this was not to be. A fragment of a Russian shell tore Nolan’s gallant breast, and, says Kinglake, “from what had been Nolan there burst forth a cry so strange and so appalling that the hussar who rode nearest him has always called it unearthly. And in truth I imagine that the sound resulted from no human will, but rather from those spasmodic forces which may act upon the form when life has ceased.... The shriek men heard rending the air was the shriek of a corpse.”
On into the pen of fire rode the Light Brigade. Saddles emptied fast, and riderless horses, as is the manner of the poor brutes, ranged themselves on either side of the gallant leader, Lord Cardigan, and their hoofs thundered with the rest. Shrieks, curses, groans, and cheers were mingled as onward, ever onward, at racing speed, rode the brave band. Never once did Lord Cardigan turn in his saddle, but, erect and straight, flew over the grass, and, with eyes riveted on the crimson tunic of their leader, the gallant men followed him todeath. Down went man and horse, with shriek, with prayer, and some without a sound, but never a pause in the devoted ranks.
“Now, my brave lads, for old England!” roared Sir George Paget, as they dashed towards the guns; onward, ever onward, till at length the guns were reached, and those who were left rode in behind them cutting and thrusting at the gunners with a maniacal fury.
Lord Cardigan has described the dull wonder with which he found himself unhit by the discharge of a twelve-pounder almost in his face, and the next instant cutting and slashing at the men who fired it. Eye-witnesses have described the awful sights seen after the charge; of the charge itself few can speak with accuracy.
Says a private soldier of the Black Watch, who by this time had arrived upon the scene:—“A Russian gunner was holding his head together. It had been struck with a cavalry sword. He was alive, and was walking to the front, when my comrade called out, ‘Don’t take him to the front, take him to the rear; our doctors may make something of him.’ He was sent to the rear holding his head together. It was often spoken of years afterwards in our regiment.”
“I saw one of the Greys,” says the same man, Alexander Robb of Dundee, “holding his arm that was nearly cut through. He also was able to walk. As he was passing us he said, ‘They say the Russians are not good at the sword, but I never gave a point but I got a parry,’ and he made his way, laughing, to the surgeons.”
Thus were the guns taken at Balaclava. “It was magnificent, but it was not war,” said General Bosquet. The position was untenable, and after a few brief instants the order came “Threes about, retire!” and back rode the shattered force—195 mounted men in all. Once more the Russian fire broke out, and that the carnage on the return journey down the north valley was not heavier was due entirely to the French cavalry, the gallant Chasseurs d’Afrique. Realising the urgent danger of the Light Brigade, they diverted the attention of the right-hand Russian battery upon themselves, and thus doubtless preserved many lives in the ranks of the sadly thinned six hundred.
That the whole charge of the Light Brigade was a grievous error none could deny, least of all Lord Raglan, who angrily demanded of Lord Cardigan, as the scattered remnant of the cavalry reformed—“What did you mean, sir, by attacking a battery in front, contrary to all the usages of war?” It is, however, not unpleasing to learn that, writing privately of the charge, Lord Raglan has described it as “perhaps the finest thing ever attempted!”
With the charge of the Light Brigade, which lasted some twenty minutes, the battle practically ended, and about four o’clock the firing ceased. The Russians still held the captured redoubts, and had indeed succeeded in severing Balaclava from the main allied camps before Sebastopol, but no strategical advantage could dim the lustre and the glorious prestige of the hare-brained charge of Lord Cardigan and the Light Cavalry.
Lord Lucan was removed from the command of the cavalry of the “army of the East,” and his request to be tried by court-martial was refused.
The allied and Russian losses at Balaclava were nearly equal in number—between 600 and 700 on either side.
By the first week of November enormous numbers of reinforcements reached the Russian army in the Crimea, so that not only were some 120,000 troops under Prince Mentschikoff’s command, but a corresponding enthusiasm was awakened amongst all Russian ranks by this large addition to their numbers. Such warlike enthusiasm received a great impetus at this time by the arrival in camp of two young Grand Dukes, Michael and Nicholas, sons of the Czar.
The allied troops, on the other hand, had by this time an effective strength of some 65,000 men, and with an extended line of nearly 20 miles to guard it was apparent to all that a severe struggle for supremacy would shortly take place.
As is so often the case in war, those upon the spot, Lord Raglan and General Camobert, though fully aware of a large accession to the enemy’s strength, were not so well posted as to its precise extent as were their fellow-countrymen in France and England. In both countries intense anxiety prevailed as to the outcome of the next engagement of the war.
They were not long kept in suspense. The Russian plan of attack comprised a general advance, partly a feint, upon the allied right, simultaneous with a sortie from the city of Sebastopol. Sunday, the 5th November, was the day fixed upon.
On the eve of the battle—the night of the 4th November—and again as early as four o’clock on the morning of the 5th, the bells of Sebastopol were heard ringing, and it was afterwards ascertained that the Russian Church was bestowing her blessing upon the soldiers of the Czar. Moreover, the clangour of the great bells to some extent covered the sound of the footstepsof the advancing hordes as they crept forward to the attack some hours before sunrise.
The attack was admirably planned. The extreme southernmost portion of the Russian army, under Prince Gortschakoff, was to feint an attack against the Guards and the French under Bosquet, thereby hindering them from marching to the assistance of our 2nd Division under General Pennefather, in whose charge lay the district of Mount Inkerman. Mount Inkerman itself, the real objective of the enemy, was to be assailed by 40,000 men under General Dannenburg. To the north again, the Sebastopol garrison was to effect a further diversion, engaging the allied left.
Upon the 2nd Division then was to fall the brunt of the fight, for the possession of the high ground of Mount Inkerman would enable the Russians to overlook their besieging enemy, hamper their operations, and, in all probability, compel them to abandon the siege.
On the afternoon of the 4th, General Pennefather, who commanded the 2nd Division, in the absence through illness of Sir de Lacy Evans, going his rounds as usual, observed a somewhat increased activity on the part of the enemy, but not of such a nature as to warrant other than ordinary vigilance. Towards evening a thick mist and heavy drizzle set in, and the outlying pickets on Mount Inkerman strained their eyes through the mist and darkness for a possible glimpse of the enemy. Captain Sargent, indeed, of the 95th, regarded the night as being specially favourable to an attack by the enemy, and increased the vigilance of the picket under his command, reloading some of the wetted rifles with his own hands. Towards four o’clock there rang out the pealing of the Sebastopol bells aforementioned, and several men reported that they distinctly heard the rumbling of waggon or gun-carriage wheels during the early hours of the morning.
With all these premonitions, however, the attack came suddenly, so favoured were the enemy by mist and darkness.
Shortly after the changing of the pickets, and just as day was breaking, a sentry of the outermost picket on Mount Inkerman stood straining his eyes to pierce the mist that lay around him dim and silent. Suddenly it seemed to him a part of it towards the Shell Hill became darker than the rest, and then slowly began to move towards him. The sentry rubbed his eyes, thinking he must be dreaming, but sure enough the dark patch moved slowly up towards him out of the ravine, making never a sound, so thick and deadening lay the mist. Instantly he dashed off to his officer in command, Captain Rowlands, and reported his suspicions, and together in the now rapidly-clearing mist they beheld the approach of not one, buttwo Russian battalions in array of battle. Bang! rang out the picket’s fire, and firing obstinately, disputing every inch of the ground, it fell back before the now rapidly-advancing foe. The Inkerman engagement had begun.
Quickly the sound of firing roused the camp, and a battery was at once established on a shoulder known as Home Ridge, to check the enemy’s advance by firing more or less at random into the mist. Shortly afterwards, Lord Raglan and General Camobert appeared on the scene and placed an increased battery at General Pennefather’s disposal.
By intermittent firing, stubborn resistance, and occasionally a bayonet charge, the advancing Russian columns were thrown back behind their guns, which were by this time posted on Shell Hill.
The respite was not for long. A force of more than 10,000 Russians under General Sornionoff in person next swarmed up in front of Pennefather’s devoted troops now slightly augmented by General Adams and the 41st regiment. Again and again did overwhelming masses of Russians pit themselves, with hoarse cries, against numerically insignificant bodies of our troops. Reports have it that the Russian soldiers had been sent into battle inflamed by large quantities of raw spirit, and certainly the extraordinary violence and pertinacity of their attack tends to support this belief. Be this as it may, their most determined onslaughts proved unavailing. With sword, bayonet, and, where the brushwood was too thick to admit of hand-to-hand fighting, with rifle ball, did our brave fellows drive them back, and many a Victoria Cross was won in the detached, but none the less effective fighting of this the first stage of the long Inkerman fight.
Here was Townsend’s battery lost and recaptured. Here Lieutenant Hugh Clifford won his cross “for valour,” leading some seventy men right into the heart of a column which threatened to turn his flank. Here Nicholson and many another gallant officer was killed; whilst, in this part of the field, Colonel Egerton, with some 260 men, totally routed and relentlessly pursued 1500 of the famous Tomsk regiment.
Kinglake tells the story briefly:—“‘There are the Russians, General,’ said Egerton to General Buller, as the great grey mass loomed before them in the mist; ‘what shall we do?’ ‘Charge them!’ retorted Buller tersely. And charge them he did with a will, hurling them down the hillside with loud hurrahs, and following their confused and broken ranks with sword and bayonet.”
Thus again were the Russians beaten back from the slopes of Inkerman, and in the melee General Sornionoff himself was killed.
The next attack came from another quarter, but still the brunt of the fighting fell on Pennefather’s troops.
Meanwhile, in other parts of the field, the Russians had carried out their admirable and well-laid plan of attack. Gortschakoff’s forces had threatened Bosquet and the Guards who were opposing him. The Duke of Cambridge, however, who commanded in that part of the field, was not long deceived by the feints of the enemy. Leaving only the Coldstreams to face Gortschakoff (and withdrawing even these before long), he hurried the Grenadiers and Scots Fusiliers to Pennefather’s assistance. Bosquet also perceived Inkerman to be the real point of attack, and while still facing Gortschakoff with his troops, held them in readiness to march thither should the need arise, as it very soon did.
Sir Colin Campbell’s forces, however, were detained near Balaclava in a state of inaction, to protect that important port; as it happened an unnecessary, but very wise, provision.
Says one of the garrison under Sir Colin:—“We remained in the trenches under arms for three or four hours. The whole Balaclava force was under arms in the same manner, while Sir Colin was riding along the line of trenches and keeping an eye on the enemy in front, which (sic) appeared to be threatening an attack on us. We heard a heavy musketry fire from the front, and it was well on in the day before it slackened, and the enemy were seen to move backwards, out of sight—all but their sentries. We remained the same, however, not knowing what was up.”
On the Sebastopol front, on the other hand, nothing of importance happened till, between nine and ten o’clock, a resolute sortie under General Timovieff took place, and the attention of Prince Napoleon was so occupied with this attack, which at one time met with some measure of success, that his troops were unable to reach Mount Inkerman in time to take part in the main fight.
Thus it will be seen that in this part of the field the enemy attained his object and made a successful division. All other troops available were despatched with speed to the scene of the main action on Inkerman.
Of Mount Inkerman itself it may be said that it is in the shape of a long narrow triangle, with base towards the Russians and joined towards the Chersonese by its apex to the high ground of the British camps—this narrow neck being known as the Isthmus. Shell Hill forms its highest point, whilst on either hand, but nearer the allied camp, are lesser heights or shoulders called respectively Home Ridge and English Heights, and lying north and south of the central peak of Shell Hill, and separated from it by a ravine. A lower ridge betweenthese two was called the Fore Ridge, upon which at either end were the slight defences of the Barrier and Sandbag Battery, both destined ere long to become famous—“the scene of one of the bloodiest combats in history.”
For now once more the Russians swarmed up in front of our already hard-pressed outposts, the clearer atmosphere revealing their true and overwhelming numbers.
By this time the Grenadiers and Scots Fusiliers, under the Duke of Cambridge, were rapidly approaching. And now began that terrific struggle over the Sandbag Battery which resulted in that comparatively worthless entrenchment, situated as it was some yards in advance of the British position, being taken and retaken many times with awful slaughter on both sides.
Pennefather’s brave fellows, General Adams and his brigade, the Guards, and some of the French infantry waged in turn a fierce war round the comparatively worthless position, and soon its shallow trench was heaped with dead and dying. Time and again the Russians would sweep into the battery, with murder in their eyes and brain, and bayonet any hapless wounded left behind perforce by our outnumbered men. A few brief moments would elapse, our gallant fellows would re-form, and, tooth and nail, with cold steel and even fist to face they would drive out the invader and hunt the Russians down the slope, thence only to return with dogged pertinacity again and again to the assault.
The 56th Westmoreland, the 41st Welsh, the 49th Herefordshire, the 20th and 95th, the Grenadiers, Scots Fusiliers and Grenadiers again—each in turn occupied for varying intervals of time the worthless battery, and then were either forced by weight of numbers to retire or else abandoned the battery themselves, having discovered its incapacity for shelter. Seven times in all was the battery captured by the Russians, and seven times retaken by our men.
Says the great historian of the war:—“The parapet of the Sandbag Battery—it stands to this day—(1869) is a monument of heroic devotion and soldierly prowess, yet showing, as preachers might say, the vanity of human desires. Supposed, although wrongly, to be a part of the British defences, and fought for, accordingly, with infinite passion and at a great cost of life by numbers and numbers of valiant infantry, the work was no sooner taken than its worthlessness became evident, not indeed to the bulk of the soldiery, but to those particular troops which chanced to be posted within it.”
And so the mistaken fight raged on, and heavy indeed were the losses around the fateful battery. The dead lay around in heaps.
Here General Adams died, his ankle shattered by a Russian bullet, and General Torrens was here so grievously wounded that he died later. As he lay upon the ground, General Sir George Cathcart rode down to him, crying, “Well and gallantly done, Torrens!” only to fall himself within the hour, a bullet through his heart.
Many are the gallant deeds and hairbreadth escapes recounted from this quarter of the field. The Duke of Cambridge only escaped being cut off by the Russians through dint of hard riding, a horse being killed under him and a bullet grazing his arm. Here Burnaby and his brave little party were some moments surrounded on every side, and only rescued by the French 7th battalion of the line; and here and there “General Pennefather’s favourite oaths could be heard roaring cheerily down through the smoke” as he galloped from point to point, encouraging his men wherever the stress was greatest. It was at this time a horse was killed under him, throwing him to the ground in its fall, and men smiled amid the slaughter as they heard the old General “damning” the Russian gunners with all the fervour of his years!
On both sides reinforcements were hurried up continually, and regiment after regiment distinguished itself. “Men! remember Albuera!” rang out the voice of young Captain Stanley of the 57th, as a bullet tore its way into his heart, and his devoted company sprang forward over his body, upholding to the last the splendid tradition of the “Die Hards.”
At length, about 8.30, the vast hordes of General Dannenburg were pressed back, and something of a lull occurred. The British still held their ground, but with a frightful loss of nearly 1500 men.
From this time forward the Russian attack was mainly directed at the Home Ridge, and for a while it prospered. In this part of the field the allied forces consisted of some 2000 British, with a regiment of French and a small body of Zouaves, who had joined the Inkerman fight without orders, and for pure love of fighting. Most opportune was the moment of the arrival of this little body of troops, for without hesitation they hurled themselves at a Russian force which in the first brief moments of the onslaught had captured three British guns in advance of the position, and triumphantly restored them to their owners. Kinglake has declared his belief that they were led by Sir George Brown in person, who had discovered them wandering leaderless in a remote portion of the field.
Meanwhile the main body of the Russians advanced, covered by the heavy fire of their artillery on Shell Hill. So heavy indeed was this fire that Lord Raglan and the headquarters staff were in serious danger by reason of it. As Lord Raglanwas directing the movements of the troops from the rear of the British lines, a round shot tore the leg off General Strangeways, with whom he was conversing. Without a cry the old man begged to be assisted from his horse, for he did not lose his grip of the saddle, and was led tenderly to the back of the fight, where he died—a veteran soldier of Wellington’s. At the same instant a shell burst, blowing the horses of two more staff officers to pieces, and splashing the headquarters staff with blood.
Lord Raglan had been too often under fire to be in any way perturbed by these events, and never for an instant did he relax his grip upon the battle. It was well indeed that he did not, for the Russians were making headway, and at this critical juncture, the 7th Léger, a young French battalion, showed signs of weakening. The French officers, however, never lacking in bravery, beat their men back into line, and, mingled with the remnant of the 56th, literally shoulder to shoulder, the French and British faced, and ere long worsted, the foe.
Back and forwards raged the fight at the Barrier. Now the Russians were in retreat; now for want of fresh troops to press the victory home the pursuit weakened, and they rallied and returned; now they were driving our men back, and all the while their artillery from Shell Hill poured down a pitiless rain of lead upon our wearied troops, and sometimes even on their own front ranks, so close and intermingled was the fighting at this point.
Lord Raglan, ever upon the alert, beheld the weakening of our tired-out forces, and sent a staff officer post haste to Bosquet, bidding him at once bring up supports in force. Meanwhile, as at the Alma, here Raglan changed the whole aspect of the fight by the sudden bringing into action of two guns.
“Bring up two 18-pounders!” came the order, and with crack of whip and mingled oaths and cheers, two of these, our most powerful pieces of ordnance, under the command of Colonel Collingwood Dickson, were placed in position on the ridge, and soon the thunderous fire of nearly a hundred of the enemy’s cannon became intermittently punctuated with the deep roar of the 18-pounders. Shot after shot from these massive guns tore whistling across the intervening valley and ploughed their deadly way through flesh and blood, here wiping out a group of Russian gunners, here dismounting a gun, there blowing up an ammunition waggon, till in a brief half-hour the formidable artillery on Shell Hill began to slacken fire.
Many a British gunner was killed in this artillery duel, for the Russian fire was of course drawn against their new assailants, but eager volunteers pressed forward, and the guns were well and nobly served. So good in fact was their practice, andso great the havoc they wrought amongst the Russians, that Colonel Dickson’s battery was specially mentioned in the official records of the battle “for its distinguished and splendid service.”
After the distress put upon the Russians by the “18-pounder” battery—one shot of which narrowly missed Prince Mentschikoff and the two young Grand Dukes, who were watching the fight from the rear of the Russian position—the end was not long in coming. Led by their “vivandière, gaily moving in her pretty costume, fit alike for dance or battle,” the Zouaves made a dash forward, and hurled themselves upon the enemy with the bayonet. At this moment a number of the Coldstreams joined the Zouaves, and together rushed into the fray. The luckless Russians turned to flee, but soon found themselves hemmed in by the dead-strewn parapet of the Sandbag Battery. The victorious French and British drove them back as sheep are driven to a pen, and slaughtered all they could lay hands on. The Zouave standard was planted above the embrasure, heaped about with bodies.
From now onwards the war was carried into the enemy’s lines. Finding the Russian artillery fire dwindling, our troops at the Barrier pressed forward. Step by step, in little knots and companies, our men pressed up the hill, and many a gallant deed was done in this the final stage.
Lieutenant Acton of the 77th rushed forward for some few moments with only one private soldier of his company, to the capture of a Russian battery. An instant later, the whole body followed their brave and impetuous leader, and pressing up the hill reached the battery only in time to see the last gun limbered up.
Here a knot of British would fling themselves upon a company of Russians with the bayonet, and heavy slaughter on both sides would result, but ever upward and forward pressed the victorious advance, the men faint with hunger but vigorous in pursuit, while the French engaged the Russian forces in the flank. Suddenly it was observed that the Russian batteries were being withdrawn in haste, and General Codrington, watching the fight from the far side of Careenage Ravine, glanced at his watch and found the time to be a quarter to one.
By one o’clock, in fact, the battle was practically over, for there was no pursuit worth mentioning, General Camobert, himself wounded in the arm, declining to throw French troops too far forward unsupported—an omission which he afterwards deeply regretted. Prince Mentschikoff was furious when he beheld the soldiers of the Czar in full retreat, and angrily asked General Dannenburg by whose orders the retreat was taking place. The General’s answer was short and sharp—retreatwas necessary to avert disaster! Long and bravely had the Russian soldiers fought, but more than that they could not do.
By three o’clock Mount Inkerman was freed from Russian troops, and Lord Raglan and General Camobert rode side by side over the bloodstained field, strewn with the dead and dying of three nations; and Kinglake tells how the British commander-in-chief himself held up, with his one hand, the head of a wounded Russian soldier, parched with thirst, and begged water from his staff for the unhappy foeman. But there was no water on Mount Inkerman, and the poor wretch had to endure for many hours ere succour came.
Nearly 11,000 Russians lay dead upon the slopes of Inkerman—256 officers being amongst the killed; 2357 British were put out of action—597 being killed, 39 of the number being officers. Indeed, the ten British Generals on the field were either killed, wounded, or had their horses shot under them in action—Lord Raglan alone escaping unscathed. Days were spent in burying the dead.
Experts have declared that had Sebastopol been assaulted within two days of the battle of the Alma, it would have fallen an easy prey to the allied armies of France and Britain. History has shown, however, that this was not done, and that instead, Sebastopol was attacked from the south—the side remote from the Alma; and even at this point not until many days had elapsed.
The time thus granted to Russia was not wasted by those of her subjects who garrisoned the beleaguered town. Under that prince of engineers, Colonel de Todleben, defence works were constructed with an almost superhuman activity, whilst the harbour mouth was blocked to the allied fleet by the simple expedient of sinking Russian ships of war across the bar. This desperate measure was long opposed by many in the councils of Sebastopol, but once decided upon it was promptly carried out. It has been reported that many Russian sailors wept as they watched their finest ships of war settling down in the green waters of the Sebastopol roadstead, and it may be well believed that this was so, for the love of the sailor for his ship is proverbial. The Russian sailors showed no ignoble grief.
The roadstead of Sebastopol may be likened to a letter T, the top part of which constituted the roadstead proper, and the vertical portion the “man-of-war” harbour. The Sevemaya, or north part of the town, was built along the top of the roadstead, and consisted almost entirely of fortifications. To the west of the man-of-war harbour lay the town proper, while to the east of it was the Karabel Faubourg, or suburb. At the extreme eastern end of the roadstead flows in the Tchemaya River.
This, then, was the town to be defended by Russia against an assault from the south. Accordingly a semi-circle of forts was erected from a point half-way between the man-of-war harbour and the mouth of the Tchemaya; touching at its centre the southernmost point of the harbour mentioned; and having its other extremity on the sea coast at the entrance to the main roadstead, where the sunken ships defended the waterway against the approach of the allied fleets. The main forts on this semi-circle were eight in number, from east to west in order comprising the Little Redan, the Malakoff, the Redan, Flagstaff Bastion, the Central Bastion, the Land Quarantine Bastion, the Sea Quarantine Fort, and Artillery Fort—the last named being within the semi-circle of defence, to the east of the Sea Quarantine Fort.
These works of defence the Russians now toiled at day and night unceasingly.
Meanwhile the allies, having decided upon an extensive siege, in preference to an instant assault, actively pressed forward their siege works. Great difficulty was encountered by the engineers in their task of bringing their stores and battering trains some six or seven miles from the coast to their required position, the means of transport being poor. The heavy Lancaster guns had to be dragged overland by many sailors “tallyed on” to drag ropes, and progress was slow. Work in the trenches was heavy.
Eventually, on the morning of the 17th October, the first bombardment of Sebastopol commenced, the heavy Lancaster battery opening fire about 6 a.m. The noise was terrific, for very soon both allies and Russians were engaged in a tremendous artillery duel. The earth shook, dense volumes of smoke hung over Sebastopol and about the allies’ batteries, and shot and shell flew screeching through the air. About midday, when the fleets joined in, the din was redoubled.
On both sides losses, both in men and armament, were severe. Some would serve the guns; others, with pick and spade, would, under heavy fire, repair breaches in the earthworks; others would rush hither and thither with pails of water to extinguish fires which now and again broke out in the timberof the batteries; others again bore off the wounded on litters to a place of safety—but each and all worked with a will, and never for an instant did the terrific fire slacken.
Now and again the smoke would lift for a moment, and some measure of the damage done on either side would be hastily gauged. Great bravery was displayed by besiegers and besieged, and humour as usual found its way into such an incongruous place. “I say, lads,” said a young Scot, one of the redoubtable Black Watch; “I dinna think there’ll be many kail-pots boiling in Sebastopol the day!” Nor were there!
The Russian admiral, Korniloff, over and over again exposed himself to shot and shell as he rode round from point to point of the defences, and at length so often was he bespattered with sand and stones thrown up on all sides from the earthworks, that he handed his watch over to a courier, telling him to give it to his wife. “I am afraid that here it will get broken,” he added, humourously.
Before eleven o’clock the brave man had breathed his last. As he was descending the Malakoff after taking fresh instructions to the gunners of that fort, a shell tore his left thigh, and sadly his aide-de-camp and others bore him to the hospital. There, stretched upon a mattress of agony, the somewhat inaccurate news was brought him that the British guns were at length silenced, and with his last breath he cried “Hurrah!” dying, as he had lived, a brave man and noble foe.
Meantime in the French part of the field of action disasters had fallen thick and heavy. A well-directed Russian shell about nine o’clock burst in a French magazine on Mount Rodolph, the French main battery of attack, and with a terrific noise, heard even above the thunder of the arms, the men surrounding it were lifted sky high, the bodies falling round in dozens. A second explosion in the French lines just afterwards, silenced their land artillery for the day, the attack being maintained by the British artillery and by the allied fleets.
About half-past one the French fleet opened fire from no less than six hundred guns—the Quarantine Sea Fort being the chief object of attack. Soon the other forts towards the sea were engaged by both navies, and awful havoc resulted on both sides.
All through the long October afternoon the battle raged, the cannonade from the sea being in the estimation of Admiral Dundas, the British commander, “the heaviest that had ever taken place on the ocean.” Here again both sides suffered heavily, but the forts in the main suffered less than the vessels, many of which were greatly disabled, the Albion and Arethusa being completely crippled. The Rodney ran aground under the eye and well within the reach of Fort Constantine, and fromher position right under the Russian guns maintained an obstinate fight till between six and seven, when the fleet hauled off and the naval bombardment was abandoned in the rapidly-fading light.
Little execution had been done by the fleets, but the disaster sustained by them was heavy, the British and French losing no fewer than 500 men killed and wounded, and moreover, failing in their attack.
Meantime, though the French batteries were out of action, the British land forces were making progress, and soon it became impossible for the Russians to repair the breaches in the embrasures of the Redan, though officers and men bent their backs alike to the work. Then, too, by reason of the heavy fire, the infantry supporting this important work fell back, and for a while the Redan was left defenceless, but the advantage was not pushed home before night fell and firing ceased. The turn of the Redan came later.
More than 1000 Russians had been killed in this first day’s bombardment, with but trifling advantage to the allies, so for the next few days the French proceeded to strengthen their attack, while the British batteries kept down to some extent the Russian fire. Thus matters stood till the morning of the 25th October, when the allied rear attacked at Balaclava, and again, some ten days later, at Inkerman, on the 5th November.
In both these contests the Russians lost heavily, but still the assault of Sebastopol was postponed, and it soon appeared that a Russian winter would have to be faced.
Life in the besieging trenches now became monotonous. Duties, as before, consisted of employment in working and covering parties, sharpshooting and picket work, and the long and dreary days were spent when off duty in one form of diversion and another, and many amusing incidents have been recounted, and many tales of suffering nobly borne been told.
A glimpse of the life of a private soldier at this time is very graphically recounted by one of the 42nd. Says this man in his published record:—“The dismal time now commenced, for with digging and picking in the day time, and strong pickets at night, on poor rations, our clothing worn out and verminous, and the nearly worn-out bell tents to sleep in, on the cold bare ground, we were getting less in number every day. As the trenches were formed we had to lie in them at night for the purpose of reinforcing the picket till the remainder turned out. We always had our rifles loaded, even the men in the tents, and false alarms were frequent. Even the poor rations were not half eaten. The pork and salt beef could be seen piled up at the tents untouched.... But the commander-in-chief allowed us two rations of rum a day, and one extra onnight duty.” “In the tent to which I belonged,” says the same man later, “to keep us from lying on the cold, wet mud, we got stones and lay upon them; they were better to lie on than the wet ground!”
Day by day the sound of the big guns reverberated through the camp, and day by day the victims of fever, dysentry, and shot and shell were borne to the hospitals at Kadikoi and Balaclava by the bandsmen and pipers, who were told off to this melancholy duty. An occasional reconnoitre in the intense frost of the Russian winter laid many a poor fellow low with frostbite, and with these and the aforementioned causes the hospitals soon grew full. The medical staff worked nobly, but were wholly inadequate, both in numbers and equipment, to cope with the enormous multitude of sick and wounded.
The worst cases were sent by ship to Scutari, where overcrowding also prevailed, in spite of the utmost efforts and the noble devotion of Miss Nightingale, at this time not long arrived from England.
“As I was going along the passages” (of the Scutari hospital), says a private soldier, “which were full of patients, the rooms also being full, I was beginning to think no one cared for me, when a pleasant-looking lady approached and asked what was the matter with me, calling an orderly to get me into a bed. I was frequently visited by the lady, who was no less a person than Miss Nightingale.”
So in the camp and in the hospital the winter wore away with but two outstanding incidents; the great hurricane of the 14th November, and the engagement on the night of the 20th November at the “Ovens.”
The hurricane of the 14th November did incalculable harm to all combatants. An hour before sunrise on that day the air was calm, and the wind had fallen after heavy rain the previous night. Suddenly a violent hurricane arose, accompanied by thunder, lightning, and sleet, and instantly all was pandemonium. Large trees were torn from their roots, practically every tent in the allied armies was blown flat, while roofs were carried away from houses in Sebastopol. Vast stores of forage were destroyed, and accounts state that at least one man was swept off his feet, and carried some twenty yards by the sheer force of the wind! All day the elements held sway until evening, when the storm abated as quickly as it had arisen, and an intense calm prevailed, the stars shining out upon the miry, stricken camp.
Among the horses and the shipping the casualties were heavy, and the loss sustained by the cyclone of the 14th was not repaired for many a long day.
The story of the capture of the “Ovens” is inseparablyconnected with the name of Lieutenant Tryon of the Rifle Brigade, who lost his life in the engagement. The “Ovens” comprised a series of old Tartar caves and stone huts long since untenanted, but now used with deadly effect by Russian riflemen as “cover,” whence they could annoy the French working parties. Becoming in course of time unbearable by reason of the accuracy of their fire, it was determined to dislodge them, the task being entrusted to Lieutenant Tryon and some men of the Rifle Brigade. Feinting an open attack with half his men, Tryon, on the night of the 20th November, crept with the other half, stealthily upon the Russians, surprised them into a retreat, and established himself in the very caves which the Russians had vacated. Their retreat was not for long, and very soon they returned in overwhelming numbers to the attack, and three times were they repelled by Tryon and his gallant band. Eventually “supports” arrived to the Rifles, and the “Ovens” were held by our men, to the great admiration of the French. Tryon, however, was mortally wounded by a Russian bullet.
After the affair at the “Ovens” the dull routine went on as before, and sickness did its deadly work amongst the armies of the three combatant nations.
The British Government seemed wholly unable to cope with the requirements of its army in the Crimea, and the tale of the winter’s misery has been told by many. The improper food, wretched shelter, inadequate clothing, and deficient medical supplies have been emphasised by hundreds, and small wonder that privation and disease wrought as terrible havoc as did the shot and shell of the enemy.
Towards the end of December, an improvement began to be effected. The women of Britain, from the Sovereign downwards, toiled unceasingly to remedy the defective clothing and increase the comfort of the soldiers, and moreover, wooden huts were erected in place of the now worn-out tents, so that by the arrival of spring the troops were in a better position to carry on their arduous work. Moreover, fresh troops were constantly arriving, and Sardinia furnished a powerful contingent to her new made allies of France and Britain.
Still, with all these advantages, the awful monotony of the siege weighed upon the stoutest of our men, and any diversion was eagerly welcomed.
On the 2nd March, 1855, the Emperor Nicholas died, worn out, it has been said, in body and soul by the protracted struggle in the south of his dominions, and, in particular, by the reverses sustained by his troops in Eupatoria at the hands of the Turks. But the death of the Czar had little effect upon the war in the Crimea. His successor, Alexander, prosecuted the defence withunabated energy. In May an expedition to Kertch harassed the Russians considerably, while the newly-arrived Sardinians, in conjunction with the French, obtained a signal success on the Tchemaya.
These were, however, but side issues, and the main armies maintained their dreary watch upon Sebastopol, where work and counterwork, mine and countermine, employed the ingenuities of the engineers of both nations.
The appearance of Sebastopol at this time has been ably shown by Mr. Conolly in his history of the Royal Engineers:—
“Parallels and approaches now covered the hills, and saps daringly progressed in front; dingy pits filled with groups of prying and fatal marksmen, studded the advances and flanks; caves were augmented in size and number in the sides of the ravines to give safety to the gunpowder, ... while new works were thrown up in front to grapple with the sturdy formations of the Russians.”
Sorties by the enemy were frequent, and, on the night of the 22nd March, a most determined attack was made upon the working parties of the allies from four different points. It failed, however, to accomplish much, and matters continued as before.
On Monday, the 9th April, another terrific bombardment occurred, the British gunners directing their special attention to the Flagstaff Bastion. For several days, until the 18th April, the battery was plied mercilessly with shot and shell, and reduced to a state of distress bordering on annihilation; it still, however, remained unassaulted, and during a temporary truce was patched up once more. On the 21st, however, its fire was reduced to complete silence.
Count Tolstoy in his stirring pictures of “Sevastopol,” so admirably translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude, has given us a vivid glimpse of affairs in this awful battery, “the Fourth Bastion,” as the Russians called it. “You want to get quickly to the Bastions,” says Tolstoy, showing an imaginary visitor through the beleagured town, “especially to that Fourth Bastion of which you have been told so many tales. When anyone says, ‘I am going to the Fourth Bastion,’ a slight agitation or a too marked indifference is always noticeable in him! When you meet someone carried on a stretcher, and ask, ‘Where from?’ the answer usually is, ‘From the Fourth Bastion.’
Passing a barricade, you go up a broad street. Beyond this the houses on both sides of the street are unoccupied, the doors are boarded up, the windows smashed, ... on the road you stumble over cannon-balls that lie about, and into holes full of water, made in the stony ground by bombs. Before you, up a steep hill, you see a black, untidy space cut up byditches. This space is the Fourth Bastion. The whiz of cannon-ball or bomb near by impresses you unpleasantly as you ascend the hill, bullets begin to whiz past you right and left, and you will perhaps consider whether you had better not walk inside the trench which runs parallel to the road, full of yellow stinking mud more than knee-deep!”
To reach the bastion proper, “you turn to the right, along that narrow trench where a foot soldier, stooping down, has just passed, and where you will see Cossacks changing their boots, eating, smoking their pipes and, in fact, living! Soon you come to a flat space with many holes and cannons on platforms and walled in with earthworks. This is the bastion. Here you see perhaps four or five soldiers playing cards under shelter of the breastwork, and a naval officer sitting on a cannon rolling a cigarette composedly. Suddenly a sentinel shouts ‘Mortar!’ There is a whistle, a fall, and an explosion, mingled with the groans of a man. You approach him as the stretchers are brought; part of his breast has been torn away; in a trembling voice he says, ‘Farewell, brothers.’
‘That’s the way with seven or eight every day,’ says the officer, and he yawns as he lights another cigarette.”
In the British trenches similar scenes were being enacted, the same coolness under fire, and resolute contempt of danger being displayed by all ranks and nationalities.
“One day there was a cluster of us together,” wrote a Highland soldier to his parents, “when a shell fell close by. The fuse was not exhausted when John Bruce up with it in his arms and threw it over the trench.”
Such incidents were by no means rare, and in this wise the summer wore on with varying fortune. In May the command of the French army was taken up by General Pélissier, and on the 28th June the master-mind of the British army was removed—Lord Raglan, beloved and mourned by all ranks, dying of cholera after a brief two days’ illness. Kinglake has recorded how on the morning on the 29th, the commander-in-chief of the four allied armies visited the chamber of death, and how the iron frame of the staunch General Pélissier shook with grief as he “stood by the bedside for upwards of an hour crying like a child.”
On board the Caradoc the body of the Field-Marshal was conveyed to England, and all ranks mourned for one whom they had learnt to trust, admire, and almost love—“so noble, so pure, so replete with service rendered to his country.” For seven miles the route of the procession to the Caradoc was lined at either side by double ranks of infantry, and, says the historian of the war, during the melancholy march “French and British refrained from inviting by fire the fire of Sebastopol,and whether owing to chance, or to a signal and grateful act of courtesy on the part of General Ostin-Sacken (now in command), the garrison also kept silence.”
So died Lord Raglan, and the command of the British troops now vested on General Sir James Simpson, a veteran of the Peninsular.
On the morning of the 5th September, the final bombardment of Sebastopol commenced, and the terrific cannonade continued till the 8th. The French were the first to open fire, and they did so with a will. Once more the deafening thunder of the heavy guns and shrieks of shell and mortar were heard about Sebastopol, and ere long the cannonade wrought fearful havoc with the “churches, stately mansions, and public buildings of the still imposing-looking city.”
From nearly three miles of batteries poured forth the devastating fire, and a storm of iron swept across the doomed town. Buildings could be seen crashing down, large spouts of earth rose high into the air, and, with the glasses, stretcher-bearers could be seen busy at every point.
British and French alike were soon engaged, the Russian return fire being for a long time paralysed by the fury of the onslaught. The Redan and the Malakoff were the particular objectives of the British fire, and soon the faces of these mighty works were seen pitted “as if with the smallpox.”
At night a musketry fire was kept up to hinder the Russians from repairing their shattered walls and bastions, till, by the 8th, all was ready for a final and vigorous assault.
The assault was to be in two portions; the French were to capture the Malakoff, and, on attaining this their object, were to signal by rocket fire the fact of its accomplishment. The British were then to assault the Redan, which was connected to the Malakoff by a series of trenches.
Noon was the hour fixed for the Malakoff assault. By half-past eleven the supports were all in readiness. The Guards were posted on the Woronzoff Road, part of the 4th Division was in the trenches, the 3rd Division was held in readiness, while the Highland Brigade, under Sir Colin Campbell, was marched in from Kamara.
Says one of them:—“We had marched nine miles in line of march order, but when we came to our old camp ground we took off our knapsacks, and put ourselves in trench order, only we were in the kilt.... We went into the trenches assigned for us to form the support. As I looked towards the Malakoff the French were going in, column after column.... They appeared to be keen to be in action.”
Dr. Russell tells the story more graphically:—
“At five minutes before twelve o’clock, the French, like aswarm of bees, issued from their trenches close to the doomed Malakoff, scrambled up its face, and were through the embrasures in the twinkling of an eye. They took the Russians by surprise, and their musketry was very feeble at first, but they soon recovered themselves, and from twelve o’clock till past seven in the evening the French had to meet and repulse the repeated attempts of the enemy to regain the work.... At length, despairing of success, the Muscovite general withdrew his exhausted legions.”
The retreat was by way of the Redan, which our men now prepared to assault.
“As soon as the tricolour was observed waving through the smoke and dust, over the parapet of the Malakoff, four rockets were sent up as a signal for our assault upon the Redan. They were almost borne back by the violence of the wind, and the silvery jet of sparks they threw out on exploding were scarcely visible against the raw grey sky.”
The force selected for the attack was composed as follows:—160 men of the 3rd Buffs under Captain F. F. Maude, with 160 of the 77th under Major Welshford. These constituted the scaling-ladder party. Covering them were 100 more of the Buffs led by Captain John Lewes, with 100 of the 2nd battalion of the Rifles led by Captain Hammond. The remainder of the force comprised 260 of the Buffs, 300 of the 41st, 200 of the 62nd, with a working party of a hundred more. The 47th and 49th regiments were in reserve, together with Warren’s brigade.
To Colonel Unett of the 19th fell the honour of leading the gallant party into the fray, and at the outset he fell, badly wounded.
Sharp came the order: “Forward! ladders to the front; eight men per ladder!” and instantly our devoted men crept from the shelter of their trenches to the assault. At a furious pace they dashed up the slope leading to the Redan, and planted several ladders in the ditch against the wall.
But the slaughter was terrific. In less than a minute the slope of the Redan was thickly covered with red coats. In the ditch itself matters were worse. Wounded and dead, bleeding and shapeless, screaming or silent, our men lay heaped in scores, and still the murderous fire poured down from every window and embrasure in the work.
To add to the terrors of their position, our men were now met by overwhelming numbers, who streamed down the trenches from the abandoned Malakoff to the assistance of their comrades in the Redan, the scaling ladders were found to be too short, and after an hour and a half of a disastrous fight our men fellback upon their trenches, firing steadily, but, for the time being, worsted.
The slaughter had been awful. Colonel Handcock of the Perthshire regiment, Captains Hammond, Preston, Corry and Lockhart, Colonel James Ewan of the 41st, and others too numerous to mention lay dead upon the slope or within the fatal Redan, where many of our men had penetrated in the first fierce rush, and scarcely a man was unwounded.
After this set back, it was decided to attack again at five a.m.—this time with the Guards and Highlanders.
“As the night wore on,” says one of them, “the Highland Brigade advanced and took up position in the advanced trench, and we kept up a sharp fire with our rifles. Sir Colin came along the trenches later, and came down to where we were (by this time) making a new trench. I heard him say: ‘That is your job in the morning,’ pointing to the Redan.”
But the attack was not to be. While searching for wounded comrades, Corporal John Ross of the Sappers wandered far from our foremost lines, and suddenly becoming aware of the absence of the Russian outpost, he crept forward up the slope and entered the Redan!
The place was empty! The Russians had deserted it earlier in the evening, and the retreat from Sebastopol was even then begun.
Graphically Tolstoy has described it:—