IX. THE BATTLE OF INKERMAN
Large Russian reinforcements reach the Crimea—Position and strength of the enemy; of the Allies—Description of the field of Inkerman—Commencement of the battle, 5th of November—The progress of the first part of the fight—The Guards Brigade advance to the scene of action—The struggle round the Sandbag battery—Arrival of the Fourth Division under General Cathcart—The manœuvre of the latter, and its failure—The arrival of the French—Successes of the British artillery—Repulse of the Russian attack; the retreat of the enemy; there is no pursuit—Operations of the garrison of Sevastopol and of the Russian force in the Tchernaya Valley during the day—Great losses incurred on both sides—Reaction among the soldiery after the battle.
The Russian reinforcements which, as we have seen, began to arrive in the month of October, continued their advance upon the Crimea, so that early in November the hostile forces at the seat of war amounted, all told, to more than 120,000 men capable of taking part in the operations of the campaign.[264] The moment had now come when the enemy determined to deliver his well-prepared attack upon the invaders, and hoped to rid the Crimea for ever of their presence. It must be confessed that he had a good opportunity of accomplishing his object, and that every advantage was on his side. He could choose his own time and place of attack; his forces were far more powerful than those of the invaders, both in numbers and in position; and, by the reconnaissance or sortie of October 26th, he found out (if he did not already know it) that our vulnerable right flank was unsecured by any fieldworks to make up for our other deficiencies. The onslaught, then, that was to drive us away from Sevastopol, and to sweep us into the sea, was to be directed upon this flank, upon ground which our soldiers called Mount Inkerman, and Sunday, the 5th of November, was chosen as the day upon which to put the design into execution.[265]
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Footnote 264:
Sir E. Hamley, in his War in the Crimea , p. 129, estimates these forces at 110,000 to 115,000, including the enemy’s sailors. He has, however, apparently omitted to include men whom he previously counted as part of the garrison at the end of September (see ante, p. 185).
Footnote 265:
See Map, No. 7, p. 216. Properly speaking, Inkerman was on the other side of the Tchernaya, called by us Old City Heights.
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On the evening of the 4th, Prince Menshikoff established his head-quarters near the mouth of the Tchernaya, and his troops were posted as follows: The garrison was not increased beyond the numbers it contained towards the end of October. General Dannenberg, head-quarters on the Old City Heights, midway between Mackenzie Farm and the head of the roadstead, commanded a corps of 50 battalions, 1 squadron, and 134 guns (of which 54 were guns of position). This corps was divided into two columns, namely, General Soimonoff, 19,000 infantry and 38 guns (22 of position), whose troops were temporarily sheltered in the lines of the fortress in the Karabelnaya; and General Pavloff, 16,500 infantry and 96 guns (32 of position), concentrated on the Old City Heights. To the left of Pavloff, there was another force of 16 battalions, 62 squadrons, and 88 guns (15,000 infantry), composed mostly of Liprandi’s column, but now under Prince Gortchakoff, whose head-quarters were at Tchorgun. Lastly, there was a body of 4000 infantry and 36 guns guarding the road to Bakshiserai, somewhere near Mackenzie Farm. Thus, besides the garrison which amounted to nearly 60,000 men, placed in what was now a secure stronghold, amply covered and well armed, there was a force of 54,500 infantry, a powerful body of cavalry, and 258 guns available to operate against the undefended flank of the Allies.
The latter, on the other hand, had received a few reinforcements, but not sufficient to compensate for the immense losses to which they had been subjected. On the evening of the 4th, they numbered but 58,000 infantry,—16,000 British, 31,000 French, and 11,000 Turks; and this small force was further weakened by the fact that the allied Commanders, totally unacquainted with the warlike qualities of their Ottoman auxiliaries, would not allow them to develop their value, and left them no chance to assist in the approaching battle. So far did Lord Raglan’s prejudice go, that the 6000 attached to the British army, were not suffered to take part as combatants, and when Omar Pasha proposed to send him a further contingent he refused the offer.[266] Hence there were practically only 47,000 British and French infantry left to meet the grave crisis which now confronted us. These troops were disposed on an irregular curve which stretched from Streleska Bay (north of Kamiesh Bay) along the front of the enemy’s lines of Sevastopol to the heights of Inkerman, thence southwards on the Sapuné Ridge to the Col, where it ran more to the east, near Kadikeui, and covered Balaklava. This line measured twenty miles in length, it was unsupported by any central reserve, and was everywhere in contact with powerful masses of the enemy.
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Footnote 266:
Hamley, War in the Crimea , 128; Kinglake , v. 33, 34 note, 41 note. Sir Evelyn Wood says, in his recent publication, that he has “never understood why these Moslems, who came out so grandly at Silistria, were considered unfit to fight alongside the English and French troops” (Wood, Crimea in 1854 and 1894 , p. 199).
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Menshikoff’s onslaught was to be delivered as the first gleam of light appeared at dawn on the 5th, when his forces were to be before our outposts, ready to press the advance home. The principal attack was confided to Dannenberg’s corps, whose two columns were to converge upon the British unguarded position at Inkerman,—that of Soimonoff, issuing from the Karabelnaya by the road that skirts the south bank of the roadstead, that of Pavloff marching down to the Tchernaya and crossing the river by the causeway and bridge near its mouth. Gortchakoff was to support this operation, and endeavour “to seize one of the ascents to the Sapuné Ridge;” and the garrison was to “cover by its fire the right flank of the assaulting columns, and, should there be confusion in the enemy’s batteries, to storm those batteries.” The Russians were elated by the bright prospects before them. “Future times, I am confident,” wrote their Chief, “will preserve the remembrance of the exemplary chastisement inflicted upon the presumption of the Allies.... Heaven visibly protects Holy Russia. Have the kindness to bring this to the knowledge of our august Sovereign for the great satisfaction of his magnanimous heart.” Two of the Grand-Dukes, sons of the Tsar, arrived in the Crimea, to encourage the Muscovite troops, and to bear witness to the “exemplary chastisement” about to be inflicted; but the “magnanimous heart” was not to be satisfied, for Menshikoff forgot to take into account, what a handful of British soldiers are capable of doing when sorely pressed, and when protecting the honour of their Queen and country, even against overwhelming odds.
A general description of the ground known as Inkerman (or Mount Inkerman) has already been given. The Lancaster battery, now nearly dismantled, and holding but one gun, had been planted on the Victoria Ridge between the Docks and Careenage ravines, and more than a mile in rear, stood the camp of General Codrington’s brigade of the Light Division. To the east, another main spur, jutting out from the upland, fills up the space between Careenage Ravine and the Tchernaya, broken by water-courses which descend into the ravine, the roadstead, and the river. Into the ravine, there is one water-course, the Wellway, which joins it 400 yards in rear of the Lancaster battery; and into the Tchernaya there is another, the Quarry Ravine, through which a post-road runs connecting the upland with the head of the roadstead. Between the Wellway and the Quarry Ravine, the main spur is some 1300 yards broad, and supports a rise, called Home Ridge, that bends to the north under the name of Fore Ridge, and thence slopes away towards the Tchernaya, in two spurs, which overlook the valley, and which are divided by St. Clement’s Gorge, viz. Inkerman Tusk and the Kitspur. On the Kitspur the Sandbag battery had been erected on commanding ground: it was a mere short wall of earth, only eighteen paces in length, too high to shoot over except where cut by two embrasures; it was unprovided with a banquette, and at this moment it was vacant and unarmed. Astride the post-road the Second Division was encamped, immediately behind Home Ridge, in front of which the main spur is contracted to 250 yards in breadth. But at a distance of 1400 yards from the ridge, the main spur again widens out considerably, and here there is another rise, called Shell Hill, flanked on each side by buttresses, West and East Jut, which the enemy had vainly tried to capture on October 26th. About a mile in rear of the Second Division, and always on the same main spur, near a ruined windmill, stood the camp of the Guards Brigade, the Coldstream being somewhat in rear, and separated from the rest by a narrow ravine. Thus, in the first instance, available to resist an attack on Inkerman, there was one division, viz. the Second, of 3000 men and 12 guns; supported in rear by the Household Brigade, 1300 men, and 12 guns of the First Division, and, on the left, though with a great obstacle intervening—the Careenage Ravine—Codrington’s brigade, 1200 men. To the rear, some two miles from the Guards, lay the northern portion of Bosquet’s Corps of observation, which at this time was in closer communication with the Highlanders and Marines, at Balaklava, than had been the case before October 25th. To the left, were Buller’s brigade of the Light, and the Fourth and the Third Divisions, distant respectively from Home Ridge, 1½, 2½, and 3 miles. These latter troops were covered by the defences which the trenches and batteries afforded, as was also Forey’s French siege corps, which, as already mentioned, took up the line from the British Left Attack to Streleska Bay. But no such protection was available for the division and the two brigades more immediately threatened in the vicinity of Inkerman.
Though both Commanders of the Allied armies felt anxiety on account of this exposed flank, nothing was done to make it secure. General Canrobert paid us the compliment of placing extraordinary reliance on our troops,—especially the bonnets de poil, as he called the Guards; on the other hand, Lord Raglan, weak in numbers, thought he could not spare any of his men from the trenches. Still, the omission to safeguard this vital position with earthworks has never been explained, for as Turks could have been obtained for this purpose, and as Engineer Officers were available, the excuse given, like many others put forward to cover our deficiencies in this extraordinary war, can hardly be deemed satisfactory. Of the value of works of defence to be occupied in case of attack, it is sufficient to point out that, if we were victorious without them, we should have been far stronger with them, and the battle (if it had taken place at all under these circumstances) could not have failed to result in greater disaster to the enemy, and in much less loss to ourselves.
The Guards furnished piquets to watch the flank and rear of the British army. On the 1st of November a stronger force was considered necessary to accomplish this object, and the Brigade supplied eight piquets daily. Six (numbered 1 to 6) mounted an hour before daybreak for twenty-four hours, under the Field-Officer of the day while the other two (Nos. 7 and 8) were posted as a reserve from sunset until an hour after sunrise, the whole during the night being placed under the command of a “full Colonel of the Brigade.”[267] Besides finding three working parties in the trenches, each 40 to 50 men strong under an Officer, the Coldstream furnished, on the 4th, piquets Nos. 5 and 8, and again on the 5th, Nos. 3, 5, and 6. Thus before dawn on the morning of the battle, the Battalion had two piquets (Nos. 4 and 5 companies) coming off, and three (Nos. 6 and 7 companies) going on duty; so that four companies were absorbed, and when the first alarm was given, only half the Battalion (Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 8 companies) were in camp. The Colonel on duty, during the night 4th-5th, should have been Lord F. Paulet, but as he was incapacitated by illness, Colonel Upton took his place; moreover, Lieut.-Colonel Newton, detailed Field Officer of the day for the 5th, had left long before daylight began to appear. The next senior Officer was Lieut.-Colonel Dawson, and, when the first alarm was given, he quickly formed up what remained of the Battalion, and immediately marched them to the front where the battle was heard, to the support of the Second Division, who were then seriously engaged with the enemy.
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Footnote 267:
Brigade Order , Nov. 1, 1854.
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“MacKinnon, Ramsden, and I,” writes Colonel Tower, “were all three living in one tent, and were awakened at daybreak, or soon after, by firing in the direction of Inkerman; we thought little of it, as we were accustomed to alarms, and the piquets constantly fired; but presently a big gun or two told us it was more than piquets. The bugles sounded in the camp, and 'fall in directly' was echoed by the sergeants along the line of tents. We hurried on our arms, as we always slept in our clothes, and found the Battalion falling in. Vesey Dawson was in command, on a chestnut horse; Granville Eliot, Adjutant, on his old grey arab, Bashi-Bazouk. It rained a great deal during the night, and that memorable Sunday morning dawned a nasty damp foggy day; the mist was rising from the ground and the brushwood was quite wet; we could only see a few yards before us, but we could hear the pattering of musketry, and the firing had been going on fully half an hour before we came on the scene of action. We left camp in column of fours, but before we got to the Second Division tents one or two round shot came right through our ranks, and we began to have an idea how close the enemy was, and of the serious nature of the business. We formed line, and advanced through the Second Division tents, many of which were knocked down and shot through.... We were the battalion on the extreme right of the army, and my company (No. 1) was on the extreme right of the Battalion.”[268]
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Footnote 268:
Tower, Diary , Nov. 5th.
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Meanwhile, what had happened was this. Although we knew that an attack was imminent, we were unable to tell the precise day on which it was to take place. The night 4th-5th passed quietly, there was no firing, no alarm, no spies came to warn us. The sentries on outpost, and the piquets, heard a rumbling noise in the valley, but the sounds were deadened by the heavy rain that fell during the 4th and throughout the night, and they were not sufficiently distinct to induce us to concert any definite arrangements to meet the emergency. In so far the enemy acted with caution and ability; the attack came upon us as a surprise, even though we expected it. He failed, however, to marshal his immense masses to the best advantage. The orders given to Dannenberg’s forces were vague, and there was a confusion as to whether both Soimonoff and Pavloff were to operate on the eastern side of the Careenage Ravine, or whether the former was to advance along the Victoria Ridge and the latter against Inkerman. Obviously, had this plan been adopted, Codrington’s brigade and Evans' division would both have been in imminent danger; and had either been driven in, the results must have been disastrous. Fortunately, the two unwieldy Russian columns jammed themselves together on the broken ground east of the ravine, and interfered by their numbers and proximity with each other’s movements.
Soimonoff, arriving on the ground a little before his colleague, commenced the attack with his powerful column. Advancing cautiously and silently in three lines covered by skirmishers, he had 6000 men in the first line, followed by 3300 and his heavy guns, and 9000 with the light artillery in reserve. The latter was the first hostile body perceived by the British advanced piquets; who, though they could then see nothing, heard their approach. On discovering them, they opened fire, and these volleys were heard by General Codrington, who, according to his usual practice, was near the Lancaster battery reconnoitring to the front with his relieved piquets, before the day broke. He at once got his brigade under arms, moved them to the edge of the ravine near the battery, and lost no time in conveying the alarm to head-quarters and to the left. Buller then moved out towards the threatened point, and the Fourth and Third Divisions were in readiness to march.
The enemy soon pressed back the outposts of the Second Division, and the camp being aroused, the troops formed on Home Ridge; while the 22 heavy Russian pieces establishing themselves on Shell Hill, opened on the ridge and on the ground in rear of it: by this means the Russians hoped to crush the British supports that were supposed to be in their ordinary place. But, as a matter of fact, we had none there, a single thin line held the crest, and the fire beyond it succeeded only in destroying the camp and the horses left behind. While this was going on, the twelve field guns of the division were neither silent nor inefficient, and General Pennefather (in command, Sir De Lacy Evans being at Balaklava, on the sick list[269]) now pushed forward bodies of 200 to 500 men to reinforce the piquets, who were slowly retiring before the advance of the masses opposed to them. One of these detachments, 500 strong, under General Adams, moved to the right, towards the Sandbag battery; and another, hurrying to the left, soon came in contact with a huge hostile column which bore down on them in the mist. The Officer in command had just time to sing out, “Fire and charge!” and the men obeying with loud cheers, the enemy was driven back, right through the line of his guns on Shell Hill, before the impetuous onset could be arrested. The result of this hand-to-hand encounter between a thin line of red-coats and a strong column of the Russians, was often repeated during the day. The battle, in short, resolved itself into a series of personal combats between small British detachments and dense masses of the enemy; the former, under the nearest Officers, dashing boldly, without supports, against the latter wherever opportunity offered or danger pressed. There was no central control, nor were manœuvres attempted; both were impossible. But the activity, intelligence, and courage of the few—to be counted by hundreds against thousands—never flagged for an instant, and the unwieldy forces opposed to us, though so much more powerful in point of numbers, were shattered and driven back in confusion.
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Footnote 269:
He came up later, but refused to take the command out of Pennefather’s hands.
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“No doubt the mist was favourable to the fewer numbers, hiding from the Russians the fact that there was nothing behind the English lines, which came on as boldly as if strong supports were close at hand. It needs some plausible supposition of this kind to account (however imperfectly) for the extraordinary combats which ensued, where the extravagant achievements of the romances of chivalry were almost outdone by the reality.”[270]
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Footnote 270:
Hamley, War in the Crimea , p. 141.
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Soimonoff, leaving 10,000 men in rear of his guns on Shell Hill, made his first real assault with 9000 infantry, who, to avoid our artillery fire, moved along the eastern slope of the Careenage Ravine. Part of Pavloff’s corps, 6000 men, had by this time arrived on the scene, and they got into the Quarry Ravine, and, bearing across Inkerman Tusk, made for the Sandbag battery. Thus the narrow flat of the main spur, connecting Home Ridge with Shell Hill, was swept with fire from the enemy’s guns, and on one side of it (our left) were 9000 Russians advancing, while 6000 more were threatening our right front at the head of the Quarry Ravine and on the spurs in the vicinity overlooking the Tchernaya. General Buller reached the field at this juncture, with 600 men and a battery from the Fourth Division. To meet the onslaught of 15,000 men suitably supported by artillery, against both our flanks, Pennefather, therefore, had just 3600 men and 18 guns. Soimonoff’s advanced troops on our left met with a transient gleam of success; they captured three guns, which were hurrying into action, and they managed to push into the Wellway. Had they been able to emerge on the plateau near Home Ridge, they would have taken the British position in reverse.[271] But this column was quickly discomfited by a gallant charge of a few men of the 77th Regiment, and by a piquet of the Grenadier Guards under Lieut.-Colonel Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar, posted close by. Nor did the remainder of Soimonoff’s corps hold their ground, for they also gave way when met by the steady line of British infantry, and the whole attack upon our left was soon repulsed; indeed, one of our groups, having driven in immensely superior forces, pursued them, and halted not until Shell Hill was reached. The three English guns taken by the enemy were speedily recaptured, and were found to be uninjured; the Russian General, Soimonoff, moreover, was killed at this period. Nor did Pavloff’s 6000 men fare any better, though they were confronted by only 700 to 800 Englishmen. At the head of the Quarry Ravine, the leading hostile battalions were charged by 200 men of the 30th Regiment, and were routed; while the rest, attacked by General Adams and the 41st Regiment near the Sandbag battery, were also driven back in confusion.
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Footnote 271:
Apparently this advanced column was composed of sailors or marines, not reckoned in Soimonoff’s corps; they were, therefore, additional to it (Kinglake, v. 117).
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It was now nearly 7.30 in the morning, and everywhere the struggle had resulted in our favour. But the battle was only in its infancy. Soimonoff’s reserve, 10,000 strong, was intact, and the remainder of Pauloff’s corps, 10,000 men, had arrived, together with his long train of artillery, which, placed on commanding ground, prolonged the line of guns from Shell Hill to the end of East Jut. Dannenberg now assumed command of these 20,000 infantry, and of the columns whose first attack had failed. He determined to employ his masses against our right, and so co-operate more closely with Gortchakoff, who, as we have seen, was manœuvring in the valley, with orders to seize the Sapuné Ridge. This latter corps had very early assumed a threatening attitude as far north as the heights for which the Guards Brigade were responsible, and this fact somewhat delayed their advance to the front;[272] but it was soon perceived that the enemy in this quarter was making a mere empty demonstration, that the real crisis was round Home Ridge, and that the piquets were sufficient in the present emergency to guard the hills overlooking the Tchernaya. The Grenadier and Scots Fusilier Guards, encamped closer to the scene of action, were therefore moved forward to take their share in it, followed soon after by the Coldstream (four companies strong, under Lieut.-Colonel Dawson, as we have seen), and the whole came into action about 7.30, when the introductory phase of the fight was over, and just as the new attack was developing itself. Shortly after the departure of the Regiment, the two relieved Coldstream piquets (Nos. 4 and 5 companies), having been kept out somewhat longer than usual, on account of Gortchakoff’s movements, came into camp, and, finding it empty, advanced to the front, as did also Colonel Upton. The strength of the Brigade was as follows:—
Officers. Sergeants. Drummers. Rank & Total. File.
Grenadier Guards 22 24 17 438 501
Coldstream (6 companies) 17[273] 34 14 373 438
Scots Fusilier Guards 20 23 17 332 392
Brigade Staff 3 (Major-Gen. Bentinck; Capt. 3 Ellison, Bde. Maj.; & Capt. Visct. Balgonie, A.D.C.)
Total 62 81 48 1143 1334
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Footnote 272:
See Kinglake, v. 70.
Footnote 273:
The names of these Officers are: Colonel Hon. G. Upton, commanding Battalion; Captain Hon. G. Eliot, Acting Adjutant; Lieut.-Colonels Hon. V. Dawson (commanding the four companies that first left camp, viz. Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 8), Lord C. FitzRoy, J. Cowell, and J. Halkett; Captains L. MacKinnon, C. Strong, C. Wilson, H. Bouverie, P. Crawley, F. Ramsden, and H. Tower; Lieutenants E. Disbrowe, Hon. W. Amherst, and C. Greville; lastly, Captain Hon. P. Feilding (Acting D.A.A.G. First Division) is here reckoned as a Regimental Officer, since early in the day his horse was shot, and he then joined and fought with the Battalion.
Belonging to the Regiment, and also actively engaged with the enemy, were Lieut.-Colonels T. Steele and P. Somerset on the head-quarter Staff; and Captain Hon. A. Hardinge, D.A.A.G. First Division.
On piquet, and holding the heights over the valley against Gortchakoff’s demonstrations, were Lieut.-Colonels Newton in command, Wood, and Carleton; Captains H. Armytage, and Sir J. Dunlop; and Lieutenant Heneage; with Nos. 6 and 7 companies.
Of the Medical Officers, the Battalion Surgeon, J. Skelton, had been invalided home, November 1st; Assistant-Surgeon Wyatt was present, also Quartermaster Falconer.
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Dannenberg’s advance was directed against the Sandbag battery, a work, although quite unfit for defence, and worthless when gained, yet served as a rallying-point, which the enemy endeavoured to capture, and which we determined to defend. Round it and near it, therefore, there surged the bloody and lengthened contest in which the Brigade was about to take a leading and conspicuous part. The attack was of a far more fierce and formidable nature than those which preceded it, and which were almost as child’s play compared with what followed. Instead of yielding to an impulse to fly when the heads of their columns recoiled before our impetuous charges, as had invariably been the case in the early morning, the Russians, still assailed by the same dauntless and romantic British courage, now fought with greater determination; they worked round our flanks and rear, and refused to be carried back by the retreating bodies which our men repulsed. The advance, in short, was better regulated, better fed, and better covered by artillery.
Adams was still holding the Sandbag battery, and had received reinforcements after his first success; our troops were also at the head of the Quarry Ravine, where a short wall of loose stones, called “the Barrier,” blocked the post-road. Little breathing-time was allowed them after the repulse they had just inflicted on the enemy, and a desperate struggle recommenced at these points. The small British detachments, overpowered by numbers and threatened in flank, were forced back; they retired fighting, and in good order, losing many men, among them General Adams. Three guns, under Captain Hamley (the late Sir Edward Hamley, whose book has been so frequently referred to), effectually checked any desire the Russians might have indulged in to harass our retreat. At this juncture the Guards Brigade arrived on Home Ridge; and it will be useful to take a rapid glance at the position as it was at that moment.
On the left, General Codrington was chained to the slopes near the Lancaster battery, and could not move therefrom without endangering the whole line. He received, though unwillingly, slight reinforcements, and his force then amounted to 1400. Later, additional troops reached him from the Third Division, and some artillery, but the latter were overpowered by heavier fire, and the one gun in the Lancaster battery could not be used till near the conclusion of the battle. During the day he held the ridge, maintained a heavy fire upon the enemy in Careenage Ravine, and stood ready to oppose any hostile advance that might have been contemplated up its course. His casualties amounted to about 180 men. Next, in and near the Wellway and in front of it, were the various groups who had repulsed Soimonoff’s first attack, including the company of Grenadier Guards previously mentioned; in all, about 1000 men—that is, allowing for losses, less than a third of the whole force that held Inkerman during the preliminary stage of the battle. It was not known that the enemy meant to concentrate all his efforts on our right, and to leave the other flank practically unmolested, so these men were also chained to the places where they stood, expecting fresh adventure, and, if any of them had to be moved to meet an emergency elsewhere, others replaced them in the position they held. Of the rest, a proportion were men exhausted or unrallied after their previous exertions, and it is calculated that some 1400 men only remained to defend Home Ridge and the Kitspur, 700 on each. As we have seen, those holding the latter were slowly retiring. Of reinforcements arriving, the Guards, 1300, had just reached the ridge, as well as 12 guns of the First and 6 of the Light Divisions. The Fourth Division, 2000, under Sir G. Cathcart, was approaching, so that some 4700 men and 36 guns might be reckoned upon for immediate purposes, while 1600 French and other of Canrobert’s troops were moving forward. On the other hand, the enemy was still very strong, though he had lost part of the 15,000 troops that first attacked, some of whom, indeed, were streaming away from the field panic-stricken, down the Careenage Ravine into Sevastopol, and over the Tchernaya bridge. But he had his powerful and numerous artillery securely posted on West Jut, Shell Hill, and East Jut, and, besides the greater portion of the 15,000 men, there were 20,000 fresh troops. Of these latter, 10,000 were in reserve, and the other 10,000 in the Quarry Ravine, in the neighbouring glens, on the post-road, and in the Sandbag battery which they had just captured.[274]
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Footnote 274:
According to the theory of Mr. Kinglake (whose excellent work on the Crimean War has been largely drawn upon, in preparing this part of the present volume), the 15,000 men who attacked in the early morning in two columns, one 9000 strong on our left and the other 6000 on our right, were so completely shattered by their first encounter with the detachments of the Second Division, that they all fled away, and not a man of them took any further part in the battle. Also that, of the 20,000 infantry remaining to the Russians, practically only 10,000 were engaged, the reserve of 10,000 being most of it kept back. Thus, while 15,000 were dispersed into space with the utmost ease, in an hour, by very few opponents, almost as if by magic, the 10,000 made so good a resistance that they were with difficulty vanquished, in three hours and a half, by the 4700 Englishmen who were on the scene at this moment, aided by 1600 French, who appeared soon after, and by the Algerines, Zouaves, and other troops of the same nation, 4000 strong, who reached the ground between ten and eleven o’clock. Nor is it alleged that the early attacks of the enemy were delivered by worse troops than those who came into action at 7.30 a.m. This theory was evidently not believed by some who fought at Inkerman, and Colonel Tower is of opinion that when the Guards first entered into the struggle, they met the Tarutin and Borodino regiments; that is, the eight Russian battalions which formed the main portion of the first attack made by the enemy with 6000 men on the Kitspur, and which, by Kinglake’s account, were not only repulsed, but clean driven from the field never to appear there again, by the bold onset of 700 to 800 Englishmen.
The losses during the day of the two Russian columns, that took part in the first attack, before 7.30, amounted to some 5000 men; and this fact seems to show conclusively that the 15,000 men continued the fight, as stated in the text, long after the hour when Mr. Kinglake says they disappeared from the battle-field. The casualties of the 10,000 men under Pavloff, who came into action at 7.30, were somewhat greater, proportionately, than those of the first two columns. The losses of the reserve (10,000 men), which to a great extent was kept back out of the struggle, were proportionately much less. (P. Alabine, Notes of the Expedition in 1853-5 , published in the Russian language, at Viatka, 1861, gives the losses by Russian regiments.)
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The enemy had secured a footing on the plateau of the Inkerman main spur, and the Guards Brigade, coming up at that instant, were launched against him, the Grenadiers in front, then the Scots Fusiliers, the Coldstream following a short distance in rear. The leading Battalion charged, and drove the Russians back to the crest; the next formed on its left, and Dawson prolonged the line to the right.
“Thus the narrow strip of height on the beak of which arose the two-gun work [the Sandbag battery] was thinly edged by the Tria juncta in uno, ranged two deep: the Duke of Cambridge and General Bentinck in command.”[275]
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Footnote 275:
Our Veterans, etc., p. 287.
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Many of the rifles at first missed fire, for the incessant rain had saturated everything; but by snapping off caps to dry the channel and by other means the arms were got to work.[276] The failure to use their weapons at this crisis caused great confusion, as may well be imagined, for there was a dense mass of Muscovite grey coats and flat caps in front, advancing against the Brigade.
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Footnote 276:
Some of the nipples had even to be unscrewed (Tower, Diary).
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N^o 7.
“We were almost among them at once, we were certainly not twenty-five yards from them.... They yielded ground and we advanced a little, showing a most decided front, but they kept pouring a most deadly fire into our ranks, which began to tell fearfully. The enemy’s artillery were posted on Cossack and Shell hills, and they had seventy or eighty guns at least, but the mist prevented their laying their guns properly for our lines, and they worked the Second Division heights whilst we were far in advance of that; the road was also a point on which they concentrated their fire. Big gaps began to be visible in our line, our dark great coats and bearskin caps towering above the bushes made our men conspicuous in the grey mist.... Several times I saw heads of Russian columns coming swarming through the bushes, the Officers in front waving their swords and shouting to the men; but directly they saw us there was a hesitation, a huddling together, an indecision, and a decided tendency not to come on. They fired quickly and nervously, and generally over our heads; they were so close to us before they saw us, and they were on lower ground than we were; if they had advanced in anything like a decided manner, we must have been entirely swamped and annihilated. But our fellows stood their ground manfully, and the more the Ruskis came up, the quicker our fellows rammed down their cartridges and blazed into them.... Our men were getting very few and far between; our poor company, No. 1, suffered terribly, but we yelled and screamed and fired at the columns we saw in our front; they were immensely superior to us in numbers, ten to one at least, and seemed now to stand their ground very well; they pressed us hard. But determination and dogged courage kept them back, and not a yard would we yield. The numbers in front of us increased every second, and we were really hand to hand with them; the bushes were full of English and Russians mixed up together. The groans of the wounded, Officers yelling and screaming at their men, the soldiers shouting at one another, and (I have no doubt) using their favourite expressions, and the firing almost deafened one.
“The Brigade was getting very much mixed up now.... Several other regiments and men of the Second Division piquets furnished us with stragglers who were of the right sort. Our Brigade line, or remnant of our line, was the rallying-point of everybody who was animated with a right spirit. Oh, for breechloaders at this moment, how we could have swept them off as they came up the hill!... I kept taking ammunition out of dead men’s pouches to feed the pouches of the living, screaming if I saw any fanatic Ruski that required shooting.... Some one behind or in the ranks hallooed out, Charge! Granville Eliot galloped forward right at the mass in front of him, Cowell, Bob Lindsay (Fusilier), young Greville, and myself were all close together, and we ran forward with all the men that were near us. It really was a critical moment in the battle, at least in our local part of the battle. Eliot fell from his horse, shot through the head; Cowell staggered and fell by the same bush; young Greville was shot through the body. The enemy was frantic at this moment; the few men who charged with us were all shot, and I found myself entirely surrounded by flat caps.... I could see no one but Russians anywhere near; one fired at me, the powder almost singed my cap. I could see some bearskins on my right through the bushes, and accordingly made for them as hard as I could lay legs to the ground, and I suppose Bob Lindsay and the men who were with us did the same.
“There was a small two-gun sandbag battery on the crest of the hill, into which the remnants of the Brigade were retiring; the Grenadier Colours were already there: the Russians had been driven out of it just before.[277] There were perhaps a hundred men of the three Regiments in the little battery, and crowds of Russians hemmed us nearly all round; we extended men on the left and rear to prevent their cutting off our retreat and getting in behind us. Column after column kept pouring up the hill, and every moment our chances of retreat looked worse and worse. The parapet in front of us was too high to fire over, and the enemy kept climbing into the embrasures and up the exterior slope of the parapet; but one after another they fell, shot by our men as they showed.... We could see lines of bayonets outside the parapet, and could hear them howling and cheering one another on; it was now fearfully exciting.... We kept them at a respectable distance; our line extended some way in the rear and left: but they kept getting nearer, and our men fell very thick.... Vesey Dawson I saw shot by a Russian creeping into the embrasure; Sir R. Newman of the Grenadiers was also killed, and some other Grenadier Officer fell wounded. Our ammunition was beginning to fail, some of the men had not had a round of their own for a long time: the dead furnished the living; but now even that began to fail, and the men in their excitement threw stones, lumps of earth, anything they could see, over the parapet among the Russians, and they came back again amongst us with interest. One of the most remarkable things about Russian troops is the noise they make in action, and I think it is catching, as I never heard our men make such a yelling as they did all this day; I know I was as bad as the rest, because I could not speak for hoarseness that evening and the next day. How long the game of throwing stones lasted I cannot say, but it seemed a long time. There was a visible diminution of bayonets outside the battery, and we had really driven the enemy back a great deal on our left; it was more that they ceased coming on than that we were driving them back. We were still surrounded by them, and they were firing into us as hard as they could.
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Footnote 277:
For their gallantry upon this occasion, Colonels Lord Henry Percy and Sir Charles Russell, Grenadier Guards, got the Victoria Cross.
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“Of course we could do nothing but retire; this we accordingly did, the Grenadier Colours being our rallying point: but in our weak state, with only a handful of men, very few Officers, and very little ammunition, retiring in the face of a body of the enemy was no easy matter, although the enemy were not in the same strength they were, nor did they seem to be animated with the same spirit they had shown previously. They retired from outside the Sandbag battery certainly; because I remember going outside the battery with several men and pursuing, or rather firing into the enemy, as there were large bodies of them below the battery amongst the bushes; I very nearly got killed for my pains, as I got too far down the hill, and found the top above me lined with Ruskis, and had to run the gauntlet through the bushes along the side of the hill to rejoin the remnants of our Brigade with the Grenadier Colours.... At this moment the Indigènes [the Algerines] came into action; they were the first individuals that appeared on the stage, and well do I remember their black faces and blue uniform coming tearing through the bushes.... When we got to the Second Division heights we were given ammunition.... As to what occurred in the front after this I cannot pretend to say, I only know firing went on with considerable vigour for some time; but the battle had turned in our favour.
“The French troops advanced in masses down the road and over the Second Division heights [Home Ridge], but the real fighting all along the line was over when we retired and when the Indigènes advanced. Some heavy guns on the Second Division hills had cut up their artillery on Cossack and Shell hills very much; the distant rumbling of musketry was going on and some heavy firing still, but it got further off.... I am perfectly certain the brunt of the battle was over when we were retiring out of Sandbag battery: the sun then came out, and it was perfectly clear; our heavy guns began to tell upon the enemy’s artillery on Cossack Hill. The fog having lifted, I saw the whole battle for the first time when we retired out of the Sandbag battery; before then, we had been entirely enveloped in mist and fog. I put this period at about 8.30 or 9, perhaps a little later, but no Frenchman appeared on the right of the battle till after this time, 9.30.... I am perfectly confident the Russians were in retreat when Bosquet’s Indigènes came into the action.... When the Indigènes came through the bushes, some of our men joined them to have a last shot at the Ruski, and they probably formed along the hill in our old position, and peppered into the retreating columns as they went down the hill.”[278]
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Footnote 278:
Tower, Diary , Nov. 5, 1854.
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This account of the fierce struggle between the Brigade and overwhelming masses of the Russians, written in the private diary of an Officer of the Regiment, gives a few of the confused events that took place immediately near him. Colonel Tower belonged to No. 1 company, and as Colonel Wilson was with No. 8 company, a few words describing what occurred about him may be also reproduced.
“Amid a dense fog raged wholesale murder; the mortal strife was hand to hand, foot to foot, muzzle to muzzle, butt-end to butt-end. It must not be supposed that we always stood rooted on our ground, that we never budged. No, the fight rested not steadfast for an instant. It was now backward, now forward, now sideways. Here, a Grenadier party, after a frantic tussle, would be forced by overwhelming swarms out of the battery; there, a knot of Coldstreamers would arrest the advance of an entire Russian battalion; in another place, a cluster of Fusiliers, rallying after a repulse, would fling themselves upon a column, and with the sheer might of strong hearts, arms, and steel, send it slap-dash over the height’s crest. This ceaseless wrestling to and fro accounts for the Sandbag battery being occupied alternately by men of the different Guards Regiments (or, more properly speaking, by mixed parties of the three Regiments larded with brave Liners). Whenever Pavloff succeeded in ousting one band of defenders from the work, a comrade batch would rush in, and, by a combination of bullet, bayonet, and gun-stock, thrust forth the intruders....
“Time marches so marvellously fast in battle, that it is utterly impossible for men, plunged in the mêlée, to form an idea of how they stand with the clock. I have therefore no notion at what period reinforcements reached us. All I know is, that towards the end of the fight I saw many Linesmen fighting intermixed with Guardsmen.... Despite melting ranks, despite fresh regiments which continued to stream up the hillside, despite the growing scarcity of ammunition, the English clung to their battery with the grip of despair. If, by chance, the bull-dog’s hold was for an instant shaken off, the next moment his teeth closed tighter than ever on the sandbags....
“The Russian Officers behaved like true soldiers. They ever were in front of their less adventurous rank and file, urging them on with voice and uplifted sword; nay, they rushed freely on certain death, with the view of inflaming the sluggish spirit of their followers.... And now half the Brigade—a grandiose title for 1300 men—strewed the ground; some slain outright, others bleeding to death, others vainly imploring to be carried off the field. Oh! that I must write 'vainly,' but in the devilish turmoil not a man whom God had shielded could be spared to carry away the wounded. The honour of England, nay, the very safety of the army, demanded that all living should be breast to breast with the Russians.... Meanwhile the Guards seemed at their last gasp, every minute found them less able—not a jot less willing—to repel the enemy. Hardly a man tasted food that morning, hence individual strength began to flag; where companies contended now only subdivisions struggled, hence collective power was ebbing fast. Nor was this all, ammunition had become frightfully scarce; in many cases, indeed, the soldiers had none left, so they were reduced to rifling the pouches of their fallen messmates; and when that resource failed, to pounding away at the ugly Calmuck visages with stocks and stones.”[279]
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Footnote 279:
Our Veterans, etc. , p. 290, etc.
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It is unnecessary to proceed further with this account, for the writer now gives his experiences, when his excited men, having forced a superior number of Russians into hurried flight down the hillside into the valley, rushed after them in pursuit, in spite of their Officer’s efforts to call them back. It is sufficient to say that any description of the struggle between the Guards and the masses which Dannenberg brought against them is impossible. The combatants were in close proximity, the contest was fought out in a thick fog, and on broken ground covered with tough hornbeam bushes and oak scrub, so that our men were speedily dispersed into groups, and few could really say what their neighbours were doing.[280]
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Footnote 280:
The following extract, from an account furnished by a Coldstreamer present at the battle, will be read with interest: Sergeant W. Wilden, No. 1 Company , writes:—“Suddenly the alarm came, 'fall in,' every man rushed for his rifle and ammunition; the order was so sudden many had not turned out, and several took their places in the ranks only partly dressed; poor Captain Ramsden was killed in his brown shooting-suit.... During the early part of the day, I should think about 8 or 8.30, the atmosphere became so thick with fog, rain, or mist, and the smoke from firing on both sides, I was not able to see more than eight or ten of my comrades, and scarcely able to distinguish the enemy, although within a few yards of him. At this juncture an alarm ran through our shattered ranks that the enemy was surrounding us. This turned out to be true, for he was working round our right flank to obtain possession of the small Sandbag battery.... A terrible struggle took place for possession of this battery; the enemy pushed his columns to the front in great numbers, and at the same time his left flank was gradually working round and attacking our right. At this time I should think about two companies of our Battalion held the battery. Here our losses were very heavy. We held it apparently for some time, and kept the Russian massive columns in check, until an unfortunate crisis happened; our ammunition was exhausted, and, as our ranks were so terribly shattered, we were compelled by superior numbers to retire from the battery, or, in other words, we were driven out, and left it in the hands of the enemy; but only for a short time, for we rallied and charged the enemy at the point of the bayonet and recaptured the battery. Here a dreadful struggle ensued, a hand-to-hand fight took place, in which bayonets were freely used on both sides, and at one period stones were resorted to to beat the enemy back from the north-western embrasure.... Although several bayonet charges were made upon the enemy, we were unable any longer to hold our ground against overwhelming numbers, and greatly exhausted, we were compelled gradually to retire, at the same time disputing every inch of ground. Here the enemy gradually advanced, and many of our wounded comrades were bayoneted or killed by the enemy. At this moment, the welcome sound of the bugles of the gallant Bosquet’s division of Zouaves reached our ears; their numbers enabled them to force the enemy back and regain the position we were gradually losing. We then retired.... Two long 18-pounder guns were about this time drawn by hand to replace those dismantled, and were used until the close of the battle.”
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But the main features of the contest are fairly clear. The Russians, securely posted in the Quarry Ravine, St. Clement’s Gorge, and on the eastern slopes of the Kitspur, made their main attack against the latter, and as their assaulting columns were driven from the crest, they rallied again in the hollows beneath, and kept surging upwards, and renewing the strife. For some time the Brigade drove back the successive waves of the advancing enemy unassisted, except by the broken fragments of Adams' men; but a little later, when Cathcart’s division approached, some 500 of his troops were pushed forward, and joined in the fray, while another portion moved to the head of the Quarry Ravine, and regained the Barrier. The latter, reinforced from time to time, remained there during the rest of the battle, and though the enemy passed them by, now as he advanced and again as he retired, it seems he never closed in on their rear or reconquered the post. Colonel Upton, reaching the ground some time about 8 a.m., with No. 5 company and a company of the Scots Fusilier Guards, also coming off piquet,[281] endeavoured to close an undefended gap which existed between the Sandbag battery and the Barrier, and he prevented the enemy from seizing its advantages at that moment. But his force was insufficient to hold it for more than a brief space, and his men were most of them drawn into the vortex of the principal fight. Hence, it was not difficult for the Russians, pressing through the gap, to work round the left flank of the Brigade, and to penetrate to their rear. Most of the Fourth Division, having been split up into fractions, were sent wherever the pressure of the battle required their presence; but a residue of 400 men under General Torrens remained, and with this force Cathcart hoped to relieve the Brigade in their arduous struggle, and assail the enemy in flank by descending the slopes on our right. The attempt, though successful at first, was not fortunate, and it failed to accomplish the results that were expected from it. The men soon dispersed in groups, were almost surrounded, and had to fight their way upwards with the Russians above them. It was here, moreover, that the valuable life of Cathcart was lost, and that Torrens (some time in the Grenadier Guards) was severely wounded.
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Footnote 281:
It appears that No. 4 company moved forward separately, and joined the main body of the Battalion.
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This manœuvre appears to have changed the principle on which the Brigade had been resisting the hostile columns, and many who hitherto never pursued the beaten bodies of the enemy beyond the crest, now rushed after them down the slopes into the hollows beneath. In this way the group near Captain Wilson got out of hand, and pursued far down into the valley of the Tchernaya, where they were met by shots from Gortchakoff’s riflemen, “who sprang up among the bushes, and blazed full in our faces.” Meeting some stray groups of Cathcart’s submerged detachment, the whole party reascended the heights, and lost heavily as they climbed up. Here they found themselves between two fires, and ascertained that the enemy was really above them, for at first they thought they were mistaken for Russians, and were being shot at by English soldiers. Avoiding this danger, by taking an upwards direction to the left, they stumbled upon a dead ammunition mule, and eagerly replenished their pouches, as for some time they had not had a round among them. Having at last reached the top, they found that the fog had lifted, that the Brigade was not where they had left it, and that Zouaves and Algerines (the Indigènes) were approaching the ground, and were driving the enemy back, as Colonel Tower has already told us. Wilson and the last of his men joined this attack, and many fell; he finally attached himself to the French 50th of the Line as they advanced, and then finding he could do nothing more, he sought the Coldstream, eventually falling in with them near Home Ridge, which he reached before the shattered remains of the Battalion got there.
From the moment our men began to descend the slopes their means of maintaining their post on the Kitspur seemed to diminish. Under any circumstances, the struggle of the few against the many was gradually exhausting the power of the former, and reinforcements were urgently required. It was fortunate, therefore, that our allies now appeared upon the scene. Bosquet, who for some time in the early morning had been observing Gortchakoff, came speedily to the conclusion that that General meant to remain quiescent; he therefore sent forward some of his troops without delay, to Home Ridge, where the danger was most pressing. Two Battalions, 1600 strong, arrived first; and one, the French 6th of the Line, pushing towards the Kitspur, struck in flank the Russians, who, advancing through the gap, which was ever getting wider, were endeavouring to operate against our rear. This French battalion, however, soon got into difficulties, and the other, the 7me Léger, was sent to its support. But before this was effected another crisis occurred; for, the enemy, urging forward his numerous forces up the ravines which he occupied, brushed past the Anglo-French then on the Kitspur, and made a very determined onslaught on Home Ridge itself. This serious manœuvre was repulsed by the gallantry of a few British detachments present on the spot, and of the 7me Léger; the defeated column was driven back, so that the two French battalions were brought together. It was now 10 a.m., and another French force, a brigade with some artillery, led by Bosquet in person, reached the battle in two columns: in the first, some rifles, a battalion of Algerines, and one of Zouaves (1900); in the other, more Zouaves, and the French 50th of the Line (2200). There was still a good deal of difficulty in forcing the enemy to recede; for as the first column pursued him, they advanced too far, and fresh hostile forces were able to move up the ravines leading to the main spur, thereby threatening our allies in rear. But on the arrival of the second column, the Russians, now thoroughly broken by their losses and by the stubborn resistance which held them in check, gave up the contest. They were finally driven off the Kitspur and out of the ravines which had been so useful to them during the struggle, by enabling them to re-organize after so many repulses inflicted by our slender forces. Kinglake thus speaks of a band of the Coldstream during this phase of the fight:—
“The Zouave battalion was advancing ... when the bearskin all at once reappeared. It was from the wooded steeps of the hillsides that the spectre uprose. Since the time when last we observed it, the small band of Coldstream men collected by Wilson had remained in the brushwood below, watching always for some such occasion as the one that now offered. Amid a roar of joy and welcome—for the Zouaves and the Guards were close friends—these Coldstream men joined the advance, aligning on the right of the French.... What followed was slaughter.”[282]
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Footnote 282:
Kinglake, v. 402.
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Meanwhile we had already gained an immense superiority over the enemy’s artillery. As early as about 9.30, two 18-pounder guns of position had been brought on Home Ridge, and after a short space of time the power of the hostile batteries began to wane. The French guns, coming up, posted themselves on our right, and the bombardment continued with increasing advantage on our side, though the number of our pieces was not half that of our opponents. Some of our men on the left and centre of our line also advanced, and added to the misfortune of the gunners on Shell Hill. The battle was really decided at eleven, though the artillery continued to fire till much later. As soon as the bulk of the Household Brigade returned to Home Ridge, and after ammunition had been served out, the men were reformed, and were moved up to protect the guns against any sudden assault. This duty was “worse than fighting the infantry, for we got no revenge for the men we lost,” and we incurred casualties not a few.[283]
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Footnote 283:
Letter of Mr. Taylor, late Quartermaster Somersetshire Militia, then in the Coldstream; one shell killed and wounded eight men. Colonel Upton was wounded at this period. See, also, Our Veterans, etc. , p. 299.
The action of the Guards at Inkerman seems to be imperfectly described in Kinglake. According to that writer, the bulk of the Brigade came out of action at 8.30; though he notes that the force under Wilson joined the last attack undertaken by the French about 11 o’clock, and allows that the companies which followed Upton were in the field as late as 10. Giving Bosquet’s impressions of the scene presented to his observation at that hour, he says, “High above on the right, where there sauntered a red-coated Officer with the bonnet de poil and a singularly unconcerned air (Colonel Upton), some men of the Guards could be seen lying down among the brushwood” (Kinglake, v. 382). Yet Tower and Wilden, whose accounts have been given, state that they were relieved on the Kitspur by the Algerines and Zouaves—that is, after 10 o’clock; and Wilson who, according to Mr. Kinglake, was on that portion of the battle-field later than any other Guardsman, tells us himself that he got back to Home Ridge before the bulk of the Brigade reached it. Some isolated groups, separated during the fierce struggle in the fog and brushwood from the main body, possibly found themselves on Home Ridge before; Taylor says he helped to pull up the two 18-pounders, which, as we know, took place about 9.30.
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The retreat of the Russians commenced about one o’clock, and was covered by a column of their reserve; which, attempting to advance, was quickly dispersed by a few rounds of the 18-pounders. There was no pursuit. The enemy slipped away, and “seemed to melt from the lost field; the English were too few and too exhausted, and the French too little confident in the advantage gained, to convert the repulse into a rout.” Our allies, deducting losses, numbered at the end of the engagement some 7000 infantry, for, besides the troops already mentioned, three battalions (2400) arrived on the ground at eleven; they also had 700 cavalry and 24 guns present. Lord Raglan was anxious to complete the victory by falling on the rear of the flying Russians, but his cautious colleague would not consent; for he still feared an attack from Gortchakoff’s untouched forces, and was unwilling to expose his men to the fire of the ships that were moored in the roadstead.[284]
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Footnote 284:
Hamley, War in the Crimea , p. 157.
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While the battle was going on, the garrison of Sevastopol kept up so poor a demonstration, that we were able to denude our camps of men, and push them to Inkerman. Besides the men on duty in the trenches, the greater part of the Third Division watched the fortress, and they were subjected to no further inconvenience than that which the fire from the place, intensified on this day, entailed. About 9.30, however, the enemy made a sortie against Forey’s siege corps, under General Timofeyeff, with 5000 men and 12 guns. The blow, though it met with some success at first, failed, and the Russians were pursued by our gallant allies back under the shelter of the fortress. Thus little was done by the garrison to assist Dannenberg, and that little was of trifling value. Gortchakoff’s operations during the day were still less effective. He made a few feints, fired upon the Sapuné Ridge, and, it is said, did lose 15 men. He thereby gave the companies on piquet (among them, Nos. 6 and 7 companies of the Coldstream) the opportunity of engaging him with distant volleys, without apparently causing much, if any, loss to our side. In short, he did nothing, when by attacking Bosquet, he would have prevented that General from advancing to our assistance at Inkerman. His orders were “to support the general attack, to draw the Allied forces upon himself, and to try and seize one of the ascents to the Sapuné Ridge.” Mr. Kinglake, however, tells us that these written orders were explained away by “oral communications” into something different,[285] and makes us believe that there is a mystery which has never been explained, hanging over the operations of this Russian Commander, who held so much power in his hands on that day. What we do know is that Dannenberg, in spite of his overwhelming numbers, was unable to secure a footing on the Kitspur, that this was due to the manner in which it was defended by our scanty forces, and that in this defence the Household Brigade played a glorious part, and suffered much in consequence.
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Footnote 285:
Kinglake, v. 59 (note), 69.
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The losses were very great on both sides: those of the enemy, who moved in heavy columns, being more than those of the Allies, though relatively, in proportion to numbers at the seat of war, he suffered less than we did. The Russians had 10,729 killed, wounded, and prisoners, including 256 Officers. The English 2357 of all ranks, of whom 130 were Officers (or 39 Officers, and 558 men killed, and 91 Officers and 1669 men wounded). The French 929, among them 49 Officers (or 13 Officers and 130 men killed, and 36 Officers and 750 men wounded).[286] The Brigade lost nearly half its effective strength, viz., out of a total of 1334:—
Killed 12 Officers, 9 Sergts., 1 Drumrs., 177 Rank & file, Total 199 Wounded 20[287] ” 20 ” 4 ” 357 ” ” 401 Missing — ” — ” — ” 4 ” ” 4 Total 32 ” 29 ” 5 ” 538 ” ” 604
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Footnote 286:
The above were the losses on the field of Inkerman. The total casualties on the 5th of November amounted to: Russians, 11,959; English, 2573; and French 1800 of all ranks (Kinglake, v. 443, 457).
Footnote 287:
Counting Major-General Bentinck, who was severely wounded. Of the Coldstream Officers serving on the Staff on that day, none were wounded; Colonel Somerset, however, had a horse shot under him.
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The Coldstream suffered in like proportion, but the casualties among the Officers far exceeded those that occurred in the other Regiments. In fact, almost all the Officers were swept away. Out of seventeen present, four only escaped uninjured, viz. Captains Strong, Wilson, Crawley, and Tower. Of the rest, eight were killed or died soon after of their wounds, viz. Lieut.-Colonels Dawson, and Cowell, Captains MacKinnon, Bouverie, Eliot, and Ramsden, and Lieutenants Greville, and Disbrowe. The remainder were wounded; viz. Colonel Upton (slightly), Lieut.-Colonels Halkett, and Lord C. FitzRoy, Captain P. Feilding, and Lieutenant Amherst (all severely). The losses of the Battalion amounted to—
Killed 8 Officers, 3 Sergeants, 73 Rank & Total 84 File,
Wounded 5 ” 11 ” 107 ” ” 123
Total 13 ” 14 ” 180 ” ” 207
The principal casualties were in the flank companies. No. 1 entered the action with 50 to 60 men, and No. 8 was slightly stronger. The former lost one sergeant and 43 rank and file, and the latter two sergeants and 41 men. No. 2 came next, losing 37 men. Where a Battalion has so freely shed its life-blood in the stubborn defence of the position assigned to it, it may seem strange that no official notice should be taken of the death of the Officer who led it into action, and who directed its movements until he fell, and more especially when in the Brigade to which the Battalion belonged, no other Commanding Officer lost his life. Yet this is what occurred with respect to the memory of the gallant Colonel Dawson, and the feelings of his brothers in arms were not inadequately expressed in the following lines, written by Colonel Wilson:—
“The despatch which informed England of this dearly bought victory, commended the services of many of the living and blazoned the merits of many of the dead; but from that encomiastic scroll there was at least one remarkable omission. To the memory of Colonel Vesey Dawson, shot through the heart while in command of the Coldstream Guards, was conceded not a passing word of eulogy or of regret. It is melancholy to reflect that on this humble page should stand the only record of how as brave a soldier as ever drew a sword, as noble a gentleman as ever earned the respect of his fellow-men, fought and died.”[288]
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Footnote 288:
Our Veterans, etc. , p. 306.
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We are told that this great victory caused no outward elation among our troops. A reaction succeeded the excitement of the struggle; the danger now past began to be realized for the first time; and the men, though hardened to the miserable scenes which war creates, were almost awed by the terrible carnage and devastation that met their eyes on the hard-fought field. The Second Division camp was laid flat, the tents uprooted and scattered, canvas saturated with blood carpeted the ground. Our own camp swarmed with the wounded and the dying, and the sight sent a chill of depression through the few survivors as they returned to their bivouacs. Everywhere on the narrow space of the battleground the victims lay thick, some killed, others groaning in agony, and nowhere thicker than in and around the Sandbag battery, where the contest raged the fiercest. Here the dead were literally piled up on one another as they fell.
“The whole battle-field, which could all be seen at a glance, except where concealed by brushwood, looked perfectly covered with bodies; between the Second Division hills and the crest of the Inkerman hill is a very short distance, and the entire action having been fought on that limited space, there was an awful scene of carnage upon it.... Before evening we got all our wounded off the field; the dead, of course, remained there, and the poor wounded Ruskis who were a great deal too numerous to take off.... From the heights I could see the Russian army winding up the road; the whole country was covered with troops straggling over the causeway over the Tchernaya marsh; they were a long time crossing. Arabas full of wounded, guns, etc., lumbering up the way, but they had quite enough of it.... Our hospital was a most piteous sight.... Our poor fellows were all dying or dead.... The camp was miserable, and I could only thank God I was not lying in the hospital tent with half my limbs smashed to pieces, or lying on a stretcher ready to be buried.”[289]
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Footnote 289:
Tower, Diary .
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Saddest of all, was the cruel thought surging in every mind that many of our brave wounded had been basely bayoneted as they lay helpless on the ground, by an uncivilized enemy, who, unable to drive off the few that held the plateau against him, wreaked his vengeance on the defenceless, as soon as they fell into his hands. We had ample evidence of this savagery—established, moreover, by a special inquiry—that cast so black a stain on the Russian army, for, when our men hurled the foe from a corner from which he had driven us, we found our wounded stabbed to death.
Thus was the battle of Inkerman fought and won by small bodies of the British and French armies, over an overpowering hostile force of more than 35,000 infantry, amply supported by artillery; who, having stolen in during the night up to our outposts, endeavoured to break through the Allied line round Sevastopol, at a point where we were weakest, and where we had absolutely no defences.[290] The result proved the immense superiority of our arms over those of Russia; so also does it give us some indication of what would have happened if we had boldly attacked Sevastopol at the end of September, before, or immediately after, the flank march, or even during the bombardment in October. The British fought with a valour and constancy that surpassed even the glorious traditions of the past. Led by Officers who hurled themselves like the old Knight Errants into the thick of every danger, they nobly followed on with that unflinching steadiness produced by constitutional bravery, by devotion to their leaders, and by the splendid discipline that was the predominant characteristic of our Crimean troops. Their bold extension and their courage in maintaining it, even without supports and when opposed to heavy columns, made the Russians think that the line of red-coats was but a fringe of our strength, and they hesitated when they ought to have acted boldly. We were, moreover, provided with a superior rifle, and so when the enemy, emerging from the ravines, found himself met by a heavy and shattering fire, his columns were brought to a standstill, and he lost the advantage which his solid formation might have given him. He was far from being imbued with the spirit that animated our men, and he lacked the determination to close with them.
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Footnote 290:
It cannot be insisted too often that the Sandbag battery was a battery only in name; and that its importance consisted in the fact that it served as a rallying-point, on account of its being a conspicuous object, round which the main struggle on the Kitspur raged. Russian exaggerations have given it a wholly fictitious value; even Todleben, describing the fight a little after eight o’clock, says that the Okhotsk regiment (3000 strong) attacked the Sandbag battery held by their “worthy rivals—the intrepid Coldstream,” that they expelled the latter, and that nine guns were the reward of this brilliant feat of arms! (see Hamley, War in the Crimea , p. 160).
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“Had he, at the commencement of the battle, pushed these columns resolutely forward, it follows nearly as a matter of course that, by sheer momentum of his heavy masses, the British lines would have been broken through and trampled down utterly. It would have been a question of weight alone. As it was, no devotion, no exertions on the part of the Russian Officers, could at the outset spur their battalions to one grand combined rush. Time was frittered away in a series of persevering but desultory attacks, which were invariably repulsed, thanks to English valour and English firearms.”[291]
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Footnote 291:
Our Veterans, etc. , p. 309. It is proper to add that the Russian Rifle corps, 1800 strong, were armed with as good a weapon as our Minié, also that some of the British battalions (the 20th Regiment, for instance, who distinguished themselves greatly in the battle) carried the old smooth-bore musket, known as “Brown Bess” (see Kinglake, v. 475).
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X. THE WINTER OF 1854-55 IN THE CRIMEA
Prostration of both sides after the battle of Inkerman—Sevastopol not to be taken in 1854—Tardy arrangements to enable the army to remain in the Crimea during the winter—Violent hurricane of the 14th of November; stores scattered and destroyed—The winter begins in earnest—How the Government at home attended to the wants of army at the seat of war—Absence of a road between the base at Balaklava and the front—Miserable plight to which the army was reduced—Indignation in England, and the measures taken to relieve the troops—Admirable manner in which the misfortunes were borne by the British soldiers—Operations on both sides during the winter—The Turks occupy Eupatoria; successful action fought there—The Guards Brigade sent to Balaklava.
The battle of Inkerman exhausted the energies of the combatants, and for a few days they recoiled from each other, stunned by its effects. The Allies had gained a Pyrrhic victory; another such victory, and their forces must be annihilated. The enemy also had received a crushing defeat, which shattered his military prestige and ruined the morale of his army. Neither side was in a condition to operate against the other, and each faced his opponent listlessly, almost helplessly. But Menshikoff, though disgraced in the field, deserved the gratitude of his Imperial Master, and had every reason to be content with what he had achieved; for, he had gained an advantage of supreme importance. He had put it out of the power of the Anglo-French invaders to finish the war during the year 1854, and thus, while chaining them fast to the bleak and narrow upland of the Chersonese, he had the satisfaction of knowing that they would be exposed to the rigours of the approaching winter. This result was all the more disastrous to us, since, not having foreseen it, we were in no position to meet it, and were unprovided with the means of maintaining our troops in the inhospitable region to which we had become committed. In short, the Allies were about to be handed over to foes far more destructive and terrible than those they had hitherto met. Instead of contending against Russian weapons, they were now also to struggle with the forces of nature and the fury of the elements. On the 6th of November it was finally determined to put off the bombardment, and to winter in the Crimea. The Commissariat Department, informed of this decision, was then, and then only, ordered to make such preparations as would enable the army to remain on the upland. But the tardy order came too late, for in less than ten days the winter began in earnest, and nothing could then be got ready to save the troops from the cruel trials that awaited them.
On the day after the battle, the Allies were engaged in burying the dead, in removing the Russian wounded who still lay on the ground, and in clearing the field of the traces of the struggle. An invitation addressed to General Menshikoff to agree to a truce, and to send out his men to bury their own dead, was refused, for that prudent commander was naturally disinclined to give his troops so sombre and depressing an object-lesson of their utter inefficiency in the field. His army, however, met this invitation in another fashion, and, whether in error or by design, they answered it by firing upon our burying parties. As another attack was feared, the front was cleared of incumbrances as soon as possible, and the wounded were promptly taken to Balaklava. Their sufferings were considerable; there was a scarcity of hospital comforts and appliances at the seat of war, and the ambulances in use were unfitted for the purpose of conveying injured men.
Much affected by the heavy losses sustained by his “First Brigade,” the Duke of Cambridge came early into the Guards camp, where the few men present turned out to cheer him.
“Accompanied by his Aide-de-camp, the brave and popular Macdonald, the Royal General was assiduous in his attentions to the wounded Guardsmen, sympathizing in cheering tones with the livid wretches that still breathed, and shedding tears of manly sorrow upon the mangled clay of those who had completed their last tour of earthly duty.”[292]
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Footnote 292:
Our Veterans, etc. , p. 314.
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The funeral of the numerous Coldstream Officers formed a most sad procession. Seven—Dawson, Cowell, MacKinnon, Eliot, Ramsden, Disbrowe, and Greville—were laid to rest in one grave, in a small rocky ravine near the Windmill. Bouverie’s body was only recovered late on the 6th, and he was buried by the side of Lieut.-Colonel Hunter-Blair of the Scots Fusilier Guards, who survived the action twenty-four hours.
“It was really enough to unman anybody; poor fellows! far away from all their friends and relations; poor Greville, whose death killed his mother, everybody loved him; we laid them side by side, and I remember the earth pattering on their poor bodies with dull hollow sound.”[293]
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Footnote 293:
Tower, Diary . All the Guards Officers were buried in this spot. During the winter of 1855, more than a year later, their bodies were exhumed, and were properly interred on Cathcart’s Hill, where they now lie.
Colonel Upton, though badly hurt, was able to remain at his post till the middle of November, and he assumed the command of the Brigade, vice General Bentinck, wounded, and of the First Division from the 7th, when the Duke of Cambridge was sent to Balaklava, on the sick list. The command of the Battalion thus devolved upon Colonel Lord F. Paulet. The Coldstream was, in truth, a mere skeleton of the fine body which embarked at Portsmouth in the spring of 1854. It only mustered now 11 Officers and 307 men, while no draft,—except a small one of 58 men, which, having left London on the 26th of October, reached the Crimea on the 22nd of November,—was on the road to compensate for this serious deficiency of strength in the field. When news of the battle arrived in England, strenuous efforts were made to fill up the attenuated ranks of the army, by sending out fresh battalions and reinforcements to those already at the seat of hostilities. But the campaign, ever since July, when we were first encamped near the pestilential lake of Devna, had sadly drained our resources—far more rapidly, indeed, than the home authorities had anticipated,—and though recruiting had been actively going on, the large demands which this war created could not be satisfied. In this way, the next draft sent to the Coldstream only amounted to 153 men, and could do little to restore our depleted ranks to an efficient state. This draft started on the 24th of November, and arrived in the Crimea on the 18th of December.[294] In France, however, there was not such a dearth of fighting men as seems to have been the case in England, and considerable reinforcements were despatched to the east, so that somewhat later (in February) our allies were able to extend the siege-works that surrounded the south side of Sevastopol.
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Footnote 294:
The average age of the small draft of 58 men reaching the seat of war in November, was twenty-one, and their service nearly two years. The averages of the next draft arriving in December, were twenty-one and a half years and eight months, respectively. Lieutenants Whitshed and Julian Hall accompanied the first; and Lieut.-Colonel C. Burdett, Captains F. Burton and J. Le Couteur, and Lieutenants G. Wigram, A. Lambton, G. Rose, and G. Ives the second. Assistant-Surgeon C. V. Cay reached the Crimea on November 28th.
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We have seen that the omission to strengthen the unguarded flank at Inkerman by earthworks had led to serious consequences. The critical nature of the battle made this so clear, that, when the fight was over, though we had fewer men to spare than were available before, this vital position was at once placed in a state of defence. English, French, and even Turks—held hitherto to be an incumbrance—were set to perform this duty, and Fore Ridge and Shell Hill were soon crowned with works, commanding the approaches to the scene of the recent struggle, and securing it at last, as far as possible, from further molestation.[295]
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Footnote 295:
Recent events having opened the eyes of authority, the shoulder was put vigorously to the wheel. Hence the fortification of an all-important point which, previous to the battle, had either been considered unnecessary, or had been pronounced impossible of achievement with the means at disposal, was actually executed with sorely straitened means after the battle. In a word, few hands contrived to do what comparatively many hands had been judged incapable of doing. “Where there’s a will there’s a way” (Our Veterans, etc. , p. 325).
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The ordinary routine of siege life had hardly recommenced after the rude shock which interrupted it on the 5th, when the winter burst upon the Crimean peninsula with a suddenness and violence that marked a distinct feature in the story of the war, and brought innumerable troubles upon the Allies engaged in it. The weather lately had been cold and stormy, varied upon occasions by short gleams of sunshine and partial warmth. At daybreak on the 14th, however, a violent hurricane, accompanied by a deluge of rain, unexpectedly arose, and swept with terrific force over the country, and not only blew away every tent standing on the upland, scattered the stores upon which the army depended, and stopped all communications, but also dashed to pieces or disabled much of the shipping laden with supplies that were then very urgently needed.[296] The ground was speedily converted into a deep and impassable sea of sticky mud, which flew about in large quantities; the temperature fell, and snow came down. The men of the various regiments huddled together like sheep, behind bushes or rocks, or wherever they could find some protection against the violence of the elements. The condition of the houseless troops was miserable in the extreme, both during the day and long afterwards, for they had nothing wherewith to repair their losses; but it was worse with the sick and wounded, who were exposed to the full force of the cyclone, and to the cold and the rain. A considerable amount of shipping had been left outside the harbour of Balaklava, instead of being safely berthed inside the landlocked bay. Of the vessels anchored in this dangerous position, many went to pieces on the rocks forming the iron-bound coast; altogether twenty-one were sunk, and their valuable cargoes were all lost. H.M.S. Retribution, with the Duke of Cambridge on board, narrowly escaped destruction. On that fatal first day of a severe Crimean winter, the troops were deprived of vast quantities of ammunition, food, clothing, and forage, and there was no reserve at hand from whence they could be replaced.
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Footnote 296:
It is said that only three tents remained upright in the English camps (Nolan, i., p. 650). But a fourth, belonging to Lieut.-Colonel Carleton, also survived, and it was the only one that did so in the Guards camp. The Turkish tents, placed in a sheltered position, made a better resistance than ours, and comparatively few were swept away.
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The difficulties and sufferings that now overwhelmed the army began with this storm, but they are clearly to be traced to the aimless manner in which the campaign had been conducted. The original intention had been to surprise Sevastopol, but it soon disappeared out of sight, and no step was taken to capture the town in accordance with the conditions under which the expedition landed on Russian soil. On the contrary, a regular siege was gradually commenced, and a completely new plan was thereby adopted. But the change was never recognized, its bearing upon the fortunes of the war was not appreciated, and no stores were accumulated at the base of operations to meet the requirements of the lengthy proceedings into which the invaders had drifted. This was the more unfortunate, since, when the allied Commanders undertook the flank march, and shifted their ground from the north to the south side of Sevastopol, they found themselves obliged to operate upon a barren upland which afforded no supplies, and very soon they even lost the advantage of drawing forage from the valley of the Tchernaya. Thus, after the 25th of October, if not before, nothing whatsoever was to be obtained from the land in which the army was established, and every single article had to be transported by sea from a distance. The battle of Inkerman at last revealed the true position in which we stood; but it was then too late, and when the storm destroyed the vessels lying outside the harbour, which contained considerable addition to our scanty stores, it must be acknowledged that this position was indeed deplorable.
Nor should it be forgotten that requisitions put forward were imperfectly attended to by the authorities in England, and that there was often confusion at the base (Scutari and Balaklava), which appears to have been incompletely organized. Owing to these circumstances, many misfortunes overtook the British army, some of which may be cited. Though a request was made early in September for 2000 tons of hay, only 228 tons were received in the Crimea by the 1st of February, 1855.[297] In November an application was forwarded for 3000 tents, and for a steam mill and bakery, but more than six months elapsed before they arrived at the seat of war.[298] Again, we have seen that a substantial portion of the kits were left behind in the squad bags, at Scutari, at the end of May; also that, on landing at Old Fort, the packs were taken away from the men. The former seem to have been allowed to remain where they were stored. But an effort was made in the middle of October, just a month after they had been left on board ship, to recover the knapsacks, though apparently with very indifferent success; and the troops remained, exposed to the severe inclemency of the weather, without any change of clothing, in the worn-out and tattered garments that had uninterruptedly done duty day and night from the beginning of June, when they landed at Varna. Lastly, biscuit and salt pork formed the usual, indeed the never-varying ration served out to the British soldier. This diet was his only food, and it produced scurvy, as was only to be expected. To counteract this plague, limejuice and vegetables were thus urgently required, but neither was available. It is true that small quantities of vegetables were sometimes to be had, but then they were sold to the starving men at famine prices.[299] A tardy requisition was made in October for limejuice, and half the quantity demanded (20,000 lbs.) reached Balaklava on the 19th of December; but there it remained almost unnoticed, and this antidote against the scourge of scurvy was only unearthed on the 29th of January following; nor was it apparently ordered to be issued to the troops as a ration, until the middle of February.[300]
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Footnote 297:
Kinglake, vi. 128, note.
Footnote 298:
Ibid. , pp. 98, 138.
Footnote 299:
General Order, Memo. , Nov. 1st: “Commanders of divisions will send to-morrow at 9 a.m. to the Quartermaster-General’s office, on the wharf at Balaklava, for potatoes.... They must be paid for at the spot at the price of £1 1_s._ per cwt.” Ibid. , Nov. 6th: “Those corps or divisions which desire potatoes should send to Balaklava for them; the price is £1 1_s._ per cwt.... The money required to pay for them must be sent at the same time.” It appears that later, after December 10th, whenever vegetables were available they were supplied to the men gratis; but as they had to fetch them from Balaklava under circumstances of extreme difficulty (as will presently appear), it is scarcely to be wondered that the wearied troops did not always avail themselves of the boon (see Kinglake, vi. 138, note). It should further be stated here, that Lord Raglan, “in consideration of the length of the siege operations, the constant labour the men have been called upon to perform, the inclemency of the weather, and the cheerfulness and good will they have manifested in discharge of their duty,” granted the unusual issue of working pay to the troops employed in digging, etc., in the trenches, at the rate of, for Non-commissioned officers as overseers, one for every twenty men, 1_s._ by day, 1_s._ by night; for rank and file, 8_d._ by day, 10_d._ by night (General Order , Nov. 14, 1854).
Footnote 300:
Wyatt, pp. 41, 55. Limejuice, after February 16th, was issued three times during the month.
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Arising directly out of the incomprehensible manner in which this extraordinary war was conceived and carried on, another circumstance, more powerful for evil than the apathy with which the necessities of the army were regarded by the Government, caused famine and distress to oppress our troops. We had no road between Balaklava and the front; and hence, when supplies reached the former place, we were without means of conveying them to the spot where they were to be consumed. And yet the distance to be traversed was under eight miles. It has been shown that, of the two roads connecting the English before Sevastopol and the base, one, the Woronzoff road, was metalled; the other, over the Col, was but a mere pathway or cart-track: also that on the 25th of October, we lost the use of the former, and were restricted to the latter. During the autumn this pathway was serviceable; indeed, so firm and open was the country, that waggons and guns could easily move across it anywhere. But when the torrents of rain flooded the ground on the 14th of November, the whole aspect of the upland became altered, and the track as well as the plain were converted into a deep morass, over which communications were rendered almost impossible. The French, with proper forethought, constructed a good road between Kamiesh Bay and their camps, directly they occupied the Chersonese; but as all the British troops were required to push forward vigorously the siege-works, and as we indulged in the misplaced confidence that Sevastopol would fall immediately after the bombardment of the 17th of October, we never even thought of securing our communications, until after the 5th of November, when it was decided to winter in the Crimea. The rejected Turks, offered by Omar Pasha, might certainly have performed this important service while the weather was clear and dry, but the prejudice against them has already been mentioned, and their assistance was refused. After the battle of Inkerman we took measures to construct the road, and we acted as we did with respect to the defences near Home Ridge; tools were hastily procured from Constantinople, and Turks were at last employed. But it was then too late. The unfortunate men were unprovided with food and shelter, and the weather was severe; they died so rapidly that the living were all required to bury the dead, and in a short time this ill-fated contingent disappeared altogether.
The scarcity of forage and the want of a road acted and reacted on each other, and formed the principal causes of the winter troubles. The horses and mules died of starvation, and it was useless to replace them, as there was not wherewithal to feed them. The transport, miserably insufficient as it always had been, dwindled into nothing, and all but disappeared; troop horses of the cavalry were impressed into this service, but they too perished. Carriage traffic soon ceased, and an attempt was then made to convey supplies on the backs of the wretched beasts that survived. This expedient also failed; the quagmire of tenacious clay intervening between the port and the front, the famine, and the exposure to cold and wet, all operated together, and the animals could work no more. Thenceforward there was nothing for it but to make the men themselves wade through the deep mud, and fetch up such things from the base as they required, to keep body and soul together. The duty was no inconsiderable addition to their ordinary toil, for while they were decreasing fast in numbers, the labour in the trenches did not abate. The journey also sometimes took twelve hours to accomplish, and during the time it lasted they were without food, shelter, or rest.[301] This miserable makeshift was, of course, entirely inadequate to supply the troops, and the more bulky or heavy articles, however necessary to the well-being of the army, could not be brought to camp at all. The serious error by which magazines had not been established in time at the seat of war, was repaired quickly by the great energy displayed at head-quarters, and in December considerable quantities of every kind of stores were available at Balaklava, but there most of them remained unused, because, as Government would not supply forage (and it seems it was not easily procured out of England), there was no transport, and as there was no road to span the morass, means did not exist of crossing it and of reaching the front.
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Footnote 301:
Hamley, War in the Crimea , p. 170.
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The winter all through Europe was a peculiarly severe one, and there was no exception to its inclemency in the Crimea, where the season was specially cold. All the combatants suffered from its effects; even the Russians felt it acutely, though housed and provided with a tolerably fair transport service from their well-stored magazines on the Sea of Azof. Our French allies also underwent many privations, due to the general difficulties that affected the invaders established on the barren upland and exposed to the wind, the snow, and the rain; but more especially on account of the small tente d’abri which sheltered them at night, and which was not so useful as our bell tent. But the British army suffered most. Like the French, our men were sent to trenches filled with water, where they remained wet to their knees for many hours during the day and night; but, unlike them, these hardships were of constant recurrence. Reinforcements were rapidly sent to General Canrobert, and his force was strong enough to enable him to give his soldiers rest when their tour of service in the siege-works was finished. But the British had no such exemption; their numbers were insufficient for the purposes of the campaign; and they practically were always at work. Lord Raglan computed that they were “on duty five nights out of six, a large proportion of them constantly under fire.”[302] If we add, that they were seldom dry; that they had little or no fuel except brushwood and roots; that they could not cook their food; that the coffee served out was in the form of the green unroasted berry;[303] that the ration of rice failed from the 15th of November to the end of December; that the boots were defective and bad; and that there was no warm clothing available until the beginning of the latter month;—it will be readily seen that the hardships undergone were of no trivial character.[304]
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Footnote 302:
Letter to the Duke of Newcastle, Dec. 26th.
Footnote 303:
Many of the men now existed almost entirely upon the biscuit and ration of spirit; the camp was often strewed with portions of uncooked salt meat, and partially roasted or green coffee (Wyatt, p. 40). The green coffee ceased on February 22nd, and compressed vegetables were supplied for the first time on the 26th (ibid., p. 56).
Footnote 304:
In the Coldstream some warm clothing and blankets were issued to the men early in December, more were obtained later, and in January a further supply was procured. Lord Raglan directed (January 6th) that each soldier should receive a pair of boots gratuitously (General Order ). The following is the clothing served out to the Battalion (including the Regimental hospital) between the 6th of December and the 28th of February: Great coats, 392; trousers, 100 pairs; sheepskin coats, 459; tweed coats, 29; fur caps, 503; flannel shirts, 147; jersey frocks, 861; pairs of socks, 1527; flannel drawers, 994; mitts, 993; boots, long and short, 532; comforters, 446; gregos, 55 (Wyatt, pp. 41, 45, 57). The long boots appear to have given little satisfaction. On account of the cold—the thermometer sometimes ranging from eleven to fifteen degrees Fahrenheit,—it was not easy to make the men take off their boots at night; their wet feet often being swollen, were pressed by the leather, and thus frost-bite was induced (ibid., p. 42).
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Nor did the men’s sufferings end here, for when exhausted by toil and privations there was no alleviation to those whose health and strength had given way. So badly organized were the hospital arrangements, that we are told the climax of misery was only reached in the places set apart for the sick. Circumstances necessarily made the field-hospitals in the front rude habitations for numerous patients seized and tormented by painful complaints.[305] The transport of invalids to Balaklava was, moreover, a difficult proceeding and an agonizing ordeal; but arrived at the port, their troubles should surely have come to an end. It was not so, however, for such was the confusion prevalent at the time, so great the number of the sick, that they were subjected, if possible, to worse treatment during the voyage across the Black Sea and in the great hospital established at Scutari. In short, this hospital was a loathsome lazarette, “crammed with misery, overflowing with despair,” until Miss Nightingale and a number of Nuns and Sisters, having arrived on the scene early in November, acquired such influence and acted with such admirable prudence and energy, that gradually—the evil was too great to be arrested at once—order was restored, sanitary conditions were introduced, and the sick were well tended and cared for by the gentle and able nursing of kindly ladies.[306]
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Footnote 305:
The indefatigable Surgeon of the Coldstream in the Crimea, Dr. Wyatt, tells us that a marquee was applied for (November 17th) to replace the ill-ventilated bell tents used as a Regimental hospital. It arrived next day, but without ropes, and these, though repeatedly demanded, were only obtained a fortnight later, through Colonel Steele, Lord Raglan’s Military Secretary, who at last procured them from a man-of-war. On the 18th of December another marquee was required (the sick were becoming very numerous), and it arrived on the 29th, also without ropes and deficient of five pieces of canvas; in this case the error was only rectified on the 30th of January.
Footnote 306:
Hamley, War in the Crimea , p. 172, 179, etc. After the battle of Inkerman, the depôt which had been established at Scutari early in June, was re-organized and placed under the able command of Colonel Lord William Paulet (November 23rd), through whose energy many improvements in the hospitals were effected (see Kinglake, vi. 437). An acting Sergeant-Major (Sergeant White of the Coldstream) was appointed there (November 19th).
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The British forces before Sevastopol were rapidly melting away in consequence of the combination of misfortunes that overwhelmed them. Diseases of a violent type broke out, and cholera, typhus, diarrhœa, dysentery, scurvy swept away the ranks; frost-bites were common, and even men reported fit for duty, were so weakened as to be scarcely able to continue their labours under the hard circumstances that surrounded them. The drain was excessive upon our strength in the field, and the small army was in truth threatened with extinction. Between the 1st of November and the 28th of February we lost as many as 22,506 men, not including the killed in action; of whom 8898 had died in hospital, while the remainder, 13,608, were lying there sick on the latter date. In spite of fresh regiments and drafts which reached the Crimea after Inkerman, the total effectives all told at the seat of war, reckoning the troops at Balaklava, amounted then to only 17,311 men. In January there would have been about 3000 to 4000 men of the infantry available to repel another attack of the enemy, had he attempted to repeat the operation of the 5th of November.[307] The British would have had a smaller force at the end of February.
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Footnote 307:
Kinglake, vi. 202, etc.
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The Coldstream shared to the full the calamity which has just been so imperfectly described. Taking part in the constant duty which exhausted the army, exposed to the cruel suffering that the winter brought about, and conspicuously displaying the virtues of strict discipline and of uncomplaining fortitude which enabled our men to preserve a bold and defiant front against the Russians, the lot of the Battalion can scarcely be separated from that which afflicted and honoured its brethren in arms standing before Sevastopol. Its fate was the same as theirs, its sorrows were equally acute, its bearing likewise was proud and dauntless, its glory bright and lasting. But its losses were heavy, as the following table will show:—
┌────────────────┬────────────────────┬─────────────┬────────────────────────┐ │ │Regimental Hospital.│ Sick │ Remarks. │ │ ├───────────┬────────┤ Transferred │ │ │ │Admissions.│ Deaths.│ to Scutari. │ │ ├────────────────┼───────────┼────────┼─────────────┼────────────────────────┤ │Nov. (including │ 277 │ 22 │ 153 │ Eight died of cholera │ │ at Inkerman) │ │ │ │ and eleven of wounds. │ │December │ 221 │ 17 │ 99 │ —— │ │January │ 186 │ 37 │ 91 │The average daily │ │ │ │ │ │ sick was more than │ │ │ │ │ │ sixty-three per cent. │ │ │ │ │ │ of strength present. │ └────────────────┴───────────┴────────┴─────────────┴────────────────────────┘
On the 1st of November the effective strength of all ranks in the field was 600 Officers and men; 1st of December, 451; 1st of January, 353; 1st of February, 173; and at the end of February there were fewer than 100.[308]
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Footnote 308:
Wyatt, p. 58. It should not be forgotten that the two drafts which reached the Battalion on November 22nd and December 18th, numbered together 211 men. It appears that there was considerable sickness and mortality among the young and unseasoned soldiers who composed the drafts. Of the Officers invalided during the winter (November to February), were Captain Wilson (November 22nd) and Captain Strong (January 1st); Captain Hardinge, moreover, had to leave the Crimea on account of his health (December 24th), and returned the following May.
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But there was an end at last to these mournful circumstances that oppressed our forces fighting in the Crimea; and with the first peep of spring a new era of hope dawned upon the army. The news of the winter troubles roused a strong feeling in England, and the nation was stirred to its depths with sympathy for its brave and suffering soldiers, of whom no country had more reason to be proud, and with resentment against the supposed delinquents who were accused of bringing about the disaster. Greater activity and energy were displayed at home, and a railway was begun to connect Balaklava with the front, so that by the end of March it reached the Col on the edge of the upland, at a time when the road, constructed by ourselves and the French, was made to the same place. A Land transport service was also at length organized. Subscriptions were collected, and clothing, food, stores, and even luxuries poured into the Crimea, and into the hospitals established at and near Scutari. The Government was overturned, and a Commission of inquiry was instituted, both in England and at the seat of hostilities, to report upon every circumstance connected with the war. The result of these investigations, as well as the conclusions arrived at by another that sat later (in 1856), need not be alluded to in this volume. But one point cannot be omitted which deals with the conduct of the troops, who, in the dark hour of trial, did honour to their Queen, to their country, and to their noble profession.
“Great Britain,” says the report of the Commissioners sent to the Crimea, “has often had reasons to be proud of her army, but it is doubtful whether, the whole range of military history furnishes an example of an army exhibiting, throughout a long campaign, qualities as high as have distinguished the forces under Lord Raglan’s command. The strength of the men gave way under excessive labour, watching, exposure, and privation; but they never murmured, their spirit never failed, and the enemy, though far outnumbering them, never detected in those whom he encountered any signs of weakness. Their numbers were reduced by disease and by casualties to a handful of men, compared with the great extent of the lines which they constructed and defended, yet the army never abated its confidence in itself, and never descended from its acknowledged military pre-eminence. Both men and Officers, when so reduced that they were hardly fit for the lighter duties of the camp, scorned to be excused the severe and perilous work of the trenches, lest they should throw an undue amount of duty upon their comrades; yet they maintained every foot of ground against all the efforts of the enemy, and with numbers so small that, perhaps, no other troops would even have made the attempt. Suffering and privation have frequently led to crime in armies as in other communities, but offences of a serious character have been unknown in the British army in the Crimea ... intemperance has been rare. Every one who knows anything of the constitution of an army must feel that, when troops so conduct themselves throughout a long campaign, the Officers must have done their duty and set the example.”[309]
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Footnote 309:
First Report, 1855, pp. 2 and 3.
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The Russians, on the other hand, except for the great labour and care expended on the fortress, remained almost quiescent during the winter months. Restricting their energies to the defences of Sevastopol and to the annoyance of the besiegers, they made the fortress exceedingly strong, and pushed advanced works in front of the line they had already occupied. The greater portion of their field army was brought into the town to reinforce the garrison, the remainder being quartered in the neighbouring villages, or in the Tchernaya Valley. But no offensive operations were undertaken, notwithstanding their immensely superior numbers; and this was the more fortunate, since in the midwinter our forces were so weakened that the English trenches were guarded by only 350 men. This extraordinary inactivity on the part of the enemy has excited astonishment, and it may well be asked—
“how it was that an enemy who possessed such enormously superior forces in men and material, and who could, at any time during a period of months, have directed on some selected point of the siege-works thousands of troops that would have found only hundreds to meet them, did not muster the courage for such an enterprise, when it promised deliverance to the fortress and ruin to their foes.”[310]
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Footnote 310:
Hamley, War in the Crimea , p. 194. Whether the Russians were destitute of the necessary courage to take advantage of the obviously favourable chances that the winter offered them of sweeping away the feeble residue of frozen and plague-stricken Englishmen that still survived before Sevastopol, or whether their conduct was the result of a deliberate design, may perhaps be revealed at some future time, when eventual consequences of the Crimean war have been fully developed. It may easily be imagined that the Government of St. Petersburg shrank from converting the existing war of cabinets, hitherto purely local, into a general struggle of nations and principles (Klapka, War in the East , p. 101). For had Great Britain been driven from the Crimea, she would surely have taken her revenge, and have removed the contest from a barren and useless fortress, where unhappily she became involved, to a vital point in the armour of her foe. If there were to be a war at all, it is obvious that the struggle for Sevastopol was the least expensive and the most advantageous form of hostilities that the Tsar could engage in; he lost comparatively little if the contest should prove adverse to his arms, more especially if he could prolong his resistance against the united efforts of the two great Powers of Europe. The more he succeeded in doing this, the more he gained a fictitious prestige, the more he exhausted our resources, by the dissolving process which the winter must surely effect, and the more he made the Western nations beware for the future how they again attempt to thwart his plans.
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On the part of the Allies, the approaches to the fortress were pushed forward with considerable activity, both by ourselves and by the French, but there was little actual fighting except what was brought about by the siege operations. In the beginning of February, the French, who, thanks to the liberal supply of men sent to the seat of war, were growing in numbers, undertook to extend the siege-works on our right;[311] thus continuing the line of trenches towards the roadstead of Sevastopol. Bosquet’s Corps was employed for this purpose. Another element of strength was brought into the field during the winter, to which brief allusion must be made. It was at last determined that Omar Pasha’s army should be removed to the Crimea from Bulgaria, where it was unable to influence the course of hostilities; the concentration was effected at Eupatoria, and, on the 17th of February, before the movement was complete, the Turkish force there amounted to 23,000 men. The Russians, having reinforced the troops they had in this part of the peninsula to 20,000 men, attacked the place on that date, and were repulsed with a loss of some 800 men. This success seems to have been decisive, in so far that the Allies now held firmly a point within striking distance of the enemy’s communications through the isthmus of Perekop; but its value was considerably lessened by the following fact. In the autumn of 1854, General Menshikoff was dependent upon this line to draw reinforcements from Bessarabia, and, as he found it open, he advanced freely along it, and reached Sevastopol before the 5th of November, as has been already related. This advantage gained, the road through Perekop became of comparatively minor importance, and the enemy thenceforward relied upon the line from the Sea of Azof. His communications in this quarter could, of course, only be threatened by a force based somewhere in the neighbourhood of Kertch; but that place was avoided, and Eupatoria was selected. Hence the achievement of the 17th of February, while it might have been followed by satisfactory results had it taken place early in October, was, to a certain extent, a barren victory, and served only to show that our Turkish auxiliaries were capable of performing some service in the war.[312]
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Footnote 311:
Our allies had 56,000 men in the Crimea in November, 65,000 in December, and 78,000 in January (Hamley, War in the Crimea , p. 176).
Footnote 312:
Colonel (now Field-Marshal Sir Lintorn) Simmons was present with Omar Pasha as British Commissioner with the Turkish army. He served in that capacity from the summer of 1853, until the end of the war.
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The Guards Brigade, having suffered so severely at Inkerman, and being the only infantry force in the front composing the First Division (the Highlanders occupied Balaklava since the 25th of October), it was necessary to reinforce that division by adding thereto the 97th Regiment (November 23rd). This regiment was armed with the old smooth-bore musket, but as sickness diminished the ranks, the Minié rifles of non-effective Guardsmen were handed over to the survivors of the 97th and of other corps similarly situated. On the 22nd of November the position of the camps of the Grenadiers and Scots Fusiliers were moved to the spot where the Coldstream was established. Two days later, a new disposition of the piquets was ordered; of the eight furnished by the division, six were found by the Brigade and two by the 97th. The strength of these piquets, 50 men each, allowed a double sentry every fifty paces of the entire front; three piquets were placed in reserve, and all were “to be encouraged in making fires, as it is desirable that our full strength should be estimated.”[313] On the 25th of December the piquets were reduced to 30 rank and file each.
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Footnote 313:
Divisional Memo. , Nov. 24, 1854.
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During Colonel Upton’s absence at Balaklava on sick-leave, Colonel Lockyer commanded the Division until the 15th of January, when the former returned to the front; the senior Guards Officer present commanded the Brigade during this interval. Colonel Lord Frederick Paulet was also away on the sick-list until the 16th of January, and the Battalion during this time was under Lieut.-Colonel Newton; Captain Armytage was appointed acting Adjutant, vacant by the death of Captain Eliot. On the 17th of January the Brigade lost the services of their Paymaster, Captain South (late 20th Regiment), who, having been present with them ever since they left England, was obliged to leave the Crimea through ill-health. His duties were undertaken by a committee, composed of Colonel Hamilton (Grenadiers), president, and Lieut.-Colonel Stephenson (Scots Fusilier Guards), and Captain Sir J. Dunlop (Coldstream), members.
On the 26th of November the Household Brigade furnished a detachment of 200 men, under a Captain and Lieutenant-Colonel, to the neighbourhood of the monastery of St. George, on the coast west of Balaklava, for the purpose of making gabions, which were required for the siege-works. Of these, the Coldstream provided 70 men with Officers, and Non-commissioned officers in proportion. The detachment was relieved by a similar party on the 21st of December, and again on the 20th of January by 150 men, each Battalion finding a Subaltern Officer and 50 men, with the usual number of Non-commissioned officers.
Major-General Lord Rokeby arrived in the Crimea on the 2nd of February, and assumed the command of the First Division and of the Brigade, when Colonel Upton reverted to the Battalion. But not for long, for, owing to the promotion of the Lieut.-Colonel of the Regiment (Colonel Hon. A. Upton), he was gazetted to that command (February 20th), and left soon after to take up his duties in London.[314] By this change Lord Frederick Paulet
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became Major of the 2nd Battalion, and Colonel Gordon Drummond obtained the command of the 1st; at the same time Lieut.-Colonels Daniell and Perceval were posted to the latter, and Newton to the former (Acting Majors, mounted).[315]
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Footnote 314:
In parting from the Battalion when it was still before the enemy, and after having held the command during a very eventful period, Colonel Upton issued an order of which the following is an extract: “He has known their gallantry and firmness before the enemy, their endurance, and their discipline under every trial and pressure.... To the young soldiers one word at parting: let them ever hold in view the conduct and bearing which have characterized their older comrades, that they in their turn may pass them on to others, and so uphold and carry forward the name of the distinguished Regiment of which they now form a part.”
Footnote 315:
Lieut.-Colonel Stepney, Captains Markham, Blackett, and Caulfeild, and Lieutenant Lane-Fox, joined the Battalion in January, February, and March.
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When the sick of the Battalion left the front for Scutari, no information regarding them was obtained by the Regimental authorities, and to correct this serious inconvenience, a Captain and Lieutenant-Colonel from each Battalion of the Brigade was sent to inspect the hospitals where Guardsmen were treated, and to arrange a more proper system for future adoption (February 16th). Lieut.-Colonel Dudley Carleton, who represented the Coldstream, reported that the admission of men into hospital, as well as the patients' death or discharge, were imperfectly registered:
“their kits were either stored or condemned without regular authority, or were left in the hold of transports, carried up and down during many voyages, and not unfrequently plundered. When a man died, no regular record was kept or transmitted to his regiment, although professedly done. No returns whatever had been sent to the Battalion of men dead, invalided home, or otherwise employed.”[316]
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Footnote 316:
Wyatt, 53. The three Officers were, Lieut.-Colonels Hon. C. Lindsay, D. Carleton (now Lord Dorchester), and Hon. S. Jocelyn (now Earl of Roden).
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Colonel Carleton remained absent six weeks, and during this time he established a system of fortnightly returns, which thenceforward were regularly despatched to the Crimea, and he placed a sergeant of the Coldstream on the staff of the hospital at Scutari to carry it out.
It has already been mentioned that the winter troubles added to the losses incurred at Inkerman, and, in the absence of sufficient reinforcements from home, had destroyed the efficiency of the Brigade at the seat of war. At the end of January the three Battalions could hardly muster a tenth of their proper strength, and numbered only some 312 men able to do duty.[317] Lord Rokeby seems to have been so struck with their exhausted appearance, that he endeavoured to obtain for them an exemption from trench duty for a time; but as the Order book shows them to be still continually at work, it is evident that it was not possible to comply with the proposal. Towards the end of February, however, it was found absolutely necessary to make a complete change, and to move them to Balaklava, there to rest and to recruit their strength after the very arduous labours in which for so long they had been engaged. Accordingly, on the 22nd, the Grenadiers marched there, followed by the Coldstream on the 24th, and by the Scotch Fusilier Guards about the same time. In the Regiment there were less than 100 men of all ranks on parade. For some time previously it had become manifest that, if the men continued to live under existing conditions, it was but a question of time how long the Battalion could survive except on paper. Of the sick left behind, 41 followed on the 27th, and 75 were conveyed next day by French mule transport (the usual conveyance lent us by our allies, and indeed the only transport procurable, since our own arrangements had broken down), but the last detachment was not removed to Balaklava until the 28th of March.[318] The Guards remained at the base till June, 1855, and though absent more than three months from the front, they missed little chance of performing any useful military service.
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Footnote 317:
Kinglake, vi. 204, quoting from the _Report of the Sevastopol Commission_ .
Footnote 318:
Wyatt, pp. 54, 65.
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XI. THE FALL OF SEVASTOPOL
Stay of the Brigade at Balaklava—Improvement in the condition of the men—Return of the Guards to the front, June 16th—Changed aspect of affairs before Sevastopol—Review of events during the time spent at Balaklava—Second bombardment—Interference by Napoleon III. in the course of the war; operations paralysed—General Canrobert resigns, and is succeeded by General Pélissier—Energy displayed by the latter—Third bombardment—Fourth bombardment; assault on Sevastopol—Its failure—Death of Lord Raglan; succeeded by General Simpson—Siege operations continued—Battle of the Tchernaya—Fifth bombardment—Sixth bombardment; second assault—The Malakoff is captured—Fall of the south side of Sevastopol—The Russians evacuate the town, and retreat to the north side—State in which the Allies found Sevastopol.
There are few incidents of Regimental interest to record during the stay at Balaklava. The men were lodged in huts, but as these were situated near a burial ground and close to the stables of the Land Transport Corps, the advantages gained by a change from the fatigues and hardships of the siege to the base of operations were sadly diminished, and several cases of maculated fever for the first time appeared. In March, another site having been selected on the west side of the harbour, in a more favourable and sanitary position, and huts having been constructed, the Battalion moved there towards the end of the month. The better food, the shelter, the increased comfort, and the rest now enjoyed by the men, produced a satisfactory effect upon their health, to which the improvement in the weather also contributed; for, the short, though terribly severe winter had passed away, and with the spring the temperature became warm and pleasant. During March, 101 men were admitted into hospital, of whom 24 were suffering from typhus, and the mortality amounted to 10; while next month, 53 men only were admitted, and but 5 deaths occurred.[319]
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Footnote 319:
Wyatt, p. 65.
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The Battalion were employed principally in the ordinary duties performed at the base of operations, guarding the stores and buildings or other places set apart for the use of the army, and unloading the ships that arrived in Balaklava. Drills were carried out, and the troops practised, in occupying the trenches at night, to meet any sudden attack which the enemy might contemplate. The danger of such an attack was lessened by the fact that the enemy had relaxed his hold, as far back as the end of December, upon the heights on the left bank of the Tchernaya, captured by him on the 25th of October, though he continued to occupy the line of the river. It was still necessary to restrain his activity in this quarter, and several reconnaissances took place to prevent his advance. As was only natural, the Officers at Balaklava, when off duty, rode frequently to points where operations of interest were being undertaken, but the Brigade itself was not engaged at this period.
The gabion-making detachment was continued near Balaklava, to supply the siege-works before Sevastopol.
Early in March, convalescents from Scutari, wounded at the Alma and at the Inkerman, returned to the Battalion, but the next draft did not arrive until the 1st of May, when 7 Officers and 307 men, whose average age and service were 22-1/12 years and 7 months respectively, landed in the Crimea.[320] Owing to the Regimental promotion which had taken place, Colonels Lord F. Paulet (commanding the 2nd Battalion) and Newton, and Lieut.-Colonel Wood were now ordered home to the 2nd Battalion; while Colonel Gordon Drummond assumed the command of the 1st Battalion, Colonels Daniell and Perceval being Acting Majors (mounted), as has already been stated. About this time, also,[321] Officers were posted to companies as follows:—
No. 1 Company: Captains F. Burton, H. Tower, and C. Blackett. (Subsequently Lieut.-Colonel Lord C. FitzRoy.)
No. 2 Company: Lieut.-Colonel C. Burdett; Captain M. Heneage; Lieutenant St. V. Whitshed.
No. 3 Company: Lieut.-Colonel Herbert Stepney; Captain Le Couteur; Lieutenant Rose.
No. 4 Company: Lieut.-Colonel W. Dawkins; Captain Hon. R. Drummond; Lieutenant H. Lane.
No. 5 Company: Major P. Crawley; Lieutenants A. Lambton, Lane-Fox.
No. 6 Company: Captain Sir J. Dunlop; Lieutenant A. Adair. (Subsequently Major C. Baring.)
No. 7 Company: Lieut.-Colonel C. Cocks; Captain J. Caulfeild; Lieutenant G. Ives.
No. 8 Company: Lieut.-Colonel Dudley Carleton; Captains A. Thellusson, Gerald Goodlake; Lieutenant Godfrey Wigram.
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Footnote 320:
The Officers were: Colonels Gordon Drummond, Daniell, and Perceval; Lieut.-Colonel Cocks; Captain Thellusson; and Lieutenants Adair, and Lane. Shortly afterwards Lieut.-Colonel Lord C. FitzRoy (wounded at Inkerman) and Major C. Baring (wounded at the Alma) reached the seat of war; Assist.-Surgeon T. Rogers arrived on June 15th.
Footnote 321:
Battalion Order , May 4, 1855.
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As the summer approached, the weather became extremely hot, and towards the middle of May, 90 degrees were registered in the shade. Cholera again broke out among the troops, but, warned by the visitation of this plague in the previous year, every precaution then known to medical science was taken to avert it. The number of sick increased during May and June, the admissions into hospital being in the first month 134, and the deaths 5, and in the second month 267 and 36 respectively; of the latter, 24 men died of cholera.
On the 16th of June, the Brigade returned to the front to join in the operations which were intended to be undertaken by the Allies on the 18th, the anniversary of the battle of Waterloo.[322] The Battalion was 488 strong (excluding Officers). Three Officers and 61 men were left behind sick, as well as 15 convalescents; altogether 111 men were abstracted from the effective strength. On reaching the upland the old positions were scarcely to be recognised by the rank and file who had remained more than three months at Balaklava. The French having already extended the British Right Attack, occupied the ground in front of the Karabelnaya from the Dockyard Ravine, past the Careenage Ravine, and along Mount Inkerman to the heights overlooking the roadstead. Innumerable siege-works cut up the plateau, the lines were pushed further forward, a large force was concentrated on the spot, and the face of the country—so bleak and barren in February—was now covered with the green carpet of a luxuriant vegetation.
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Footnote 322:
The Highland Brigade marched up with the Guards, and thus the First Division, under Lieut.-General Sir Colin Campbell, was once more complete before Sevastopol. Shortly afterwards the following changes were made in the British army. The Highlanders were separated from the Guards, and having several battalions added to them, formed the “Highland Division,” commanded by Sir Colin Campbell. Lord Rokeby, promoted locally Lieut.-General, commanded the First Division, formed of the Guards Brigade, under Brigadier-General Craufurd; and of the 2nd Brigade, viz. a battalion of the 9th, 13th, 31st Regiments, and of the Rifle Brigade, under Colonel Ridley. About the same time, the Second, Third, Fourth, and Light Divisions were commanded by Major-Generals Markham, Eyre, H. Bentinck, and Lieut.-General Sir W. Codrington respectively. The Cavalry, under Lieut.-General Sir J. Scarlett, was divided into three brigades: the Heavy, Light, and Hussar brigades.
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We must now take a hasty glance at the state of affairs prevailing before Sevastopol and elsewhere, which controlled the war, while the Guards were at Balaklava. In spite of the united efforts of the British and French occupying the ground before the Malakoff, the enemy succeeded in extending his works to his front, and in materially strengthening the lines that covered the Karabelnaya. The fact was becoming more apparent that General Canrobert, gallant soldier though he was, was not disposed to risk the chances of making a bold move against the Russians; and that the latter, under the distinguished leadership of Colonel Todleben, were enabled thereby to prolong the struggle.
But Canrobert was not entirely his own master in this matter, for towards the beginning of the year 1855 the Emperor Napoleon interfered with the conduct of the operations in the Crimea, in a manner to impede seriously the progress of hostilities. Declaring himself to be dissatisfied with the course pursued, the Emperor conceived the idea of delaying the siege until he could isolate Sevastopol from the rest of the peninsula; and he even proposed to go himself to the Crimea to carry out his design. He was happily dissuaded from undertaking this latter part of the project—dangerous both on account of his inexperience in war, and because of the instability of his authority in Paris,—and it was finally abandoned, after he had been received as a guest at Windsor (April 25th); but he still adhered to his determination to enforce some hazy plan which his vanity had formed, and thereby he increased considerably the difficulties of the Allies.
Added to this, there was a renewal of negotiations at Vienna. The Tsar Nicholas died early in March, and though his successor Alexander II. was clearly in the hands of the war faction, some feeble attempt was made to patch up a peace. The negotiations failed; but the events alluded to could not but exercise some influence over the fortunes of the war, by fettering the action of the French army engaged in it.
This appears to be shown by the results that followed the second bombardment of Sevastopol, which commenced on the 8th of April. Immense preparations had been made to ensure its success, and it was confidently expected by the Allied hosts that this bombardment would at last lead to an immediate and triumphal assault of the fortress.
“Ten days did the terrific storm of iron hail endure; ten days did the Russian reliefs, holding themselves ready to repel attack, meet wounds and death with a constancy which was of necessity altogether passive. On the 19th they saw the fire of the Allies decline, and settle into its more ordinary rate; they saw too, that the sappers were again at work with their approaches, and reading in this the signs of a resumption of the siege, and the abandonment of the policy of assault, they once more withdrew their sorely harassed infantry to places of shelter and repose. Then they began to reckon their losses, which amounted for the ten days, in killed and wounded, to more than 6,000 men. The French lost in killed and disabled, 1,585 men; the English, 265.”[323]
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Footnote 323:
Hamley, War in the Crimea , p. 212.
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All this expenditure of lives and of war matériel effected just nothing, nor was anything even attempted against the enemy; for the French, though having an opportunity to assault, not possessed at that time by their British allies, were “kept waiting for Louis Napoleon, and were restrained from engaging in any determined attack.”[324]
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Footnote 324:
Kinglake, vii. 195; compare Hamley, War in the Crimea , p. 225.
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In order to accomplish the views of the Emperor Napoleon, a French army of reserve was being collected near Constantinople, and as it was expected soon to reach the Crimea—to undertake the plans which had been sketched out in Paris,—two important operations against the enemy were delayed. First, a further bombardment, arranged to take place at the end of April, and to be followed by an assault, was put off; and secondly, an expedition, at last agreed to, against the Russian communications in the Sea of Azof, and which had actually started to Kertch (May 3rd), was recalled.[325] Both these events caused much embarrassment to Lord Raglan, who, understanding imperfectly even then the Emperor’s proposals, found his own plans thwarted by the supine and unintelligible conduct of his colleague. The confidence reposed in the latter was naturally shaken; and when, a few days later, Napoleon’s scheme was fully revealed to the allied Commanders, was discussed, and was found to be impossible of execution, General Canrobert felt his position to be intolerable, and he resigned the chief command of the French army. It is right to add that, though Canrobert’s character unfitted him to direct the difficult operations which lay before him, he was well suited to assume the lower functions of a commander of a division or army-corps. Being of a loyal and soldierlike disposition, and unwilling to leave the seat of war, he begged that he might revert to the position he originally occupied in the French army when the war broke out, and recommended that General Pélissier (who had reached the Crimea in January) should be appointed the new Commander-in-chief. These proposals were sanctioned in Paris by telegram, and were immediately carried into execution (May 19th).
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Footnote 325:
“I merely record that both armies were certainly, if not discontented, amazed, when an expedition which started on the 3rd of May to Kertch, to destroy Russian magazines and stores, was recalled three days later, on the receipt of a telegram from Paris” (Wood, Crimea in 1854 and 1894 , p. 264).
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The change in the French command completely altered the state of affairs in the Crimea. The vacillating weakness of Canrobert and his subserviency to the foibles of his Imperial Master, were at last replaced by the hardy daring of Pélissier and by his manly disregard of an ill-timed interference in the conduct of the war, which could only end in disaster. The forces fighting against Russia, moreover, were increasing; while the strength of that Empire was ebbing fast. In April nearly half of Omar Pasha’s Turks, about 45,000 strong, were taken from Eupatoria to the Chersonese, and next month a compact division of 15,000 Sardinians—who had joined the confederacy against Russia—landed in the Crimea, under the command of General La Marmora. The enemy about this time, by reason of his immense losses, had little more than 100,000 men in the peninsula; the Allies were more numerous, and could dispose of about 180,000 men.[326] Thus, it was becoming apparent, that by vigorously pushing on the siege, Sevastopol must fall, and that the resources of Russia—so fatally allowed to accumulate in the early stages of the war—were beginning to fail.
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Footnote 326:
English, 28,000; French, 100,000; Turks, 45,000; Sardinians, 15,000 (Kinglake, viii. 7).
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Immediate arrangements were made to storm the advanced works which Todleben had constructed, to occupy the Tchernaya and the plain of Baidar that lay beyond it, and to attack Kertch and the Russian base of supplies formed on the coast of the Sea of Azof. On the 23rd of May, after severe fighting, the French gained an important advantage over the enemy near Quarantine Bay; and, two days later, he was also attacked on the Tchernaya and driven out of Tchorgun. About the same time, the expedition to Kertch, composed of 15,000 English, French, and Turks, started for its destination. Operations in this quarter were entirely successful, and by the middle of June the Allies, having struck deep into the resources of the Russians, cut their chief line of supply, and in no small degree carried out practically the policy of investment which the Emperor professed to desire.[327]
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Footnote 327:
Hamley, Crimea , p. 242. Established now at last on the shores of the Sea of Azof, the Allies might even at this late period have inflicted a crushing blow on the enemy in the direction of Circassia, and so have brought about the end of the war, and a severe check to Russia’s advance through Central Asia and towards India—the objects that Great Britain had in view when she undertook to curb the Tsar’s pretensions in the East. It appears that the attention of the Foreign Secretary (Lord Clarendon) was directed at that time to this most important point; but there was a difficulty with the French, who, conceiving that they would be giving assistance to a purely English policy, would not concur in any such scheme (see Rawlinson, England and Russia in the East , 272 note). It must not be forgotten that Louis Napoleon disapproved of the expedition to Kertch—the one operation in the war which was crowned with complete and immediate success, and which cost the Allies nothing,—and that he peremptorily ordered Pélissier to take no part in the attack on Anapa on the Circassian coast (Kinglake, viii. 79).
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The allied Commanders now directed their efforts to the Russian advanced works covering the Karabelnaya, and, determining to attack them, they prepared for the assault by a fierce cannonade (the third bombardment), which opened on the 6th of June with tremendous violence and effect, and lasted until the 10th. On the evening of the 7th, the French advanced against the White works (situated on Mount Inkerman, to the east of Careenage Ravine), and the Kamskatka Lunette (on the Mamelon, covering the Malakoff and some 500 yards in front of it); and the English moved against the Quarries (covering the Redan and about 400 yards from it). These attacks were successful, and the enemy, driven from all these outworks, was restricted to his main line of defence. The captured positions were occupied and held by the Allies. Between the 6th and the 10th the Russians lost altogether, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, 8500 men and 73 guns; the Allies nearly 7000 men.
These advantages were now to be pressed home, and a great effort made to assault the main line round the Karabelnaya; the Malakoff and the Redan were to be attacked, and the fortress so long besieged was at last to fall. The final act of the long drama was fixed for the 18th of June, when the Anglo-French allies, having shared so many dangers and hardships in common, might reap the reward of their arduous labours, and obliterate the memories of the day of Waterloo.
The fourth bombardment opened on the 17th, and the fleets once more joined their fire to the numerous great siege guns planted before Sevastopol. The devastating force of the artillery soon obtained a mastery over that of the fortress, and the usual results followed: the enemy’s works were knocked to pieces, his defences ruined, and he lost 4000 men. Now, therefore, was the time for the assault to take place, and, as we have seen, the Guards Brigade were brought up to the front from Balaklava to participate in the operations about to ensue. But the ardent expectations of the besiegers were not yet to be realized, and the attack ended unfortunately. Neither in the Malakoff nor in the Redan, were the French or ourselves able to effect a lodgment; the only consolation was the capture of a position in front of our Left Attack. Among the blunders that occurred to account for the failure, perhaps the most unfortunate was that of Pélissier himself. It had been settled that the bombardment was to continue for two hours after dawn on the 18th, so as to shatter the repairs which the Russians invariably made to their works during the night, and that then the assault was to commence at about 5.30 in the morning. But this plan was altered at the last moment, by Pélissier, who wished the advance to begin at dawn, without any previous preparation by artillery fire. Lord Raglan was not consulted, and, when he heard of it, he submitted to the change most reluctantly. The enemy, therefore, was ready, behind parapets hastily renewed and armed with field guns during the night, and thereby he was enabled to repel the attack. That this was probably the main cause of the failure, may perhaps be inferred from the fact that when, after the assault, the bombardment recommenced, the soldierlike spirit of the Russians gave way, and many of them, unable to stand against the terrific fire poured upon them, fled to the harbour, and endeavoured to escape to the north side of Sevastopol.[328] The Guards Brigade were not engaged upon this occasion; they remained in reserve, and were not brought forward. In fact, the attack had failed, and further expenditure of lives had to be avoided. The losses were great on that fatal day; that of the English amounted to 1500, of the French to 3500, and of the enemy only to 1500.
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Footnote 328:
Hamley, War in the Crimea , p. 261.
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Two Officers occupying very conspicuous positions in their respective armies disappeared from the scene of their labours about this time. General Todleben was slightly wounded on the 18th, and more gravely hurt a few days later, so that he had to leave Sevastopol, and the Russians lost the services of that master mind to whose conspicuous ability, energy, and courage the prolonged and successful defence of the fortress was primarily due. The Allied armies also were plunged into mourning by the unexpected death of Lord Raglan, who never recovered from the grief and disappointment which oppressed his mind after the events of the 18th. This reverse, added to the labours and anxieties of the previous fifteen months, during which time he discharged his high but onerous duties without intermission, undermined his constitution, and he died on the 28th, surrounded by his personal friends and his military staff. He was succeeded by General Simpson.[329] His body was removed to England, and was taken to the Bay of Kazatch with full military honours, on the 3rd of July; and, in accordance with General Orders, the troops not engaged in the funeral or on duty in the field, remained in their tents during the afternoon. While the ceremony lasted, the Allied forces before Sevastopol were passive in the trenches, and, whether owing to chance or to a graceful act of courtesy on the part of the Russian Commander, the guns of the garrison also kept silence.[330]
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Footnote 329:
See Appendix No. X., containing General Orders on Lord Raglan’s death.
Footnote 330:
Kinglake, viii. 299.
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The siege was pushed forward with great activity after the 18th, and in this portion of the weary operations the Guards Brigade took their full share. Seeing the mistake committed by advancing over open ground for a distance of 400 to 500 yards, against the enceinte covering the Karabelnaya, General Pélissier now proposed to sap up close to the fortress. The soil near his own siege-works favoured such an undertaking; but not so, that which lay in front of our positions, where a thin layer of earth only covered the solid rock. Thus, while the French were able to get close to the ramparts of the Malakoff, the British were prevented from pushing through the ground much beyond the Quarries, or from lessening to any considerable extent the distance that separated them from their objective—the Redan.
These siege operations lasted without intermission until early in September. On the night of June 18th, the Brigade found 30 Officers and 1000 men for the trenches, of which the Coldstream, furnished 8 Officers and 263 men; and so on, from day to day, in varying numbers, according to the requirements of the moment. It was ordered on the 21st, that “in future the proportion of Officers and men in the trenches will be one Captain and one Subaltern to every 100 men;” and also “should any part of the guard of the trenches be called upon to work, they are positively forbidden to take off their accoutrements or to go far from their arms.”[331] Commencing July 10th, the duties were found by divisions—the First, Second, and Light in the Right, the Third and the Fourth in the Left Attack,—and during that night the Battalion furnished 7 Officers and 312 men, also 21 men more as a special working party.[332]
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Footnote 331:
First Divisional Morning Order , June 21st.
Footnote 332:
Special and other working parties and shot-loading fatigues in the trenches were frequently ordered at this time. The following, relating to the duties in the trenches, may be of interest:—
Head-quarter Memo. , July 10th: “General Officers of divisions will be so good as to detail not less than a Brigadier-General, three Field Officers, and two Adjutants for duty in the trenches on the days that their divisions furnish the guard, Right Attack.”
Divisional Order , July 12th: “The troops will be told off to their places in the trenches before they leave their camp, and they will move off from the parade in front of the camp, after being so told off, at 6.15, so that they may all be in their places in the trenches and the relief completed by 8 o’clock, according to the General Order on the subject.”
Head-quarter Memo. , July 24th: “Until further orders the guard in the trenches by night, will be 2400 men, under a General of the day with three Field Officers; of this number 600 men will work if required by the Royal Engineers, from 4 to 8 a.m., and return to their camp at 8 a.m. if it should seem prudent to the senior Officer in the trenches to dispense with them.... The remainder of the guard will furnish working parties as usual during the day, when required by the Royal Engineers.... There will be a special working party, consisting of 400 men under a Field Officer, independent of the guard of the trenches, except in case of an attack, when they will be available to be called upon by the Officer commanding in the trenches.... General Officers of divisions furnishing the guards in the trenches are to consider the remainder of their division as a support ready to reinforce the guard, with which they will proceed in case of alarm, and resume the command of the whole force in the trenches.”
Later, in the middle of August, a reserve of 600 men was ordered “to remain in the trenches the twenty-four hours, and will be planted during the day in such spots in the 1st parallel or other places of security as may be pointed out by the Generals of the Attacks. Troops not on duty are to remain in camp till further orders” (Head-quarter Memo. , Aug. 16th).
Head-quarter Memo. , Aug. 17th: “A steady fire of musketry, by riflemen and good shots, must be kept up during the night, from the advanced trenches of both Attacks on the Redan and works in rear and flank. The object being to prevent the enemy from repairing the damage done to their works. The artillery should assist this as much as possible by throwing light balls.”
Colonel Tower says that, on August 21st, he was in the 5th parallel, and that he was ordered to keep up a heavy fire all night on the embrasures. 75,000 rounds were fired from the trench in which he was stationed. He also says that the custom in the middle of August, was to withdraw the guards of the trenches to a position in rear, and to leave an Officer and small party in the advanced line to watch the enemy’s works, and to fire at the embrasures when any one showed himself (Tower, Diary ).
Towards the end of August, and during the beginning of September, more men were employed. There was a party for the trenches 2800 strong, the guard as before 2400, and the special working party, 400 men. During this period, more than one division furnished the necessary daily number required.
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It should be noticed here, that the Guards Brigade, on August 31st, exchanged the whole of their arms and ammunition for the new Enfield rifle then introduced, and that, at this time, there were two patterns in use by the troops of the British army standing before Sevastopol.[333]
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Footnote 333:
“After 5 p.m. on the 28th inst. the small-arm ammunition magazine on the right of the eight-gun battery in the Right Attack will contain only Enfield rifle ammunition, pattern 1853, bore ·577; the three other magazines will still be supplied with Minié rifle ammunition, pattern 1851, bore ·᛫702.”
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Notwithstanding the interest which the operations undertaken between June and September excited, and the high hopes generally entertained that the fortress would soon fall, the little-varying duty in the trenches became monotonous in the extreme, and all wished earnestly that this phase of the war might quickly pass away. Some cricket matches served to while away a few of the weary hours; but the weather was extremely hot and oppressive, and the season was sickly. There was, of course, much to distract the minds of men who, for the first time, found themselves in the presence of an enemy; but it was different for those who had been almost constantly at work for many months on the same spot and at the same object, and thus even these distractions lost much of their novelty and interest.
“The siege was really getting too fearfully tedious now,” writes Colonel Tower, about August 28th. “The weather was hot and sultry; our camp was a long way from the works. We used to parade about 5 p.m., having crammed in all the victuals we could get. We toiled down three miles in the sun, carrying great coat, haversack, revolver, and defiled into the zigzags before sundown; all night (if in the advance) we were straining our eyes over the parapet, momentarily expecting a sortie, being graped and shelled the whole time, and losing a good many of our party. The sun got up very early, and often a breeze with it, and from sunrise to sunset we had to sit in a dusty ditch, being shelled, our food—salt pork and biscuit—covered with dust and sand. The men could not show their noses over the parapet.... The deep blue sea stretching away, dotted with ships coming in and going out, looked so cool and nice in the distance, I used to think of home far away, and long for the siege to be over. It really seemed now as if it were drawing to a close. The bridge across the harbour had been constructed some time, and could be for no other purpose than as a means for the enemy to retire. The French pressed the enemy at the bastion Du Mât [the Flagstaff Battery] and the Malakoff; I used to spend a good deal of time in the French trenches, and knew the whole position as well as any one in the army.”
The casualties in the Battalion were not very severe during these three months, and amounted to 47 wounded, of whom 6 died of their injuries. Besides this number, an Officer of the Regiment, Captain Hon. R. Drummond, was wounded, on August 25th, in the trenches, having been shot through the chest; he left the Crimea on September 6th, but died before he reached England, unfortunately, indeed, just before the steamer anchored at Spithead. The general health of the Battalion may be seen from the following table:—
+————-+——————————————-+————————+ | |Admissions into Hospital from| Deaths from | | |———————+———————+————————+ | | Disease. | Wounds. |Disease.|Wounds.| +————-+———————+———————+————+———-+ |July | 138 | 20 | 8 | 1 | |August | 132 | 15 | 5 | 3 | |September| 65 | 12 | 2 | 2 | +————-+———————+———————+————+———-+
Between June 20th and September 21st, 78 men returned to duty from the hospital at Balaklava; but, per contra, 95 men were sent down from the front for treatment during the same period.[334]
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Footnote 334:
Wyatt, p. 86.
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The Russians could do little to resist the formidable preparations made by the Allies to bring about the capture of Sevastopol. They lost heavily every day, even under the ordinary fire which the besiegers poured upon them, and, perceiving that the end of the long struggle was imminent, they resolved to make one final effort to free themselves from the forces that were closing nearer and nearer to their defences. After much consideration, General Michael Gortchakoff[335] determined to bring down the field army, which was established on the Mackenzie heights and on the Belbek, into the valley of the Tchernaya, and to attack the French, Sardinians, and Turks holding that portion of the field. On August 15th, accordingly, a general action took place in that quarter, known as the battle of the Tchernaya, between a Russian army of 48,000 infantry, 10,000 cavalry, and 272 guns, and a somewhat smaller force of the Allies, who, though they massed as many as 60,000 men, did not deploy their whole strength upon that occasion. The enemy displayed much bravery, but showed little skill; he was routed, and fell back slowly towards Mackenzie Farm, losing 69 Officers and 2300 men killed, 160 Officers and 4000 men wounded, and 31 Officers and 1700 men missing—total 8260. The French had 1500 killed and wounded, and the Sardinians 200.[336] The besieging armies expected that this battle would be accompanied by a general sortie from Sevastopol; but it did not take place, for, the Russians were getting exhausted, and their resources were almost entirely at an end. In order to prevent any such attempt, and also to enable the French to sap up quite close to the defences of the Karabelnaya opposite to them, the Allies opened another, though only a partial, bombardment (the fifth) on August 16th, and continued their fire for some days with great violence; but no assault followed, for they were not yet ready to enact the final scene that was soon to begin.
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Footnote 335:
General Menshikoff had been replaced in his command in the Crimea by General Gortchakoff in the spring of 1855; the same who fought on the Danube, and whose curious movements, on the day of Inkerman, have already been adverted to.
Footnote 336:
Hamley, War in the Crimea , p. 271.
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General Gortchakoff might now have yielded the fortress which had been held so tenaciously and gloriously by the armies of the Tsar; but, after a full inspection of the town, of its ruins, and of the miseries and horrors it contained, he came to the resolution that it was to be held to the last extremity, and that the honour of his Sovereign prevented him from either evacuating it or capitulating. He determined, therefore, to bring into Sevastopol all he could spare of his field army, and to resist to the end. Hopeless as the outlook was at this moment, he still professed to believe that he could hold out for another month.
The last and sixth bombardment commenced on September 5th, and continued, if possible, with even greater fierceness and intensity than before, till the 8th, the day set apart for the grand assault. Pélissier guarded himself this time against advancing at dawn; and, having observed that at noon the Malakoff was usually more weakly occupied than at any other hour of the day or night, he resolved to take advantage of this circumstance, and to deliver the attack then. At noon therefore, the French, under Bosquet, were to storm the Malakoff, the Curtain near, and the little Redan; while the English, under General Codrington, were to attack the Redan. The town defences, moreover, were to be assailed by the French opposite to them, aided by a Sardinian brigade under General Cialdini; but this movement was subject to further orders.
A very fierce fight took place at all these places, of which one alone was successful; for the French, having entered the Malakoff, secured a firm footing there, and gained that important position in the enemy’s main line. Their losses were immense, not less than 3087 in killed and wounded out of 7446 men engaged in this portion of the battle-field. Everywhere else the assaults were beaten back, and the Allies could only believe at first that they had but gained an indecisive victory.
The attack on the Redan was made, as has been seen, under very difficult—almost impossible—circumstances; but, if it was only undertaken to relieve the pressure which the enemy brought to bear upon our allies near the Malakoff, our purpose was fulfilled. It is, however, difficult to believe that a diversion was all we intended to effect, since this assault was to be the final act of the great military drama which had been going on for a whole year in the Crimea, and which riveted the eyes of Europe upon Sevastopol. The troops engaged comprised the Second and Light Divisions, 6200 strong—1700 in the first line, 1500 in support, and 3000 in reserve in the 3rd parallel; the Third and Fourth Divisions formed a main reserve; but neither the Highland nor the First Division, to which the Guards Brigade belonged, was called up to share in the action. The Brigade was posted in rear, about half a mile from the Malakoff, where a splendid view of the fighting was obtained. There was much regret among all ranks composing it that they were not allowed to advance and take part in the attack; more especially since, when the French (according to Colonel Tower) asked General Simpson to send some of his troops to help them to hold the Malakoff, the request was refused, and the First Division, or, at least, the Guards, who were close by, were not told off to perform this duty. If this is more than camp gossip, it is, indeed, to be regretted that no British troops were enabled to participate in the glory of inflicting a final reverse upon the enemy’s position in the Karabelnaya.
General Simpson explains that he determined to give the honour of leading the assault to the Second and Light Divisions, because they had defended the trenches and approaches to the Redan for many months, and because of the intimate knowledge they possessed of the ground. Military critics believe that this was a “cruel kindness to the army.” The two divisions were exhausted by the siege, and the knowledge of the ground is considered upon this occasion to have been a positive disadvantage, “for, in acquiring it, the troops generally lost the dash which is essential to success.” Moreover, these divisions were now filled with young and only partially trained soldiers, “who paid no attention to the orders that were given;” “the companies lost all formation and cohesion from the irregular manner in which they ran forward, and they stood in confused groups behind the parapets;” “the battalions got mixed up;” in fact, “the young, raw recruits failed to follow their leaders in the way in which the soldiers had done at the Alma and Inkerman.”[337] On the other hand, there were fresh troops available; the Guards had only shortly before come up to the front from Balaklava, where they passed three and a half months, and the Highlanders had been there between October and June. Neither, as we know, were employed in the assault, much to their disappointment and chagrin.
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Footnote 337:
Wood, Crimea in 1854 and 1894 , pp. 370-378.
But all this is only one side of the story. The task before the British was, under any circumstances, most difficult to fulfil. They had to advance over the open for a considerable distance, against a strong work, covered in front by obstacles, whose rear was unenclosed, and whose fire was unsubdued. It had been impossible to construct places d’armes in our trenches, owing to the rocky nature of the soil, and hence the reserves could not be concentrated in suitable positions whence to push forward at the proper moment and feed the attack. Nevertheless, the leading British troops advanced with the utmost gallantry and spirit, notwithstanding the furious fire to which they were exposed; they penetrated into the Redan, and clung to the position they had gained. But they could not maintain themselves there; for, the Russians, hurrying up in immense numbers, forced them to retire before the reserves—hampered in the narrow trenches—were able to advance to their support. The French, moreover, having spiked the guns they found in the Malakoff, had none to turn
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upon the enemy as he entered the Redan in force to drive out our storming parties. After this failure, the attack was put off to the following day; our losses amounted to 2271 Officers and men, those of the French to 7567, and of the Russians to 12,913.[338]
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Footnote 338:
Hamley, War in the Crimea , pp. 278-285. The 23rd Royal Welsh Fusiliers, in support, lost, in killed and wounded, 15 Officers out of 18, and 197 men out of five companies (Wood, Crimea , loc. cit.).
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But there was no necessity to renew the combat; for the enemy, aware of the strength of the Malakoff position, which commanded the whole of the defences of Sevastopol, evacuated the south side during the night of the 8th-9th, and withdrew to the northern bank of the roadstead, blowing up their magazines, and firing the town in several places. The Allies had thus early intimation of the impending fall of the fortress which for so long had withstood their valour; but the full extent of the victory was scarcely appreciated before the morning of the 9th, when the enemy’s retreat became known to the armies engaged. The evacuation of the Redan was first ascertained by some Highlanders in the trenches in the night, who, stalking up to the ditch and abatis that was near it, found the work tenanted only by spiked guns and by dead men.
“N——, who knew my wandering tendencies, came to me in the middle of the night before daybreak, and told me to get up at once, that some one had come out of the trenches, and that the Redan was evacuated. I got on Bono Johnnie and galloped off about daylight. I arrived at our trenches, which I found occupied by the Highland Division; they were fast putting out a line of sentries to prevent any one going over to the Russian works.... I went across the hill towards the Malakoff, the ground literally paved with iron; the great high parapet was already broken down, and in the afternoon the ditch was filled in with gabions and a regular road made into the work. Dead and dying inside the work; such a scene of devastation and confusion impossible to conceive: guns broken and upset; powder in the embrasures, two or three inches deep, all loose on the ground; wounded men, French and Russians, still crawling about, and the trenches full of Russians who had crept in.... From the top of the parapet our trenches were spread out like a map. I was wild with delight at thinking the siege was over, and all the country opened to us. I posted off to the White barracks, and ransacked the whole place, coming back through the Redan.”[339]
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Footnote 339:
Tower, Diary , Sept. 9, 1855.
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The Allies did not enter the town on the 9th, for Sevastopol was a blazing mass of ruins, and the frequent explosions showed the place to be undermined: the garrison having escaped under cover of the night, when we were unaware of their intention, could not be further pressed at that moment, so there was no object to serve by sending the troops into a fire-trap. A terrible conflagration raged, and to this was added the burning and the final destruction of the Russian Black Sea fleet. The minds of our men could be well filled with awe and joy at the wonderful sights that met their gaze—awe at the fiery furnace the enemy kindled to mark his departure from the stronghold he had held so audaciously and bravely, and joy that the protracted siege was at last concluded.[340] Early on the 10th, the fires had ceased, and the conquerors, advancing to secure their prize, found one great building intact. Having penetrated into it, they were amazed to discover that it was a hospital containing no less than 2000 dead and dying men, who had been left to their fate without food or treatment for two days and nights, in the midst of the dire confusion and chaos that prevailed in the town; among them were three English Officers.[341] At midday on the 13th, a fatigue party of 500 men of the First Division, under Major Ponsonby, Grenadier Guards, were ordered into the town to help to cleanse it, and to bury the numerous dead. The duty was a disagreeable one, as may well be imagined; it was well performed, as can be seen from the following Divisional Memorandum, dated September 15th:—
The General Commanding the Forces expresses, through Lieut.-General Lord Rokeby, his regret at being obliged to employ the Brigade on the disagreeable fatigue duty of Thursday last, but which, for the health of the army, was absolutely necessary; and he was fully satisfied with the manner in which that duty was performed.
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Footnote 340:
The Battalion Order dated the 9th, “The Battalion will parade for inspection of necessaries at 9 a.m. to-morrow, Officers in blue coats, etc.,” shows that the ordinary routine of military duty was never relaxed.
Footnote 341:
Hamley, Crimea , p. 286; Nolan, ii. 473.
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The French now occupied Sevastopol, and the English the Karabelnaya, where regular guards were established. The British troops (500 each day from the Brigade) were employed, with a working pay of 1_s._ 6_d._ a day, in making a main road from Balaklava to the front, and others in the neighbourhood, under the superintendence of Lieut.-Colonel Hon. A. Hardinge, Coldstream Guards.
It should be stated here, that, on the 27th of August, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, Ambassador at Constantinople, reached the Crimea for the purpose of investing several Officers with the Order of the Bath. The ceremony took place at the British head-quarters, in the presence of General Pélissier and his Staff. The Guards Brigade furnished a Guard of Honour; the Coldstream, the Queen’s Colour, the Ensign and Lieutenant (Lieutenant Whitshed), and 50 men; and the Scots Fusilier Guards, the Captain and Lieutenant-Colonel, the Lieutenant and Captain, and 50 men. Among those on whom the honour was conferred, connected with the Regiment or to be connected with it, were Lieut.-Generals Sir Colin Campbell, Sir H. Bentinck, and Sir W. Codrington.
The Brigade paraded in review order on the 20th of September, for the purpose of receiving medals and clasps, which were distributed to the Officers, Non-commissioned officers, and men who had landed in the Crimea before the 1st of October, 1854.
Early in October, 1855, new reinforcements reached the Battalion. On the 2nd, 24 convalescents arrived for duty from Balaklava, as against 7 invalids sent to England next day. On the 4th, the fifth draft landed from home, consisting of 8 Officers and 207 men, whose average age was 24 years, and service 15 months. “They were principally volunteers from the Militia, and a remarkably fine body of men, not so tall as the original Guardsmen, but in every way better adapted for the exigencies of active service.”[342] Officers were posted to companies as follows, October 7th:—
No. 1 Company: Major C. Baring, Captain H. Tower, Lieutenant Rose.
No. 2 Company: Lieut.-Colonel C. Burdett, Major Lord Bingham, Lieutenant Julian Hall.
No. 3 Company: Lieut.-Colonel Herbert-Stepney, Captain C. Blackett, Lieutenant Adair.
No. 4 Company: Captain Le Couteur, Captain Lord E. Cecil, Lieutenant Whitshed.
No. 5 Company: Captain Sir J. Dunlop, Lieutenant A. Lambton.
No. 6 Company: Lieut.-Colonel F. Newdigate, Captain W. Reeve, Lieutenant H. Lane.
No. 7 Company: Major H. Armytage, Captain Hon. W. Feilding, Lieutenant Godfrey Wigram.
No. 8 Company: Lieut.-Colonel Lord Dunkellin, Captain Heneage, Lieutenant Hon. W. Edwardes.[343]
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Footnote 342:
Wyatt, 86.
Footnote 343:
A few days later, Majors Baring and Armytage were invalided to England, and Captains Hon. H. Byng and Jervoise joined the Battalion—the former from home, the latter by transfer from the 42nd Highlanders.
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