VII. THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (continued)…

VII. THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (continued)

The Course of Diplomacy--Austria's Position--She becomes a Peace-maker--The Treaty of the 2nd of December--The Four Points--The Czar agrees to negotiate--Russell's Mission to Vienna--Opening of the Conference--Prince Gortschakoff's Declaration--The Third Point broached--Its Rejection by Russia--Count Buol's Compromise--A Diplomatic Farce--Count Buol's final Proposition--Resignation of Drouyn de Lhuys--The War debated in Parliament--Lord John Russell resigns--Strength of the Government--The Sardinian and Turkish Loans--Vote of Censure on the Aberdeen Cabinet--Finance of the War--General Pélissier--The Fight for the Cemetery--Success of the French--Occupation of the Tchernaya--Expedition to Kertch--Description of the Peninsula--Sir George Brown's Force--The Russians blow up their Magazines--Occupation of Kertch and Yenikale--Lyons in the Sea of Azotf--Result of the Expedition--Attack upon Sebastopol decided--Ordnance of the Allies--The Attack--The French occupy the Mamelon--The British in the Quarries--Lord Raglan overruled--New Batteries--Pélissier's Change of Plan--The Fourth Bombardment--Preparations for the Assault--Mayran's Mistake--Brunet and D'Autemarre--The Attack on the Redan fails--Abandonment of the Assault--General Eyre--Losses on both Sides--Death of Lord Raglan.

While the armies in the Crimea had been occupied in holding their ground, and recovering from the effects of the winter campaign, the political action of the allied Governments had been directed into a channel of negotiations opened by Austria and conducted at Vienna.

Austria had not approved of the expedition to the Crimea. She had, to a certain extent, joined the Western Powers; and although Russia might not deem it expedient to turn upon Austria and make war upon her, still that was possible; for Austria had given a cause of war to Russia by exerting that pressure--severe, though distant and indirect--which impelled the Czar to raise the siege of Silistria, and then abandon the Principalities. Then the troops of Austria, by slow degrees, occupied the country as far as the Pruth, and thus enabled the Western Powers to divert their armies upon Sebastopol. But when they took that direction, and left Austria alone face to face with Russia, supported only by a few Turks, and having a very doubtful ally in Prussia, Austria was discontented. She had, however, gone too far to recede. She was committed to the course of armed neutrality, verging always upon open war. Becoming aware of her situation, and having, just before the war broke out, reduced her army by 90,000 men, she now spent £16,000,000 sterling in order to place her public force on an effective war footing. For a moment, in the victory of the Alma and the first bombardment of Sebastopol, she saw prospects of a speedy termination of the war. The dark cloud of Inkermann and the failure of the bombardment suddenly hid those prospects from her view. The Allies had not been beaten, but they had been frustrated; and Austria saw in the new circumstances an opening for a new effort to bring about peace. Her special object had been gained when the Russian monopoly of the Lower Danube had been removed, and she did not appear to appreciate the larger objects of the Allies, namely, a definite reduction of Russian power in the Black Sea; or she did not feel capable of aiding in their accomplishment by a direct participation in hostilities. She therefore renewed her part of peacemaker.

In order to place herself in a better position as regards the Western Powers, she agreed to sign a treaty known as the Treaty of the 2nd of December, 1854. This document stated that the Three Powers, being desirous of bringing the war to an end as speedily as possible, and of re-establishing peace on a solid basis, and being convinced that nothing would be more conducive to this result than the complete union of their efforts, they had resolved to conclude this treaty. By it they undertook not to make peace without first deliberating in common. Austria engaged to defend the frontier of the Principalities against any return of the Russian forces; in case war ensued between Austria and Russia, the Three Powers mutually promised to each other their offensive and defensive alliance; and in case peace should not be re-established before the 1st of January, 1855, the Three Powers agreed "to deliberate, without delay, upon effectual means for obtaining the object of their alliance." Here, then, it seemed, were fetters binding Austria to the fortunes of the alliance; and the Western Powers believed that at last they had a fair prospect of aid from Austrian arms, especially when she concluded a defensive alliance with Prussia. The object of Austria, however, was not war, but negotiation. By giving what seemed a proof of her willingness to share the fortunes of the Allies, she took up a position which enhanced the value of any peace proposals she might devise. Accordingly, she set to work, contriving how, upon the bases of the negotiations carried on in the summer, which took the shape of the Four Points, she could present a scheme which Russia would be willing to consider. These four points were a further definition of the Protocol signed by the Powers at the beginning of the war, by which the purpose of the contest was set forth. If she succeeded, she would relieve herself from the obligation of fighting imposed by the treaty; if she failed, some excuse might be evolved in the process of failure. Thereupon negotiations were quietly resumed at Vienna between Count Buol and the Ministers of the Allies. Prussia, having declined to accede to the treaty of December 2nd, had no part in these proceedings. By the 28th of December the Ministers had agreed to a paper defining the sense of the Four Points. Those points were first, the cessation of the Russian protectorate in the Principalities, and the substitution therefor of a European protectorate; second, the free navigation of the Danube; third, an arrangement having "for its object to connect the existence of the Ottoman Empire more completely with the European equilibrium, and to put an end to the preponderance of Russia in the Black Sea;" fourth, renunciation by Russia of her pretentions to exercise a protectorate over the Christian subjects of the Sultan. These bases of negotiation were presented to Prince Gortschakoff, Russian Minister at Vienna, and by him transmitted to the Cabinet of St. Petersburg. The Emperor of Russia was not at all disinclined to treat. He had nothing to lose by negotiations, and, as it was possible something might occur at a conference to disturb the harmony of the Allies, he might have something to gain. Then it may well be that he counted on the presence of a Prussian envoy, and consequently of a backer; and therefore in December he gave his Minister at Vienna conditional, and on the 7th of January definite, power to negotiate. But the British Ministry falling under the shock of a popular tempest, it became impossible to send any plenipotentiary to Vienna until the Government of England was once more in such a position, as regarded Parliament, that it could act with authority. Lord Palmerston adopted the resolution of sending Lord John Russell to attend a conference at Vienna. While at Paris Lord John received and accepted an offer of the post of Colonial Secretary. He had been sent off so hurriedly that his written instructions were not prepared until two days after he had sailed. Passing through Paris and Berlin, and conferring in each capital with the highest personages of the State, he did not reach Vienna until the 4th of March, and even then ten more days passed before the Conference held its first sitting.

This took place on the 15th of March, in the Austrian Foreign Office. The Plenipotentiaries were, for Austria, Count Buol-Schauenstein and Baron Prokesch-Osten; for France, Baron de Bourqueney; for England, Lord John Russell and the Earl of Westmorland; for Turkey, Aarifi Effendi; and for Russia, Prince Gortschakoff and M. de Titoff. Count Buol, as a matter of course, became the President of the Conference. At the very outset there was a faint foreshadowing of the discussion which subsequently occurred. The Czar Nicholas had just died, but his successor had declared with emphasis that he should pursue the policy of Peter, Catherine, Alexander, and Nicholas. When, therefore, the mild tones of conciliation in which Count Buol opened the Conference had died away, and Baron de Bourqueney and Lord John Russell had, on behalf of their Governments, reserved the right of making special conditions over and above the four guarantees, Prince Gortschakoff seemed to regard this as a challenge. At all events, he took it up as such, and answered promptly. He hoped, he said, they all had a common object, the object of arriving at an honourable peace. "If," he added, "from whatever quarter they come, conditions of peace were wished to be imposed on Russia which should not be compatible with her honour, Russia would never consent to them, however serious might be the consequences." He did not contest the right of the belligerent Powers to add new demands according to the chances of the war; but, for his part, he considered himself under the obligation to keep within the limits of the Four Points. Having thus broken ground, the Conference went at once into the details of the First Point, and determined to debate them in the order laid down. We need not enter into these details. It is sufficient to state that in five sittings the plenipotentiaries had agreed upon a form of words, fully embodying the spirit of the original basis of the first two Points. It was on the third, the key-stone of the whole, that they split asunder.

It was on the 26th of March that Count Buol broached the question. It may be remembered that the object in view was to connect Turkey with the European system, and, in the words used by Lord Clarendon's instructions to Lord John, to abrogate the supremacy of Russia in the Black Sea. For this, indeed, three fleets and three armies were thundering against the stronghold of the Czar. It was this supremacy and the temptation it held out to Russia which had led her Sovereign into arrogant courses, and had brought on the war. In opening the debate on this now famous Third Point, Count Buol, speaking not only for himself but his allies, suggested that it would be the better course for the Ministers of Russia and Turkey to state to the Conference what means they thought adequate to accomplish the ends desired. The French and British Ministers supported this suggestion, Lord John enforcing it with the courteous remark, called forth by Prince Gortschakoff's early declaration touching the honour of his country, that England and her allies deemed "the best and only admissible conditions of peace would be those which, being the most in harmony with the honour of Russia, should at the same time be sufficient for the security of Europe." Of course, Prince Gortschakoff could only be gratified, and could not do less than agree to ask his Cabinet whether they would act on the suggestion of Count Buol. The Turks did the same. As it was unavoidable that some time should elapse before answers were received, Count Buol proposed to pass to the Fourth Point; but to this neither the Cabinet of Britain nor that of France, and both were consulted, would consent. Thus several days were wasted, during which the French and Turkish Ministers for Foreign Affairs were hurrying towards Vienna to take part in these very critical negotiations.

At the ninth sitting, on the 9th of April, these two, M. Drouyn de Lhuys and Aali Pasha, were formally introduced. But no other business was transacted, because Prince Gortschakoff had not received instructions from his Court in regard to Count Buol's suggestion touching the views of Russia on the Third Point. On the 17th the Conference again assembled. Would Russia take the initiative and propound a plan for the abrogation of her preponderance? The question was answered at once, and all the more readily, perhaps, because the second bombardment of Sebastopol had failed. Russia would not take the initiative; moreover, "Russia would not consent to the strength of her navy being restricted to any fixed number, either by treaty or in any other manner." The Allies were, or affected to be, in consternation. They had no plan, and M. Drouyn de Lhuys suggested that they should meet at once to decide what they should demand. Lord John Russell blurted out the opinion that the refusal of Russia had diminished the chances of peace. Prince Gortschakoff rejoined that Russia would consider any mode except that of limitation. That was not consistent with honour. The high spirit and bold front maintained by the new Czar are shown in nothing more than the arrogance with which, at this period, his Ministers endeavoured to prevent the Allies from meeting to consult on and arrange the terms to be offered to Russia! Of course, the Allies would not suffer such arrogant pretensions. They retired to debate among themselves, and a singular debate it was. The Austrian Cabinet clearly wished to shrink out of the engagement of the 2nd of December. Although in favour of the complete neutralisation of the Black Sea, preferring limitation to counterpoise, and agreeing to support the plan of limitation, Count Buol not only declined on behalf of Austria to make a refusal by Russia of the two former a casus belli, but suggested the extravagant plan of simply binding Russia not to increase her naval force in the Black Sea beyond the point at which it stood before the war! To this, strange to say, Lord John Russell assented, telling his Government that if this system of settlement could be made an ultimatum by Austria, the Western Powers ought to accept it. But when, a few days afterwards, Count Colloredo, in London, submitted the scheme to Lord Clarendon, the Minister did not hesitate a moment in rejecting it.

In the meantime, with this tendency to give way on the side of the Allies, the Conference had become a farce. They met on the 19th, after consulting, and propounded a plan. The first proposition declared that the Powers undertook to respect, as an essential condition of the general equilibrium, the independence and integrity of the Ottoman Empire. The Russians concurred, but--did not intend thereby to pledge their Court to a territorial guarantee! So the virtue of the article vanished at once. Then came the proposal intended to take away Russian preponderance by limiting the number of her ships in the Black Sea. Prince Gortschakoff demanded time to consider the project, and M. de Titoff took the liberty of regretting that Russia had not the option of settling the whole question by discussion with a State "free in its movements and resolutions"--meaning Turkey, which he knew, as well as the other Ministers, was, like Britain and France, bound to act on the basis of a common understanding. The taunt is of no moment, except as an illustration of the assurance of the Russian envoys. They had not exhausted the ample stock of that commodity they brought to Vienna. Indeed, it seemed to increase under the influence of Austrian vacillation and timidity. The Conference held two more sittings. On the 21st of April Prince Gortschakoff refused point-blank to accede even to the mild and inadequate proposal of limitation, and brought forward an alternative plan for throwing open the Black Sea and, of course, the Dardanelles and Bosphorus to the war ships of all nations--a very startling mode of liberating Turkey from menace, and preserving her independence. The Ministers of Britain and France at once declined to discuss such a proposal, and declared their instructions to be exhausted; and Lord John Russell started for London. M. Drouyn de Lhuys lingered to attend another conference, and to hear Prince Gortschakoff, as if in mockery of the Allies, put forth a proposition to maintain the old plan of keeping the Strait closed, and--admirable benevolence!--giving the Sultan the right, a right he already possessed, of opening the Strait, and calling up the ships of his Allies when he was menaced. The Conference closed, leaving the Russians exulting at the skill with which they had done what they were sent to do--that is, to feel the pulse of Austria, to find out whether she would actively join the war or only make a brave show of resolution before all Europe.

Although the Conference had closed, Count Buol persisted in thinking that he could devise terms of peace. He had pledged himself to discover such terms, and when the British Government pressed upon Austria the fulfilment of the treaty of December, the answer was that Count Buol was engaged in his search after a satisfactory measure of pacification. Now it happened that, although the Western Powers were not averse from an honourable peace, which they did not believe Russia would grant, they were extremely desirous to obtain the active support of Austria in the war. Therefore Count Buol went on with his search, and by the middle of May he had hit upon a scheme so weak and ineffective that the Allies warned him beforehand they could not assent to it. This scheme contained the guarantee of independence and integrity for Turkey; maintained the principle that the Strait should be closed, but gave the contracting Powers the right of keeping two frigates in the Black Sea; laid it down that Turkey and Russia should agree as to what force they would maintain there, the amount not to exceed, on either side, the force of Russian vessels then (May, 1855) afloat in the Euxine; and stipulated that this agreement should form an integral part of the treaty. Subsequently an article was added whereby Austria bound herself to regard as a casus belli such additions to the Russian fleet in the Black Sea as would bring it up to the number existing in 1853! As the Western Powers would not agree to any such proposals, Austria declared that she had fulfilled her part; that Russia was now no longer exclusively to blame for the failure of negotiations; that Austria regarded herself as absolved from her pledge in the treaty of December 2nd, and that she had nothing to do but wish success to the Allies. So the great central German Power shuffled out of her engagements; and it cannot be doubted that one of her reasons for so acting was to be found in the fact that the flag of Italy was waving in the breezes of the Crimea. There was a meeting of the Conference on the 4th of June, called solely that Austria might record her propositions, and place herself in a position to say that she had redeemed her promises. The only result of it was this: it enabled Prince Gortschakoff to boast that Austria had proposed bases which she deemed sufficient, but which her Allies deemed insufficient, and thus to publish the dissension in the allied camp. Such were the conferences at Vienna in 1855. The Allies had agreed to them solely at the instance of Austria, and because she had made her active co-operation in the war depend upon the failure of attempts to conclude peace on the terms agreed upon between the Three Powers. The Allies were, therefore, discredited in the eyes of Europe by their complaisance towards Austria; but although she gained her end, which was to evade the obligations she had undertaken of her own free will, the conferences served to show Europe more clearly than ever that Alexander was as obstinately bent as Nicholas upon maintaining Russian preponderance in the Black Sea.

There was something enervating in the atmosphere of Vienna; for, as the Conference proceeded, the spirit and firmness with which M. Drouyn de Lhuys and Lord John Russell began their task diminished visibly. Lord John became painfully conscious that Austria would not propose or support any efficacious plan to abrogate Russian preponderance in the Black Sea if the support she gave led her into war. "The occupation of the Principalities by Russia," he wrote to his Cabinet, "she felt to be dangerous to her existence as a great Power, and she risked a war to put an end to it. But that point accomplished, I fear we must not count upon her aid to save Constantinople from the encroaching ambition of Russia." This is the language of despair. Britain and France could continue the war, "but the waste of life and money would be enormous." This was written on the 16th of April. On the 17th Lord John had become so down-hearted that he consented to support the Austrian proposal fixing the Russian maximum at the force possessed by Russia before the war. If this, which would have sacrificed the whole of the exertions of the Allies, could have been made an ultimatum by Austria, he thought the Western Powers should accept it. The Western Powers had resolved not to sink so low. M. Drouyn de Lhuys, who was equally despondent and submissive, went home and resigned, because he had compromised his Government by giving even a qualified assent to terms so disastrous. Lord John Russell went home, pleaded his cause in the Cabinet, and being overruled, did not resign. He remained in office, and, on the first opportunity, made a speech, not in favour of his Vienna views, but in favour of "the vigorous prosecution of the war."

The resignation of the French Minister of Foreign Affairs did not pass without comment. The reason soon became apparent, and it was broadly stated that Lord John Russell himself had participated in the line of action adopted by M. Drouyn de Lhuys at Vienna. Count Buol himself, resenting the publication of the protocols of the Conference, issued a circular in which he stated that the English Plenipotentiary had supported the Austrian scheme of pacification. Then followed the publication by the British Government of several despatches, showing clearly the course taken by the British Plenipotentiary and the British Cabinet; and in July Mr. Milner Gibson brought the conduct of Lord John under the notice of the House, and demanded explanations. Lord John explained and defended the course he had taken; but not to the satisfaction of any one. The public feeling was strong; and the Opposition, taking advantage of the incident, Sir Edward Lytton gave notice of a motion censuring the whole of the Government. In the meantime there was commotion in the Ministerial ranks. The Minister then offered to resign, and in answer Lord Palmerston frankly said that it was for Lord John to judge; but if he determined not to resign, then the Cabinet would stand by him. But Lord John was informed that a large number of the Liberals could not resist the motion, and, to save himself from censure, and the Government from defeat, he resigned. Thus the Opposition was foiled. The resignation did not prevent a debate, although it prevented a division; and Lord John, having six months before broken up one Ministry by a rapid retreat, now saved another by a similar manœuvre. This may be called the climax of the ill-fated Vienna Conference of 1855.

During the course of the Session the Opposition had done what it considered to be its duty as a body of critics on the proceedings of the Government. It was well known to Mr. Disraeli that, independently of the purely party votes he could command, a number of gentlemen of various opinions, if they did not vote with him, would at least help him to damage the Cabinet. When, therefore, in the middle of May, Mr. Milner Gibson gave notice of a motion in favour of peace, Mr. Disraeli promptly took it out of his hands with his full consent, and framed a resolution which, while it censured the Government for its ambiguous language and uncertain conduct in reference to the great question of peace or war, yet promised to give her Majesty every support in the prosecution of the war until a safe and honourable peace had been obtained. Mr. Disraeli's motion was rejected by 319 to 219; and when Lord Grey made a similar motion in the House of Peers, Lord Derby would not even divide the House upon it, so plainly was the general conviction against it. Nevertheless the debates in the House of Commons--debates raised upon amendments to Mr. Disraeli's motion--went on for several days, revealing the true character of the different sections, and showing the inadequate views which many had formed of the objects at stake. Mr. Bright and Mr Cobden thought Russia had a claim to preponderance in the Black Sea. Mr. Sidney Herbert, Mr. Gladstone, Sir James Graham, and their friends declared that the negotiations had been broken off on a question of "terms," mere phrases, a few ships more or less; that enough had been done to show that Russia could not be dominant in Europe; and that the propositions of Count Buol were adequate bases of a safe and honourable peace.

But while we lament the defective judgment and blindness of the Peelites, and the utter incapacity to understand the dynamics of the question displayed by the peace-at-any-price party, we are bound to admire and applaud the courage of both. They did their duty bravely--for it is the duty of the chief men of a nation to speak out; and no nation is well served in which the chief men, yielding to menace or succumbing to apathy, withhold their opinions in moments of great trial. The debates on the policy of the war, on the conduct of the war and of the negotiations, ended by rallying a larger support than ever to the Government; for even the leading Tories admitted that the war was so just that the Government ought not to have avoided it if they could, and so necessary that they could not have avoided it if they would, while no less a person than Lord Derby, allowing his judgment to get the better of his party feeling, insisted that it would be humiliation for Britain and France to retire from the contest baffled before Sebastopol.

Nevertheless, when the Government proposed to become a joint guarantee with France for a loan of £5,000,000 to be contracted by Turkey, Mr. Disraeli, who had earlier in the Session cavilled at a loan of £2,000,000 to Sardinia, now, seeing a prospect of obtaining a majority by a surprise, divided the House against the project and was only defeated by a majority of three. Yet the propriety of both measures was manifest. We wanted the aid of 15,000 Sardinian troops, and it was not too much for so small a State to ask us to lend her the means of placing them fairly on the theatre of war. In the same way the war had disordered more deeply the deeply involved finances of Turkey. By giving a guarantee, in conjunction with France, that the interest should be paid to the lenders, we enabled the Sultan to raise the money at smaller cost to the Turkish Treasury, and by so doing we were, of course, aiding her as effectually, in kind but not in degree, as we were by our fleets and armies. But a Turkish loan was a good subject for a hostile division. Mr. Disraeli saw his chance, seized it, and nearly surprised the Ministry. He would have been content to imperil the alliance and the war at the price of a Parliamentary victory.

Mr. Disraeli pursued a similar course, but with a divided party and no chance of success, upon another occasion. Mr. Roebuck, the head and front of the incomplete and abortive Sebastopol inquiry, moved on the 17th of July a vote of censure on all the members of the Aberdeen Cabinet, whose counsels led to what he was pleased to term the disastrous results of the winter campaign in the Crimea. General Peel, as one of the committee, moved the "previous question," on the ground that the inquiry was incomplete, and that the greater part of the sufferings of the army arose in the very nature of the duty which it fell upon them to perform. Mr. Disraeli and the bulk of his supporters made the motion a party question. But the course of the debate was decidedly against them, and they and Mr. Roebuck failed utterly in procuring from the House, either a retrospective censure on a dead Administration, or an endorsement of the Sebastopol Blue Books. The House decided, by 289 to 182, that the question should not even be put from the chair. Thus ended an attempt, first to discover evidence which would bear out the fierce accusations advanced during the winter, and then to base upon the imperfect and conflicting evidence discovered a censure not deserved.

The Government had, since January, 1855, effected considerable changes in the machinery for carrying on the war, chiefly, however, in the concentration of power in the War Department. They had raised the total force of the army to 193,595 men, including 14,950 who formed the Foreign Legion; and they had increased the number of sailors to 70,000. They had embodied fifty militia regiments, some of whom were in the Mediterranean garrisons; and from the whole militia force they had drawn 18,000 recruits for the army. Having found that the expenses of the war were outrunning the estimates of the spring, they increased those estimates, making the total for the whole service of the army, navy, transport, commissariat, and ambulance purposes, £49,537,692, bringing up the total estimated expenditure for the year to more than £88,000,000; to cover which they provided £96,339,000, leaving a large margin for contingencies. Among the ways and means were a loan of £1,600,000, and power to issue £10,000,000 Exchequer bills or bonds. The active navy consisted almost wholly of steamers, and among the supplementary votes of August was one to provide for the cost of a host of steam gunboats to be used, if required, in 1856.

General Pélissier, the new Commander-in-Chief of the French army, was a hardy soldier, who had taken part in many campaigns, and had gained in Algeria a name not only for military ability in the field, but for skill in the cabinet as an administrator. A cloud hung over his reputation for a time, because he had caused a number of obstinate Arabs, who would not surrender, to be suffocated in the caves of Dahra. But when he went to the Crimea, men only faintly remembered this dreadful act, while all recognised the stern energy, sound military judgment, and stout moral courage of the new chief. Henceforth they felt there would be no faltering, no hesitation, no undue deference for opinions formed in Paris, no terror of responsibility. Pélissier brought to his task a will quite as firm as that of the Emperor Napoleon, and a reputation for soldiership higher than that of his Imperial Majesty. He was told to abide as nearly as possible by his instructions; and if he modified them, he was to do so in concert with Lord Raglan. We have already pointed out that these two officers did not differ on the question before them. General Pélissier differed from the Emperor, not from Lord Raglan. He recognised the soundness of the measures recommended over and over again by Sir John Burgoyne; and he resolved to take Sebastopol by capturing the key of the place--the Malakoff. It was more arduous now than it was two months before, because the Russians had been allowed to develop their hardy system of counter-approaches on the Malakoff ridge, and above the Careening Bay, consisting of the Mamelon Redoubt on the former, and what were called the White Works on the latter. These it was essential to capture and hold before the final blow could be levelled at the Malakoff.

It was on the 19th of May that he took command. On the 22nd, three days afterwards, the expedition to Kertch sailed, and on that very night Pélissier began a bloody contest for the possession of the ground about the cemetery to the west of Quarantine Bay. The Russians had seen the advantage which works of more pretension than rifle-pits would give them on this quarter. They, therefore, began to connect the pits with the place by sinking a covered way across the ravine, and by connecting the pits with each other by a gabionade, that is, a parapet made of large baskets filled and then covered with earth. The incipient stages of this design were observed by the French on the 21st of May. General Todleben's object went further than the mere establishment of a series of strong rifle screens. He had in view the construction of a regular battery on the Russian left of the line, which would have poured a raking flanking fire through the principal works of the besiegers. To prevent this, Pélissier ordered General de Salles, now commander of the Siege Corps, to storm and hold the new Russian line.

This line was of very great extent, stretching from flank to flank for nearly three-quarters of a mile along the broken ground. The whole of it was under the fire of the place, and the conformation of the ground between the Cemetery and Sebastopol, a ravine widening towards its mouth, gave the enemy great facilities for bringing up troops to feed the combat. The French general placed upwards of 4,000 men, including two battalions of the Light Infantry of the Guard, under the orders of General Paté. At nine o'clock the signal was given, and, dashing out of the trenches, the two columns fell upon the enemy so impetuously that he was driven out at the first shock. But it so chanced that at this very moment the troops, the battalions destined to furnish and cover the working parties of the enemy, had paraded in front of the place, under the orders of General Chruleff. Therefore the French had no sooner driven off the Russians who held the lines, than these fresh troops, moving rapidly across the ravine, first smote them with a crushing fire, and then coming on with lowered bayonets, engaged in a combat so close, and fierce, and vehement, that the French were overthrown on their right, and forced back into their trenches; while on their left General Brunet sustained with difficulty the forward position he had won. General la Motterouge, who commanded the French right column, was not the man to yield so easily. Re-forming his men, and bringing up his reserves, he flung them once more into the fight. The combat now raged along the whole line. As the French poured in fresh troops, the enemy, resolved to win, brought up eight battalions, our old foes at the Alma, the regiments of Minsk and Uglitz. And thus through the night the battle continued, sometimes dying away into a faint flicker of fire, and then bursting out again with sudden and appalling fury. When the French gained an advantage and pushed the enemy, their sappers in the rear of the confused roar of struggling men began to destroy the Russian lines; and then in the midst of their work, the battle would roll back upon them and sweep over the disputed ground. Just before daybreak the masses on both sides retired under shelter from the cannon of the opposing batteries; but General Brunet kept the line he had won, and turned the face of the rifle-pits and gabions towards the enemy.

Throughout the next day there was a brisk cannonade kept up on both sides, each intent on preventing the other from occupying in force the contested ground. At night the combat was renewed. General Couston, with four battalions, reinforced General Brunet's position, in order to defend it against any attack, and to complete the works of approach begun on that side. General Duval, with six battalions, issuing from the French trenches and assailing the Russian left, drove out the enemy's troops posted there, and held the ground in front, while the working parties, in the midst of a heavy fire from the main batteries of Sebastopol, rapidly transformed the Russian trench into a parallel of attack, giving ample shelter to the besiegers. Thus, in two nights, the French won this important ground, and connecting all their works together, showed a united front, and left but a comparatively narrow space, formed by the ravine across which they could not work their way, between them and the town. This line on the ridge a little east of the Cemetery was the limit of their regular approaches in that quarter.

Another result of the change of commanders was the occupation of the line of the Tchernaya by a combined force of French, Sardinians, and Turks. This was effected on the 25th. General Canrobert led his own division and that of General Brunet across the valley, and took post on the Fedoukine heights. General la Marmora and his Sardinians took up a position on the Hasfort Hill, above Tchorgoun. Sir Colin Campbell moved the Marines out of their lines near the sea to the ridge looking down on Kamara on one side, and the Baidar valley on the other. Omar Pasha, with 16,000 Turks, occupied the whole line of low hills on which stood the redoubts on October 25th. The whole force was about 43,000 strong. There were but few Russian troops on the river, and these gave way and retired up the opposite hills as soon as they felt the advance guard of the Allies. Thus the line of the Allies now extended from the sea on the right, through Kamara and Tchorgoun to the Fedoukine heights, just out of range of the Russian batteries, east of the Inkermann ruins. There were many who thought this a beginning of operations in the field. They were doomed to be disappointed. The Allies had now very large forces in the Crimea, but while Lord Raglan could not assent to the Emperor's plan of a regular campaign, the Emperor could not concur in Lord Raglan's suggestions; and thus, as a compromise, the Allies continued the siege, and undertook no other operation except one which we are now about to narrate--the naval and military expedition to the inhospitable and foggy regions of Kertch and the Sea of Azoff.

The Russian forces in the Crimea were dependent chiefly for their supplies upon the mainland itself, for the Crimea is a peninsula, projecting from the steppes of Southern Russia, and joined on to it only by the narrow neck of land at Perekop. The road through Perekop was the chief line of communication, leading as it did to Nicolaieff and Odessa. But there were other roads by which the enemy received supplies. At the eastern part of the Crimea was a small peninsula, called the Peninsula of Kertch, from the town of that name. In order to deprive the enemy of at least one road, and to ruin all his depôts within reach, and deprive him of the waterway over the Sea of Azoff to Yenikale and Arabat, and force him upon a more circuitous route, it was determined to seize Kertch, push through the Strait into the Sea of Azoff, and destroy the ships on its waters and the magazines in its ports. In order to accomplish this, it was deemed expedient that a military force should occupy the towns of Kertch and Yenikale, which are within the Strait, and thus, by taking the land defences in reverse, open a road into the Sea of Azoff for the light steamers. The Strait is narrow, especially where the waters of the Sea of Azoff pour into it. In 1854 the Russians had sunk many ships in the channel below Kertch, but in the winter, the waters of the Sea of Azoff, fed by the swollen streams of Southern Russia, rushing through the confined space in full volume, and at the rate of between three and four miles an hour, swept away the wreck; so that what was not possible in 1854 became possible in 1855.

What the Allies required was to get command of the Strait; and to put all resistance out of the question, it was determined, on the very day after General Pélissier assumed command, that the force sent should be overwhelming. Sir George Brown was again to take command of the expedition. The French supplied 6,800 men, including fifty Chasseurs d'Afrique and three batteries, under D'Autemarre; the Turks furnished 5,000 men and one battery; and the British 3,800 men, namely--the 42nd, 71st, 79th, and 93rd Highlanders, a battalion of Marines, fifty men of the 8th Hussars, and a battery. The force thus amounted to 15,600 men and thirty guns. The naval force consisted of twenty-four French ships, including three sail of the line, under Admiral Bruat; and thirty-four British vessels, including six sail of the line, under Admiral Lyons. The gunboats and light steamers were organised into a flying squadron, consisting of fourteen British and five French steamers, the whole under Captain Lyons, son of the admiral, and, like his sire, a bold and resourceful sailor.

Starting from Kamiesch and Balaclava on the 22nd, though obstructed by a dense fog, the ships were, on the morning of the 25th, off Cape Takli, the south foreland of the Strait; and soon after daylight the ships having troops on board rounded the cape and running as near the shore as the water would allow, proceeded to disembark the men. No enemy appeared, and the troops speedily got ashore; the French taking the right, and the British the left or exposed flank, while the Turks were held in reserve. But the enemy, though not in sight, was audible enough on land; for the troops had no sooner stepped ashore than the air was rent with the noise of repeated explosions, and tall pillars of white smoke rose up on the right of the allied forces. All along the coast, from Fort Paul towards Yenikale, the Russians were blowing up their magazines. On the sea a British gunboat, followed by another, was seen chasing the Russian ships and engaging the batteries, not yet abandoned, on both sides of the Strait. At the same time other vessels came up and silenced the battery on the spit opposite Yenikale; and the Russians, feeling resistance to be hopeless, blew up one magazine after another on both sides of the Strait; so that by the morning of the 25th there was not a gun or a man to resist the Allies. General Wrangel, who, with 6,000 men, had charge of the peninsula, retired to Argin, midway between Kertch and Kaffa, and in no way molested his opponents.

Therefore, on the 25th, the steamers of light draught went up to Yenikale; and the troops, quitting their bivouacs, set out to march on the same place. They proceeded in three columns, the French on the right next the sea, the British on the left, covering their flank, and the Turks in the rear. When they came to Kertch, the whole broke into one column and filed through the town, and by mid-day the troops reached Yenikale. The fleet had come up, and the generals and admirals held a consultation in the afternoon. The sailors having buoyed the channel into the Sea of Azoff, Captain Lyons led his flying squadron at once into those waters. Already, in two days, the Allies had captured upwards of a hundred heavy guns, many new; had destroyed immense stores of corn and flour; had seized a mass of naval stores, and had forced the enemy to burn or wreck thirty or forty ships. By day clouds of smoke rose upward on all sides, and at night the sky was lurid with flames. The strength of the Allies, and the swiftness with which it was applied, soon completed the work and dismayed the enemy. It is with pain that we record the shameful fact that the allied soldiers and sailors disgraced themselves by plundering the houses and public buildings of Kertch and Yenikale. The predatory instincts of our troops were repressed severely, but Sir George Brown had no real control over our allies, and the French generals and Turkish pashas did nothing to restrain their men. The plunder of Kertch and Yenikale is a blot upon this brilliant expedition.

The flying squadron under Captain Lyons really deserved its name. Speed was essential to success, for delay would have given the mass of shipping employed in feeding the Russian army time to run up the Don, or enter the Strait of Genitchi and push into the Putrid Sea. Captain Lyons was as swift as a spirit of fire. It was his business to destroy every sail afloat, to visit and burn all the public magazines of the Russian Government within the reach of his guns and boats, and to bombard every fortified place on the shore. He fulfilled his task. Within four-and-twenty hours he was off Berdiansk, the best port in the sea. Here he landed his small-arm men, and burnt stores worth £50,000, and many merchant ships. Then detaching ships to watch Genitchi and the mouth of the Don, he steamed with the rest of the squadron to Arabat. Here the Russians had a fort, mounting thirty guns, and Lyons and the French shelled the place and blew up the magazine. In three days he had destroyed a hundred transports laden with provisions for the enemy. Without delay he made for Genitchi. Lyons bombarded the place in order to cover the passage of his boats through the Strait into the Putrid Sea. The boats' crews worked through, fired the shipping and corn depôts, and returned; but the wind shifting, it became necessary to go in again and complete the work. This was done by three volunteers: Lieutenant Buckley, Lieutenant Burgoyne, and Mr. John Roberts. These men had the hardihood to land alone, and, in the face of the Cossacks, performed the duty they undertook; and then the boats, under a fire of field-pieces, set fire to the shipping which had escaped before. At the end of the 29th of May the squadron had destroyed, in the Sea of Azoff, four war steamers, 246 merchant ships, and corn and flour worth £150,000. On the 2nd of June the indefatigable Lyons was off Taganrog. The governor would not accept terms of surrender, which would have saved private property; and under cover of the gunboats, in the face of 3,000 troops, Lieutenant Buckley and a band of volunteers landed repeatedly and performed the desperate service of firing the stores and Government buildings. Marioupol shared the fate of Taganrog. Thus Captain Lyons made a tour of the Sea of Azoff. Not one place escaped him or his able lieutenants, Sherard Osborn, Cowper Coles, Horton, Hewett, M'Killop, and his French coadjutors. The Russians lost not only the command of this sea, but masses of corn, forage, fish, and marine stores, and ships which it is impossible to estimate. Hewett and Lambert effectually destroyed all the means of connecting the spit of Arabat with the Crimea; and, after Captain Lyons had left, to meet an untimely death before Sebastopol, Sherard Osborn kept the sea, and left the enemy not a moment's rest. But ere this the French and British troops, leaving the Turks to hold a fortified camp at Yenikale, had returned to the camp at Sebastopol.

The losses inflicted by the flying squadron were not the only losses sustained by the enemy. When he quitted Kertch on the 24th of May, he destroyed himself 4,166,000 pounds of corn, and 508,000 pounds of flour; and it was estimated that this, with the quantity destroyed in the Sea of Azoff, would have furnished four months' rations for 100,000 men. The amount of supplies drawn from Kertch is shown by the fact that just before the Allies landed, the Russians had been sending off daily convoys of 1,500 waggons, each containing half a ton weight of grain or flour. Besides this, the fortress of Anapa, on the appearance of an allied fleet, was blown up by the garrison, and 245 guns rendered useless thereby. The garrison retired across the Kuban River, abandoning the last post held by them in that part of Circassia. Thus the expedition to Kertch and the Sea of Azoff surpassed in its effects the most sanguine expectations of its designers, and struck a severe blow at the vitals of the Russian army.

Once more the tide of war carries us back to the trenches before Sebastopol. General Pélissier had, on taking command, accepted Lord Raglan's proposals for carrying on the siege by vigorous and direct attacks. The two officers being of one mind, and recognising the Malakoff as the true key of the place, determined, in council by themselves, that the Russians should be immediately deprived of their counter-approaches, and forced back into the body of their works. They agreed that on one and the same day, by simultaneous assault, the Quarries under the Redan, the Mamelon in front of the Malakoff, and the White Works above the Careening Bay, should be wrested from the enemy. This comprehensive operation was a necessity, for these three works supported each other. The Mamelon flanked, and was flanked by, the other two, and hence all three had to be taken together. Having determined to take them, they requested their generals to submit plans for the execution of their resolve. Accordingly, a council of war was held for this purpose. There were still in the French camp officers who were strongly in favour of operations in the field, and as strongly opposed to an assault, even of the outworks. The chief of these were Niel, Bosquet, and Martimprey, all able men. But at the council, when Pélissier announced the decision of the generals, and named the day for the assault, and General Bosquet ventured to dissent, the Commander-in-Chief stopped him with the peremptory statement that the attack was "decided." The French generals had no choice but to obey.

The main points being settled, the work of preparation finished, the magazines well filled, the troops all eager, orders went forth that the bombardment should begin on the morning of the 6th of June, and should continue four-and-twenty hours, and that then the works should be carried by storm. By dint of great exertions, and drawing from our large resources, we were able to put in battery 157 pieces of ordnance. All the lighter pieces, the siege guns of an older period, the famous 24-pounders of the early years of the century, were withdrawn. The 32-pounder was the lightest gun in the trenches. So heavy an armament had never before been arrayed at any siege. There were in battery no fewer than twenty-seven 13-inch, seventeen 10-inch mortars, and forty-nine 32-pounders. The remainder were 68-pounders, and 10-inch and 8-inch guns. The French batteries, were armed with 300 pieces, but the bulk of these were opposed to the western face of the town, and, for some unexplained reason, did not maintain a fire equal in intensity to those on the east front. According to the plan laid down, our left attack, while pouring a torrent of missiles into the Redan, was also to keep up a combat with the Barrack and Garden Batteries, in which they were to be supported by the French on their left. Our right attack was to devote nearly the whole of its might upon the Mamelon and Malakoff, in aid of the direct fire of the French, and these latter were to pound at the White Works, as well as the Malakoff and Mamelon. Thus it will be seen that the fire of at least a hundred and fifty guns and mortars was to be concentrated on these works.

The 6th of June was a clear, sunny day, and the mighty lines of the enemy stood out in bold relief against the western sky. About half-past two in the afternoon, at a given signal, the allied batteries opened all at once, with a roar that rent the air and shook the earth. In two hours the effects of the ceaseless shower of shot and shell upon the Malakoff and Mamelon were visible to practised eyes; and the comparatively rare responses made by the enemy showed that his guns had suffered as well as his earthen parapets. From that time until nightfall, the complete superiority of the allied fire was secured; but as the French on the left fired feebly, the Barrack and Garden Batteries, and some of the guns in the Redan, stoutly maintained the combat with our left attack. When darkness set in, the firing did not cease; for the huge shells from our big mortars rushed upward all night, and fell crashing and exploding within the enemy's works. At daybreak on the 7th the smoke and the mists of the morning hung over the hills and ravines. The growing light showed that, although the enemy had worked hard in repairing damages, yet the outlines of the great entrenchments were less shapely and trim than heretofore. Once more the batteries on both sides put forth their might, and the deafening roar was renewed. The enemy showed some vigour at first, but the Malakoff and Mamelon were soon forced to succumb. It was plain, however, to all eyes and ears that, on the vital points, the enemy was the weaker, and that the attack had got the mastery over the defence. Late in the afternoon, and for an hour or two preceding the assault, the fire of our guns became quicker than ever. The men in the batteries put forth their whole energies, and for an hour before the assault the cannonade was fiercer and more deadly than at any preceding period.

The British had told off about 3,200 men of the Light and 2nd Divisions to carry the Quarries. Two small columns, each 200 strong, were to turn the flanks of the work, and then advancing towards the Redan, lie down, and cover by their fire a working party, 800 strong, whose duty it was to turn the face of the work towards the Redan. About 1,000 men were held in support in the trenches, and two battalions were posted in the Woronzoff Road to cover the flank of both our attacks. The French, having a more serious operation, and being more accustomed to act in masses, detailed about 28,000 men for the two assaults. General Mayran had the direction of the operations against the White Works--redoubts on the Careening Ridge, one more advanced than the other, and standing between the Great Harbour and the Careening Ravine. Two of his brigades--the right under De Lavarande, the left under De Failly--were to storm the redoubts, while General Dulac held an entire division in reserve to support both; and besides these, there were two battalions in the Careening Ravine, intended to push down it, and cut off the retreat of the enemy. General Camou was entrusted with the attack on the Mamelon. One brigade, under Wimpfen, was to carry that work; while another brigade and an entire division were drawn up in the middle ravine between the French left and our right. Behind them were two battalions of the Imperial Guard, and in rear of all, near the Inkermann battle-field, was a complete division of Turks. The whole operation was under the control of Bosquet, who proved himself quite equal to the occasion. The fire of the allied batteries was at its height when three rockets fired from the Victoria Redoubt, at 6.45 p.m., let loose the excited soldiers, who dashed at once upon the enemy.

The brigades on the extreme right went up to the White Works at a run, Lavarande's men first storming the redoubt on the right at the point of the bayonet, and De Failly rushing past this work, and being equally successful in carrying its counterpart; while the battalions in the ravine marched down it, and swept up a number of the flying garrison. Led away by a furious impulse, the troops even entered a third work, just above the Careening Bay, but this they could not hold. The other two redoubts, however, were firmly grasped and held in spite of the fire of the batteries on the north.

At the same time Wimpfen's brigade issued from the trenches in three columns, and went impetuously up the slope of the Mamelon, led by Colonel Brancion, of the 50th Regiment of the line. On his left were the 3rd Zouaves, on his right Algerian Native Light Infantry. Soon they were at the ditch, firing into the embrasures, and receiving from the parapets a telling fire. Then the 50th dashed into the ditch, and began to scramble up the slope of the work, and Zouave and Algerine closed bodily with it. In a few moments the redoubt was full of Frenchmen. They had won the victory with such comparative ease that their passions got the better of their judgment. Disobeying all orders, the Zouaves and Algerines pursued the Russians towards the Malakoff, into which our batteries were now pouring a terrible fire. It was an unhappy move; for the enemy immediately lined his parapets and brought his guns to bear, and the Zouaves, although they stood well and fought well, and although they were aided by shells pitched into the Malakoff from our batteries, yet they only stood to be slain. In the meantime, alarmed by some appearances indicating a mine, the troops holding the Mamelon all ran out, and the Zouaves and Algerines, returning from their mad rush on the Malakoff, pursued by a heavy and angry column of Russians, found the Mamelon empty. Shattered as they were, they could not hold it, and thus the enemy burst in triumph into his stronghold once more. It was an anxious moment, but General Bosquet was prompt in supplying a remedy. Throwing forward a fresh brigade, and giving it ample support, these new troops, rallying hundreds who had fled in terror at the idea of a mine, went steadily up to the work. There was a brief combat, and rattling volleys; but, overpowered, the enemy sullenly yielded possession and retired back into the town, this time unpursued. Thus the French stormed, and lost, and regained the famous Mamelon.

Soon after the first advance on the Mamelon, Colonel Shirley, obeying a signal from Lord Raglan, launched his little band against the Quarries. The men of the Light and 2nd Divisions carried the work and its outlying trenches without firing a shot, and then advancing, began to ply their rifles against the gunners of the Redan. Anticipating an assault, the enemy had filled this work with troops, and a horrible carnage was the consequence. Either to escape this fire or to succour the Malakoff, for a time the garrison of the Redan ran out of that work, and some British soldiers actually went up and peered into it, and saw it was empty. But when night came, the Russians returned to the Redan, and six times during the night they strove to expel the little band of Britishers who occupied the Quarries, and at one time, by turning the left flank, they succeeded for a brief space; then, with a rolling cheer, our soldiers went at them with the bayonet, and regained and held the lines, which were at once turned into a new parallel, and the site of a new and most formidable battery.

After the success of the 7th of June the question immediately arose--should that success be pushed, and should the whole place be at once assailed on all sides? To answer this question there was a council of war. It should always be remembered that the British played a very subordinate part in the siege of Sebastopol. They had reaped their glory at the Alma and at Inkermann. They had soon lost that equality in point of numbers with which they began the war, and the views of Lord Raglan could now only prevail by dint of their comparative sagacity. He had, of course, a certain authority as the representative of Britain; but it was one of the penalties we paid for making war side by side with France, that he should often have to succumb, and that in place of one plan or another a medium course should be struck out and acted on. Whatever we did in the siege was purely secondary after Inkermann. Our batteries, indeed, were very formidable, and paved the way for the French successes against the Mamelon and finally against the Malakoff; but our troops were so placed by the stress of circumstances, that it was impossible for them to perform any striking action. It would appear that Lord Raglan's plan of taking Sebastopol would have been to follow up a heavy fire by, if need be, repeated assaults at all points--some by way of diversion, to keep a large force of the enemy occupied, others driven home with the view of carrying the place. So that it is not surprising he should have wished to continue the bombardment on the 8th, and then assault at the moment when the enemy's batteries were at the lowest ebb of their power. But to this the French would not agree. They wanted more time to build more batteries, to push approaches nearer; and as they furnished the large assaulting columns on the vital point, Lord Raglan had no choice but to acquiesce. He knew that he could not take the place. He knew, and all knew, that if the Redan were captured, it could not be held so long as the Malakoff was in the hands of the Russians. Therefore he was obviously bound to assent when General Pélissier proposed to defer the assault until the Mamelon and White Works were armed, and a battery established in the Quarries.

The French and British at once began to strengthen and arm their acquisitions, and to sap onward towards the enemy's lines. But this caused great losses day by day. Mortars from behind the Malakoff threw shells into the Mamelon, mortars from the Redan threw shells into the Quarries; guns and mortars from the north side threw their missiles into the White Works. On the left the French did little more to aid the siege. There was mining and counter-mining in plenty in front of the Flagstaff, and some new batteries were constructed and armed on the extreme left; but they did not now push the attack as they had done before. They had come at last to recognise the Malakoff as the true point of attack, and against this they turned all their energies. They worked out above a hundred and fifty yards from the Mamelon, formed a large sheltered place in which to assemble troops, and covered the front with a curving line of parapet. The British built up and armed a six-gun battery in the Quarries, which looked into the enemy's communications behind the Malakoff, and was destined to play an important part; and they also increased the armament in the two attacks until the 13-inch mortars alone amounted to thirty.

The Russians were not a whit less active. Their energies also were bent upon making more complete the formidable defences of the Malakoff. They were especially careful to close the gaps on its proper left towards the Careening Bay, to open new batteries sweeping the ground at the head of that bay, and to construct interior retrenchments and flanking batteries. Their line of works, beginning from the South Harbour and extending to the Great Harbour, was broken only at one point. About a quarter of a mile to the proper left of the Redan, the Karabelnaia, or Middle Ravine--that which ran between the British right attack and the French Malakoff attack--broke the line of the Russian works. On the opposite bank of the ravine, the outer defences of the Malakoff Redoubt began with a work called the Gervais Battery, connected by a curtain with the Malakoff. But in rear of this, as well as in rear of the Little Redan on the proper left of the Malakoff, and in rear of the connecting curtains, the enemy had thrown up retrenchments. In short, General Todleben developed his plan of defence to meet the plan of attack, and as he had plenty of men, and a boundless supply of guns and material, he could execute all his admirable designs. He was a worthy foe.

As usual, the plan of attack was debated at headquarters when it had been decided by superior generals that the guns should open on the 17th, and that the assault should take place the next day. How should this be carried out? It was arranged that the French on the west face of the town should attack its salient defences, the Flagstaff, Central, and Quarantine Bastions, in three columns, under General de Salles; and it was anticipated that if these attacks did not succeed, they would keep many thousands of the enemy employed, and might, if occasion offered, be converted into real attacks, pushed home. The British were to send a brigade down the South Ravine, to seize the cemetery lying at the bottom of its basin, and, in conjunction with a French force, threaten the enemy in that quarter. The main British assaults were to be made on the Redan. If the Redan was carried, then the column in the South Ravine was to climb up to the Barrack Battery, and join the Redan column in the rear. The French were to attack in three columns on the extreme right. One was to follow the Careening Ravine, and storm the Little Redan; a second was to rush upon the proper left of the Malakoff; while a third, issuing from the Middle Ravine, carried the Gervais Battery, and worked round thence to the rear of the Malakoff. The fleet was to send in steamers on the nights preceding the assault, to keep the enemy on the alert in his sea batteries. Immense reserves were to be provided along the whole line. Such was the original plan. It was settled on the 16th, but in the afternoon General Pélissier desired to make an important modification. General de Salles urged that, as the attacks on the left could not succeed, they had better not take place; and General Pélissier, much to the discontent of Lord Raglan, notified that this change had been made. Lord Raglan did not press his objections, and thus the French were merely to "demonstrate" on the left front. No other change was made, except that Lord Raglan decided to send a third column against the Redan, having for its object the salient angle of that work. Finally it was decided that the British should not attack until the French were in possession of the Malakoff. The reason for this was that the guns on the right face of the Malakoff commanded the Redan and the road to the Redan. The whole of the 1st British Division was brought up from Balaclava. The Imperial Guard was marched up to the open ground at the head of the Malakoff Ridge; and 10,000 Turks were posted on the field of Inkermann. There were in the British batteries 166 pieces of ordnance, and nearly 300 in the French.

The bombardment opened at daylight on the 17th with great effect. The Malakoff and the Redan were the objects of our gunners, and the torrent of shot and shell poured into these works had, by nine o'clock, reduced the fire of the Malakoff to an occasional gun. Throughout the day it was the same. The Redan, although it soon ceased to fire with any vigour, flung shells from small mortars with low charges into the Quarries. The Barrack and Garden Batteries were, as usual, conspicuous for their vivacity. But the fire of the Allies completely overpowered that of the eastern front. Its severity may be estimated by the fact that the ammunition consumed in the British batteries alone on the 17th and 18th was 22,684 projectiles, including 2,286 13-inch shells. It must have been nearly impossible for the Russians to work their guns, and quite impossible to work them without awful loss. When the sun went down on the 17th the mortars continued to hurl forth their monstrous missiles; and three or four of the steamers standing in opened a fire of shot, shell, and rockets on the town. It was on one of these occasions that Captain Lyons, fresh from his triumphs in the Sea of Azoff, was struck in the leg by a fragment of shell. The wound proved mortal, and death deprived the British navy of one of its most promising officers.

From the comparative silence of the Russian batteries, Lord Raglan and General Pélissier inferred that the enemy was at the end of his resources. They hoped that at length he had exhausted his stores of artillery. It was a vain delusion. In spite of the bombardment, which went on all night, the enemy managed to replace the pieces in his batteries, and at dawn, as will be seen, he was ready to begin anew. This advantage, indeed, might have been counteracted had the Allies remained faithful to their original plan. There was, in the French camp, a sort of passion for an assault at the very first flush of the dawn. Their officers, Pélissier excepted, had urged that the attack on the Mamelon should be given at daybreak. They were overruled. Now they came to the charge afresh. The whole scheme of the assault rested on the basis that the fire of the enemy had been crushed. To make sure, however, it was originally planned that the assault should be preceded by a three hours' violent cannonade. This would have searched every part of the enemy's works, and prevented him from massing his troops in them in large numbers. On this basis all the orders were given.

Literally at the eleventh hour, the French changed the whole plan. On the evening of the 17th, when all orders had been issued, General Pélissier informed Lord Raglan that his officers declared they could not place their infantry in the trenches without their being seen by the enemy, and that consequently he desired the time of the assault to be altered and fixed for daybreak. Lord Raglan was justly much annoyed, but he yielded. It was a fatal concession. But how could he oppose a colleague who commanded a force nearly double that under Lord Raglan's orders? Therefore, a few hours before the assault was to take place, the old orders were revoked, and fresh orders were issued. This occupied the British commander nearly all night, and left him but one hour for repose.

Throughout the night the troops appointed to storm and support the stormers and the reserves were moving to their appointed places. Down into the British trenches went the men of the Light 2nd and 4th Divisions, under Sir John Campbell, Colonel Lacy Yea, and Colonel Shadforth; while Eyre's Brigade of the 3rd Division moved deep into the South Ravine, and Barnard's Brigade of the same division was placed higher up in support. The right column was to attack the left face of the Redan, the left column the right face. If these succeeded, then the centre column was to charge in at the salient. Eyre was to move towards the works at the end of the South Ravine. The French, in addition to the ordinary guards, marched three entire divisions, about 16,000 men, into their trenches, and placed in reserve a part of the division of the Imperial Guard, bringing the force up to about 24,000 men. The right division, under the orders of General Mayran, marched into the Careening Ravine; the centre, under General Brunet, had one brigade in front of the right of the Mamelon, the other in the trenches behind; the left, under General d'Autemarre, placed one brigade on the left front of the Mamelon, the other in the trenches in the rear. The trenches and the ravines were choked up with troops, all silent and crouching in the dark. Some were sitting under the parapets, others lying flat in the ravines. But there was also a good deal of movement, for the troops had to be placed so that they could most easily and with slightest disorder move swiftly out of the trenches. Seen from the higher ground in the rear, the soldiers are said to have looked, in the deep obscurity, like the people of a world of shadows.

The allied generals had intended to surprise the place; to break into it when its defenders were the least prepared. Some suppose that the enemy was forewarned by spies and deserters of the coming assault, for, far from being taken unawares, the Russians were as much on the alert as the Allies. Behind those dark and silent entrenchments there were thousands of soldiers under arms, and waiting in silence to do their duty at the first tap of the drum or bray of the trumpet. It needed not spies or deserters to forewarn them. The custom of armies when near each other is to parade before break of day, and this is not less the custom of garrisons when besieged, or of an army, like that in Sebastopol, defending a mighty entrenched camp. So it was on the 18th. Behind the huge Malakoff and the Great Redan, in rear of the connecting parapets, and in the houses of the suburb, lay 16,000 men ready to clutch their arms and fall on. In front of the works were watchful sentries, and in the works the gunners stood by their pieces, prompt to fire. The steamers in the harbour, sheltered under the cliffs, had their fires lighted and their steam up, and were prepared to throw shell, and grape, and canister on the assaulting columns. But had Lord Raglan's plan of a three hours' bombardment been carried out, the fire could not have failed to disarrange the plan of defence, the chances of surprising the defenders would have been great, and the assailants, moving upon what they could see, would have stormed with greater unity and greater confidence.

It was still dark. General Regnault de Saint Jean d'Angely, with the Imperial Guard, was in the Lancaster Battery. Lord Raglan was at his post, watching for the signal. The unemployed spectators, officers and amateurs, were on the hills in groups here and there. General Pélissier was still on his way, and upwards of half a mile from his post. Hope, nay, confidence reigned in every breast. The British were cool, ready, and quiet. The French, to use their own expression, were quivering with eagerness, but their centre columns were not yet placed.

Suddenly, none knew why, flashes of fire, followed by a sullen uproar, were seen and heard on the extreme right. The flashes grew brighter and more frequent, the noise of exploding gunpowder grew louder. The roar of big guns rose above the crash of musketry, and the roll of drums and shrill notes of trumpets were heard in the transitory lulls of the larger tumult. What had happened? No signal rockets had climbed upwards from the Lancaster Battery to break into a bouquet of coloured fires. General Pélissier, hurrying through the dark over the plateau, was perplexed and furious. Still the combat raged about the head of the Careening Bay, and the fire of the place grew fiercer and more sustained. Ten minutes elapsed--minutes that seemed weeks to the wondering spectators. The French general entered the battery in a fury; demanding sharply who had given the signal, his wrath changed into astonishment when he was told no signal had been given, and his astonishment into vexation when he learned that General Mayran had mistaken a military rocket, fired from the Mamelon, for the signal to assault! The unity and suddenness of the assault were thus destroyed; but General Pélissier, without hesitation, ordered the rockets to be fired, and, at seven minutes past three, the clustering stars of fire hung for a moment up in the black sky, and then paled and vanished. The French troops dashed out in the gloom to the assault.

A fatal accident had precipitated the conflict. General Mayran had been up all night engaged in disposing himself the division he commanded. He had them all in hand in the Careening Ravine, and he was eager, he was impatient for the fray. In this frame of mind he was disposed to take every rocket fired from the Mamelon for the signal agreed on; and when, a little before three, one of these blazing missiles writhed and bounded through the air towards the Russian lines, he called out, "That is the signal." The rash step was taken; his division was ordered to move. With the first brigade Mayran went himself; the second was commanded by De Failly. But the troops no sooner rushed out than they were smitten by a heavy fire. The leading soldiers, after the fashion of their countrymen, began to fire on the retreating Russian outposts, and the flash and the sound guided the Russian artillery in training their guns. Then it was still dark, and the troops were unable to see the nature of the ground. Instead of following the left bank of the Careening Bay, and striving to turn the line of entrenchments, they went full in the teeth of a battery. The steamers came up to the mouth of the bay, and, at short range, poured in showers of grape and shell. So that this unhappy column, struggling in the obscurity over rough ground, was torn through and through by the iron sleet hurled at it in front and flank. Mayran was soon among the wounded, but he would neither retire nor give up the command. Another grapeshot striking him in the body, he was carried off mortally wounded; and part of his troops, after a vain but gallant stand, hurried back into the Careening Ravine, shattered and disorganised. But De Failly, bringing up the reserve, rallied them in a hollow, and held his ground.

In the meantime, at the signal from the Lancaster Battery, D'Autemarre and Brunet gave the word to advance. Brunet's men were not in order; and in disorder, and as they could, they scrambled into the open. The disorder was increased when a shot struck and killed the general as he quitted the trenches. General Lafont de Villiers took command. Part of the division went towards the Malakoff, under Colonel Lorencez, while the rest were held in hand to meet the exigencies of the moment. The men engaged, like those on the right, were exposed to a crushing fire, and could make no way, but they would not retreat. The attack on the right had, by this time, utterly failed. The attack on the centre made no progress. The left attack was more fortunate. D'Autemarre, on spying the signal, sent forward two battalions, one of rifles, the other of the line. Day had dawned, and the twilight revealed the column to the enemy, but it also allowed the troops to see where they were going. With steady tread in the face of a searching fire, D'Autemarre's men pressed along the ridge, on the right of the Middle Ravine; Garnier, the commander of the rifles, kept his men together and prevented them from firing; and thus they arrived at the ditch of the Gervais Battery, on the proper right of the Malakoff, all together. In a moment they were seen scrambling over the parapet, and then firing their rifles, point blank, they went in with the bayonet. The strife was close, but the French prevailed; and the 19th Line regiment coming up, the two battalions were actually established within the enemy's lines, among the ruins of houses, and under the mighty Malakoff. The column on the right had by this time been reinforced by part of the Guard, chiefly for the purpose of securing it from attack, but also to have a body of men ready to take advantage of any opportunity. The head of Brunet's column was under the Malakoff, exchanging volleys with the enemy's troops, who fired exultingly from their parapets. D'Autemarre's two battalions, as we have said, were inside the Russian lines, and their gallant leaders, Garnier and Manèque, both wounded, had sent officer after officer to the rear begging for reinforcements. Ten minutes had slipped away since Pélissier gave the signal, and such was the condition of the combat.

Lord Raglan had been a spectator of this engagement in the grey dawn. He had seen and heard the false movement of Mayran; he had watched the confused march of Brunet's troops; he had seen dimly the soldiers of D'Autemarre storm the Gervais Battery. The French had not succeeded; but the British commander, admiring their showy bravery, and feeling that he ought to risk something to aid them, directed Sir George Brown to order the assault on the Redan. Alas! here, too, the enemy were prepared. They had a mass of infantry in the Redan; its guns, loaded with grape, were ready to belch it forth; and between the stormers and their object there was the abattis with its strong woodwork and deep ditch. The British columns were small--400 men in each. They were covered by a scattering of riflemen, and with them were to march a party of sailors under William Peel, carrying ladders, a party of soldiers with sacks of wool, and a party of artillerymen to spike the guns of the Redan. When the signal was given, all these gallant men climbed over the parapets and alighted in the open. Then the guns of the Redan opened with energy and effect. The rifles, in open order, gained the abattis, and began to fire on the enemy's gunners. Parts of the two columns of attack struggled in utter disorder up to the same place. But the sailors under Peel were so cut up that only one ladder was borne to the abattis, and Peel was wounded. It was in striving to make the men in the right column form, and in leading them on by voice and gesture, that the brave Lacy Yea met his death. He was struck by grape, and almost instantly died. On the left, Colonel Shadforth was slain as soon as he had left the trenches; and Sir John Campbell, leaping over the parapet, went at once to head the column, and carried them up to the abattis. But there, cheering his soldiers, Campbell was also shot dead. Indeed, the storm of grapeshot strewed the ground with red coats and bluejackets. Lord West and Colonel Lysons found it a vain sacrifice to keep the men under that awful fire, to which musketry was now added from the parapets of the Redan; and accordingly, the remains of the devoted stormers were hurried back into the trenches.

The French attack had failed also. Seeing Brunet's men exposed to a fire of small arms from the parapets of the Malakoff, Colonel Dickson endeavoured to drive the Russians down by shells. But they did not appear to feel these missiles, and Dickson changing to round shot, soon cleared the parapet. D'Autemarre's two battalions held the Gervais Battery for more than half an hour. Their brave commanders, grim and blood-stained, looked eagerly, but in vain, for the reinforcements they had demanded. And as these did not arrive, these two heroic soldiers were forced to withdraw. When the French quitted the Russian entrenchments, the Russian infantry followed. The French halted in a depression of the ground, and as part of their reinforcements had now come up, they turned with the bayonet upon their pursuers and forced them back into the work. Other battalions coming up, these men held fast, and General Pélissier, unwilling to throw a chance away, ordered up the Zouaves of the Guard, and had a momentary thought of making a fresh attack; but receiving unfavourable reports, he halted the Guard, and recalled all the troops. The attack was at an end, and once more the dogged tenacity of the Russian peasant had won the day.

But while Pélissier was thinking of renewing the assault, he sent General Rose with a message to Lord Raglan, saying that he hoped Raglan would agree to a fresh onslaught. At the same time Lord Raglan, seeing how completely our fire had mastered that of the place, ordered Sir George Brown to bring up the supports, and prepare for another assault. He then sent Commander Vico, the French officer at the British headquarters, to inform General Pélissier of the steps he had taken, and to propose that another attempt should be made after the bombardment had continued a few hours longer. Lord Raglan thought that in this way the enemy might be surprised, and the place be won. The two messengers met each other in the trenches, and thus the messages crossed each other. Lord Raglan, therefore, determined to see Pélissier himself. Reaching the Lancaster Battery shortly after seven o'clock, Lord Raglan found the French general ready to fall in with his views. But while they were discussing the details, General D'Autemarre, now senior officer in the French trenches, sent word that the French troops had lost so many men and were so discouraged, that he feared it would be impossible to assault again. It was, therefore, decided that no fresh assault should be made; the troops were withdrawn; and the batteries slackened fire.

We have now to narrate a remarkable episode in the incidents of the morning. It will be remembered that General Eyre was to make a demonstration in the South Ravine. A French force was to aid him by covering his left flank. Their first object was to capture two rifle-pits. The French took one, and our volunteers the other, with ease. Then the French halted, the officer in command having no warrant to go farther. General Eyre, however, exceeding, or rather straining, his instructions, did go farther, and a handful of French breaking from restraint kept pace with him. In the ravine, just before it is joined by the Woronzoff Ravine on the right, there was a cemetery where the Russians had a post. This was carried by our troops, after a very slight resistance; and, not content with this success, they pushed still farther. There were clusters of houses under the cliffs on both sides of the broad basin formed by the juncture of the two ravines. Into these the enemy retired, and General Eyre deeming it desirable to occupy as forward a position as possible, drove the Russians out of the houses, and held them as well as the Cemetery. The troops were now under the Garden Batteries on the one side, and the Barrack Batteries on the other; and before them was the battery at the head of the South Ravine, called the Creek Battery. They were thus exposed to fire on three sides. Nevertheless they still made progress, driving the enemy out of the houses and up the sides of the ravine. Some of them ascended the steep, a few looked into the works in rear of the Flagstaff Bastion, others climbed the opposite side and got shelter at a point commanding the Creek Battery. Thus they were ready, if fortune favoured the assaults on the Redan and Malakoff, to sweep either into the town or make way through the Barrack Battery to the Redan. But the Russians had no sooner fled from the ravine into the place, than the batteries opened on our daring soldiers. Nevertheless here they remained all day, offering to the French in the right of their left attack a splendid spectacle of hardihood. General Eyre was wounded early in the day; but he did not give up the command of his men until five in the afternoon. About nine in the morning he had heard of the failure of the grand assault. Requesting instructions from Lord Raglan, he was told that the French would send a force to relieve him, and hold part of the ground he had won; but that if at nightfall the French had not arrived, then he was to evacuate the ravine. The French did not come; and this noble brigade, bringing with them nearly all their wounded, and these were many, regained the trenches at nightfall. The Cemetery, however, remained in our possession.

The losses of both sides were very great. Of the British there were 22 officers killed and 78 wounded; 244 men killed and 1,209 wounded. The French lost 33 officers killed, 257 were wounded, and 21 were missing. They also lost 1,340 men killed, 1,520 wounded, and 390 missing. The wounded men thus exceeded the dead by 180 only--an unusual proportion. The totals stand--for the British, 1,553; for the French, 3,561 killed, wounded, and missing. The Russian loss, as usual, it is difficult to ascertain. Prince Gortschakoff's published despatch fixes the losses during the 17th and 18th at 16 officers killed and 153 wounded; 781 men killed and 4,826 wounded; giving a total of 5,776 as the amount of the Russian loss from the bombardment and the combat. The Allied losses on the 18th were 5,106. On the 17th, 37 men were killed or wounded in the British trenches. As the French placed more men in their batteries and parallels than we did, they may have lost 100. Adding 137 to the total of the Allied loss in the two days, it still falls short of the loss of the enemy by 533 men. The errors of the day were the fatal change which dispensed with the bombardment; the refusal of the French to assault on the left; the mistake of Mayran, and the consequent failure in the unity of the assault. To these it may be added, that the British assaulting columns, except that led by Eyre, were all too weak, and would probably have failed against the Redan, even had the French succeeded against the Malakoff. And, reviewing the whole operation carefully, there is some ground for the inference, that, although a preliminary bombardment would have given a chance of success, yet, at this stage, it is probable that failure would have been equally the result, because the distance which the stormers and supporters had to traverse to reach the enemy was so great, and also because the spirit of that enemy was still too high, and his losses, immense though they were, not enough to warrant that profound discouragement which precedes the final efforts of a desperate cause.

And now a severe misfortune was impending over the British army. It was about to lose its beloved Commander-in-Chief. On the 23rd, Colonel Calthorpe from headquarters wrote to his friends in England that every one was more or less out of spirits. "Lord Raglan is, perhaps, the most cheerful of any one, considering how much he has had lately to worry and annoy him. But at the same time, I fear that it [the failure of the 18th] has affected his health. He looks far from well, and has grown very much aged latterly." He fell ill seriously on the 26th, but no one, not even the doctors, thought that he was sick unto death. He grew no better, but he slept well, watched over by his staff and Dr. Prendergast. On the 28th he seemed so much better to some of the medical men that they were about to quiet the anxiety in England by sending a message to that effect by telegraph; but Dr. Prendergast was doubtful, and a dubious message was sent. In the afternoon the Field Marshal became visibly worse, but it was not supposed that death was so near him. At four o'clock the truth burst upon all--he was dying. His staff, his nephew, Colonel Somerset, General Simpson, General Airey, and Colonel Lord George Paget gathered round his bed, and the principal chaplain came, and read and prayed. Gradually, quietly, in a holy calm, that noble spirit ebbed away, so peacefully that it was scarcely possible to tell the moment when he ceased to be. At five-and-twenty minutes to nine in the evening of the 28th of June, an end had come to the earthly career of the British Commander-in-Chief. He died in his bed, but he died, like a knight of old, with his harness on. His remains were conveyed to England in the Caradoc. She arrived at Bristol on the 24th of July, and landed her sad burden, which was conveyed through a town in mourning to Badminton; and there, on the 26th, in a quiet village church, surrounded by a group of living comrades, who had fought beside him under the Great Duke more than half a century before, the remains of Lord Raglan, a fine man but second-rate soldier, found their last resting-place.

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VIII. THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (continued)

Changes in the Allied Camp--Advance upon the Malakoff and Redan--Attempt to raise the Siege--Prince Gortschakoff determines to Attack--The Allied Camp on the Tchernaya--Gortschakoff's Reinforcements--The Russian Plan--The Allies partially surprised--Read's Precipitation--Check of the Russian Attack--The French Counter-stroke--Gortschakoff changes his Front--A last Effort--The Battle is won--Allied Losses--Progress of the Siege--The French sap towards the Malakoff--The British Bombardment--The Covering Army--The Allies on the alert--Combats before the Malakoff--The Crisis arrives--Gortschakoff secures his Retreat--Council of September 3rd--Plan of Attack--The Last Bombardment--The Hour of Attack--Disposition of the Allied Troops--The Russians--The Signal--Assault of the Malakoff--Description of the Works--MacMahon and Vinoy--Failures upon the Curtain and Little Redan--MacMahon is Impregnable--Failure to take the Redan--Evening--Gortschakoff's Retreat--End of the Siege.

General James Simpson succeeded to the command of the British army, and General Barnard became Chief of the Staff. Captain Keppel succeeded Captain, now Admiral, Sir Stephen Lushington in the command of the Naval Brigade. Sickness also drove home Sir Richard England, and Sir William Eyre took the 3rd Division. Lieutenant-General Markham, coming from India (there was a clamour for the appointment of Indian officers), succeeded to the 2nd Division, and Sir William Codrington to the Light Division. In the French camp there had been some changes. General Canrobert was recalled to France. General Bosquet reassumed the command of the French troops on the right, and General Herbillon, as senior officer present there, commanded the French on the Tchernaya.

The great object of the Allies was now to press as closely as possible to the body of the place. The French had begun to see distinctly that the Malakoff was the key of the whole defences on the eastern side, and that, with the fall of that redoubt, the town and the western side would be untenable. Accordingly, they continued with vigour the works of approach begun after the capture of the Mamelon. They descended the eastern slope of this hillock, burrowing in the ground where the soil was soft, planting gabions and piling up sand-bags, and using blasting powder where it was hard and rocky. Day after day the space between the Mamelon and Malakoff showed signs of their labours; the works on the Careening Ridge were extended and strengthened; and the whole front protected by being tied together by a connecting parallel. But the loss of men was very great. The fire of guns and mortars, although not heavy, was constant, and the shells, flung with low charges from a short distance, burst in the parallels and batteries, and among the working parties, with destructive effect. The labour required was prodigious; for every approach had to be protected by traverses from an enfilading fire. The watchful eyes of Todleben were never turned from the works of the Allies, and as fast as they projected a new approach, he found means of taking it in flank or raking it from his side. Unseen mortars, far in the rear, sent their shells into the Allied works. The steamers were still active, and, although they were frequently fired at, yet they were rarely, if ever, hit. Then the fire of musketry was incessant, and so from shell, and shot, and bullet the soldiers in the trenches lost numbers night and day. The British were quite unable to work the rocky soil in front of the Quarries. They pushed out but a little way under an irregular but searching fire of shells, flung in clusters of eight or ten and sometimes twelve at a time. The engineers were chiefly engaged in enlarging and strengthening the works, and in placing a still heavier armament in the batteries. The British loss was also very large--between thirty and forty men per diem were put hors de combat.

So, through the month of July and the beginning of August, these deadly labours were continued, and the Allies crept nearer and nearer to the Malakoff and the Redans, and to the ramparts on the western face. In the meantime came reports that the Russian Government, determined to strike one blow for victory, had directed several divisions from Poland towards the Crimea. These reports were true. An effort was about to be made to raise the siege. As no attack could be made from the head of the harbour, it was plain that the covering army would be assailed from the Heights of Mackenzie and the Valley of Chouliou; wherefore the Sardinian infantry from Tchorgoun made several excursions into the hilly region to the north-east, yet they found no enemy. The Turks also entered the mountains, and the French cavalry in the Baidar Valley kept an eye on all the rugged passes leading into that fertile spot. They found no enemies in force, and they obtained from the valley a boundless supply of forage. But in the beginning of August it was observed that the Russians were constructing new works on the road from the Tchernaya to the Heights of Mackenzie, at points whence they could fire into the front and flanks of an advancing column. Clusters of Cossacks came down more frequently to the brow of the hills, gazed curiously into the valley, and sometimes skirmished with the French outposts. Small parties of the same useful troops hung about the French cavalry camps in the Baidar Valley, and one or two were caught by the active Chasseurs d'Afrique. From the end of the first week in August the Allies were on the look-out for an assault in force upon the Tchernaya.

It was the fact that Prince Gortschakoff, having received large reinforcements, in obedience to orders from St. Petersburg--for the Emperor on the Neva, like the Emperor on the Seine, interfered in the conduct of the war--proposed to assail the Allies. He was painfully aware of the strength of their position. He knew the ground. It had long been visible to him throughout its whole extent. He could see the Sardinian entrenchments from the heights above Tchorgoun, and his very batteries could almost reach the French camps from the heights of Inkermann. He had two batteries, called by the French Gringalet and Bilboquet, upon these heights, whose missiles amused the French outposts, and sometimes annoyed them, but seldom did any harm. Knowing the ground well, and the strength of the force holding it, he designed a clever plan of attack, based on that knowledge, but depending entirely for success upon a surprise, followed by rapid movements urged on without hesitation.

The French were encamped on the crown of the Fedoukine hills. Their outposts on the left, or western side, were on the banks of the Tchernaya, and they held an angular entrenchment or redan on the right bank, to defend the access to the bridge. The valley in front of the French camps, looking north, was a meadowy plain, through which ran the road to the Heights of Mackenzie and Inkermann. The troops occupying this position were seven battalions of Turks, with four guns, whose duty it was to watch the ford of Alsou, and guard the course of the Tchernaya thence to the confluence of the Kreuzen, having ten battalions in support near Kamara, on the other side of the affluent. Next, the Sardinians under La Marmora, consisting of the divisions of Durando and Trotti, encamped on the Hasfort Hill, and in the plain the cavalry under Saviroux. The Sardinians had thirty guns, and a British battery of position, 32-pounder howitzers, under Captain Mowbray. Then came the three French divisions--that of Fancheux on the right, that of Herbillon in the centre, that of Camou on the left. The French cavalry, Morris's division, were encamped in the plain on the left of the Sardinians. The artillery park was in the rear of the Fedoukine heights. General Herbillon commanded the whole. Five brigades held the heights, and one occupied the eastern slopes of Mount Sapoune, and thus connected the army of observation with the corps engaged in pushing the attacks against the Malakoff. Including the British cavalry, 3,000 strong, there were nearly 40,000 men and 120 guns in line between Alsou and Mount Sapoune.

The information brought in by our spies and the reports of deserters had led the allied generals to look either for a sortie from the town, or for an attack on the line of the Tchernaya. On the 14th of August the troops in camp were under arms before daybreak, but nothing occurred on one side or the other. On the 15th more positive news arrived. General d'Allonville from the Baidar Valley notified by the semaphore that he had troops in front of him, or rather that his patrols had discovered bodies of the enemy moving down into the Valley of Chouliou. Signal lights flashed from Mackenzie to Inkermann, and from Inkermann to Sebastopol. An ostentatious gathering of troops in rear of the Redan and Malakoff was discovered from the tops of our men-of-war, and at the same time a suspicious movement of Russians towards Inkermann. All the commanders were warned, and orders were issued to be more than usually vigilant; General La Marmora directing his brigades to get under arms before daylight the next morning.

Prince Gortschakoff had, indeed, resolved to surprise if he could, if not, to force, the line of the Tchernaya. His reinforcements consisted of the 4th, 5th, and 7th divisions of infantry. To these he was able to add the 17th, 12th, 6th, and 11th; of these the 11th, 12th, and 17th had long been in the Crimea, and had fought at the Alma and Inkermann; but the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th were fresh troops, which had arrived recently from Poland and Bessarabia. In fact, as soon as it was certain that Austria did not mean to fight, the Czar put in motion all the troops that could be spared from the Austrian frontiers. Had all these divisions been in full strength, Prince Gortschakoff could have brought into line 78,000 infantry alone. But long marches had weakened some regiments, and others had suffered great losses in the field and the trenches; and instead of 78,000, he could only dispose of 50,900 infantry. To support them he had 7,200 cavalry, chiefly regulars, and 262 guns; in all about 60,000 men.

The plan of the Russian general was to move the bulk of his force, on the night of the 15th, by the roads leading from the Mackenzie Heights into lower ground, while two divisions marched from Korales down the Valley of Chouliou, and joined the left of the main body above Tchorgoun. The right column he entrusted to General Read. It consisted of the 7th and 12th divisions, and sixty-two guns. The left was under the orders of Liprandi, and was composed of the 5th, 17th, and 6th, and some ninety cannon. The 11th and 4th were in reserve, and remained so. General Liprandi led the way. On quitting the defile he was to move to his left, and before daylight drive the Sardinian outposts from the Mamelon, occupy that hill, and also the heights above Tchorgoun and Karlovka. The object of this was to give the Russians a good site, whence they might cannonade Mount Hasfort, and cover an infantry attack on that position. While Liprandi formed on the Sardinian Mamelon, Read was to bring his two divisions into line, but out of range; hold himself prepared to storm the Fedoukine heights, but not to make that attempt until he got orders to do so from Prince Gortschakoff.

All night on the 15th the Russian columns were moving silently down the steep road from Mackenzie, along the wooded valley of Chouliou, spreading out over the slopes, and pushing nearer and nearer to the outposts and patrols of the Allies. While this formidable host was approaching, the allied soldiers were asleep, and only the usual guards were under arms, and the usual patrols were moving across the front. Before daylight, however, the Sardinians got under arms; but the French do not appear to have turned out earlier than usual. Long security had bred confidence, and no doubt they relied upon their advanced posts, and not without reason. A thick fog hid everything in the valley, and hung heavily over the low meadows on both sides of the Tchernaya. Under cover of this, Prince Gortschakoff had got his troops into the positions he had designed them to occupy.

But the sentries were on the alert. There was a splutter of musketry in front of the bridge--a French patrol had stumbled in the fog upon the skirmishers of Read! Then followed a few reports near the Sardinian outpost, and a quick fire of musketry. General La Marmora, with great promptitude, sent a support across the Tchernaya to aid the riflemen on the Mamelon in delaying the advance of the enemy, while he made his final preparations. Liprandi had, while it was still dark, brought up such a heavy force, that although the Sardinians stood their ground with great gallantry, they were so pressed on all sides as to be forced out of their entrenchments, and were retiring down the hill as the support came up. The whole then gave ground before the enemy, and fell back upon the rocky elevation in front of the left of the Sardinian line, whence they were not expelled.

In the meantime the guns of Liprandi and Read were both in action; and the whole line of the Allies began to seize their arms and form. Morris's Chasseurs d'Afrique, 2,400 strong, formed between the left of the Sardinians and the right of the French, one regiment being at the head of the defile leading to the bridge. Saviroux's Sardinian cavalry, 300 men, came up on their right; and General Scarlett, turning out the British cavalry, a splendid force, 3,000 strong, moved them across the plain, and drew up in rear of the French and Italian squadrons. The Turkish and Sardinian guns were answering the fire of Liprandi's artillery; and two French batteries were ready to engage Read. So thick was the fog that the enemy's troops were still invisible, and pending the development of their attack, Generals La Marmora and Herbillon simply reinforced their outposts. Prince Gortschakoff has stated that about this time he had ridden on to the Sardinian Mamelon to survey the ground, and proceed with the execution of his original plan. While he was meditating and trying to pierce through the fog, he heard a violent fire of musketry on his right. General Read, without orders, as his superior officer avers, had begun the attack, and frustrated the whole scheme. From this moment the battle of the Tchernaya was a battle mainly between the French and Russians; the former, however, being assisted by the deadly fire of the British and Sardinian guns.

The Russian cannonade had thoroughly roused the French, but uncertain from what quarter the real attack of the enemy would come, the brigades were kept drawn up near their camps, ready to move in any direction. Suddenly dark masses were seen dimly through the mist moving down on the Tchernaya. They came on with great resolution, and very fast. At one and the same moment a column from the 12th Division assailed the bridge, and another from the 7th attacked the French left. The onset was so impetuous that the French outposts were at once thrust away from the river all along the line, and forced over the aqueduct. The advance of the 7th Division had been equally successful. Issuing from the fog, boldly passing the river, closing in from all sides on the French, the latter, outnumbered, were compelled to retire with all speed up the slopes of the Fedoukine hills. Now the tide of combat was going to change. In crossing the aqueduct the Russians had lost their regular formation, and they had to recover it as well as they could under a heavy fire. Thus their charge was stopped at the moment when victory depended upon its continuance; and while the troops in their front kept them in play, the French generals were executing movements intended to effect a bloody counter-stroke. The column of the 7th Division fell first under this calamity. They had crossed the river and aqueduct with comparatively little opposition, apparently only that of the outposts and the supports. They were advancing up the hill, when General Wimpfen, who commanded a brigade of General Camou's division, sent the 3rd Zouaves to check them. This brought the Russians to a stand. The heavy column, growing vaster as the men scrambling over the aqueduct came up, gave and received a telling fire, but did not advance. All this time, by the orders of Wimpfen, a battalion of the 82nd Regiment was rapidly coming down the hill to the aid of the Zouaves. As soon as the 82nd appeared, the French attacked with the bayonet. The Zouaves went headlong into the right, the 82nd into the left flank of the enemy. The outward ranks were lifted off their feet by the violence of the shock, and the column loosening at the rear, turned and hurried, in dreadful confusion, back over the aqueduct. A battery of artillery on the left of the line of attack poured grape into the flying mass, and augmented the slaughter.

So far the attack on the left had been repelled, but the beaten troops were still at hand to take advantage of any success that might fall to the share of their comrades, who had carried the bridge and were assailing the centre and right.

The Russians had poured over in three irregular columns. Those who crossed by the bridge formed the centre; what may be called the wings had forded the river and the aqueduct. Each column was bravely encountered and overthrown. When General Wimpfen saw that his Zouaves and one battalion of the 82nd were sufficient to deal with the Russian extreme right, he sent the whole of the 50th, with the remainder of the 82nd as a reserve, to fall upon the central Russian columns. Thus, while the battalions of Herbillon's division assailed the centre, the 50th, moving obliquely down the hill, came upon the flank of the Russian column which had passed the aqueduct on the Russian right of the bridge. Exposed to such an assault, the Russians were unable to stand, and, after a brief musketry fight, they turned and sought shelter beyond the aqueduct and the Tchernaya. At the same time, General de Failly, in the centre, had charged, and the effect of the combined movement was to sweep the enemy over the river. The mass of the French were kept behind the aqueduct; but Colonel Danner, with portions of the 97th and 95th, was sent over to re-occupy the bridge-head. On the other side of the road to Balaclava the Russian column had proved too strong for the 19th Chasseurs; and after driving them up the eastern hillock, had, regardless of the tearing flank fire of the Sardinian artillery on Mount Hasfort, sought to deploy and storm the height. They were just moving up when the 2nd Zouaves came over the crest. The Russians began to fire, but the Zouaves continued to march forward, and then, with loud shouts and levelled bayonets, they went down the hill at a charging pace, and literally lifting the Russians off their legs, drove them pell-mell over the aqueduct.

Prince Gortschakoff had heard the beginning of the attack upon the French left. He was, he says, astonished. General Read had frustrated his design of first driving the Sardinians from their entrenchments, and taking himself a solid grasp of Mount Hasfort. To effect this object he had in hand four divisions of infantry, and he was preparing to hurl his bolt when the uproar of Read's untimely onset broke upon his ear. At once he suspended the movement of these divisions, and changed the whole tide of his battle. He felt that he must support the troops of Read, for he could not be sure that the Allies would not assume the offensive, and, by good luck, they might interpose between him and the Mackenzie Heights, and throw the bulk of his army upon the hills and narrow valleys towards Aitodor and Chouliou. Wherefore he directed the cavalry to move up, and should the infantry be repulsed, hold themselves in readiness to charge or to cover the retreat of the 7th and 12th Divisions, and enable them to rally. At the same time he directed the 5th Division to move by its right into the plain and assail the French at and above the bridge. The 17th Division was ordered to descend the Sardinian Mamelon and cross the river, and strive to penetrate through the open space between Mount Hasfort and the most eastern slopes of the Fedoukine heights. The 6th Division moved up to guard the ground opposite the Sardinians above Karlovka and Tchorgoun, and the 4th Division remained in the rear up the valley of Chouliou as a reserve. The attack was vigorous enough, but the columns were defeated in detail and driven back.

But the enemy would not yet own himself beaten. The 17th Division had arrived on the right bank of the Tchernaya. It was formed of regiments that had met the Allies at the Alma and Inkermann. Undismayed by defeat, determined to risk another throw of the dice, Prince Gortschakoff ordered a brigade, composed of three regiments--that is, twelve battalions--supported by a large body of cavalry, to cross the river, and push in between the French and Sardinians. The march of these troops had been seen by the Allies. General Herbillon had reinforced the right by three regiments of Cler's brigade and part of Sencier's brigade, and General La Marmora had directed Mollard's brigade of Trotti's division to descend from Mount Hasfort and, crossing the valley, support the French right. The support, as it happened, was not needed, but it would have been most timely and effectual had the French been overmatched. As it was, the Russians crossed the river and the aqueduct, pushing the French before them, and partly turning their right. They moved with evident resolution, for their columns were struck by the fire of a powerful artillery in flank. A French battery, disregarding the shot and shell poured upon it by the Russian guns on the opposite hills, devoted all its might to the injury of the enemy's infantry. These were now smitten on all sides except their right. For when they saw the deep masses of cavalry facing the gorge into which they had entered, and when they felt the Sardinians on the left of their line of advance, they turned to the right and made a desperate attempt to crown the hillock. The first column which reached the crest was immediately assailed in flank by a French regiment of Cler's brigade, and driven helplessly into and over the aqueduct. But the other deep columns now filling the whole space between the aqueduct and the river still came on with unfaltering resolution, and flung themselves into a focus of fire. But they could make no way. The guns and musketry were too much for them. In vain their officers ran out and waved their swords and showed the way. In vain the columns tried to get along. Presently they fell into confusion; then turned and hurried back over the river, pursued by volleys of musketry and flights of grape and roundshot.

The Russians brought up into line a number of batteries to cover the retreat of the infantry, and their splendid-looking cavalry drew up in glittering lines out of range to protect the guns. But the heavy British pieces in the Sardinian earthworks, opening on the enemy's artillery, soon made them move farther away. It was about eight o'clock of the morning of the 16th. The battle was won.

In this action the Allies lost 1,747 men killed and wounded, of whom only 196 were killed. The Sardinians lost one general officer, the Count Montevecchio. But the Russian loss was awful. The French buried upwards of 2,000 bodies; the Russians more than 1,000. There were 2,250 prisoners in the hands of the French, some wounded, some whole. General Read and two other generals of his corps were among the dead; and among the wounded were eight generals and ten colonels. The Russian loss altogether could not have been less than 15,000 men. The battle of the Tchernaya sealed the fate of Sebastopol.

The battle of the Tchernaya did not interrupt the progress of the siege. The Russians only succeeded in drawing upon themselves the bulk of the covering army, for although the French showed a strong line of troops on the old Inkermann ground, and kept up a sharp look-out upon their own left, this did not hinder the working parties in the advanced works from continuing their labours.

It should still be borne in mind that the French had fully recognised the fact that the Malakoff was the key of Sebastopol, that their main efforts were directed towards it, and that all the other attacks had become subordinate to this one. In short the attack on the Malakoff had become what is termed regular. But Sebastopol was not invested. The supply of guns in the place was practically unlimited. As much ammunition as the enemy could find transport for could be and was carried into the town. Hence, although the progress of the sap went on against the Malakoff and the Little Redan alone, the whole fire of the Allies could not be concentrated on those works, because they had to reply to the other batteries used so vigorously by the enemy. These conditions of the siege had been long established; the new feature in it was the determined attack upon the Malakoff, to which the other attacks were made subordinate.

The moment the French began to descend the western slope of the Mamelon, and push up the eastern slope of the Malakoff, they became sensible of the arduous nature of the undertaking. Their trenches had to be designed with the utmost care, their connecting parallels to be constructed with rapidity and solidity in the face of a destructive fire. About the period of the battle of the Tchernaya they were losing a hundred men a night in the trenches. Batteries, low down in the Russian works and unseen by the Allies, flung shells into the trenches and batteries with fatal accuracy. Nevertheless, the French steadily gained ground. They had descended one slope, they were ascending the other. But when they had reached within a hundred yards of the ditch of the Malakoff they could go no farther. The work of the night was destroyed by the enemy the next day. In vain the sharpshooters in their pits and in the most advanced cover kept up a deadly fire on the embrasures of the Malakoff. The enemy's guns were so numerous and so well placed that there seemed to be always some capable of firing, and with the dawn came the destruction of the labours of the night.

In these circumstances, General Simpson agreed to open on the 17th of August the heaviest possible fire upon the Malakoff; and the batteries of the French on the left were to bombard the town front to prevent the Russians on that side from overwhelming our left attack. Accordingly, on the 17th, the British opened fire; but the French, for some reason, did not support them, and the Russians in the town batteries did us considerable damage and killed two good officers. Yet this did not prevent the British from accomplishing their object. They maintained so crushing a fire on the Malakoff that the Russian artillerymen were soon obliged to quit their pieces, and only fire a gun now and then. At six in the evening a magazine blew up in a work between the Redan and the Malakoff. This battery was ruined. All night the mortars of the Allies fired heavily into the Malakoff and Redan, to hinder the enemy from repairing damages; and all night the French worked lustily at their trenches, doing more in twenty-four hours than they had done in a fortnight. The bombardment continued on the 18th. On the night of that day signal was made that masses of Russians were in the Redan. Thereupon the mortars were directed upon this work, and the heavy shells must have destroyed many men. There was a considerable exchange of musketry fire between the advanced trenches and the place, but the enemy did not venture out. The French on the left, who had been almost silent, now found that, in order to complete their approaches to a certain point, they also must open a general fire. This they did on the evening of the 20th, taking the enemy somewhat by surprise. While under cover of this fire they pushed forward their sap.

From this time to the end of the month there were constant alarms on the side of the Tchernaya. The French had been very active in the valley of Baidar immediately after the battle of the 16th. General d'Allonville had caused his infantry to penetrate the passes leading to the Tchernaya from the north, and establish posts of observation on the hills. At the same time the Sardinians strengthened their formidable works on Mount Hasfort, and the French constructed three batteries for guns intended to sweep the ground about the Stone Bridge. On the right they mounted twelve pieces of heavy artillery, naming the work the Raglan Battery. On the other flank they placed the same number of guns in a battery named after La Boussinière, a gallant artillery officer, distinguished at the Alma, and killed before Sebastopol. These guns looked obliquely up the road to the Mackenzie Heights. Then farther to the rear, and on the right of the road to Balaclava, they constructed a work for twelve pieces, whose fire would sweep the whole road as far as the bridge, and named it Battery Bizot. Behind these works they re-made the old Turkish redoubts of October, 1854. Thus the Allies covered Balaclava with a triple line, the third being the now famous line of Balaclava, constituting a position as strong as any in the world.

Although it seemed improbable that the Russians would repeat the enterprise of the 16th of August, yet the information that reached headquarters, the partial disappearance of the Russians from the North Camp, the incessant flashing of signal lights from the eastern mountains to Inkermann, and from Inkermann to Sebastopol, induced the Allies to keep on the alert. General Simpson reconnoitred the whole position on the Tchernaya. The troops were under arms, both on the plateau and on the Tchernaya, long before daylight for several days, dispersing only when the sun rose. The men-of-war in the harbour of Balaclava were in readiness to take up positions whence they could do the most damage to the enemy. The splendid cavalry of the Allies turned out every day, and showed its thousands of sabres and lances in the plains of Balaclava; a spectacle gratifying to the military eye, and not encouraging to the enemy. The Highland Division took post above Kamara. The field artillery of the Allies was in constant readiness. From the hills that enfold the Baidar valley to the heights of Inkermann all was vigilance. Prince Gortschakoff, who had his army on the plateau of Mackenzie, and in the little valleys leading down towards the outposts and main position of the Allies, probably looked upon this scene, enacted daily; if he did so, what he saw must have extinguished any notion of breaking into the allied lines at any point. There was no weak place in the chain.

Nevertheless, the siege works made steady progress towards the Malakoff. There the assailants and defenders were within a few yards of each other. The Russians had a series of rifle-pits on the slope under the Malakoff Redoubt itself. The French works had approached so near that it became necessary to seize these pits, and incorporate them with the main body of the approaches. Accordingly, on the 23rd of August, a body of Zouaves worked all day in opening a trench leading towards the pits; and in the evening the light infantry of a line regiment went in and carried them. But the Russians, determined not to lose their shelter without a struggle, dashed out of the Malakoff, and expelled the Frenchmen. The Russians, however, did not long enjoy their triumph, for the expelled troops, being supported by their comrades, returned to the assault, reconquered and held the work. The next day the enemy kept up a heavy fire on the Mamelon, in spite of the support that our batteries afforded to the French. But the onward march of the latter could not be arrested. On the evening of the 24th they seized the whole line of Russian works on the glacis. Again the enemy violently essayed to prevent the French from making good their hold. Before the morning the whole line was complete, and the French works were within thirty-four yards of the salient of the Malakoff. The efforts of the enemy were directed chiefly against the Mamelon and the approaches therefrom, the quarter, as they well knew, where their greatest peril lay. On the night of the 28th they made a lucky shot. One of their shells rolled into a magazine in the left or southern face of the Mamelon Redoubt. There were at the time 15,000 pounds of powder in the magazine. This exploded with an awful roar, awakening the whole camp, and killing or wounding 150 Frenchmen. This vast explosion of powder did not seriously damage the Mamelon; but it delayed the final assault, because the store of powder, thus expended, had to be replaced.

For the remainder of the month the trying labour of getting close to the Malakoff and Little Redan went on in the usual way. But the crisis of the long siege had now come. Neither side could bear much longer the horrible losses inflicted by this deadly strife. The Russians might endure, hoping against hope, to hold out until the winter once more became their keen ally; but the French and British felt that they must risk an assault or raise the siege.

When Prince Gortschakoff saw that the French had opened their seventh parallel within a few yards of the Malakoff, he must have felt certain that an assault would soon be attempted. He was quite as well aware as the allied generals that the Malakoff was the key of the place. General Todleben had, from the first, shown a just appreciation of the ground, and upon those two salient and commanding points, the Flagstaff and the Malakoff, he had exhausted the resources of his art. Once firmly established in one of these, he knew that the Allies must win the city. He knew also that if the Flagstaff only were taken, he could defend the place long enough to secure a retreat; but that if the Malakoff fell before a raft-bridge could be constructed, the Russians must surrender or die fighting, for the Malakoff Hill commanded the harbour. Here one cannot but admire the foresight of a general, who, while he defended his lines to the last, took early and ample precautions to secure a retreat. The great raft-bridge over that arm of the sea we call the Harbour, which is half a mile wide, was begun in July, and finished by the end of August. This stupendous work was designed and executed, no doubt, partly with the object of enabling the Russian general to pour troops rapidly into Sebastopol, but mainly to enable him to avoid capture in the last extremity. Nor was this the only work undertaken with the view of preparing against a calamity. The genius of Todleben had designed an inner line of works in rear and to the east of the Malakoff; and this must have been done only to gain time for the evacuation of the place in the event of the capture of that work.

The Russians were quite right in assuming that an assault would be hazarded at no distant day. It was the uppermost thought in the minds of the allied generals. The approach of winter, the expenditure of men and ammunition, the vast extent of the works, the proximity of the trenches to the place, and the impossibility of pushing them farther in certain quarters, dictated imperiously a resolution to storm. General Pélissier and General Simpson, therefore, directed the principal officers of artillery and engineers to meet and report on the propriety of making an assault, and on the best means of carrying it out. They met on the 3rd of September, and drew up a memorandum. In the attack on the town, that is the French left attack, from the Flagstaff to the Quarantine, they said, the works of approach had remained for a long time stationary, and they declared that these works could not be pushed farther without causing great loss. The British had made some progress before the Redan--their works had stopped short at 200 yards from the salient angle. Here again these officers were of opinion that the approaches could not be advanced, because serious impediments interposed; in other words, because the ground was rocky and enfiladed by several Russian batteries on both sides of the South Harbour. In front of the Malakoff, the report went on to state, the French artillery had attained a marked superiority over that of the place, and under its protection--and, as we may add, the protection of the British batteries--the approaches had arrived within five-and-twenty yards of the enemy's lines. The French were also within thirty yards of the Little Redan. Here it was impossible to work nearer, because the ground was living rock. Therefore, for these reasons, the officers decided unanimously that the moment had arrived for assaulting the place. How should this be done?

It was assumed, and justly, that if the Malakoff could be captured and held, the fall of the Karabelnaia suburb, that is, the whole space east of the South Ravine, would be inevitable. Therefore the main attack was to be directed against the Malakoff, and in order that it might be successful, while a powerful column rushed into the work itself, two other columns assailed simultaneously the Little Redan, and the long rampart or curtain connecting it with the Malakoff. But as the Allies were fighting, not against a mere garrison of limited number, but against a numerous army, and as the enemy, knowing the importance of the position, would do his uttermost to keep, or, if he lost, to regain it, so it was held to be necessary that other attacks should be simultaneously made upon the place, in order to prevent the Russians from concentrating their forces at the vital point. It was with this object that the officers of the Engineers recommended an assault by the British on the Redan, and by the French on the west or town front. These, it should ever be borne in mind, were to be subordinate assaults. It was held essential to success that the assault should be preceded by a heavy bombardment for three days. Such was the scheme devised by the principal officers of artillery and engineers of both armies on the 3rd of September. The day chosen was the 8th of September, the hour, noon exactly.

The sixth and last bombardment began at daybreak on the 5th of September. Nearly the whole of the 800 pieces of ordnance in battery opened on the place. The sun shone brightly; a light air from the south-east blew over Sebastopol. One moment the old familiar scene was visible--the still majestic town, the serene waters of the harbour, the dark and rugged outline of the defences, the Black Sea, and the allied fleet. The next moment the rolling clouds of smoke, boiling up and extending on all sides, hid everything from view. It was the policy of the Allies to fill the mind of the enemy with doubt as to their projects, and thus force him to keep at a strained attention on all sides. Therefore it was from the 350 guns and mortars in the fifty-two batteries directed against the western face of the ramparts of Sebastopol that the most furious volleys issued. Even the official report of the British engineers calls it a "terrific cannonade." The fire from our batteries, and that of the French right, was what is called steady and careful. It was incessant but not hurried. This was calculated to make the enemy believe that the assault would be on the town front and not on the suburb, and, therefore, to keep more men in readiness in that quarter. Nevertheless, the mere weight of metal directed upon the Malakoff entirely silenced that work from the first. Upwards of 200 guns and mortars were levelled and trained to bear upon its outward faces, its embrasures, and its interior. The 7th passed like the 5th and 6th, opening with a volley along the whole four miles of batteries, then, of set purpose, dying away, and suddenly bursting forth again. The wind had changed. The smoke and dust were driven back from Sebastopol by a northern blast, and men strained their eyes in vain to catch a glimpse of the place. Yet patient watchers peering through the rifts in the sombre cloud saw enough to convince them that the enemy was suffering almost beyond endurance. At night fires were visible in several places; about eleven o'clock a magazine blew up; and at the same time a huge two-decker was burning solemnly in the Harbour. Up to this time the enemy had lost 4,000 men, exclusive of gunners, who, says Prince Gortschakoff, perished in great numbers, shot down at their guns.

Hitherto the allied generals had kept secret the hour of the assault. At noon they held a fresh council, and took their last resolutions. Now the secret was divulged. Precisely at noon of the following day the stormers were to make their rush. In order to secure uniformity of movement the staff officers met at headquarters, and set their watches in concert. Next morning General Bosquet, who had the immediate command on the Malakoff side, went into the sixth parallel; and between eleven and twelve General Pélissier took post in the Mamelon. General Codrington and General Markham were in the front of our Redan attack; and a little before noon General Simpson went to a spot selected for him by the engineers in the first parallel. With him went Sir Harry Jones.

We have already described the plan of attack; we have now to set forth the means of executing it. To ensure success in the attack on the Malakoff works, General Pélissier employed 25,000 men. There were not only the whole of the corps of Bosquet, but Mellinet's Brigade of the Imperial Guard, and Marolles' Brigade of the Reserve. MacMahon, with 5,000 men, was to storm the Malakoff Redoubt, and in support were Wimpfen's Brigade, 3,000 strong, and two battalions of the Zouaves of the Guard; thus giving 10,000 men to take and hold the Malakoff itself. General La Motterouge was entrusted with 4,300 men to storm the curtain between the Malakoff and Little Redan; and General Dulac had 4,600 wherewith to carry the Little Redan itself, and 3,000 under Marolles wherewith to make good his grip of this work, and thence carry the unfinished interior lines of defence. There was no special support allotted to La Motterouge, but General Bosquet had upwards of 3,000 men as a general reserve. In addition, two batteries of artillery were held in readiness to drive through the trenches and over the open, and take part in the combat in case they were required. On the western front General de Salles commanded. He had 18,500 men available, including Cialdini's 1,200 Italians. Levaillant, with 4,300 men, was to make two attacks on the Central Bastion, and D'Autemarre, with 5,280 men, was to furnish a support. In case of success, and when one of the storming columns had turned the Flagstaff Bastion on its proper right, D'Autemarre's division, Cialdini at its head, was to turn the proper left of the Flagstaff. The remaining troops were in reserve. Thus Pélissier had set apart 43,000 men for the assaulting and supporting columns.

The British arrangements were not on this colossal scale. Two divisions, the Light and Second, were directed to furnish both stormers and supports. Each division supplied a covering party, a ladder party, a storming party divided into two sections, and a working party. The whole amounted to 1,600 men. The covering parties, riflemen intended to spread out and keep down the fire of the unsubdued Russian guns, were under Captain Fyers and Captain Lewes. The ladder parties, intended to be stormers as soon as they had placed their ladders, were under Major Welsford. The storming parties were under Lieutenant-Colonel Handcock, Captain Grove, Brigadier Shirley, and Colonel Windham. The supports consisted of 750 men of each division, and the remainder of both were held in reserve. Thus General Simpson had resolved to try and take the Redan by dribbling into it about 3,100 men; and the whole force he kept in hand in case of emergencies was about 4,000 more. At the same time the Highland Division was posted next to the French attack, while the Third and Fourth were held back in the rear of the right attack, and the First was under arms in camp.

The Russians had no fewer than 75,000 men in Sebastopol. There were sixteen battalions in the works on the proper left of the Malakoff, and twelve battalions in reserve on this side. In the Malakoff were four battalions and some companies, and four battalions in the Gervais Battery on its proper right. There were besides sixteen battalions in reserve. They had been called up from the town by General Chruleff, when his suspicions were aroused by the information that the French trenches seemed to be full of troops. Thus there were about 22,000 men under arms for the defence of the Malakoff system of works. In the Redan and to the right and left of it were nine battalions and sixteen in reserve. The battalions in the front line were chiefly our old foes of the Alma and Inkermann. Their numbers were about 13,000. In addition to these troops there were no fewer than 10,000 in reserve for general purposes. The total number for the defence of the line from the Barrack Battery to the Harbour was therefore 45,000 men; or 2,000 more than were set apart by the French alone for all their attacks, and 10,000 more than the combined numbers of the English and French on the eastern side. In the town the Russians had 20,000 men, 2,000 more than the number at the disposal of General de Salles. The front line of works from the Quarantine to the Flagstaff was strongly manned; and besides the special reserves of the different bastions, there was a general reserve nearly 10,000 strong. Such a vast force, fighting behind the strongest entrenchments ever raised, was certain to be hard to conquer; and although it was divided into huge fragments, and one half was separated from the other by an arm of the sea--the South Harbour--we have shown that in mere numbers alone the Russians were in every point superior to their assailants. This should be remembered in view of what followed.

At mid-day the officers gave the signal. The clarions sounded, the drums beat, the men cried "Vive l'Empereur!" and dashing over the trenches, went headlong towards the Malakoff, the curtain, and the Little Redan. At the first rush all these places were surprised and overrun; but the attack on the great redoubt was the only one destined to be permanently successful.

The Malakoff Redoubt was a mighty keep, 380 yards long, and 160 wide; the ditch was upwards of six yards deep and seven wide, and its slope next to the work was very steep. In the interior were, first, the ground floor of the old stone tower, and then a multitude of traverses, huge ramparts of earth and timber designed to minimise the effect of shell fire. It was a closed work, that is, fortified on all sides, with one narrow opening in the rear, so that when once the assailants mastered the interior and closed the gorge the vast ramparts were defences for and not against them. This brief description will enable the reader to form some notion of the difficulties in the way of the stormers, and of the advantages which told in their favour when they had subdued the garrison. The Little Redan was also a closed work, but the long curtain connecting it with the Malakoff was exposed to the fire of the Russian second line, thrown up about 300 yards in the rear. The Great Redan was an open work, like a very straddling V, and its flanks were well supplied with traverses. The old trace of the entrenchment, as it existed in 1854, formed a sort of low retrenchment at the open end, in no sense formidable except as affording cover behind which infantry could rally. Here, it will be observed, the disadvantages were on the side of the assailants. Although the defenders might not be able to keep their foes out, in all probability they could prevent them from remaining in, unless they entered in overwhelming numbers, and succeeded in closing the rear against the attacks of the expelled enemy. In order to make the separate scenes of the 8th of September clear, it will be necessary to treat them separately, trusting the reader to remember that several actions were fought simultaneously.

The leading troops of MacMahon's division were the 1st Zouaves and the 7th of the Line. The Zouaves darted out on the right, and the Linesmen on the left. The heads of the columns reached the deep ditch together, leapt into it without waiting for ladders, swarmed up the opposing bank, and climbing, some over the parapet, some through the embrasures, jumped into the midst of the astonished Russians. In a short space half the force of the two regiments was in the work; but the engineers had thrown a ladder bridge so swiftly over the ditch that the rear companies of the 7th were able to cross it. At the same time four companies of Chasseurs had crossed the ditch, and entering the work at its point of junction with the Gervais Battery, drove its defenders out at the point of the bayonet, and made good their hold upon the battery. The Zouaves and the Linesmen in the Malakoff had attacked with such impetuosity and in such numbers that the Russians were obliged to fight in disorder, about the base of the old White Tower. But Frenchmen rushed in on all sides. There was a brief and bloody combat. Assailed in front, turned on both flanks, unable to retreat, above a hundred Russians ran into the lower storey of the old tower, and began to fire through the loopholes. By this time the Zouaves and the 7th had driven the enemy completely out of the space round the tower. Quickly rallying, the Russians collected behind the first huge line of traverses, and, in spite of the efforts of the French, held for awhile their ground. Foot by foot the French had gained upon them. They dashed at the openings, they wound in and out around the flanks, they crept along the parapets, and just as Vinoy's brigade was entering the work in support of Decaen, the latter's men had succeeded in forcing the enemy to seek shelter behind the second great line crossing the Malakoff at its widest part. Here the Russians rallied stronger than ever. They were plainly gathering for a rush. Hundreds had fallen on both sides, but the fury of the combat did not abate. The great French flag floated in the smoke and dust over the tower, but the Malakoff was yet to win. Until the gorge was gained and closed nothing was gained. So thought MacMahon. Vinoy was bursting in to his aid, but he determined to be secure, so he sent one of his staff for part of the Imperial Guard and Wimpfen's reserve. Before these could arrive, Vinoy, a prompt and gallant soldier, had led his men into the work and made use of them with striking skill. He had thrown the bulk of his force on the right of the assailants. With the 20th he supported the right of the Zouaves, and with the 27th, by a most soldier-like movement, he turned the Russian left. Paralysed by this rapid manœuvre, executed with unfaltering impetuosity, as soon as he saw the 27th in the rear of his left, and rapidly approaching the gorge, the enemy quitted his hold of the great line of traverses, and made for the sole exit from the redoubt. The French burst through like a flood. The more daring of the enemy turned several times, and spent their strength in brave but useless charges. Though they were swept along by the torrent of foes which streamed upon them, they made a brilliant resistance; and it was only when they felt that the 27th of the Line, so skilfully led, so relentlessly bent on gaining the gorge, would soon reach it, that they rushed out of the work. MacMahon and Vinoy swooped upon their prize, closed the gorge, and forbade all return.

During this time the French on the extreme right had fought with great bravery but adverse fortune. The parallels of approach had been pushed up close to the Little Redan, and the heads of the columns of attack were close under the work; Dulac's leading brigade, therefore, had at the appointed hour started like the rest and had at once seized the Little Redan. Somewhat later in point of time, because the distance to be overcome was greater, General La Motterouge had sent his first brigade under Bourbaki against the curtain. Here again the French succeeded. The whole line from the Malakoff to the Little Redan was in their hands. Eager to take advantage of this burst of success, the leading brigades, as soon as the supports were well up, dashed forward. Bourbaki led his men against the second line, while St. Pol, issuing from the Little Redan, sought to turn the line at its point of intersection with the rear defences of the latter work. But the Russians were now fully alive. The batteries on the north side opened on the assailants. Three war-steamers ran up to the mouth of the Careening Bay, and poured in broadside after broadside. Field guns were promptly brought up to the second line, and used to hurl forth showers of desolating grapeshot. The Russian reserves came up, and charging the disordered columns of the French, forced them violently back--Bourbaki, as far as, and over, the curtain; St. Pol into the Little Redan. So prompt and vigorous was this counter-stroke, so deadly was the fire of the steamers, that St. Pol could not keep his hold even of the Little Redan. He was driven out, and the French, with difficulty, ensconced themselves on their own side of the curtain and in its ditch. The attempts to recover these positions were unsuccessful. Similarly on the extreme right they failed to carry the Central Bastion.

The afternoon was wearing away. The British attack on the Great Redan, which we shall presently describe, had failed. The guns on the left face of this work were shooting down the French on the slopes of the Malakoff. General Chruleff had tried by three desperate charges to break into the gorge of the key of the place, and tear away from MacMahon his blood-stained prize. But the defence was too strong. The Russians only dashed up to the gorge and tried to pull down the gabions that closed it, or endeavoured to scramble up the ramparts, to meet death from the crushing musketry fire that blazed from the parapets. A huge column had emerged from the houses, and for a moment seemed resolved to sweep the gallant Chasseurs out of the Gervais Battery. Suddenly the massive column was rent by round shot and disordered by shell, and struck in flank by musketry. The British gunners in the Quarry Battery had caught sight of this column, and in an instant had trained and fired their pieces. Finding only five guns bore upon the enemy, they tore down the sides of the other embrasures, and brought promptly seven into action. That was the source of the torrent of shot and shell. The streams of musketry rolled from the western flank of the Malakoff, and from the Chasseurs in the Gervais Battery. The column broke up under this fire and fled to the rear. Prince Gortschakoff had arrived from the north side, and scanning the Malakoff, saw that life would be vainly wasted in further attempts to retake it. He therefore forbade them; but he ordered his generals to resist to the last on the other points.

It is now time to narrate the attack of the British on the Redan. There were in and near the work, and specially appointed to defend it, no less than, at the lowest computation, 12,000 men, exclusive of a great reserve. Against these we were about to send not altogether, stormers and supports, more than one-fourth of the number. This handful of men were expected to take and hold an open work defended by thirty-two battalions of Russian infantry. The men did not hesitate. In a few minutes the salient was won. The Light Division column had stormed in at the apex, the Second Division column had been led to the right, and had entered the work on its proper left face, some yards from the salient. Now the crisis of the combat arrived. Driven back by the impetuous charge of the British, the Russians in the salient, and on each flank ran to the rear, and collected behind the breastwork, up to which they speedily brought field artillery. The handful of British who had got in did not, unhappily, even attempt to carry the breastwork by a rush. The British soldier is a creature of habit, and he instinctively fell into his old ways. Instead of storming on, he extended himself on parapet or traverse, and began to fire. The officers saw how fatal this would prove, and tried to get the men out from cover, and to form them for a rush. In this work Colonel Windham and others were conspicuous. But it availed nothing. During this musketry combat weak supports, in disarray, arrived from the British trenches; but the Russians had now gathered in immense force. Pauloff, who commanded here, had called up about 8,000 men. Throwing these into the fight as they came up, he sent some along the flanks, while he kept a strong line, aided by field guns, behind the breastwork, and from that point directed a converging fire into the salient. Considering his numbers, the Russian general was singularly slow in his movements. But by degrees, and by sheer weight of men, his masses pressed the British closer and closer. These, firing with all their might, soon exhausted their stock of ammunition, and were forced to use stones. Then the supports from the trenches, on reaching the salient, imitated the example of their precursors and fired until their store was gone. Colonel Windham sent three officers to beg for troops in formation. Not one reached General Codrington. This officer was perplexed and irresolute, and at length Windham arrived himself to demand a well-formed support. It was too late, assuming that such a support could have reached the Redan and have expelled its numerous garrison. Just after Windham had quitted the work on this errand, Pauloff grew emboldened by his numbers, and pressing down upon the salient, closed with the British soldiers still holding on. A short and terrible combat ensued at close quarters. Our men were unwilling to surrender the little space they had so dearly won; but the pressure of fire and steel was irresistible. The remnant of the stormers was forced over the parapet, but not away from it. There, on our side, they still hung, and were fed from the trenches by sections of men who had survived the path of fire by which alone they could reach the enemy. But this could not last long. At length the enemy made a mighty effort, and swept every British soldier from the parapet into the ditch. Those who were able to scramble up had to run the gauntlet of a fire of grape and musketry on their return to the trenches, whither they arrived breathless, bleeding, exhausted. The Russians cheered, manned their parapets, fired into the chaos of human beings weltering in heaps in the ditch, and even brought up two field-pieces, and with grape from these pursued the fugitives. For this they paid a heavy penalty. Our batteries instantly opened a deadly fire on the Redan, crushing the field-pieces at once, and smashing the masses of infantry whose numbers choked the work. But the enemy had gained his point, and had worsted the victors of the Alma and Inkermann.

From his post of vantage on the Mamelon General Pélissier had witnessed our defeat; and he now sent to inquire whether General Simpson intended to renew the assault, telling him at the same time that the French were inexpugnably placed in the Malakoff. General Simpson was compelled to say that he could not renew the assault, for the trenches were full of the beaten troops; but he promised to strike at the Redan once more in the morning. The sun went down, and in the British camp gallant men groaned in bitterness of heart over their splendid failure.

In the desperate efforts they made to recapture the Malakoff, the Russians had lost hundreds of men and several generals. At five o'clock orders for a general retreat were issued. As soon as it was dark the enemy placed bodies of riflemen and artillerymen in all the works remaining to them, and these were instructed to keep up a steady fire. Behind them were some battalions in reserve, occupying the street barricades and houses. Thus protected, the troops in the town were to march directly to the raft-bridge, and across it to the north side in regular order. Those in the suburb were to move upon the point where stood Fort Paul. Thence steamers and other craft would transport them to the great bridge. Then the reserves were to follow, and finally, at a given signal, the rear-guard were to spike the guns, fire the trains of the magazines, and beat a retreat over the bridge. All this was accomplished with great skill and celerity. The Allies were uncertain of the intentions of the enemy, and, moreover, they stood in awe of the mines supposed to exist. So all night the long and heavy columns of men, with field artillery, some of which they were obliged to throw into the sea, were passing over the bridge, which swayed to and fro under the great weight. It was a marvellous feat and forms a splendid finale to the siege; but it should be remembered that it was the retreat of an army by an unassailable line; and what is admirable in the action is the promptitude of the general's decision, and the coolness and speed with which it was executed. The town was committed to the flames and the magazines were exploded. On the 11th our guns had been brought to bear on the Russian steamers still afloat, and the enemy, to prevent us from sinking them, burnt them at night, making a second conflagration nearly as brilliant as that of the blazing town. The Russian Black Sea fleet had ceased to exist.

Thus ended this now famous and unique military operation. The losses had been enormous on both sides during the last days of the siege. In four days in August the admitted loss of the enemy was 5,500 men from the brief bombardment alone. From the 22nd of August to the 4th of September the Russians had lost upwards of 7,000 men. During the cannonade and bombardment which preceded the assault--that is, in three days--their loss was 4,000, giving a total of 16,500 men, exclusive of the artillerymen killed at their guns. On the 8th their loss, estimated by themselves, was 11,690. So that between the 16th of August and the 9th of September their force was diminished by 28,190 men killed and wounded. Included in this total, which is understated, are a few hundred "missing," but most of the missing were among the slain. The losses of the Allies, although very severe every day, were not so great. Allowing 200 a day for the last three weeks of the siege, we have a total of 4,200, and if we add to these the loss on the 8th--7,557 for the French, and 2,610 for the British--we have a total loss of 14,367, a dear price for the prize that was won.

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IX. THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (continued)

Gortschakoff clings to Sebastopol--Inactivity of the Allies--D'Allonville's Expedition to Eupatoria--Destruction of Taman and Fanagoria--Expedition to Kinburn--Description of the Fortress--Its Capture--Resignation of Sir James Simpson--Explosion of French Powder Magazine--Naval Operations--The Fleets in the Baltic--The Hango Massacre--Coast Operations--Attack on Sveaborg--Results of the Action--What the Baltic Fleet did--Russia on the Pacific Coast--Petropaulovski blown up--Insignificant results of the Campaign--The Russian Position in Asia--The Turks left to their Fate--Incompetency of the Sultan's Generals--Foreigners in Kars--Want of Supplies--Defeat of Selim Pasha--Battle of Kuruk-Dereh--Colonel Williams sent to Kars--Fortification of Erzeroum and Kars--Situation of Kars--Williams's objects--Mouravieff arrives--His Expeditions towards Erzeroum--The Blockade begins--Relief is slow--The Assault of September 29th--Kmety's success--The Tachmasb Redoubt--Attack on the English Lines--Victory of the Turks--Omar's Relief fails--Sufferings of the Garrison--Williams capitulates--Terms of the Surrender--Reflections on the Siege.

Immediately after the fall of Sebastopol the Russians resumed the work of fortifying the north side. If, for a moment, they entertained the notion of retiring to Simpheropol, that moment must have been very brief. Prince Gortschakoff had long studied the habits and customs of an allied army under two or three Commanders-in-Chief. He knew well the benefits he derived from a divided command in the camp of his adversaries. He knew also the strength of his mountain position; and if, indeed, he thought of retreating inland, that thought must have been suggested, not by any fear that he should be forced, but by a fear that he might not be able to feed his diminished host. Placing his cavalry on the Belbek, where water abounded, he took up a long line with his infantry and Cossacks, stretching from the high table-land above Fort Constantine, along the Inkermann and Mackenzie ridges to Aitodor in the heart of the mountains above the Baidar valley. New batteries sprang up by magic among these rugged bluffs, and in a few days the Russian front of defence was as powerfully organised as ever.

At this time the Allies had nearly 200,000 men in the Crimea; including upwards of 10,000 horsemen, and a very numerous and efficient force of field artillery. Having so vast an army, one is astonished to find that no effort worthy of the name was made to strike another blow at the main body of the enemy. The French did, indeed, place their right wing, 33,000 strong, with 54 guns, in the valley of Baidar, with a larger force and more guns on the Tchernaya, backed by a powerful reserve, exclusive of the Imperial Guard on the plateau. But this demonstration, made as early as the 11th of September, did not in the least deceive Prince Gortschakoff. It was manifest that no threatening movements of troops, no amount of marching and countermarching between Balaclava and the Baidar passes, would induce him to budge a foot. He knew that to reach him through the mountains his adversaries could only show a narrow front, and thus obtain no advantage from numbers; and that to assail the Heights of Mackenzie, they must advance under a terrible fire to force rugged passes and deep defiles. So he did not change his ground, much less run away. What he dreaded was a decided advance from some point of the coast upon his lines of communication--from Kaffa or from Eupatoria, or from the mouth of the Alma--but whether it was that the allied generals could not agree, or that the Governments of Paris and London thought enough had been done, or whether it was that Marshal Pélissier did not wish to risk his laurels, or whether the season was held to be too far advanced for the accomplishment of large enterprises, certain it is that none were undertaken. For ten days after the fall of the place the only change in the relative situations of the two armies was that the French occupied more ground.

At the end of that time there was a delusive symptom of more extended activity. General d'Allonville, with his division of horse, embarked at Kamiesch, for Eupatoria, on the 18th of September. Arrived there, he took the command of the whole force, namely, 17,000 Turco-Egyptian infantry, 2,500 cavalry, and 48 guns. Expectation ran high in the camp, especially as the allied fleets went to sea on a cruise along the coast, reminding observers of the experimental trips made in August, 1854. But there was very little danger in the air. General d'Allonville, with the force at his disposal, was strong enough to raise the blockade of Eupatoria on the land side, but not strong enough to move far from the place, or hazard his line of retreat for a moment. He found a well-disciplined Moslem force at Eupatoria. The Turkish general, Ahmed Pasha, had employed the summer in training these battalions, and the French general was pleased to find such excellent infantry under his orders. But he felt 20,000 men were too few for the execution of any great scheme, and it is doubtful whether, had he been disposed to march inland, his superiors before Sebastopol and in Paris would have permitted the risk involved. He therefore confined himself to the simpler task of driving away the Russians, and giving his cavalry officers the chance of winning a cross and ribbon. The expedition was brilliantly successful. The pursuit was kept up for some miles, and the French cavalry had the satisfaction, not only of routing the Russian horse, but of carrying from the field six guns, twelve caissons, a forge, 169 prisoners, and 150 horses. This brilliant operation relieved Eupatoria from the too pressing attentions of the Russian horse.

At the other extremity of the Crimea an expedition, organised at Kertch, had crossed the Straits, and had occupied and destroyed Taman and Fanagoria; but it would have been more to the purpose had the allied generals seized Kaffa and Arabat, and threatened the road over the Putrid Sea at Tchongar, whence the enemy derived large quantities of supplies. Instead of this they adopted a different plan. The navy had long desired some opportunity of doing service. Now it happened that the Emperor Napoleon had invented or adopted certain floating batteries cased with iron, and was anxious to test their quality in actual war. It happened also that there was a fort isolated and exposed to attack whereon the experiment might be tried, and a further stress put upon the enemy. It was the fort of Kinburn on the estuary of the Dnieper that the Allies designed to capture. It might have been assumed that their aim in so doing was to pave the way for an advance in force either upon Kherson or Nicolaief; but Prince Gortschakoff knew as well as the Allies that it was too late in the year to make the attempt even; and thus the expedition to Kinburn only served the purpose of testing the worth of the new floating batteries, and seizing another material guarantee, which, when the time for negotiation came, would prove useful. In the first week of October upwards of 7,700 infantry embarked on board the French and British men-of-war. There were thirty-eight ships in the French squadron, and thirty-four in the British. The former included the three floating batteries, Dévastation, Tonnante, and Lave. The British had six, the French four ships of the line; the former were under Sir Edmund Lyons, the latter under Admiral Bruat. General Bazaine commanded the French land forces. After a demonstration before Odessa, on the morning of the 14th of October the ships got under steam, and made for Kinburn, where they anchored off the spit the same evening.

Kinburn, as we have said, stood on the southern shore of the estuary of the Dnieper, and formed, with Oczakov, the defence of those waters. It was a regular fortress, built almost on a level with the sea. The northern face looked up the spit, the southern along the road that led to Kherson and Perekop; the eastern looked on to the estuary, and the western on to the Black Sea. Thus it presented four strong casemated faces, and north and south were deep ditches, supplied with sea water. It mounted fifty-one guns, but they were only 18-pounders and 24-pounders. To the southward there was a small village, and some large stacks of wood. To the north there were two batteries--one called the Point Battery, mounting eight, the other called the Middle Battery, mounting eleven guns. These were connected by a deep covered way, and their guns commanded the channel, which, inside the spit, ran along near the shore. There were in these works some 1,500 men, under General Kokanowitch.

The Allies had arrived, determined to capture the place. Their plan was to land their soldiers to the south, thus investing the fortress on that side, and preventing any force from Kherson from relieving the besieged; then to place their ships, gunboats, and floating batteries on both sides of the fortress and its outworks, and thus overwhelm them with a concentrated and concentric fire. The troops landed on the 15th, the British being the first to step ashore. As soon as they were assembled, lines of defence were marked out, and working parties began to ply the spade and throw up entrenchments in the sand. The British were entrusted with the task of showing a front on the Kherson road, which ran along the spit, while the French moved up towards Kinburn. The guns of the enemy at once opened upon the French, who replied with musketry and field artillery. This combat continued. The fleets could not take part because the sea was too rough, and night fell upon the scene, leaving the fleet in the offing and the troops ashore. On the 17th the wind had fallen; the sky was clouded, but the sea was calm. Then a movement began in the fleet. The gunboats and mortar vessels steered for the positions assigned them, some going southward to fire on the south-westerly angle, others steering northward to double the point and range along the inner side. The floating batteries were carried in nearer to the fort, until they were within about 700 yards of the south-west angle. The frigates went forward towards the batteries on the spit, one line on the Black Sea side, the other in the estuary. The Hannibal, line-of-battle ship, took position opposite the extreme northern end of the spit, and raked its defences. The Russians defended their post with energy; but they were overmatched. The interior of the fort was soon in flames. Part of the garrison ran out into the dry ditches for shelter, but here they were exposed to French musketry and grape-shot. In order to terminate the contest the gunboats went closer in, and the line-of-battle ships, steaming up in line abreast, brought their guns to bear upon the torn and shattered and smoking ramparts. The Russian guns were now completely silenced. The batteries on the spit continued to fire a gun here and there, but five hours' cannonade and bombardment had placed Kinburn fort hors de combat. Seeing this, and not wishing to prolong a useless engagement, Admirals Lyons and Bruat made the signal to cease firing. They then summoned the garrison to surrender. General Kokanowitch complied. The next day the Russians blew up the fort at Oczakov, thus leaving the Allies in full possession of the estuary of the Dnieper and of the mouth of the Bug. But the capture of Kinburn was the only solid piece of work done by this expedition.

Thus the pleasant autumn weather passed away. All was quiet round Sebastopol, beyond the Tchernaya and around the Baidar Valley, and the only activity displayed was in those expeditions we have described on the extremities of the Crimea--at Kinburn, at Eupatoria, at Kertch, and in the Sea of Azoff. The reasons for this inactivity may be safely traced to differences at Paris and London touching the conduct and field of war, and to the desire of making peace, which the Allies were resolved should be honourable and satisfactory to them, and which the Russians were anxious should involve the minimum of sacrifices on their side. But there was another reason of great weight. General Sir James Simpson had sent home his resignation immediately after the fall of Sebastopol. He was a brave and able soldier, but he had passed the prime of life, and not knowing the French language, he was in a false position, and unable to struggle with success against the natural self-assertion of Marshal Pélissier. He had also been unjustly assailed because a few hundred British soldiers had not been able to wrest the Redan from thousands of Russians, supported by heavy flanking batteries. The Government accepted his resignation. That was easy. Whom should they put in his place? They were at a loss for an answer. The fittest man was Sir Colin Campbell--old, it is true, but still as hardy and active and vigorous as ever. But a report had been industriously spread that Campbell would quarrel with the French, and he did not, besides, belong to the privileged few. Perhaps the Cabinet wanted a safe man, one who would not propose or urge decisive action. At all events, they found one. Sir William Codrington--a guardsman who had not seen a hundredth part of Campbell's service, who had not a hundredth part of Campbell's ability, but who was an average soldier, a brave leader in battle, and one of the "right set"--was selected to command the Anglo-Sardinian armies.

Three days afterwards a great calamity befell the French, and inflicted several losses upon us. On the 14th of November the powder magazines in the park of the French siege train, containing 250,000 pounds of gunpowder, blew up; not powder only, but an immense quantity of shells, carcasses, rockets, and cartridges. Happily all were not panic-stricken. General van Straubenzee, calling for volunteers from the gallant 7th, Lieutenant Hope and a number of men stood forward. These brave fellows headed by their officer, quickly joined by others, ascended the walls of the roofless mill used as a powder magazine, and by great labour succeeded in covering up the powder with wet blankets. It was a service where the risk was awful, for all around were conflagrations; the air was full of fleeting flames, and there stood the great magazine without doors, windows, or roof; all had been blown in or torn off. Yet the daring deed was well done, and the place saved. By this calamity we lost ten men killed and sixty-nine wounded. One of the killed was Deputy-Assistant Commissary Yellon. The French lost six officers killed and thirteen wounded, and 166 men killed and wounded. The cause of this catastrophe was never discovered.

We must now leave the Crimea to narrate the operations of the British fleet in the Baltic and Pacific. The naval operations of the Allies in 1855 were again entirely confined to encounters between ships and forts. The war seemed to be made on purpose to furnish illustrations of the superiority of a well-designed scheme of coast and harbour defence over a navy, be it ever so powerful. It is further remarkable as a war between Maritime Powers unmarked by a single naval action. The Russians, of course, outnumbered everywhere, except in the Gulf of Tartary, were not bound to fight, and they were, except in the Pacific, shut up in narrow seas. These are and must be their only legitimate excuses for yielding up their waters to the Allies without striking or attempting to strike a blow.

The British fleet was more powerful in 1855 than in 1854. Government had built several gun and mortar boats, and destined for the Baltic a larger force of frigates and ships of the line. Sir Charles Napier had pushed his quarrel so far with the Admiralty that it was impossible to give him the command again. The officer selected was Rear-Admiral Richard Saunders Dundas, with Rear-Admiral Michael Seymour as second, and Rear-Admiral Baynes as third in command; and Captain Pelham, who distinguished himself in the attack on Bomarsund, as captain of the fleet. A light squadron, under Captain Watson of the Impérieuse, consisting of six ships, started for the Baltic on the 19th of March, and on the 4th of April Admiral Dundas sailed from Portsmouth with thirteen sail of the line and four frigates; Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort being present on board the royal yacht. The Russians did not show a sail in the Baltic. The frigates, as soon as the ice permitted, scoured the narrow seas, capturing some prizes, and establishing a blockade. The Gulf of Finland was closed in May, when the main body of the fleet lay off Nargen, where they could watch Revel and Helsingfors. The French fleet, under Rear-Admiral Penaud, did not sail till later. They were not in the Baltic until the 21st of May. The British fleet had gone up the Gulf of Finland towards Cronstadt, and it was here on the 1st of June that the French joined them. The British ships lay across the gulf, and as the French came up, out of compliment to their allies they formed a second line, and after communication with Admiral Dundas, the two fleets formed combined squadrons, showing both flags in front line to the enemy. But the Russians, who had not been tempted by the smaller, showed no disposition even to look at the larger force. All their ships, except a few steamers, were dismantled, and lying under the protection of the forts. There was nothing to be done but reconnoitre, fish up "infernal machines," and engage in small operations. For three weeks the fleet lay off Cronstadt. On the 14th of July part sailed for Nargen, leaving Admiral Baynes with a powerful squadron to watch Cronstadt.

While the allied fleet was off Cronstadt an incident had occurred which showed that the enemy, irritated by his losses, could descend to acts of revenge and treachery. At Inkermann the wounded had been slain in cold blood, and the parties gathering up the wounded had been shelled by the war steamers. At Odessa, in 1854, a flag of truce had been fired upon by the shore batteries; and now a party, from H.M.S. Cossack, bearing a flag of truce, were massacred at Hango on the coast of Finland. Six sailors were killed, and the event, which was cynically defended by the Russian Minister of War, Prince Dolgorouky, aroused universal reprobation. A thrill of horror and indignation ran through the British people.

During the month of July the lighter craft performed some smart actions on the enemy's coasts. Captain Storey had already destroyed 20,000 tons of shipping near Nystad, in the Gulf of Bothnia. On the 4th of July Captain Yelverton, with the Arrogant and two other vessels, appeared off Swartholm. Here the enemy had abandoned and blown up a fort of immense strength, commanding the approaches to Lovisa; and on the 5th, Captain Yelverton, shifting his flag to the Ruby gunboat, and accompanied by the boats of the squadron, went up to Lovisa, landed, and made search for Government stores. He found they were in the town, and therefore he spared them, lest in burning the stores he should burn the town--a magnanimous answer to the Hango massacre. Nevertheless, Lovisa was burnt down, not by the British, but by accident. On the 20th, Captain Yelverton, with three frigates and a gunboat, attacked, and in one hour silenced, a six-gun battery at Frederiksham, between Sveaborg and Lovisa. His loss was three men wounded. On the 26th, with three frigates and four mortar vessels, Captain Yelverton made a successful descent upon the island of Kotka, drove out the garrison, and, landing the marines, burnt the Government buildings and immense stores of timber. Thus the whole coast, from Viborg on the east almost up to Sveaborg, had been visited, and the enemy harassed; while Rear-Admiral Baynes, steaming up the channel north of Cronstadt, showed his flag to the inhabitants of St. Petersburg, and from the yards of his ship looked on the Russian capital. The remainder of the fleet, except the flying squadrons and blockaders, was at Nargen, preparing for an attack upon Sveaborg.

This is the bulwark of the south coast of Finland, and, if the enemy's soldiers did their duty, it was quite beyond the reach of any fleet, no matter how powerful or numerous it might be. Built on rocky islands, facing a shallow and treacherous sea, it was plain, even to the eyes of a tyro in military science, that Sveaborg, though it might be bombarded, could not be taken without the aid of a land force. The allied fleet arrived off Sveaborg on the 6th and 7th of August. Admiral Dundas and Admiral Penaud had no troops under their orders. They had determined not to assail the place with ships of the line, but to rely upon their gunboats and mortar vessels to set fire to the buildings and blow up the magazines of the enemy. The British had sixteen, and the French five gunboats. The British had sixteen, and the French five mortar vessels. Beside these there were several ships of the line, frigates, and corvettes; but, on the whole, it will be seen that the gun and mortar boats did the work. Two days were spent in preparations. The small vessels with which it was intended to fight were placed in position. They were ranged in curving lines, the French in the centre. The mortar vessels were anchored; the gunboats were directed to protect them, and to keep constantly in motion. On an islet Admiral Penaud constructed a battery for four mortars, nearly opposite Gustavswert, and this formed the centre of the line. Two gunboats, armed with Lancaster guns, were directed to fire at the three-decker barring the channel into the harbour. Two ships of the line and a frigate were detached to cannonade Sandham, and a frigate and two corvettes were sent to occupy the attention of a body of troops on the island of Drumsio, on the extreme west.

The action began about seven o'clock on the morning of the 9th of August. The fire of the guns and mortars was to be pressed to the fullest extent deemed proper by the officers in command; and as soon as the accuracy of the range was tested the whole mass of ordnance afloat began and sustained a most rapid fire. The Russians estimated that thirty shells per minute fell into their batteries. At first they replied with great spirit, but although the range of their heavy guns extended far beyond the allied lines, yet they were unable to do any damage, either to the passive mortar vessels or the restless gunboats. While the action was raging in the centre the detached ships were busy on the flanks, especially off Sandham, where the liners were engaged in a combat with earthen batteries, on which they could make little impression. Within three hours after the beginning of the bombardment in the centre the incessant hail of shells within the fortress had told with effect. The fire, so brisk before, now began to slacken. The Russian gunners could not hit the small boats of the Allies, while they were exposed to a crushing fire. About ten o'clock the Russian buildings were on fire. Soon a loud report showed that a magazine had been pierced, then another and another. The third explosion, about noon, was very destructive. When it grew dark, and the gunboats had been recalled, and the mortars ceased to fire, the boats of the fleet, fitted with rocket-tubes, ran in nearer to the fortress, and poured forth their incendiary missiles till the flames rose to the height of a hundred feet, swaying to and fro in a brisk breeze.

The mortars and guns went nearer to the place at daylight on the 10th, and resumed their destructive labours. It was observed that the three-decker had been removed from the channel between Gustavswert and Bak Holmen. Three times she had been on fire. Although the garrison were beset by the flames of their burning barracks and stores, yet on the 10th they opened a more sustained fire than on the preceding day. The operations, however, were of the same character, and they produced the same effects, except that the explosions ceased. Again at night the rocket-boats were called into play, and this time the mortars were steadily active all night. By the morning of the 13th the admirals considered that enough had been done--that, in fact, they could do no more; neither destroy the forts nor touch the squadron they sheltered. The place was gutted, but "the sea defences in general were little injured," as the admiral reported. We had inflicted this loss on the enemy at a cost to ourselves of one officer, Lieutenant Miller, and seventeen men wounded. The enemy, on the contrary, lost heavily in men and material. According to the British Minister at Stockholm, the loss in men was not less than 2,000. Every magazine in the place was destroyed; also immense stores of rope, cordage, tar, and other naval supplies. The incessant activity of the admirals and captains had swept the enemy's commercial marine from the sea, had taken many ships, had destroyed vast stores, had kept a large body of troops employed, had harassed all the accessible parts of the coast, had shown the British and French flags to the enemy in his capital, and had gutted a first-rate fortress, with an insignificant loss to themselves. To do more--to take Cronstadt, and conquer Sveaborg--would have required an army equal to the reduction of Finland, an enterprise which would have put a severe strain on the resources both of France and Britain, and one that might yet have failed: for the seasons in those regions fight on the side of Russia, and if these heavy blows could not have been struck in six months, the fleet and army must have decamped, under penalty of being frozen up and destroyed.

On the Pacific coast there was an important, although to a great extent an ineffectual, campaign. Russia, driven on by a desire to reach the open sea somewhere, had pushed her settlements from Siberia down the great river Amoor, which enters the Gulf of Tartary opposite the northern end of the Japanese island of Saghalien. At Castries Bay, on the coast of this tract, they had built a town called Alexandrovsk, and still farther south they had a settlement, named after Constantine, at Port Imperial, or Barracouta Bay. In short, before 1854, and still more so afterwards Russia was bent on making a solid establishment on the Pacific, as an outlet to Siberia and as the base of a Pacific fleet. She had also a town and forts at Petropaulovski on the coast of Kamschatka, and, before the war, in Aniwa Bay, at the south end of the island of Saghalien. Here was the nucleus of a strong position on the Pacific, and it gave Russia great influence both in Pekin and Yedo. More than this, it threatened British supremacy in the Eastern seas.

No attempt on the mouth of the Amoor was made in 1854. But in 1855 the allied squadron was strengthened, both on the China and Pacific stations. There were five steamers--one French, the others British--and twelve sailing vessels, four of which were French. The total guns of the squadrons amounted to 480. Admiral Bruce and Admiral Fournichon commanded the Pacific squadron, Admiral Stirling the China squadron. On their side the Russians had augmented the fortifications at Petropaulovski, and had erected new works, and assembled a strong garrison, on the Amoor. But their naval force was of no value; they had only seven vessels, mounting ninety guns; of these four were in the beginning of the year at Petropaulovski. Two British steamers arrived off this place on the 14th of April, but while they were waiting for the squadron the Russians cut a channel through the shore ice, and, favoured by a fog, escaped on the 17th and reached Castries Bay. When, at the end of May, the allied squadron arrived, the place was found to be abandoned; there were only three Americans there. They consequently destroyed the batteries and burnt the Government stores. Admiral Bruce sent one ship to join Admiral Stirling, and with the rest returned to the American coast.

Admiral Stirling, in the meantime, had detached Commodore Elliot with three ships--a frigate, and two steamers--into the Gulf of Tartary. He found the Russian vessels which had escaped Admiral Bruce, in Castries Bay; but he did not attack them, judging the disadvantages to be too great. Yet the weight of metal was in his favour; his ships were free to fight, being unencumbered, while the enemy was deeply laden with the garrison, the inhabitants, and the stores of Petropaulovski. However, Commodore Elliot decided not to risk an action. Instead of that, he sent a steamer for reinforcements, and while he was waiting for them, the enemy got away. At the time it was supposed he had escaped by some inner channel leading to the Amoor, but no such channel exists. The Russians went by the sea under the noses of their opponents. Commodore Elliot returned to the southern shore of Saghalien, where he found two British and two French ships. After some delay Admiral Stirling, taking with him five British vessels, steered for the Sea of Okhotsk. Although the British ships remained cruising off the Russian coasts until late in October, they effected nothing remarkable. The opportunity of striking a blow at the colonisation of the Amoor was lost.

Meanwhile, what was the position of Russia in Asia? "The cession of the Asiatic fortresses, with their neighbouring districts," wrote Lord Aberdeen in 1829, in commenting on the Treaty of Adrianople, "not only secures to Russia the uninterrupted occupation of the eastern coast of the Black Sea, but places her in a situation so commanding as to control at pleasure the destiny of Asia Minor. Prominently advanced into the centre of Armenia, in the midst of a Christian population, Russia holds the keys both of the Persian and the Turkish provinces; and whether she may be disposed to extend her conquests to the East or to the West, to Teheran or to Constantinople, no serious obstacle can arrest her progress." Assuming that the Western Powers did not interfere with the execution of the march to the West, every year sufficed to show the soundness of the conclusions to which Lord Aberdeen came in 1829; and although the presence of the allied fleets in the Black Sea did offer a serious obstacle in 1854-5, yet that was an accident, which only for a time diminished the value of the Russian position in Armenia. Without the aid of a fleet the Russians were still very formidable. The strong fortress of Gumri not only barred the road to Tiflis, the capital of Georgia, but commanded the plain of Kars. The fort of Akalzik shut out the Turks in Kars from direct communication with the seaport of Batoum. The tracing of the frontier of the province of Erivan placed Russia within a couple of marches of Bayazid. Both sides in 1854 knew the value of the prize for which they were contending. The Turks owed the preservation of Anatolia to the energy and courage of a Hungarian and a few Englishmen. The Russians sent one of their best generals to command on that frontier, and had not the European officers stopped him by holding Kars until they were on the brink of famine, that general would have carried the flag of Russia to Trebizond.

Such being the importance of the frontier, it is not surprising that the British Ministers watched with anxiety the progress of hostilities in that quarter; and with all the more anxiety because they were comparatively powerless to render aid. It required all the energies of Britain to maintain an army in the Crimea. She could not send troops, but she could send officers. France might have spared a force, but France had no wish to protect the Turks in Armenia, and had she done so we should have looked with jealousy on her efforts. There was the Turkish army under Omar Pasha, which, after the Austrians entered the Principalities, was, at least in the spring of 1855, comparatively useless. But here again France stepped in, and would not consent to the employment upon the Armenian frontier of the only efficient general in the Sultan's service. Therefore the struggle in Asia Minor was carried on by the Turks alone, with the aid of a few European soldiers.

The Turkish Pashas on the Russian frontier drew supplies and pay (when they could get it) for 40,000 men, but they never commanded a force so large. The difference they put in their own pockets. Corruption and peculation and frauds of all kinds characterised the conduct of the greater part of these Turkish officers quite as much--and that is a high estimate--as their incapacity and cowardice. The true policy of the Turks in Armenia would have been to wage a defensive war. In that course they would have found in the nature of the country a great ally; and if they had preserved the frontier intact, they would have done the Sultan and the common cause good service. But the Turkish leaders had that kind of impetuosity which accompanies incompetence. As soon as the war broke out they began to assail the enemy. A party from Batoum captured Fort Nicholas, just across the frontier, by surprise. This was not a bad move, for it stimulated the ardour of the soldiers. Unfortunately, the ambition of the Pashas was stimulated also. The commanders on the Kars frontier took the offensive, and began to engage the Russian outposts. The Commander-in-Chief was Abdi Pasha. He had been educated in the military schools of Austria, and had some talent and knowledge, yet this was marred by constitutional inactivity and slowness. His second in command was Ahmed Pasha, an incompetent man, who shone in the intrigues of the Turkish ante-rooms. The Russians were posted at Baindir and Akisha. Learning the amount of their force at the former place, Abdi Pasha sent against them a body of troops superior in number, who, falling upon them unawares, routed them and drove them headlong into Gumri. At the same time Ahmed Pasha had moved upon Akisha. His movements were slow, and the enemy, being prepared, inflicted upon him a severe repulse. Learning this, Abdi Pasha ordered his subordinate at once to retreat upon Kars. Ahmed Pasha would not obey nor disobey. It is a convincing proof of his stupidity that he divided his forces, sending part back to Kars, and remaining with the rest within reach of the enemy. Prince Andronikoff, who commanded the Russians, saw his opportunity, and seized it with great spirit. He quitted his entrenchments and offered battle. Nothing loth, the Turk stood to fight. He was still superior in numbers. He was able to show an equal front, and at the same time to outflank his opponent. Nevertheless the Russians utterly routed their foes. The troops hurried back to Kars in confusion. They were "a mere rabble." The Russians did not pursue, otherwise Kars might have fallen in 1853. The untoward conduct of Ahmed ruined the whole campaign. Nor were the destructive powers of the Pashas limited to action in the field. In the winter they allowed the army to rot in Kars.

It was now the spring of 1854, and the Western Powers were just sending troops to the East. Through the long winter there had been a few Europeans at Kars, and to these the army owed everything. There was the Englishman Guyon, who had carved himself a name on the records of the Hungarian War of Independence. There was George Kmety, a Hungarian leader of valiant Honved battalions in 1848-9, and, like Guyon, driven into Turkey when Russia, throwing her sword into the scale, turned it in favour of Austria. Kmety was an excellent soldier, and although an infantry officer, he took in hand and made great use of the Turkish irregular horse, with which he covered the front, and guarded Kars for months from all chance of falling by a coup de main. These two, until the arrival of Zarif, the new commander, were the principal supports of Turkish power.

It was a great fault of the Turkish Government that it had established no depôts in Armenia. Everything, except wood and grain, had to be transported from Constantinople. The Russians had been allowed to purchase the grain crops in the two preceding years; another instance of the long-sighted policy of Nicholas, and his wilful determination to break up the Turkish Empire. Had the Turks formed a large magazine at Erzeroum, and constructed a strong camp at Kars, supposing an honest and capable Pasha could have been found, the disasters and sufferings of 1853-4 might have been avoided. On the contrary, nothing having been done in time, all that was needed had to be done in a hurry, and the army had to be supplied from Constantinople, first by sea to Trebizond, then by execrable roads over rugged mountains to Erzeroum, and thence by roads equally difficult to Kars. It was by this route that supplies and reinforcements reached the front in the spring of 1854.

Neither side as yet showed any activity. The Russians were not in great strength, and the Turks had only just recovered from the evils of the winter. But in June the enemy showed that he was capable of striking a blow. On the 8th he made a simultaneous advance along the whole line. On the 8th of June the Russians threatened Ardahan, and the Turks reinforced the post, but no action took place. At the same time a body of Cossacks appeared near Bayazid; these were utterly routed by the Turkish irregulars. In the meantime, Prince Andronikoff had pushed forward towards Urzughetti. Selim Pasha, alarmed at his approach, retreated in haste over the frontier. Compelled at length to stand, he took up a strong position, and received battle on the 16th of June. He was totally defeated, with the loss of all his guns and baggage; and he hurried with the wreck of his army to Batoum. The Russians had opened the campaign with a fruitful victory.

In July, having nothing more to fear from the army of Batoum, Prince Bebutoff resolved to try the mettle of the Kars army, marched out of Gumri, and crossing the Arpa-Chai, encamped on Turkish territory within a few miles of the Pasha's camp at Soobattan and Hadji Veli Khoi. For weeks Zarif declined action, and the Russian boldly sent a detachment which beat the Turks at Bayazid. In this exigency, as soon as he learned the news of the defeat, Zarif resolved to fight Bebutoff. There was still time. The detachment was still on the march from Bayazid. But when he should have acted with decision, the Turk wavered and hesitated; and before he decided, the Russian army was again united in his front. It was on the 5th of August that he made up his mind to fight the next morning. He should have acted on the 2nd, when the enemy was still looking for his coming troops. It was now too late. The Bayazid detachment had rejoined Prince Bebutoff. The spies in the Turkish camp had informed the Russian of an intended movement. The result was that Zarif was defeated after a stubborn contest. The Turks lost 3,500 in killed and wounded, 2,000 in prisoners, and 15 guns. More than 6,000 men went home, but many of these returned, and for days the irregular cavalry were bringing in stragglers. Nearly all the Turkish officers ran away, and thus only one regimental commander was killed, and one general of brigade slightly wounded. The Russian loss was very great. They admit that upwards of 3,000 were killed or wounded, including no fewer than 111 officers, of whom 21 were killed. In truth, the Russian officers were obliged to expose themselves in order to stimulate the men, and had the Turks been as brave, the day might have had a different ending. The loss inflicted on the Russians is a terrible testimony to the efficiency of the Turkish artillery. The Turks lost the battle, because they were commanded by an intriguer who had never been a soldier; because the troops were undrilled, and had no officers worthy of the name; because, with such troops and such officers, they were directed to make so perilous a movement as a night march; because their cavalry ran away, and because they fought in fragments. Such was the battle of Kuruk-Dereh. It took its name from a village within the Russian lines, and it tended to increase vastly the influence of the Russians in Asia.

The campaign in Armenia ended with this battle. On the 17th of August, eleven days after his victory, Prince Bebutoff deemed it prudent to return to Gumri. The fruits of the campaign, besides the three victories, were many. The Turkish army was diminished and demoralised; the road from Turkey to Persia was rendered unsafe, and the Kurds were induced to revolt. Russia might well be proud of successes in Armenia, which were some compensation for losses on the Circassian coast of the Black Sea.

As it was foreseen that Russia would make fresh efforts in Asia, the British Government, moved by the reports of the British Consuls, who faithfully described the unhappy condition of the Kars army under its wretched and criminal commanders, appointed, on the 2nd of August, Lieutenant-Colonel Williams to be Her Majesty's Commissioner at the headquarters of the Turkish army in Asia. He was to place himself in communication with Lord Raglan and Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, to keep them informed of all matters connected with the state of the Asiatic army, and to correspond with Lord Clarendon. Colonel Williams arrived at Constantinople on the 14th of August, and on the 19th he saw Lord Raglan at Varna. Returning to Constantinople, he was in constant communication with Lord Stratford de Redcliffe until the 31st, when he sailed for Trebizond. On the 24th of September he reached Kars. With him went Lieutenant Teesdale, Dr. Sandwith, and Mr. Churchill. Throughout his journey he had kept an eye on the state of affairs, and long before he arrived at Kars had complained seriously to Constantinople. As soon as he had quitted Trebizond he encountered two siege guns deserted in the snow. On arriving at Erzeroum he found that no provision had been made for the troops who were to winter there, and no adequate measures taken to defend the place. But it was on reaching Kars that the truth burst upon him in all its grossness--that the Sultan's army was a mere rabble in rags. The muster-rolls of the Turkish army showed on paper a force of 22,754 men. The number actually existing, including sick, was 14,600--a clear proof of the peculation practised by the Pashas. The clothes of these men were ragged and thread-bare. Their trousers, shoes, and stockings were not fit to be seen. They subsisted from hand to mouth, and in October there were only provisions for three days in the magazine.

In November Colonel Williams returned to Erzeroum in order that he might thence enforce the measures necessary for the supply and reinforcement of the army. Captain Teesdale was left at Kars to look after the feeding, accommodation, and drill of the troops. In executing the laborious task of fortifying Erzeroum, preparing barracks, obtaining transport, making arrangements for supplies of grain and forage, pressing for reinforcements, pay, clothing, arms, accoutrements, the British officers at Kars and Erzeroum passed the winter. Besides contending with jealous Pashas, General Williams found himself obliged to use his influence in Kurdistan to put an end to a dangerous insurrection. He was well known to the Kurds, and when he proposed terms they not only trusted to British honour, but the leader surrendered. In the spring General Williams found it necessary to ask for additional help, and the British Government sent him from the Indian army, Colonel Lake, Captain Olpherts, and Captain Thompson, the whole of whom reached Kars in March, 1855. Under the direction of Colonel Lake, and with the aid of these officers, the rough, dilapidated, and badly placed entrenchments about Kars were rectified, and new works were constructed. It was known that the enemy was collecting a large force in Georgia, under General Mouravieff, an officer of skill and experience. There was, therefore, no time to lose, and as soon as the snow melted, and work became practicable, Colonel Lake began his task.

The town of Kars stands in the midst of mountains, on a plateau, some 7,000 feet above the level of the sea. It has been a place of strength for centuries. But its defences proved to be too weak to resist a skilful soldier, and Prince Paskiewitch took it from the Turks in three days in 1828. In fact, the fortress was commanded by the Karadagh on the east, and by the mountains across the river on the west. Therefore, when the European officers reached the town in 1854, they set about remedying these defects by fortifying the Karadagh, surrounding the town suburb with low entrenchments, and throwing up two or three works on the high ground upon the left bank commanding the place. Pontoon bridges were thrown over the river to facilitate the passage of troops from one bank to the other, saving time in the transit. On the left bank, the heights immediately commanding the town were entrenched. Three redoubts, named after Colonel Lake and others, and called the English Lines, stretched from an eminence due west of the Karadagh to the river below the town; and above the town, and commanding it, the river, and the bridges, there was a large redoubt, named after Vassif Pasha. These works, as events showed, were still insufficient. The English Lines, though commanding everything eastward, were not the true key of the place; but that fact had to be demonstrated by the enemy. At the end of May, 1855, the place was secure from an assault on the east--that is, on the side of Gumri--and on the south; but not yet on the west--that is, on the side of Erzeroum. In the entrenched camp, at the beginning of May, there were 10,000 infantry, 1,500 artillerymen, and 1,500 useless cavalry. Afterwards this force was largely increased, but it never exceeded 20,000 men of all arms.

The great object of General Williams was to create a strong and impregnable camp at Kars, and to store up provisions there to such an extent that the garrison would be able to hold out until the winter, when it was assumed the enemy would be compelled, by stress of weather, to quit the bleak highlands, and seek shelter in Gumri. Erzeroum was in like manner made strong, so that it might serve as a base for the Kars army, should that army be able to keep open its communications; and as a place where a force might assemble in safety to relieve Kars, or at least to harass the enemy, and make his position intolerable. But these long-sighted views were frustrated by the wretched organisation of the Turks, the corruption and sloth of the Pashas, and the inability of their regulars to act in the open field. The stores intended for Kars never reached that place, and it is a marvel how it held out so long. Turks, however, will live where other troops would starve.

The Russians were very well informed of the state of things on the Turkish side; they knew that the Allies, engaged so deeply in the Crimea, would not spare any European troops for service in Asia; and that, for reasons of his own, the French Emperor would not consent to the employment of the best Turkish troops and Omar Pasha, the best Moslem general, in Armenia. This made them bold. At the end of May General Mouravieff had assembled 35,000 men and sixty-four guns at Gumri; and in the beginning of June he crossed the Arpa-Chai, and encamped on Turkish territory. General Williams, hearing this, set out at once from Erzeroum, and on the 7th of June arrived at Kars. He did not appear a moment too soon. Vassif Pasha had proposed a retrograde movement on Erzeroum, and Mouravieff had pitched his camp on the Kars-Chai, eight miles north-east of the town. The presence of Williams inspired the garrison with fresh courage, and ended all doubts in the mind of the Pasha. The Kars army was destined to stand by Kars to the last.

The Russian general was a skilful soldier. As soon as he moved out of Gumri and took post at Zaim, about eight miles north of Kars, he halted, and sent out strong detachments to Ardahan and Tchildir among the mountains on his right flank, with the double object of collecting or destroying stores and ascertaining whether the Turks at Batoum were preparing to assist their comrades at Kars. He soon found that the Batoum army was not likely to trouble him, and such was his correct estimate of its value, that for the rest of the campaign he scarcely troubled himself about the doings of that force. Accordingly, on the 14th of June, he drew nearer to Kars, and being powerful in cavalry, he, on that day, drove the whole of the Turkish horsemen watching the valley back upon the entrenched camp.

Mouravieff had inspected the approaches and defences fronting the road to Gumri, and, satisfied that he could not break in on that side, he quitted his camp on the 18th, and, marching in order of battle, crossed that road within sight of the garrison, but far out of range, and encamped on the south side, about four miles from the town. This cautious mode of going to work showed that the general feared to risk an assault. He seemed to be feeling his way about the fortress, but in such a manner, that, although he respected the Turks behind earthworks, he clearly had no fear of them in the field. Posted now close to the road to Erzeroum, his cavalry threatened the direct communications with that place, and forced the couriers of the garrison to take a wide sweep to the north through the mountains, in order to carry the despatches to Erzeroum. From his new camp his cavalry went forth and secured or wasted several small magazines which the reckless idleness of the Turks had left exposed. For a few days heavy falls of rain suspended all movement, but as soon as the rain ceased, the Russian general once more, under cover of a great display of force, reconnoitred the south or town side. The Russian officers thought their general was about to attack. The Turks were on the alert, and every parapet and battery was manned. But at the end of an hour the Russians countermarched and returned to their camp. This was on the 26th of June. Mouravieff had made up his mind that he would lose too many men in risking an assault, and knowing that the Turks could not act in the field, he determined to starve them into submission. On the 29th he divided his army into two parts, leaving one to watch Kars, and proceeding with the other himself over the mountains towards Erzeroum. The movement of Mouravieff on to the Erzeroum road had already induced Vely Pasha to retire from Toprak-Kaleh to Kupri-Keui, so as to place himself between Mouravieff and the capital of Armenia. The Russian general's object, however, was not Erzeroum. He had learned that there was a Turkish magazine in an exposed situation at Yeni-Keui. It was of the last importance to the garrison of Kars, and its stores ought long before to have been moved into that camp. There were two months' supplies at Yeni-Keui. Upon these Mouravieff pounced with the swoop of an eagle, and what he could not carry away he destroyed. A second expedition, which caused great alarm, followed in August.

During this expedition of General Mouravieff towards Erzeroum, General Brunner, commanding the besieging army, advanced against the town defences on the 8th of August. He brought up large masses of infantry, cavalry, and guns, with the object of enticing the Turks out of their lines. Not only did he fail, but he managed to get within range of the ordnance in the south-west redoubt, called Kanli Tabia, and suffered a severe loss in killed and wounded, including a general. This was the last experiment on the plain; the enemy thenceforth turned his attention to the western heights; and, seeing this close scrutiny, Colonel Lake completed his defences on that side. At the end of August Mouravieff returned to the camp. The approaches to Kars were more closely watched than ever. Desertion began in the garrison, and was not stopped until some men, caught in the act, were shot. The garrison now began to be pinched for food. The men were on three-quarter rations in the middle of August, on half rations in the first week of September. Forage could no longer be cut outside. The stores of barley had come to an end. All the cavalry were, therefore, sent away, and many scores managed to pass the Russian pickets, but some hundreds were taken. The plan of capture by blockade was slowly securing success. The Russian grasp grew tighter; the garrison weaker. The appeals of General Williams for aid were in vain.

Not that they were unheeded; not that generals, diplomatists, ministers, emperors did not write and talk about the straits of the Kars army, and about plans for its relief. As early as June--but that was a thought too late--we read of plans for the relief of Kars. The British Government felt all the importance to British interests of a stout defence at least of Armenia. They knew that Russian success would diminish their influence in Persia, and possibly shake their power in India. Precisely for that reason the French Emperor was indisposed to aid in or consent to any timely or reasonable plan. As early as July it was proposed that an expedition should sail for Redout Kaleh, on the Mingrelian coast, and landing there, should so threaten Kutais and Tiflis that Mouravieff, alarmed, would be compelled to quit Kars in order to defend the heart of Georgia. But the British Government did not approve of this plan, preferring the direct advance of a relieving army from Trebizond upon Erzeroum. The British had raised a Turkish contingent under British officers; but Lord Clarendon would not consent to its employment, on the ground that it was not fit to cope with Russians in the field. Omar Pasha proposed to take his own troops from Balaclava, and others gathered up from Bulgaria and Batoum, and land at Redout Kaleh. To this the French Emperor would not consent, on the ground that they could not be spared from the Crimea. As the matter grew more urgent the plans for the relief of Kars increased; but the obstructions to the formation of the army were so great, Governments could agree upon so few points, that weeks--nay, months--passed, before the relieving army could be formed and sent across the Black Sea. Thus Kars and its gallant defenders were left to strive with two deadly foes--a tenacious Russian general and starvation.

General Mouravieff had heard of the projected advance of Omar Pasha's troops from Batoum, as he was told, and of another relieving army from Erzeroum, upon Kars; and believing the reports, resolved to assault Kars on the 29th of September. This led to a conflict which claims and deserves a high place among great military actions. The Russian general had the command of more than 30,000 men. He selected for attack the heights to the westward, which General Kmety occupied with a garrison of 6,450 men, whereof 5,270 were infantry. These heights he resolved to surprise by an assault at daybreak on all points, while a diversion was made on the town side. The garrison, however, were on the alert, and gave the enemy a warm reception. The Russian left column, exposed to a heavy fire of artillery, marched steadily on. Neither the round-shot, nor, as it came nearer, the grape-shot, and then the musketry, converging upon its head, and searching its flanks, nor the rocky ground it traversed, stopped the majestic march of these noble troops. For half an hour it was tormented with shot, and yet it still moved forward. When about a hundred yards from the works, the head of the column, its patience exhausted, opened fire, but still without halting. On it came. General Kmety now brought up fifty rifles of the Sultan's Guard, and formed them parallel to the head of the column. It was now enveloped in fire; nevertheless, these stubborn Russians pressed up to within ten yards of the ditch. That was the limit of their advance. Brave men as they were, they could bear no more; they slowly turned, and slowly fell back on their guns. The Turks had exhausted their ammunition, and the men were flinging stones at the retiring foe. The artillery was deficient in grape-shot. The Turks had no horsemen. The enemy was beaten; he might have been destroyed. In the track of the column lay a thousand corpses, and from the pouches of their dead enemies the Turks, leaping over the parapets, replenished their empty pouches.

At this moment of victory Kmety learned that Yarim-ai-Tabia, on his left, had been captured; that the Tachmasb lines had been turned, and that Hussein Pasha, in spite of a dogged resistance, was shut up in the Tachmasb redoubt. To rally his men, Kmety called out that the foe was in the rear; and at this call they ran back to their ranks. Sixteen Russian guns, drawn up in the rear of the extreme left of the Tachmasb lines, now came into action and pounded the Turks; but General Williams and Mr. Churchill, from Yassif and Tek-Tabias, brought a heavy cross-fire to bear upon these guns, and drove them away. At this time Kmety had reached Yusek-Tabia, and organising a column of assault, fell on with the bayonet, and cleared the breast-works of Yarim-ai. The Tachmasb redoubt was now quite surrounded. The enemy were massed on all sides, and so close that the grape from the redoubt made horrible havoc. The Russian artillery on the exterior front were throwing shells, but more burst among their own infantry in the tents than in the redoubt.

The chances of victory, although the enemy made no way against Tachmasb, were not altogether against him; for just about the time that Kmety recovered Yarim-ai, a strong force of infantry, cavalry, and guns appeared before the English Lines. These works were not well placed; they were weakly manned; the ground in front fell so rapidly that an advancing foe could not be seen until he came within grape range. About a quarter to seven the Russians crowned the ridge, fired three rounds, and in ten minutes were masters of the lines. The enemy's infantry piled arms, and breaking down a part of the parapet, he poured a battery through, and began shelling the town and firing into Fort Lake. It is probable that this force was directed to hold the ground won until joined by the enemy from the west. But this could not be permitted. Arab Tabia opened on them. Captain Thompson dragged a 32-pounder from the eastern to the western side of the Karadagh. Colonel Lake turned three guns from the front to the rear of his fort. This cross fire inflicted severe losses on the enemy. Yet the Russians stood gallantly for an hour and a half. At the end of that time a body of infantry sent by Thompson, and another sent by General Williams, had wound their way across the river, and, uniting with a battalion pushed forward by Colonel Lake, charged the enemy with the bayonet, and drove him out of the lines. The Russian horse essayed a charge, but fell under the fire from the reconquered parapets, and rolled over each other in the deep holes, called trous de loup, which had been dug in front of the lines. Curiously enough, however, the enemy carried off five guns.

The fighting about the Tachmasb redoubt was going on with great fierceness; but, from the moment the Russians were driven away from the English Lines, the issue of the day ceased to be doubtful. Kmety had first recaptured the right breastwork at Tachmasb, though the enemy stood firmly in the tents within fifty paces. But Kmety brought his two field-pieces into action. Within the redoubts the Turks wanted cartridges. Hussein Pasha supplied the want by heading sorties. Thus, part of the garrison was employed in stripping off the pouches of the killed and wounded, and throwing them to their comrades, who maintained the fire. The heavy guns of the forts in the second line came into play, so that the dogged enemy was in a circle of fire. To the last he was supplied with fresh troops, but these did not do more than augment the slain. At length the Turks took the offensive. The enemy stole away towards the left, and sought to escape out of the lines. So far as their slender means allowed--and they had few horses--the Turks pressed the retreat of the Russians, and drove off their remaining guns. The battle was at an end; it had raged for seven hours; and during that time a mere handful of Turks, well led, had defeated three times their own number. There are few battles more remarkable for the stubbornness of both sides than this battle of Kars. The Turks had 1,094 killed or wounded; the Russians had at least 6,500 killed, for the bodies were buried by the garrison.

Although the garrison had won a victory, their sufferings were not at an end. It was hoped that General Mouravieff would retreat, both because he had been so thoroughly beaten, and because Omar Pasha was at length afoot and troops were about to land at Trebizond. But Mouravieff did not go; on the contrary, he began to erect permanent huts. Nor did he relax the rigour of the blockade. He drew his lines more closely around Kars; for he knew the plight of the garrison. He judged that no relief would arrive; and he judged correctly. Selim Pasha did not land at Trebizond until the 11th of October; he did not make his appearance at Erzeroum until the 25th. The British officers there, and Consul Brant, plied him with every kind of stimulant to provoke him to advance upon Mouravieff's rear. He knew the state of the garrison of Kars, but he would not undertake the task. He marched a little way, when his heart failed him and he halted. All hope of aid from that side was at an end. Omar Pasha, with a really fine army, had landed at Sukhum-Kaleh at the end of October. He was an immense distance from Kutais and Tiflis. On the 5th of November he forced the passage of the Ingour, winning a brilliant but useless victory. Moving on through Mingrelia, he approached Kutais, until the rains began to fall, and the swollen streams and deep roads brought him to a halt. Then he retreated to Redout Kaleh. In the meantime Kars had fallen a prey to famine. The movements of Omar Pasha had been absolutely without any influence on the result.

The glorious garrison of Kars actually managed to maintain itself for two months after the battle of the 29th of September. The cholera appeared, and slew a thousand men in a fortnight. The rations of the troops were reduced to eleven ounces of bread, and some very weak soup, containing an ounce of nutriment. The hospitals grew fuller day by day. The people and soldiers tore up the grass to feed on the roots. Some of the grain abstracted from the magazines, and a depôt of coffee and sugar, accidentally discovered, came in most opportunely as a relief. The horses remaining were now killed sparingly, and from the flesh broth was made. Hunger and cold--for the clothing of the troops was worn out--drove scores daily to the hospital, where they died. They never failed in duty or loyalty; neither want of food, nor hope deferred, nor the incessant night alarms of the foe, shook these patient, faithful men. Three days' provisions were collected in the batteries, for a false report had come that Selim Pasha was near, and it was thought advisable to be ready for a sortie. The hungry soldiers stood sentry over these provisions, yet did not touch a single biscuit. Then snow fell; the scanty grass was hidden; its roots were difficult to obtain. At length the people, who had borne their suffering well, cried out that they could bear no more. General Williams now received a message from Consul Brant, saying that Selim Pasha would not move; that Omar Pasha was too far off, and that the Kars garrison had nothing to depend on but itself. At first it was resolved to attempt a retreat; but this was impracticable. Then it was resolved to surrender, and General Williams and Captain Teesdale repaired on the 25th of November to the Russian camp, and, with the permission of the former, General Kmety and General Colman--Hungarian refugees--rode through the Russian outposts, and reached Erzeroum.

Mouravieff was quite prepared to treat. The terms were soon agreed upon. They were embodied in these articles, dated the 27th of November:--"1. The fortress of Kars shall be delivered up intact. 2. The garrison of Kars, with the Turkish commander-in-chief, shall march out with the honours of war, and become prisoners. The officers, in consideration of their gallant defence of the place, shall retain their swords. [This was dictated by Mouravieff himself.] 3. The private property of the whole garrison shall be respected. 4. The Redifs (militia), Bashi-Bazouks, and Laz shall be allowed to return to their homes. 5. The non-combatants--such as medical officers, scribes, and hospital attendants--shall be allowed to return to their homes. 6. General Williams shall be allowed the privilege of making a list of certain Hungarian and other European officers, to enable them to return to their homes. [This was done to save Kmety and others.] 7. The persons mentioned in Articles 4, 5, and 6 are in honour bound not to serve against Russia during the war. 8. The inhabitants of Kars will be protected in their persons and property. 9. The public buildings and the monuments of the town will be respected." With difficulty the Turkish pashas accepted these favourable terms, and on the 28th the garrison marched out and laid down its arms.

Thus ended the campaign in Asia in 1855. The Russians occupied the whole of Turkish Armenia until the peace, but made no further attempt to extend their conquests. On looking back, it becomes manifest that the relief of Kars might have been effected by an early and decisive march of Omar Pasha's army from Trebizond upon Erzeroum. To this he was opposed, as well as the Emperor of the French and the Sultan's Government; but that it was the only feasible plan might readily be shown. Kars was really sacrificed to the exigencies of the alliance and of the Crimean campaign. The French Emperor would not give his consent that anything should be risked to save Kars; nor did he want to save it; for the success of Russia in Asia was not only not indifferent, it was gratifying to him. The success of Russia was a diminution of British prestige in the East. Moreover, the Emperor, as we shall see, soon resolved that peace should be made; and that remark carries us back to Europe and the incidents of the winter of 1855-6.

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