Chapter VII
Visits to the Alma--Aspect of the Locality--Criticisms on the Battle--Conflicting Statements--Memorials of departed Heroes.
Ere I left the Crimea I went twice to the Alma, and examined the battle-ground. I shall reproduce my account of the excursion in the language in which it was written at the time. "The road from the plateau, on which for one long year the hopes and fears and anxieties of civilized Europe were concentrated, leads down from the ridge on which the battle of Inkerman was mainly fought to the deep ravine out of which the materials for the mansions, quays, harbours, docks, and forts of Sebastopol have been hewed. It presents a wild and desolate aspect. The graves of the slain are numerous. The slabs of oolite tower perpendicularly for several hundred feet on the right hand and the left to the verge of the elevated plateau, and rise, like great white walls of masonry, aloft from a base of huge blocks and disintegrated masses of the same substance. This ravine, deepening as it descends, falls at right angles to the valley through which the Tchernaya eats its way to the head of the Roads of Sebastopol. At the lower end of the ravine the aqueduct spans it, and then is carried on a light and handsome bridge of masonry, supported on some ten or twelve arches right across, and disappears in a tunnel through the solid rock on the left-hand side. Passing underneath, through one of the arches, you find yourself by the banks of the sluggish Tchernaya, and a ride of 500 yards or so past the perpendicular cliffs, perforated with caves, which bound the margin of the valley, leads you to the causeway across the marsh towards Inkerman. An excellent wooden bridge, built by our engineers, stretches across the river, and the marsh beyond is crossed by a high causeway. At the near end are our guard-tents; and the pass is kept by the Russian and English sentries, who seem on very good terms with each other. Arrived at the end of the causeway, the cliffs of northern Inkerman are above you, and the road winds up to a ravine which leads you to their recesses. A curious chapel and monkery in the caves are visible in the face of the cliff. Embrasures are above, before, and on each side of you on entering these fastnesses. The black pupils of these dull eyes have been removed, but there is enough of the works left to show how hot and frequent they could have flashed on you in their anger. There are five batteries on various points of this ravine, and the slopes of the plateau afford many fine sites for field artillery or guns of position. The road is good. On the right, about a mile from the entrance of the ravine, are numerous deep shafts in the clay, from, which the Russians draw their supply of water. The road winds gradually upwards till it leads you to the level of the north plateau of Inkerman, just as the Quarries road took you down from the south plateau to the level of the valley of the Tchernaya, from which you are now ascending. Here is the Russian camp, at which we have so often gazed from the heights on the right of our position. It is now very much altered in appearance. The huts have been abandoned, and the men are living in a very pretty, clean, and well-kept camp of canvas, but the purlieus are very dirty, and have the usual disagreeable smell of Russian quarters. The tents are square in shape, and at the top, which tapers to a point from the side of the wall, there is a knob, gilt or painted, which gives them an air of finish. The path or streets of the camp are bordered with wild flowers and fir branches. The regiments stationed here belong to the Seventh Division, which forms the First Division of the third corps d'armée, and are, as well as I could ascertain, the 13th (Smolensko) and 14th (Politsch), and number about 6,000 men. There is a brigade of field artillery--two batteries--close to this camp, and the pieces are very well kept, and in excellent condition.
[Sidenote: THE ALMA REVISITED.]
"The cantonments extend as far as the heights over the valley of the Belbek on the left-hand side, and could have contained about 18,000 men, which considerably exceeds the strength of the whole of the Seventh Division. A steep road descending from the verge of the plateau, at the point where the Russian bazaar is established, leads to the Belbek, which is crossed by two bridges. One of these is a fine, well-built new structure of wood; the other is that by which the army crossed in the flank march, and the post-house near which Sir George Cathcart took up his quarters still remains intact. The Fourth Division bivouacked here the night before we entered Balaklava, when Lord Raglan slept at Traktir, on the Tchernaya, and Sir George was very uneasy, on account of his isolated position, separated, as he was, from the rest of the army, and believing that a body of Russians intervened between them. It was from this that General Windham rode with despatches to the Katcha, anticipating Commander Maxse's arrival from the Tchernaya by more than half an hour, and from this neighbourhood the army turned towards Mackenzie. Lord Raglan reconnoitred Sebastopol from a hillock close to the road on the right, a short time before we fell in with the rear-guard and baggage of the enemy. The village of the Belbek is greatly changed since then--the trees have been cut down, and the valley, once so beautiful, blooms no more. The villas have been used as hospitals, and there are many Russian graves, marked with black wooden crosses, in the neighbouring ravines. From this valley you ascend another steep hill to the top of the plateau which lies between it and the valley of the Katcha. The ground is covered with dwarf trees and thick brushwood, full of lizards and small birds, which are persecuted by numerous falcons and hawks. There are patches of naked ground and ashes scattered over the plateau, which show where parties of the enemy were encamped; but the country is not suited for large bodies of men, as water is not to be had except at the rivers. The plateau is intersected by numerous woody ravines, and the tracks followed by the allied armies are plainly visible. They have been much used by the Russians.
"A ride of three-quarters of an hour takes us to the valley of the Katcha, still beautiful and rich with verdure, for this part of it is too far from the immediate operations of war, and too much out of the track from Bakshiserai, to have suffered much. The place which we approach was once the village of Eskel; it is now in ruins. The Tartar houses are pulled down or unroofed; the population have fled; and the Russian houses are just as they were left by the Cossacks on our approach after the Alma. The church gleams brightly through the dense branches of the fruit-trees, which are covered with blossoms, but the large tracts of vineyards which welcomed us nearly three years ago, are now uncultivated. The Doctor's house is in a sad plight--one of the first we entered after the Alma--and is still the picture of neglect and ruin. Lord Raglan's comfortable residence is in the custody of an old Tartar, who shows the broken furniture, the sofas ripped open, the chairs smashed, and the beds cut up, with great pride, and leads one to infer pretty plainly that Ruskie did all the mischief. It was at this village that the Russians halted to recover breath after their headlong flight from the Alma, and from it they fled the same night in panic on the cry being raised that the Allies were coming.
"The Katcha is a deep narrow stream with rotten banks, and some people think it would have afforded a better position than the Alma; but, in fact, it is too near Sebastopol. We found a few Russian soldiers in the houses; and on the first occasion it happened to be the Greek Easter Sunday, and we were most hospitably entertained by a poor Russian family, who insisted on our partaking of painted eggs, of salt pork steeped in vinegar, and cabbage, of brown bread, butter, vodka, or white home-made brandy, and Crim tobacco, and then on embracing us because we were Christians--a severe punishment, which, if often repeated, might lead to recantation. Crossing the Katcha by the bridge over which our army filed into Eskel, we find ourselves on the steppe--the dry barren plain studded with tumuli, which extends in wavy folds right away to Perekop. At this season of the year it is glorious with large beds of wild flowers, sweet-pea, roses, mignonette, thyme, orchids of all kinds, sweet-william, and many other varieties, whose tame and developed species are the ornaments of our gardens at home; it is musical, too, with the song of birds singing to their mates in the nest; but in September it is an arid, scorched waste, covered with coarse hay, and as it is devoid of water, it is unfit for pasturage. The ride to the Alma from the Katcha is not more than eight miles, but it seems twice the distance. The white telegraph station over the river, which stood on the Russian left, can be seen for many miles on a clear day, but on the steppe mirage is very common, and the horizon is rarely well defined. It is often lost in a fantastic margin resembling the sealine of an agitated ocean. Bustards, on the qui vive about their young ones, soar slowly before us, and eagles, vultures, and many species of falcons are visible in pursuit of their prey, which must consist for the most part of hares, which are very large and numerous. Some of these hares have been found to weigh ten or twelve pounds, and I have heard of a monster who turned the scale at fourteen pounds. In one of the hollows in the steppe, about three miles from the Alma, there is a small hamlet, but, with this exception, not a habitation is visible over the whole of this vast expanse of land. It is famous ground for a long canter, or as much of a gallop as your horse will stand; so with the help of an occasional scurry after a hare the distance melts away, and as we go crashing through the sweet flowers, the telegraph rises higher and clearer till we pull up at the foot of the mound on which it stands. This was the scene of a fierce struggle, and it was here the French had some really hard fighting before they forced the enemy to fly.
[Sidenote: THE ALMA REVISITED.]
"The telegraph is a quadrilateral figure of white stone, and it has never been finished. It is covered with names; and one side is engraved 'La Bataille d'Alma, 8 Septembre.' The French had put the right date, the 20th; but the Russians obliterated it, and altered it to their own style. There are fifteen large sepulchral mounds around the telegraph, wherein lie French and Russians, and the ravines are still full of bones, and of fragments of clothing and accoutrements. Cannon-shot appear to have been carefully removed. There is an excellent view of the French position and attack from the edge of the plateau. The enemy must have had every movement of the Allies under their eyes from the time they left Bouljanak till they halted to form for battle; and the spectacle could not have been one to have given them much courage, or to have inflamed their ardour. The Russians declare they had only 33,000 or 34,000 on the field; but, admitting that to be so, they made a bad fight, considering the position they occupied, and their cavalry exhibited that passive and unenterprising character which it maintained throughout the war. An officer of the old Pestal regiment told me that he charged our first attacking body when they were checked with the bayonet, and that if all the troops inside and on the flanks of the redoubts had rushed out simultaneously, the day would have been lost to us; but he was rather surprised when he heard that our Third and Fourth Divisions were still intact, and that the Guards, whom he supposed to have been routed, were never broken except in the centre, where the Scots Fusiliers wavered for a time in their advance under the heavy fire of the Russians and the pressure of the disjointed groups of the Light Division. The French are disposed to think that the English were too slow in beginning the attack, which it was agreed should not take place till our allies had gained the left of the Russian position. It is certain that Lord Raglan received one, if not two, pressing messages from Marshal St. Arnaud to hasten his columns: but one may ask how it was that here, as everywhere else, the honour of taking the initiative was ceded to our allies, and the opportunity given to them of saying 'The English were too late.' They only numbered 23,000, whereas we had 27,000. If it resulted from their position on our right, why did they take the left when we halted before Sebastopol?
"The assaults on the place were made on the same principle--the French first, the English afterwards; and, whether it be true or false that we were 'too late,' there can be no doubt there was from the beginning a tendency to say so. It is beyond question, in the opinion of many officers, that the Light Division were not followed closely enough by the First in their advance up the hill at the Alma. In other words, the latter were too slow or 'too late.' The French did their part admirably, and their intelligence and personal activity were wonderfully displayed in their progress up the steep ravines and sides of the high banks of the plateau, but their loss in killed and wounded was under 700 men, while ours was just 2,000. The Admiral Bouet Willaumez, in his recent so-called 'History of the French Navy,' distinctly avers that the English General would not permit the victory to be followed up by marching next day, and that the French were retarded by their allies. A different impression prevails in our army; but this is one of the points which must be cleared up for history by those who were in the confidence of Lord Raglan. The statement, at all events, shows what was the belief of the chef d'état major of the French navy in the Black Sea. Of the necessity and of the motives for the delay, of its results, of the practicability of getting such aid from the fleet as would have relieved us entirely from the charge of sick, wounded, and prisoners, I shall not speak; but it is to be remarked that the feebleness and imbecility of our arrangements in this portion of our administration became apparent at the very first pressure by the abandonment of our ambulances just at the very time they were most needed, by the disgraceful exhibition of the Kangaroo crowded with sick and wounded till she had to make the signal that she was unmanageable and unsafe in the sight of the whole fleet, by the sufferings of her miserable cargo, left to the charge of one surgeon, who could not attend to a tithe of his patients, and who could not even get at them if he could have dressed their wounds, and by the foolish and cruel expedient of leaving another surgeon, Dr. Thompson, and his servant on the field to take care of 700 wounded men. Dr. Thompson felt the hopelessness and positive cruelty of such a proceeding, and remonstrated against it, but he was told it had been 'ordered,' and that if the 'Cossacks' came down his 'professional character' would protect him.
"The battle of the Alma was one of the most brilliant in the world--the shortest and sharpest, and our army, young in action, but veteran in service, displayed the best qualities of British infantry. We have since heard of the incredulity, of the dismay, with which the news was received in St. Petersburg, and of the subsequent eagerness of the Russian army to avenge the defeat and to hurry to the Crimea, to drive the Allies into the sea. They found a barrier they could not break at Inkerman; but they are a people prone to put faith in their own invincibility, and slow to credit defeat. They believe in themselves yet. The position of the Alma is so well marked that it can never be mistaken by any future visitors. The French attacked the steep and almost perpendicular cliffs, which are broken here and there by ravines which mount upwards from the river. Their columns were divided from our regiments by the most marked and extensive of those ravines, and eastward of that boundary the whole of the ground suddenly falls, and, instead of rising abruptly from the Alma, gains the high level of the hills by a series of sweeping undulations, offering many positions for guns, with extensive glacis to the front.
[Sidenote: PEACEFUL EXPLORATIONS.]
"Descending from the plateau, some of our party crossed the bridge, and went out on the plain towards Bouljanak to the tumuli which stud the plains, and which denote the extreme range of the Russian guns. On turning round towards the south, the eye takes in the whole scene of battle, from the sea on the right to the low slopes which formed the right of the Russian position. Their left was separated from their right by a deep ravine running at right angles toward the Alma, and this ravine also is the boundary between the high and steep cliffs which, on the south bank, overhang the tortuous course of the Alma from the ford to the sea, and the gentler rising grounds on which the enemy's left lay, strengthened by the epaulements and by the mass of the Russian artillery. It will then be seen how the Russian left depended on the nature of the ground as its best defence, and what a fatal mistake Menschikoff committed when he omitted to take into consideration the effect of the fire of the ships. That fire soon drove back their left, and forced it to reform on the centre, which it put into confusion, and the French, ascending by the ravines with the utmost courage and activity, made good their footing on the right and turned the Russian left completely, with comparatively little loss. The advance of our allies was covered to a great extent by the thick foliage on the banks of the Alma, and the cliffs are so high and rotten that the enemy's guns could not be used with success against them. The course of the river is much further from the base of these cliffs than it is from the slopes on the Russian right, where the British attacked, so that it would be scarcely commanded by guns on the top of the plateau; whereas, we were under fire for several hundred yards before we reached the Alma at all.
"A mound, composed of fifteen graves, at the distance of 400 or 500 yards from the river on its north side, denotes the resting-place of those who fell before the army crossed the stream, or who died after the fight in the ambulances. The road by which we advanced to the bridge was just as it was on the 20th of September, and on the right, close to the stream, were the blackened ruins of the village of Bourliouk. It will be remembered that the enemy partially destroyed the bridge, but that it was repaired during the action by the Royal Engineers and a party of Sappers and Miners. The bridge has been substantially rebuilt, by means of a strong wooden way thrown across the stone arches, and supported by beams and uprights. The old post-house, on the right of the road before you come to the bridge, was about being reconstructed, and a guard of soldiers were lodged in its ruins. It will be, to all appearances, a handsome house of fine white freestone when it is finished. I surveyed its ruins with peculiar interest, for I know a person very intimately who took shelter in this house, part of which was on fire, to get out of a fire still hotter, till he was driven out by a shell falling through the roof, and it was at the wall outside, which was yet torn by shot, that I met the first two wounded officers I saw that day--two officers of the 30th, one hit through the chest or side; the other wounded, I think, in the leg or arm. They were helping each other from the river, bleeding and weak, and I was fortunate enough to be able to bring to their aid a Staff surgeon, belonging, I believe, to the Cavalry Division, who kindly examined their wounds under fire. Close to this I had previously seen the first man killed--a drummer, who was carrying a litter, and who was struck by a round shot which bowled slowly along the road and hit him, with a peculiar squashing sound, on the hip. He fell, and never moved; nor did his comrade, who was carrying the other end of the litter, stop to mourn over his death.
"After the intrepid rush of the Light Division up the hill, its wavering, its broken and unwilling halt, the bold advance of Pennefather's Brigade, and the billow-like march of the Guards, I pressed on immediately in the rear of the Light, and in front of the Third Division, and I was able to warn Colonel Waddy, as he approached at the head of the 50th, that he was moving right along the line of fire of the enemy's guns, and, as there was a very conclusive proof given of the correctness of the statement just as I spoke, that gallant officer moved off his men, who were in dense column, a little to the left, and got off the road to the fields. All these things and many more came back upon me as I looked around. I could recall that narrow road filled with dead and dying--old friends jesting at scars and wounds, and exulting in victory, and awaiting with patience the arrival of men to carry them away to the surgeons--a white-haired field-officer (of the 55th), whose name I don't know, badly wounded through the body, who could only moan bitterly, 'Oh, my poor men! oh, my poor men! they hadn't a chance;' then the river stained here and there with blood, still flowing from the dead and dying who lay on the shallows and the banks, lined nevertheless by hundreds, who drank its waters eagerly; the horrid procession of the dripping litters going to the rear of the fight; the solid mass of Adams' brigade, halted by Lord Raglan's orders as it emerged from the smoke of Bourliouk: the Staff itself and the Commander-in-Chief, gathered on the rising ground close by; that ghastly battle-field where so many lay in so small a place putrescent with heat and wounds; the grey blocks of Russians melting away like clouds, and drifted off by the fierce breath of battle; the shriek and rush of the shells from the brass howitzers in the battery, the patter of the rifle, the rattling roll of the musketry, the frantic cheers of our men as they stood victors on the heights, drowning the groans and cries which for a moment succeeded the roar of battle; the shrill flourish of the French bugles, and the joyous clamour of their drums from the other side of the ravine--all came back upon the ear again, and the eye renewed its pleasure as it gazed from the ridge upon the plain where it had before seen the Russians flying in disorder, with their rear still covered by the threatening squadrons of their cavalry. Then one recalled the spot where one had seen some friend lying dead, or some one--friend or foe--whom it were no mercy to strive to keep alive. Watkin Wynn, stretched on the ground in front of the trench, with a smile on his face--Chester, with a scornful frown, and his sword clenched in the death grasp--Monck, with the anger of battle fixed on every feature--these and many another friend in the peaceful camp of Aladyn or Devno rose up as they lived in the memory. The scowling Russians who glared so fiercely on their conquerors and seemed to hate them even as they supplied their wants, then seen for the first time, left an impression respecting the type of the Muscovite character which has scarcely been effaced now that they have ceased to be enemies. I recalled the two days passed as no army ought to pass two days--on the field of battle amid the dead--the horrid labours of those hours of despondency and grief where all should have been triumph and rejoicing, and the awakened vigour with which the army broke from its bivouac on the Alma and set out with no certain aim, no fixed project, on its chance march which fate made successful.
[Sidenote: THE ALMA REVISITED.]
"The intrenchment can be distinctly seen for a mile north of the river. It is placed half-way down the slope of the little hill-side. There were no other works, trenches, redoubts, or field-works of any description except one more epaulement and a few sods of earth turned up to afford cover to a few skirmishers; and all the accounts of such defences filled with riflemen and guns which have been made public were erroneous. The enemy had very few riflemen, and the ground, except on the extreme left, was of such a nature that good cover for guns could be had for the seeking. For many years to come the battle-field is likely to remain as it is now, the only difference being that the vines which flourished on the 20th of September, 1854, and which are now destroyed, may be cultivated once more. On ascending from the river towards the intrenchment, you find yourself on the left completely covered by a rise of the hill in front from the parapet, so that men could form in this hollow for the attack, without being exposed to fire; but the Russians, aware of this, sent down on their extreme right large bodies of infantry, who fired at the Left Brigade of the Light Division as they were trying to get into order after crossing the river.
"On the right, nearer to the bridge, the ground is more exposed to guns from the parapet of the trench, and on advancing a few yards the fair open glacis, gently sloping upwards to their muzzles, gives a terrible solution of the reason why for a time the Light Division was held in check, and lost in a few moments upwards of 1,000 men. At the base of this glacis, and scattered along the ridge towards the river, are mounds of earth about thirty feet long by fifteen in breadth, which are covered with large stones and slabs of slate. There are fifteen or sixteen of these mounds, and many of them contain the remains of friends and foes. Some small black wooden crosses are placed here and there among these mounds, which rise to the height of two or three feet above the level of the plain, and are all covered with rank vegetation and wild flowers. The parapet of the work is still about three feet outside, and a foot deeper in the trench inside. Near the centre is placed a handsome monument of white stone, with the following inscription:--
"'During the attack on these heights, 20th September, 1854, Her Britannic Majesty's 23rd Royal Welsh Fusileers lost their commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel H. Chester, Captains A. W. Wynn, F. Evans, J. Conolly, Lieutenants P. Radcliffe, Sir W. Young, Bart., J. Anstruther, and J. Butler, all killed on the field: also Lieutenant Applewaite, mortally wounded, who died 22nd September, 1854. This stone is erected to their memory.'
"On the other side,'The regiment also lost Sergeant J. H. Jones, Colour-Sergeants R. Hitchcock, J. F. Edwards, one drummer, and forty privates, killed on the field.'
"In the ditch of the field-work there are about twenty large graves covered with long grass and wild flowers. The trench is about 150 yards long, and it is filled with earth which has tumbled down into it from the parapet; the traces of the embrasures still remain. There are two stone crosses erected inside the trench on heaps of dead. This was all that remained to betoken the scene of the action on our side, except a few pieces of threadbare rags and bits of accoutrements, leathern straps, old shakos, and fragments of cowhide knapsacks. Some miserable Tartars prowled about the ruins of Bourliouk to act as unintelligible guides, and to pick up the fragments left after the river-side meal of the visitors. Starting at six o'clock A.M. from Sebastopol, one can go to the Alma, spend, three hours there, and return to the city or to Balaklava by dinner-time on a good horse. It is under fifty miles. The last time I was there I threw a fly over the waters, having heard that there were trout in the stream, but only a few 'logger-headed chub' and a kind of dace, responded to the effort. And so I take leave of this little river, which shall henceforth be celebrated in history to the end of time."
Chapter VIII
Departure of General della Marmora and the Sardinian Staff--General After Order--Inspection of the Siege-Works, offensive and defensive--Memorials to the Dead--Major Hammersley's Tour--Information obtained--What might have been effected by an Advance after the 8th of September--Aspect of the Country.
The departure of General della Marmora and the Sardinian Staff, which occurred on Monday, 19th May, was the signal for strong demonstrations of the regard and esteem in which they were held by our army. The ships in harbour hoisted the Sardinian flag, the Leander manned yards, and the General set his foot on the deck of the vessel which was to bear him home amid enthusiastic cheers. The good feeling which existed between the Sardinians and the allies was never marred for one moment by untoward jealousies or rivalry; more especially were they ever on terms of friendship with the English, although their knowledge of French gave them greater facilities for communicating with our allies. The position at Fedukhine brought them into constant contact with French and Highland Brigades, and they left behind many kindly remembrances. In all my rambles I rarely, if ever, saw a drunken Sardinian; their behaviour in camp, in the canteens, at Kadikoi, and on the roads was exemplary.
The English Commander-in-Chief issued the following General After-Order:--
"HEAD-QUARTERS, SEBASTOPOL, May 17th, 1856.
"No. 1. The greater part of the Sardinian army has quitted the Crimea, and General della Marmora himself will soon embark.
"A guard of honour, with artillery, will be held in readiness for the departure of the Sardinian Commander-in-Chief.
"The Commander of the Forces trusts that General della Marmora will himself receive, and convey to those whom he has commanded in the Crimea, the good wishes of the English army for their future prosperity.
[Sidenote: THE EVACUATION.]
"With steadiness, with discipline, with resource, the Sardinian army has long maintained and efficiently guarded the advanced position entrusted to it; and it bore its honourable share with the troops of France in the battle of the Tchernaya.
"In our intercourse there has neither been difficulty nor difference, and this good feeling between all the armies of the Alliance has had a very important influence in determining the peace of Europe.
"By order. C. A. WINDHAM, Chief of the Staff."
As we were about to part, our anxiety to learn more of our late foes increased. The Russians surveyed our camps, we visited their hospitals, studied their commissariat, inquired into their military system, and inspected their positions; our engineers minutely examined the works of our allies, with which they were necessarily but slightly acquainted during the progress of the attack.
The approaches to the place afforded no opportunity to our English engineers of developing the use of mines. We were never sufficiently near to the Redan, and our works were not assailable by the same agency for the same reason. The French system of mines in front of the Bastion du Mât presented a most astonishing display of labour and skill. To the Russians, however, belonged the credit of performing the most extensive operations. The enemy's mines consisted of two series of galleries and magazines, the first being twenty-seven feet below the surface, the second being forty feet below the first. The workmen were supplied with air by means of force-pumps. In one magazine at the end of one of the galleries there was found 8,500 lbs. of powder, all tamped in and ready for firing by electric wires. This magazine would have formed an étonnoir far in the rear of the French advance; and the explosion was intended to destroy not only the French parallels, but the works of the Bastion du Mât itself, so as to prevent the French turning the guns. The destruction of the docks was effected by a smaller quantity of gunpowder. The Russians intended to fire some of these mines in case of an assault on the Bastion being repulsed under circumstances which gave them a chance of occupying the enemy's advanced saps; others would only have been fired in case of a retreat from the city, in order to destroy as many of the enemy as possible and to check pursuit. There were two or three mines inside the Redan, and there were some extensive galleries and mines in front of the Malakoff, but it was at the Bastion du Mât, or Flagstaff Battery, that the French and Russians put forth their strength in mine and countermine. The galleries were pushed for fifty yards oftentimes through the solid rock. These labours were of the most stupendous character, and must have proved very exhausting to the garrison. Many of the shafts sprang out of the counterscarp, there were numerous chambers cut into the ditch of the bastion, which were used as bombproofs. It was also discovered that the Russians had cut a subterranean gallery from inside the parapet, under the ditch, to an advanced work which they used as a place d'armes in making sorties, and the French, who had been puzzled to understand how the men used to collect in this work without being seen, now perceived the modus operandi.
The effect produced by the French mines could only be conceived by those who looked down the yawning craters of the étonnoirs, the wild chaos of rocks cast up all around by the explosion, as though Titans and Gods had met there in deadly combat. Some of these gulfs resembled the pits of volcanoes.
The British army, relieved from the pressure of military duties, and warned of their approaching departure, laboured, regiment by regiment, for many long weeks, to erect memorials to the comrades whose remains would be left behind. The works of this nature, which the hasty embarkation did not permit the army to complete, were undertaken by the few skilled soldier-labourers belonging to us. The Chersonese from Balaklava to the verge of the roadstead of Sebastopol was covered with isolated graves, with large burial-grounds, and detached cemeteries. Ravine and plain--hill and hollow--the roadside and secluded valley--for miles around, from the sea to the Tchernaya, presented those stark-white stones, singly or in groups, stuck upright in the arid soil, or just peering over the rank vegetation which sprang beneath.[36]
The French formed one large cemetery. The Sardinians erected a pedestal and obelisk of stone on the heights of Balaklava, close to their hospital, to the memory of General della Marmora and of their departed comrades; we erected similar monuments on the heights of Inkerman and on the plain of Balaklava to commemorate the 5th of November and the 25th of October.
A tour made by Major Hammersley, Captain Brooke, and Mr. St. Clair in the north of the Crimea demonstrated the enormous difficulties experienced by the Russians in maintaining their position. It satisfied every one, that if the Allies had advanced after the 8th of September, and followed the enemy, the Russian army of the South must have surrendered, and Cherson, Berislaff, Nicholaieff, and Odessa would have been seriously menaced. All the north side, its guns, its garrison, all the matériel, all the provisions and magazines of Bakshiserai and Simpheropol, must have fallen into our hands, and about 60,000 or 70,000 men. "But why so?" some one will ask. "Could they not have got away?" Most certainly not. There are but two outlets from the Crimea; the first is by the isthmus at Perekop, the second is by the bridge over the Putrid Sea at Tchongar. The approaches to these outlets lie over waterless, foodless plateaux, broken up by deep salt lakes. The wells, which yield a scanty supply of disagreeable water, are profound pits, of which the shallowest is 100 feet, and many are as deep as 150 to 250 feet. They are scattered over the country very sparsely, and they contain but little water. Under such circumstances, the Russians were obliged to send in their reinforcements by driblets, to carry water whenever they wanted to push on a single regiment. It would have been impossible for them to have marched a body of 5,000 or 6,000 men by either of those routes in dry weather. Imagine how helpless would have been the position of an army of 70,000 or 80,000 men of all arms, hemmed in by this salt prairie, and by the waters of the Sivash, under a burning sun, and pressed by a victorious enemy. They could not have marched, nor, if they had once got away, could we have pursued; but no General in his senses would have risked the entire destruction of his army by retreating under circumstances like those from the south of the Crimea; and the Russians confessed their position was hopeless had they been attacked and beaten at any point along the line.
[Sidenote: DEFENCES OF PEREKOP.]
When our travellers arrived at Perekop, they observed that the defences consisted of redoubts directed against an advance from Russia Proper, and not from the south of the Crimea; they made a similar discovery at Tchongar, where the tête-de-pont was strongly fortified towards the north, and was open towards the south. These works were mostly thrown up at the time of the Kinburn expedition, which the Russians very naturally believed to be the precursor of an immediate operation against the Crimea, to which they looked with very great apprehension.
General Von Wrangel received them with much hospitality and kindness at Perekop. The old Tartar citadel and the remains of a wall and parapet were visible; but the defences of the place were very weak; water was very scarce, and very bad; but the climate is healthy, except when the wind blows across the Sivash. No less than 25,000 men died of sickness at and near Perekop. There were large hospitals and ambulances, but they were far too small for the demands upon them, and many convoys had to be sent on to Cherson, Berislaff and Nicholaieff. At Tchongar the tourists were refused permission to pass the bridge, and that refusal was confirmed by the General commanding at Genitchi, to whom they applied to rescind the decision of his subordinate. They examined the bridge, however, and found it was well and substantially built of wood. The waters of the Sivash are as clear as crystal, and are so intensely bitter that no fish frequent them except small flounders. The bottom consists of a stratum of fine shells, of two or three inches in thickness, just sufficient to bear a man treading lightly upon it, but if one presses with all his weight this crust breaks, and up rushes black mud and stinking gas, probably sulphuretted hydrogen.
The banks are high and steep, and all the way from Genitchi to the bridge of Tchongar, in the centre of the stream, there is a channel, about nine feet deep. This sea presents the curious phenomenon of a steady current running from Genitchi west to Perekop, where there is no outlet whatever, so that there must be an under current out again, or, as the natives believe, a prodigious evaporation on the shoals at the extremity of the sea. The salt lakes are very conspicuous features in the desolate scenery of Northern Crimea. They are surrounded by very high precipitous banks; and the waters seem black from their great depth. One of these, Lake Veliki, is connected with Perekop by the line of redoubts, seven in number, recently constructed. Wherever these abound, fresh water is rare, and the wells are deep. Each village has about two wells, and the supply is so small that it would take a day at any one station to water a regiment of cavalry. In the south there is abundance of fresh water, of blooming valleys, of fruit, corn, vines, and forest trees; but for the cultivation and growth of these Russia is mainly indebted to the industrious German colonists. Kronthal, Neusatz, Friedenthal, Rosenthal, Zurichthal, Heilbronn, and other villages founded by these industrious people, are patterns of neatness and frugal comfort. Most of the emigrants came from Wurtemburg, and they spoke fondly of "fatherland." The Russians gave them small ground for complaint. They are exempt from all military service for 100 years, and their only tribute to the State is a capitation-tax of twenty silver roubles, which they are in general well able to pay. Another interesting point visited was the Fortress of Arabat, which was bombarded for several hours by the Allied squadron. The fact is, however, that not only was little or no harm done to the fortress, but that the Russians claim it as a victory, and have promoted the officer who commanded for "beating off the Allied fleet." Such will always be the result of an attack by sea on any land-defences so long as the enemy retain one gun to fire when the attack has ceased.
The Spit of Arabat was very little used at any time, and a curious instance of the ignorance of chart-makers was discovered on referring to the sites of wells marked on the maps. There were no wells, for the simple reason that they were not required. The water of the Sea of Azoff close to the Spit is quite fresh, and can be drunk with safety by man or beast.
Vast as the population of Russia is in the aggregate, the extent of her territory is such that, in the state of her internal communication, it was difficult for her to concentrate troops, notwithstanding the conscription and compulsory levies. Towards the end of the war, Sebastopol swallowed up her armies by whole divisions, a battalion a day was engulfed in the yawning craters of our shells. The march of a regiment through a country such as has been described was as fatal as a battle, and it was customary to estimate the reduction in strength caused by moving from Odessa to Sebastopol at 35 per cent. During the worst days of its trials the Russian army in the Crimea lost 500 men a day! This did not include casualties caused in the siege. The attention of their medical men was directed to the enormous losses of their army, and to its extreme unhealthiness in campaigns; and a Board, consisting of a few of their most eminent men, made minute inquiries into the medical administration of the Allied armies. They were greatly impressed with what they saw at Balaklava, and one of them exclaimed, "We heard you were prepared for a three years' war; we find you are ready for twenty."
[Sidenote: THE EVACUATION.]
The uttermost efforts were made by the Allies to remove the stores and matériel accumulated on the plateau, and to embark the troops for their different destinations, but so vast was the mass of warlike necessaries, and so large the force congregated in the Crimea, that it was not till July they had so far succeeded as to be able to name a day for the formal cession of the last position held by them on Russian soil. On the 12th of July the 50th Regiment furnished a rear-guard which was posted outside Balaklava to await the Russian officer who was to take over charge of the town. He came across the plain with 50 Cossacks, and the two parties saluted and then returned to the town, where the Russians posted their sentries, and the English troops embarked on board H.M.S. Algiers. The General in command of the British forces, Sir W. Codrington, and his staff left the Crimea at the same time.
During the expedition the English lost--killed in action and died of wounds, 3,500; died of cholera, 4,244; of other diseases nearly 16,000;--total (including 270 officers), 24,000; 2,873 officers and men were disabled. The French loss was estimated at 63,500 men, killed in action or died in camps. The loss of the Russians was estimated as high as 500,000. The war added to the National Debt £41,041,000.
FINIS.
CATHCART'S HILL
(1856.)
In times to come this Cathcart's Hill will be a chosen terminus of Saxon pilgrimage. Whether the traveller beholds from its humble parapet the fair aspect of the Imperial city, guarded by threefold mightier batteries than before, or sits upon the Cemetery wall to gaze upon the ruins of Sebastopol, he must, if he has any British blood in his veins, regard with emotion that little spot which encloses all that was mortal of some of the noblest soldiers that ever sprang from our warrior race. He will see the site of those tedious trenches where the strong man waxed weak day after day, and the sanguine became hopeless, and where the British soldier fought through a terrible winter with privation, cold, frost, snow, and rain, more terrible and deadly than the fire of the enemy. With the Redan, the Malakoff, the Quarries, the Mamelon, Gordon's Attack, Chapman's Attack, under his eyes, he will revive with the aspect of the places where they stood the memories of this great struggle, and in his mind the incidents of its history will be renewed.
[Sidenote: CATHCART'S HILL.]
The Cemetery is a parallelogram of about forty yards long by thirty broad, formed by the base of a ruined wall, which might in former days have marked the lines of a Tartar fort, or have been the first Russian redoubt to watch over the infancy of Sebastopol. Although many a humble tumulus indicated to the eye of affection the place where some beloved comrade rests till the last reveillée, the care and love of friends had left memorials in solid stone of most of those whose remains were buried in this spot. The first grave towards the front and west of the Cemetery consisted of a simple mound of earth. I know not whose remains lie below. The second was marked by a simple slab, with the following inscription:--"Sacred to the memory of Lieutenant H. Tryon, Rifle Brigade, killed in action on the 20th of November, 1854." He was a thorough soldier, brave, cool, and resolute, and in the terrible crisis of Inkerman he used a rifle with more deadly certainty and success than any of his men. In the struggle for the "Ovens" on the 20th of November, in which a small body of the Rifle Brigade dislodged a force of the enemy much greater than their own, he displayed such gallantry that General Canrobert paid him the rare honour of a special mention in the next "General Order of the Day" for the French army. Next to his reposed the remains of a lamented officer. The stone recorded his name, "Sacred to the memory of Brigadier-General Thomas Leigh Goldie, commanding the first Brigade of the 4th Division of the British army, Lieutenant-Colonel of the 57th Regiment, who fell at Inkerman, November 5, 1854." No. 4 was a rude cross of stone, without mark or name. The fifth grave was distinguished by a stone cross at the feet, and at the head was a slab with an ornamental top, beneath which was written, "Sacred to the memory of Brigadier-General Fox Strangways, killed in action November 5, 1854." A few lines in Russian asked the Christian forbearance of our enemies upon our departure for the bones of one whom they would have admired and loved had they known him. No. 6 was conspicuous by a large tombstone, with an ornamental cross at the top, and some simple efforts at the chisel at the sides and base. Come and read! "Here lieth the mortal remains of Captain Edward Stanley, 57th Regiment, killed at the battle of Inkerman, November 5, 1854, to whose memory this stone is erected by the men of his company--'Cast down but not destroyed,' 2 Corinthians, iv. 9." Who will not look with respect on the tombs of these poor soldiers, and who does not feel envy for the lot of men so honoured? There were fourteen other graves in the same row, of which only one could be identified.
Sir George Cathcart's resting-place was marked by a very fine monument, for which his widow expressed her thanks to those who raised it to the memory of their beloved commander. There was an inscription upon it commemorating the General's services, and the fact that he served with the Russian armies in one of their most memorable campaigns--the date of his untimely and glorious death, and an inscription in the Russian language stating who and what he was who reposed beneath. In the second row to the east there were two graves, without any inscription on the stones; the third was marked by a very handsome circular pillar of hewn stone, surmounted by a cross, and placed upon two horizontal slabs. On the pillar below the cross in front was this inscription: "To Lieutenant-Colonel C. F. Seymour, Scots Fusileer Guards, killed in action, November 5, 1854." Beneath these words were a cross sculptured in the stone, and the letters "I.H.S.;" and a Russian inscription on the back, requesting that the tomb might be saved from desecration. At the foot of the tomb there was an elaborately carved stone lozenge surmounting a slab, and on the lozenge was engraved the crest of the deceased, with some heraldic bird springing from the base of a coronet, with the legend "Foy pour devoir, C.F.S. Æt. 36." How many an absent friend would have mourned around this tomb! Close at hand was a handsome monument to Sir John Campbell, than whom no soldier was ever more regretted or more beloved by those serving under him; and not far apart in another row was a magnificent sarcophagus in black Devonshire marble, to the memory of Sir R. Newman, of the Grenadier Guards, who also fell at Inkerman. With all these memorials of death behind us, the front wall at Cathcart's Hill was ever a favourite spot for gossips and spectators, and sayers of jokes, and raconteurs of bons mots or such jeux d'esprit as find favour in military circles.