Part 59
The storming parties advanced to the breach, and there remained on the side of it without being able to crown the top, from the heavy fire from the intrenched ruins within. Many desperate efforts were made to gain it, without effect, particularly up to the curtain; but the enemy maintained that post firmly. Fresh troops were sent on successively, as fast as they could be filed out of the trenches, with laudable perseverance; and the Portuguese, in two detachments, forded the river Urumea, near its mouth, in a very handsome style, under a heavy fire of grape and musketry.
The breach was now covered with troops remaining in the same unfavourable situation, and unable to gain the summit. Upwards of two hours of continued exertion had elapsed, when, by a happy chance, a quantity of combustibles exploded within the breach, and the French began to waver; the assailants made fresh efforts; the ravelin and left branch of the hornwork were abandoned by the enemy; the retrenchment within the breach was soon after deserted by them; and the men by degrees got over the ruins and gained the curtain.
The troops, being now assembled in great numbers on the breach, pushed into the town; the garrison, dispirited at its great loss, and intimidated at the perseverance shown in sending fresh men, was quickly driven from all its entrenchments, except the convent of St. Teresa, into the castle.
From the superior height of the curtain, the artillery in the batteries on the right of the Urumea were able to keep up a fire on that part during the assault, without injury to the troops at the foot of the breach, and being extremely well served, it occasioned a severe loss to the enemy, and probably caused the explosion which led to the final success of the assault.
The assailants had upwards of five hundred killed and fifteen hundred wounded; of the garrison, besides the actual killed and wounded during the assault, seven hundred were made prisoners in the town. Of the engineers, Lieutenant-colonel Sir R. Fletcher, Captains Rhodes and Collyer, were killed; and Lieutenant-colonel Burgoyne, and Lieutenants Barry and Marshall, were wounded.
As soon as the town was carried, a communication was made from the left of the parallel to the salient angle of the ditch of the ravelin, through the counterscarp, which was blown in, and so into the town by the great gate; and preparations were made to reduce the castle.
The plan for the attack was to erect batteries on the works of the town, and breach some of the main points of the castle defences, as the battery de la Reyna, the Mirador, and the keep, as well as the thin loop-holed walls connecting them.
On the 2nd of September, a new battery for seventeen guns was commenced, occupying the whole terreplein of the hornwork, and another for three guns on the left of the cask redoubt.
A discussion for surrender was entered into with General Rey, but he broke it off.
By the 4th of September, the town, which caught fire soon after the assault, from the quantity of ammunition and combustibles of all sorts scattered about, was nearly consumed, and the fire became a great impediment to carrying the approaches forward.
Up to the 7th, the enemy had fired but very little since the assault; and by this evening, the roofs of the unburnt houses and steeples had been prepared for musketry, to open at the time of the assault on the castle.
On the 8th, at ten A.M., all the batteries opened on the castle; viz.,--from the left of the attack:--No. 7, with three twenty-four pounders, against the Mirador; No. 8, with three eighteen-pounders, against the lower defences; No. 9, with seventeen twenty-four pounders, against the Mirador and battery de la Reyna; island, with two twenty-four pounders and one eight-inch howitzer, to sweep the back of the castle. From the right of the attack, thirty-three pieces of ordnance against the castle generally. The fire was extremely powerful and well-directed, ploughing up every part of the confined space of the castle. The enemy kept concealed chiefly in little narrow trenches, which they had made along the front of the heights, but they evidently lost many men. About twelve, a white flag was hoisted, and the garrison surrendered prisoners of war. Their numbers had been reduced to 80 officers and 1,756 men, of whom, 23 officers and 512 men were in the hospital.
The loss of the besiegers during the attack was,--53 officers and 898 men killed; 150 officers and 2,340 men wounded; 7 officers and 332 men missing.
There were used at this siege 2,726 gabions, 1,476 eighteen-feet fascines, and 20,000 sand-bags.
The expenditure of ammunition during the siege was,--
Round shot { 24-pounders 43,367 } 52,670 { 18-pounders 9,303 }
Grape shot 24-pounders 2,094 2,094
{ 24-pounders 1,930 } Spherical shells { 18-pounders 150 } 4,278 { 8-inch 2,198 }
Common shells { 10-inch 3,755 } 11,521 { 8-inch 7,766 } ------ Total shot and shells 70,563
Powder, whole barrels, 90 lbs. each 5,579[21]
SIEGE OF ANTWERP.
A.D. 1830.
This siege, although it took place at a distance of fifteen years from its cause, was the result of one of the many political errors of the treaty of Vienna. Nothing could be more unwise and short-sighted than to expect a peaceful union between Belgium and Holland, and particularly of so strict a nature as that union in some of its features was composed. Although near neighbours, the Belgians and the Dutch are widely different: different in language, institutions, blood, and traditions. The union likewise, instead of being cemented by conciliation, was rendered galling by oppressive enactments; the monarch reigning over both countries was the king of Holland, and the proceedings of the courts of law were commanded to be carried on in the language of that country, so that Belgium appeared more like a conquered province than a willing partner in a union brought about for the benefit of both. If the union of England with Scotland had been carried on upon the principle of the one we are speaking of, the animosities and heart-burnings would never have subsided; we have had two invasions or rebellions, as it is, in which that country has taken part against us, although we form part of the same island. The Belgians have more of the character of the French or the Germans than of the Dutch; they are as industrious, ingenious, and mercantile as the Dutch; but they are more chivalric in their traditions; which feeling is kept alive by their splendid mediæval monuments, by their noble history, and by the Catholic religion; and, however science, and the progress of general knowledge, may soften down the asperities which separate neighbouring peoples, no nation, capable of good, willingly parts from its traditions. In short, the Belgians were not a people to sink willingly into a secondary state, particularly under the Dutch, with whom they felt themselves perfectly able to dispute the question, and were ripe for insurrection, if so it can be called, when the French revolution of 1830 set the minds of all Europeans labouring under real or fancied wrong in a state of ferment. The Belgians rose _en masse_; one place after another fell into the hands of the provisional government; Prince Frederick was shamefully and unaccountably repulsed from Brussels; and little remained to the house of Nassau, except the splendidly fortified city of Antwerp.
Disheartened and disgusted by the failure of his brother, the prince of Orange--who acted for his father, King William--hastened to Antwerp. He threw himself with honest energy into the cause, in the hope of maintaining the sway of his house over Belgium, and, at the same time, of serving the Belgians and responding to their views. He affected to act for himself, and offered to become their independent ruler; but it was evident that he was governed by orders from the Hague, and that the command of the army was still in the hands of his brother Frederick and General Chassé. An ill-timed royal proclamation and summons of the Dutch to arms, which designated the southern provinces _rebels_, completed the want of confidence in the prince, and rendered all his efforts nugatory--even his proclamation to place himself at the head of the movement. The provisional government contemptuously rejected all acknowledgment of authority in the Dutch--they, the people, were, they said, at the head of their own movement, and they wanted no other. Treated with scorn by the Belgians, crossed in his views of conciliation by his father, and his authority disputed by General Chassé, the prince, with a bleeding heart, was compelled to abandon all hope, and bade adieu to the Belgian provinces in a short but affecting address. Chassé placed Antwerp in a state of siege on the 24th of October.
On the 22nd of October, the patriots, forming an irregular body of about five thousand men, with sixteen guns, had commenced a simultaneous movement upon the line occupied by the royal troops, who were about seven thousand strong, with forty pieces of artillery. On the 25th the insurgent army arrived under the walls of Antwerp, and some hard fighting took place in the suburbs. The strength of the place would, however, have set them at defiance; but, on the following day, the populace, by a sudden movement within the city, overpowered and disarmed some of the Dutch posts. On the 27th this internal contest was renewed: the populace succeeded in carrying one of the gates; it was immediately thrown open, and the insurgent army poured into the city, accompanied by a commissioner of the provisional government, who had been sent from Brussels to instal the new authorities. General Chassé, instead of risking his diminished garrison in street-warfare, retired into the citadel, the guns of which gave him the command of the town. The insurgents were not ignorant of this, and a convention was agreed to, by which both parties bound themselves to remain quiet. Scarcely, however, had the convention been signed, when the insurgents, in open violation of it, attacked the important post of the arsenal, forcing one of its gates by cannon-shot. This act of treachery left General Chassé no alternative; he was bound to do his duty, and defend his men. The citadel and the frigates in the harbour opened a cannonade upon the town. “An awful and simultaneous roar of artillery now fell on the ears of the affrighted inhabitants. In an instant the citadel, forts, and fleet hurled forth their converging thunder. An iron deluge rained upon the city-walls, and clattered among the buildings. Showers of shells, bombs, and carcases were heard, cracking, bursting, and bellowing around the venerable towers of St. Michael; the uproar of their explosion being multiplied by the echoes of the cathedral. Walls, roofs, and floors fell, crushed beneath the resistless weight of projectiles, which sought their victims in the very cellars, confounding mangled bodies and ruined edifices in one mutilated and confused heap. Ere long, dark columns of smoke and jets of flame were seen to rise. The arsenal and entrepôt were fired. The obscurity of the night soon gave way to a red and glaring lustre, that converted the dark vault of heaven into a fiery canopy, whose lurid reflection announced the fearful catastrophe to the distance of many leagues.
“The terror and stupefaction of the inhabitants baffles description. Some concealed themselves in their vaults and cellars; others rushed wildly through the streets, shrieking and bewildered. Such as had horses or vehicles, no matter of what kind, gathered together their valuables, and hastily fled into the country. Others, intent only on saving life, darted through the gates on foot, and sought refuge in the neighbouring fields. Old men, fair women, and young children,--rich and poor, the hale and the sick, were seen flying in frantic disorder. The flames having gained the prison, there was no time to remove its inmates. The doors were therefore thrown open, and nearly two hundred convicts were let loose; _but none had the heart to plunder_. Terror, confusion, and despair reigned paramount. Weeping women and children clung for succour to men who could afford them no relief or consolation. Some died of fright, others lost their senses. Groans, screams, and prayers were heard between the pauses of the thunder, intermingled with maledictions on the destroyer, and curses on the revolution. In a few hours, however, all that had power to move, or were not transfixed with terror, had fled into the country. The roads were covered with fugitives of all ages and sexes, who, with tearful eyes, turned to gaze on their devoted homes. The darkness of the night, awfully relieved by the red glare of the flames, the hissing and roaring of the destructive element, the thunder of the cannon, the rattling of shot and falling of timbers, the frantic screams of women and children, and the groans of the wounded and dying,--all united to fix an impression of horror on the mind, not to be effaced by time or space.”[22]
The siege of Antwerp being such an event as was happily rare, during the last forty years, it has excited much attention, and we have given the above extract to meet the expectations of our readers; but we cannot help suspecting that the historian has sacrificed something to a little _fine writing_ (in itself not good). We have reason to think the damage did not amount to near so much as such a portentous account would imply. The bombarding produced its horrors, no doubt; but we must not forget that this scene fell far short of others of the same kind; man’s brutal passions did not disfigure it--the soldier’s murderous sword, guided by revenge, lust, or cupidity, was not there.
The inhabitants and insurgents, terrified at the unexpected severity of General Chassé, sent a deputation at dawn to treat with him, and it was agreed that affairs should remain exactly as they were, until the general question should be definitively settled. Chassé has been generally and deservedly blamed for having inflicted such a punishment upon a large, wealthy, commercial city like Antwerp, for the frantic extravagances of an excited populace: the bombardment, perhaps, did not in one case injure the parties who had provoked his anger.
The kingdom of the United Netherlands had been created by Britain, Austria, Russia, Prussia, and France, and when it was found that the parties could not cohere, they felt called upon to look after the work of their own hands. Belgium had nobly obtained its own independence; to have coerced a reunion would most likely have brought on a serious war, several of the powers having, too plainly, views of a self-interested nature. Belgium was, therefore, by general consent, erected into an independent kingdom, under Prince Leopold of Saxe-Cobourg; the Dutch immediately withdrew their troops from that country, and the inhabitants of Antwerp were relieved from the presence of a foreign garrison in their citadel.
SEBASTOPOL.
A.D. 1854–1855.
We now come to the siege which, if not the most important it has been our task to describe, must be the most interesting to our readers. No siege has ever been conducted under similar circumstances. Such have been the facilities of communication, and so effective and intelligent the means employed for collecting information, that the siege of Sebastopol may be said to have been carried on in the presence of the whole civilized world. It has been a living and an exciting panorama. When our ancestors, the Crusaders, were before Antioch or Jerusalem, their relations at home had no opportunity for mourning losses or celebrating triumphs, till time, by throwing all into distance, had weakened the pain or the joy of the intelligence received; whereas, in this case, there is no half-forgotten friend, no changed or decayed interests: all is moving, associated with us, and affecting us, as if the events were passing within the boundaries of our own seas.
May we not, then, ask, without entertaining less commiseration for the sufferings, or admiration for the deeds of the parties engaged, whether this circumstance does not heighten, or even, in a degree, exaggerate the effect of the events? The siege of Sebastopol is extraordinary and important in all ways; but the readers of this volume will find instances of deeper and more protracted suffering, and greater sacrifice of human life, than have been experienced there. Soliman II. lost 40,000 men in four days before Vienna! The want of water before Jerusalem produced infinitely more misery than the excess of it in the Crimea; and the allies have never experienced anything like real scarcity of food. No siege has ever been placed before the world in such vivid, such affecting colours. As a poem, the “Iliad” is doubtless pre-eminent above all such histories; but divest it, or the “Jerusalem Delivered,” of their poetry and their superhuman agencies, and they will hear no comparison with Mr. Russell’s extraordinary (I was about to use a much stronger word) correspondence with the _Times_: physically and mentally, no man could have been better calculated for the task he undertook. Collected in a volume, his letters will pass down to posterity in company with “Drinkwater’s Gibraltar,” the only work we remember that is worthy of the association.
With his graphic pictures fresh in the minds of every one, it is discouraging to attempt an account of this noble struggle, but as the “Great Sieges of History” would be incomplete without it, we must do as we did with that of Gibraltar, sketch slightly the early scenes, dwell principally upon the great catastrophe, drawing largely and gratefully upon a better historian than ourselves; and asserting occasionally our privilege of commenting upon what passes.
The first thing in this great expedition that strikes a reflective mind, is the facility of transport. Thought naturally travels back to the days when an army from Western Europe, on its way to Constantinople, was diminished by hundreds of thousands in the mere transit. Compare the march of Peter the Hermit, Walter the Penniless, and their countless hosts, with the passage of the gallant allies to nearly the same scene of action--want, fatigue, harassing enemies, and death,--with privations and inconveniences only felt from habitual ease and indulgence. But, perhaps, this very circumstance enhances the cheerfulness and courage with which the armies have encountered and passed through dangers and difficulties to which their previous life had not at all broken them in. Never, we believe, did an army better preserve its spirits; a gleam of sunshine, a scintillation of success, could always restore the Englishman’s hearty laugh, the Irishman’s humorous joke, the Scotchman’s sly, sniggering jeer, whilst not even weather or enemies could silence the music or the gaiety of the French.
Next to the consideration of the troops and the voyage, our attention is drawn to the _matériel_ with which they were to work. Although the expedition was long debated, and at last delayed till too late a period of the year, we are forced to the painful conviction that the _authorities_ at home threw this great stake without due forethought or knowledge. Their acquaintance with what they had to contend with was very imperfect, and their inattention to the probable wants of the troops and the defectiveness of many of the arms and implements were disgraceful; but this was soon remedied by our noble _fourth estate_: without “our correspondent,” Sebastopol would have proved even worse than a Walcheren.
On the 14th of September, the English and French hosts had become “an army of occupation” in the Crimea; the English troops amounting to 27,000, of which number not more than 1,000 were horse. And here, within four-and-twenty hours, the defects of the commissariat and the deficiencies of the medical staff were painfully felt. The disembarkation was effected with comparative ease, only attended with the usual confusion of such affairs, seasoned with the fun and spirits of the sailors, accustomed to paddle in the surf. On the 18th the armies proceeded towards the great point of their destination, and then, for the first time for five hundred years, the peoples of the two most enlightened, and in all ways most conspicuous nations of the world, marched side by side against a common enemy. The result was worthy of the union--the battle of the Alma was won, with a loss of 3,000 men, notwithstanding the vast superiority in numbers of the Russian cavalry. But we must confine ourselves to the siege; and we are not sorry to shun the description of a battle, as we quite agree with Mr. Russell, that “the writer is not yet born who can describe with vividness and force, so as to bring the details before the reader, the events of even the slightest skirmish.” Amidst alerts and skirmishes, whilst being awfully thinned daily by cholera, the allies marched upon and took possession of Balaklava. From this place they had a good sight of Sebastopol; and here, like Richard I., who got within a short distance of Jerusalem, but was unable to enter it, Marshal St. Arnaud, who commanded the French army, was obliged, by sickness, to leave for France, his goal in view.
The armies then prepared for besieging Sebastopol in due form. An opinion, almost amounting to a general one, prevails, that the allies ought to have taken advantage of the panic created among the Russians by their defeat upon the Alma, and have immediately proceeded against Sebastopol. We will not presume to say they certainly ought to have done so, but the calamities of the winter proved greater than any losses they would have sustained by such a spirited attack; and when we glance back at the _captains_ of whom it has been “our hint to speak,” we do not see one who would not have made the bold attempt. The allied generals seemed to forget that whilst they were making preparations, they were affording opportunities for the enemy to effect much greater, because the latter were at home.
On the night of the 10th of October the British troops broke ground before Sebastopol, fifteen days after they had by a brilliant and daring march on Balaklava obtained a magnificent position on the heights which envelope Sebastopol on the south side, from the sea to the Tchernaya. And here again the advantage of being _at home_ was evident; the Russians immediately commenced a severe and destructive fire, whilst the allies were not in a state to respond by a single gun before the 17th. On that day, however, they began with spirit. The besiegers soon found that the city was a very different place from what they had expected, and that they had to deal with brave, active, and persevering enemies, always on the watch to take advantage, and evidently commanded by skilful and enterprising officers. All ideas of a _coup de main_ were over: they had before them a siege which would test every quality they possessed, either as men or soldiers.