Part 60
The usual routine of extensive sieges went on, sometimes one side having the advantage, sometimes the other; the scene being occasionally varied by splendid attacks of the shipping. But, although the works of the allies gradually advanced, no decisive advantage was gained: the Russians knew the vast superiority of earthworks over every species of fortification, and were indefatigable with the mattock and spade. Towards the end of the month a great diminution in the numbers of the troops began to be felt; there was a steady drain, in one way or another, of from forty to fifty men a day. And in this awful state they had great cause of complaint of want of most necessaries, and particularly of the badness of the fusees, so important for their projectiles.
Unless ours were a volume instead of a chapter, it would be impossible to follow the daily occurring interest of this struggle. In no siege have the opponents been better matched: failures, from accident, want of skill, or disparity of numbers, were frequent on both sides; but no instance of treachery, or deficiency of courage and endurance, disgraced either besieged or besiegers: the triumph will be the greater from being achieved over a brave, energetic, and indefatigable enemy. But, whilst viewing with heartfelt admiration and gratitude the almost superhuman exertions and exploits of the allied troops, a sad conviction creeps into the mind that these efforts were not always judiciously directed; that there was a deadening paucity of that military genius in the leaders, to which such gallant hearts would so nobly have responded if it had existed. A disciplined soldier is little more than a machine; in all battles his exertions are necessarily confined to his own immediate small sphere of action, and therefore all the courage, all the devotion that man is capable of, must lose their due effect if the general’s head do not well guide the soldier’s arm. Another chilling reflection likewise arises on reviewing the contest: the Russians have been, _at least_, quite as well commanded as the allies; and a despotic ruler has provided better for the comforts of his tools than a representative government has for those of the brave soldiers who were fighting for its principle.
By no instance, in the course of this siege, is the want of that indescribable something called genius more evident than in that glorious but lamentable day of the action of Balaklava. The firmness of the brave Scots, who stood “shoulder to shoulder,” unshaken by such a charge as infantry have seldom sustained--the charge of the heavy brigade, worthy of the guards who once received the command to “up and at ’em”--were eclipsed by the desperate onslaught of the light cavalry, which has secured immortality to the brave devotedness of British soldiers. But why were these invaluable lives sacrificed? Why, when every one of such men was worth a host, were these heroes “hounded” on to death, as a spectacle before two armies? The fault was not in the brave men, it was not in their officers; but, as fault there was, it must have been somewhere. We can fancy a Murat, the first _sabreur_ in Europe, in the place of Lord Cardigan; we can believe that with the eye and judgment of a general, relying on his reputation, he might have refused to perform such a palpable and wanton sacrifice; but Lord Cardigan had not the reputation of a Murat to fall back upon; he is a rich nobleman, commanding a regiment for his amusement, and not a soldier of fortune who has gained his rank by his meritorious deeds. With the same spirit with which he would have accepted a personal challenge he led on his men to the charge; but that is not the spirit to which the fate of nations should be intrusted in the battle-field: great captains have not unfrequently obtained honour by remonstrance against rash orders, and sometimes by disobeying them altogether. But, whether the fault of the charge lies with Captain Nolan, Lord Lucan, or Lord Cardigan, we never can conceive how the order for it could have emanated from a general who was so placed as to have the position to be attacked, with its defences and defenders, all before his eyes as in a panorama! Whispers had permeated the armies that our light cavalry had not maintained the character it upon all occasions assumed; such feelings are common in large hosts, but no general should consent for the sake of jealous rumours to sacrifice one of the most efficient arms under his command.
Lamentable as was this affair, the day of Balaklava was, on the whole, advantageous to the besiegers; the purpose of the enemy to remove us from a most eligible position was defeated, and they had such “a taste of our quality” as taught them to respect, if not to fear us. The worst result was the awful diminution of a force in which we were before but too weak: of our brave cavalry, 387 were killed, wounded, or missing; and of horses, 520.
Very strangely, the Russians claimed as a great victory their taking of the guns of the redoubts from the poor terrified Turks; and, in their pride of heart, made, the next day, an attack, with 5,000 men, upon our right flank; but they were repulsed by the division under Sir De Lacy Evans, with the loss of 500 men.
The work in the trenches now became very trying to the men. From the first, the British army was deficient in numbers for such an undertaking. Severe labour, change of climate, unusual exposure exhausted them. The French, from their numbers, made more progress in the works, and our men were overtasked by an endeavour to keep pace with them. The guns, too, became shaky, from continual use. In this arm the Russians excelled us: their guns could bear much more frequent firing, from the excellence of the iron of which they are composed.
This is the first war in which the rifle has been employed to any extent, but its merits became so fully appreciated, that we have no doubt it will be generally adopted, and the soldier, instead of firing at random, will be trained so as to throw no ball away.
One feature of the Russian character has been very prominent in this great struggle--a brutal want of humanity. They partake of the attribute of their eastern origin, in the little value they attach to the lives of their own troops, provided they gain their end; and they have no particle of mercy for a fallen foe. In the _mêlée_, arising from the rash Balaklava charge, they hurled the bolts of their artillery, indiscriminately on friends and enemies; and, after all contests, it was their invariable habit to bayonet the wounded French and English.
By the 30th of October, the position of the allies was rendered very much worse by the closing in upon them of the Russians in their rear. They might be said to be as much besieged in their lines as their enemies were in Sebastopol. But the sea is the Englishman’s constant source of comfort and relief; the port of Balaklava was theirs, and the sea on that side was free to them. The Russians removed every combustible part from their houses and buildings, so that, with the exception of flesh and blood, the allies had nothing to fire against but stone walls and mounds of earth. The most keen and active deer-stalker or chamois-hunter could not be more cunningly and anxiously on the watch for a shot than were the whole bodies of riflemen in both armies during the long siege. Great skill was likewise acquired in gunnery; a shot, a shell, or a rocket seemed sometimes to drop, like magic, _à point nommé_.
But now, as winter approached, the troops became sensible of the miseries of their situation, and of the culpable neglect of those who ought to have provided for their comforts. Things, which in England would have been cast to the dunghill, became valuable, and were sold at absurd prices: a tattered rug, 50s.; a pot of meat, 15s.; a sponge, 25s.; a half worn-out currycomb and brush, 20s.!
With bad weather, sickness, of course, increased, affecting equally French, English, and Turks; and, until the matter was forced upon the _authorities_ at home by the Press, was not duly attended to. But what is still more strange, men there, upon the spot, were deaf to this imperative duty, and the eloquent _Times_ correspondent says: “The authorities generally treat the medical officers with cool disrespect and indifference.” There is no portion of this siege that will descend to posterity on the page of history with more honour to us as a people than that displaying the ready and earnest sympathy felt by most classes at home for our suffering compatriots: the public voice thundered in the ears of officials, and forced them to their duty; individual charity, individual exertion, were instantly put forth; and woman! constant to her character of “a ministering angel,” forsook the home of comfort, and the bed of down, for the contaminated atmosphere of a military hospital, and attendance by the wounded soldier’s couch. We care not what may be the high-sounding title of the general who shall achieve the conquest of the Crimea, it will pale beside that of Miss Nightingale, the leader of the Sisters of Mercy.
At this period of the siege, spies, of a bold and artful kind, occasionally made their appearance in the allied camps. If the commanders had read our siege of Antioch, they might have followed the example of Bohemond: he roasted the bodies of some dead prisoners, and made it understood that the Crusaders served all spies in that manner; he cleared his camp of that dangerous kind of vermin, against whom, we must say, the allies were not sufficiently watchful. How eloquently does a passage of Mr. Russell’s account of the 4th of November bear out our frequently-expressed conviction of the incapacity of the leaders! He says: “Whenever I look at the enemy’s outworks, I think of the Woolwich butt. What good have we done by all this powder? Very little. A few guns judiciously placed, when we first came here, might have saved us incredible toil and labour, because they would have rendered it all but impossible for the Russians to cast up such entrenchments and works as they have done before the open and perfectly unprotected entrance to Sebastopol. Here has been our great, our irremediable error.” And when we look at the bitter consequences of that error, what can we say of the commanders by whom it was committed? In all ethics there is nothing so fallacious and injurious as the constantly-quoted “_De mortuis nil nisi bonum_;” it is deceptive as to the dead, it is disheartening to the good, and encouraging to the bad of the living. Lord Raglan was an amiable gentleman, well-versed, we dare say, in the routine of office; but by no means fit to head such an enterprise against such an enemy. But was not all the English policy, at starting, of this do-nothing character?
Of the same complexion was the disregard to Sir De Lacy Evans’ repeated representation of the insecurity of the position of the flank of the second division. But if the British general was deaf, the Russian commander was not blind, and this led to the attack which brought on the glorious battle of Inkermann--glorious to our brave troops, but certainly not creditable to the precaution of their commander. The Russian generals, on the contrary, seem to have exercised vast skill and discrimination. A great captain not only considers the battle itself in his plans, he provides for success by his preparations, and secures comparative safety in the event of defeat. Bonaparte’s tactics in that respect were his ruin: he said a general should think of nothing but conquering--so that whenever he was beaten, he never knew how to make a retreat. The Russian plans of attack were as perfect as possible, and nothing but the indomitable courage of our troops could have prevented their carrying into effect their threat of compelling us to raise the siege and driving us into the sea. Well-laid plans, brave men, in overwhelming numbers, immense artillery, superstition and brandy, with the presence of royalty, were all put in force against British strength, devotedness and courage,--and all failed. “The Battle of Inkermann,” says its historian, “admits of no description. It was a series of dreadful deeds of daring, of sanguinary hand-to-hand fights, of despairing rallies, of desperate assaults,--in glens and valleys, in brushwood glades and remote dells, hidden from all human eyes, and from which the conquerors, Russian or British, issued only to engage fresh foes, till our old supremacy in the use of the bayonet, so rudely assailed in this fight, was triumphantly asserted, and the battalions of the Czar gave way before our steady courage and the chivalrous fire of France.” The Russians fought with desperation, constantly bayonetting the wounded as they fell. They had orders, likewise, to aim at every mounted officer--thence the death of generals Cathcart and Strangways, and the number of killed and wounded officers of rank: Sir George Brown was among the latter.
The battle was won--but what again says the historian? “A heavy responsibility rests on those whose neglect enables the enemy to attack us where we were least prepared for it, and whose indifference led them to despise precautions which, taken in time, might have saved us many valuable lives, and have trebled the loss of the enemy, had they been bold enough to have assaulted us behind intrenchments. We have nothing to rejoice over, and almost everything to deplore, in the battle of Inkermann. We have defeated the enemy indeed, but have not advanced one step nearer towards the citadel of Sebastopol. We have abashed, humiliated, and utterly routed an enemy strong in numbers, in fanaticism, and in dogged resolute courage, and animated by the presence of a son of him whom they deem God’s vicegerent on earth; but we have suffered a fearful loss, and we are not in a position to part with one man.” In this grand struggle 45,000 Russians were engaged, and their artillery was relieved no less than four times. The Minié rifle performed wonders on this day.
Sir De Lacy Evans was very unwell on board ship, but revived at the din of battle. He got on shore, and rode up to the front. And there, when the fight was over, he stood lamenting for the loss sustained by his division. One of his aides-de-camp was killed, another wounded; of his two brigadiers, Pennefather had a narrow escape, and Adams was wounded:--“and there lay the spot, the weakness of which the general had so often represented! It was enough to make him sad!”
The siege of Sebastopol reminds us of the adventures of one of Dibdin’s sailors--
“By and bye came a hurricane, I didn’t much like that, Next a battle, which made many a poor sailor lie flat;”
only the events are reversed. While the glories and the misfortunes of the 5th of November were still tossing in the minds or grieving the hearts of the allies, they were visited by a terrific hurricane, which gave them a complete foretaste of what they were to undergo during the winter. We would fain give our readers an extract of the sufferings endured by the armies; but, alas! we _condensers_ are obliged to be satisfied with serving up dry facts,--we are not allowed space for anything that is interesting. And yet, in this case, we have nothing but our own dull labour to regret, as the exciting story is familiar to every Englishman or woman. We take this opportunity of begging our readers to place our omission of the various incidents of the siege to the same account: they would fill a volume, as sorties, attacks, bombardments, shelling, and rocket-flying were constantly going on:--but we are confined to a few pages. The sufferings of the men overworked in the trenches were extreme; and, sorry are we to say, the neglect of the “authorities” still continued as reprehensible as ever. But the presents from their _home_ friends began to arrive, and the relief from the “_Times_ fund” was extensive.
At the end of September the siege was practically suspended. All the troops had to do was to defend the trenches at night, and return shot for shot whenever the enemy fired; the Russians, in the meanwhile, taking advantage of every temporary lull to increase their internal defences.
“Rain and misery everywhere--the fortifications of Sebastopol strengthened--privations of the army--scarcity of food--impassability of the roads--disasters the results of apathy and mismanagement--indescribable horrors of the town and hospitals of Balaklava--the camp a wilderness of mud--pictures of dirt and woe--the Slough of Despond--misery effaces the distinctions of rank--painful reflections--mortality among the Turks--mode of burial--attempted surprises and skirmishes--dismal prospects.” Such are the heads of two chapters of the historian we follow,--and what more can we add to them? Are they not sufficiently eloquent? Do they not tell the story completely? And among all this, winter set in with severity: they had no means of getting up the huts sent them; it was as much as every man could do to provide his food. Some of the warm clothing sent from England went down in the _Prince_, some was burnt in a ship at Constantinople, and lighters full of warm great-coats for the men were left to be saturated with wet in the port of Balaklava, because no one would receive them without orders. Such an army, and in such a situation, was to be left to die of misery from “etiquette” and “service regulations.” “No one would take responsibility upon himself, if it were to save the lives of hundreds.”
With Christmas came little Christmas cheer or Christmas merriment--neither Christmas-boxes nor New Year’s gifts. They went from England, but the army did not receive them at the appointed season or in the hour of need. Whilst friends were despatching more than warm wishes to the Crimea, the “ill-fated army was melting away--dissolved in rain. On the 2nd of January, there were 3,500 sick in the British army before Sebastopol, and it is not too much to say that their illness was, for the most part, caused by hard work in bad weather, and by exposure to wet without any adequate protection.” The Russians not only opened their new year on the 12th of January with the usual ringing of bells and other gaieties, but with a tremendous cannonade and a spirited sortie. They were, however, expected, and were vigorously repulsed and driven back close to the town; so close, indeed, that had the allies been in sufficient force upon the point, they might have entered with them.
At this inclement season the Cossacks, in sheepskin coats and fur caps, mounted on their rough, wiry ponies, with deal lances and coarse iron tips, were much better able to keep their piquet-watch than our cavalry. Though brilliant in their charges throughout the campaign, our cavalry certainly played a more subordinate part than was expected of them. Before the introduction of railway travelling, we used to think the English, as a nation, the best horsemen in the world, though we never thought our military seat comparable with a Yorkshire seat; but this is an irrelevant question--beyond the famous charges, our cavalry are certainly not prominent in this great year’s campaign.
On the 19th of January, the historian of the war makes this striking remark: “Except Lord Raglan, Lord Lucan, and Sir R. England, not one of our generals now remain of those who came out here originally: the changes among our brigadiers and colonels have been almost as great--all the rest have been removed from the army by wounds, sickness, or death--and so it is of the men.” What an eloquent and sorrowful comment is this upon the severity of the service! Would that we could say that was the only cause! Did we indulge in a description of the horrors of hospital and camp, we should leave no room for the glorious triumph.
The superior resources of the French, as regarded numbers, began now to be felt; ground was gradually relinquished to them, and the front, which it cost the British so much strength and health to maintain, was necessarily abandoned to the more numerous and less exhausted army. The French received reinforcements continually, whilst we, alas! were not dwindling, but being swept away: the grave and the hospital swallowed our brave men by thousands--between the 1st of December and the 20th of January 8,000 sick and wounded men were sent down from camp to Balaklava, and thence on shipboard!--from the battle of Inkermann to this period, 1,000 men of the brigade of guards had been “expended, absorbed, used up, and were no more seen!”
Every night was enlivened with a skirmish, and with sharp-shooting behind the parapets, and in the broken ground between the lines. The Russians, throughout, had plenty of men, with a superabundance of _matériel_--we have not space for a hundredth part of the cannonades, bombardments, fusillades, sharp-shooting, sorties, and all kinds of annoyances kept up by the enemy: in justice, it must be said, that no place was ever more earnestly, actively, and bravely defended. With the exception of a few instances of ferocious brutality, the Russians have proved an enemy worthy of our best and most valiant exertions.
Towards the middle of February, the earthworks on both sides had been so nearly perfected, that even the bombardment from mortars of great size produced but little apparent effect. The Russian force, in rear of the allies, was now estimated at 35,000 men: the allies were completely besieged; but “the sea, the sea” did not allow its brave rulers to perish.
At this time Lord Lucan was recalled; upon which circumstance we will not venture a comment, for fear of being seduced into a long discussion.
As soon as the 21st of February, the allies became aware of the immense labours being carried on by the Russians in the north division of the city, on the other side of the harbour. There were not less than 3,000 men employed in the works, and the correspondent of the _Times_ then foretold the exact purpose for which they were preparing: they were securing themselves a place of retreat. They received almost boundless supplies, without the allies being apparently able to hinder them.
This siege was not unmarked by some of those occasional intercourses which teach men that, although opposed in deadly strife, they are human creatures. Now and then an hour’s truce, for the purpose of burying the dead, brought Russian officers out of the town, and civilities were exchanged. But there was certainly something _rusé_ in the demeanour of these gentlemen, and doubtless the most observant were selected for the _duty_. There was nothing of that heartiness of mutual respect which has, upon similar occasions, distinguished French and English officers.
The railway, between Balaklava and the camp, now began to be in operation, and was a source of intense wonderment to the Cossack piquets.
The rifle-pits, which are no novelty in siege warfare, next became the objects of constant struggle. They were simple excavations in the ground, in front and to the right and left of the Malakoff tower, about six hundred yards from the works of the allies. They were faced round with sand-bags, loop-holed for rifles, and banked up with earth thrown from the pits. They were, in fact, little forts or redoubts, to act against the besiegers, armed with rifles instead of cannon. Each could contain ten men, and there were six of them. They were so well protected and covered by the nature of the ground, that neither English rifleman nor French sharp-shooter could touch them. Some of the severest fighting of the siege took place for the possession of these pits, which were peculiar objects of French interest, as being in front of their lines. On the 22nd of March our brave allies obtained three of these important holes, and immediately commenced a sharp fusilade against the Mamelon and Round Tower, from the sand-bags.