Sebastopol

“ The exhausted soldier, before he sank to rest, sighed that he could not share the sure triumph—the certain glories—of the day when our flag was to float from Sebastopol! There was no doubt—no despondency. No one for an instant felt diffident of ultimate success. From his remains, in that cold Crimean soil, the British soldier knew an avenger and a conqueror would arise. If high courage, unflinching bravery—if steady charge—the bayonet-thrust in the breach—the strong arm in the fight—if calm confidence, contempt of death, and love of country could have won Sebastopol, it had long been ours. ”

“ I wonder if the system of secresy which has so long kept veiled the sufferings of the French army before Sebastopol will ever yield to truth. I used to guess something of those sufferings when I saw, even after the fall of Sebastopol, half-starved French soldiers prowling about my store, taking eagerly even what the Turks rejected as unfit for human food; and no one could accuse them of squeamishness. I cannot but believe that in some desks or bureaux lie notes or diaries which shall one day be given to the world ”

“ Beginning at Balaklava, nine miles east of Sebastopol, precipices fringe all this north-eastern coast; but at foot of these limestone precipices extends a narrow strip of ground, seldom half a league in width, intervening between the hills and the shore. It is in this picturesque and delightful region that the Allied army established its base of operations. A luxuriant vegetation descends to the water’s edge. Chesnut trees, mulberries, almonds, laurels, olives, and cypresses grow along its whole extent. ”

“ The miseries of the winter before Sebastopol will not easily be forgotten. The men who stormed the heights of Alma, who in the dreadful fight of Inkermann conquered again amidst fogs and darkness; of whom a mere handful at Balaclava were seen charging an army, while all the world wondered; such men had proved their steel, yet there is a limit to human endurance, and men of this mould have been seen to weep. As on night after night, succeeding days of starvation and toil, they were ordered to their work in the freezing trenches, who can estimate the exhausting misery? ”

“ White flags are flying on our fortifications and in the French intrenchments. In the blossom-covered valley mutilated bodies, clothed in blue or in gray, with bare feet, lie in heaps, and the men are carrying them off to place them in carts. The air is poisoned by the odor of the corpses. Crowds of people pour out of Sebastopol and out of the French camp to witness this spectacle. ”

“ SEBASTOPOL. SEBASTOPOL IN DECEMBER, 1854.
Dawn tinges the horizon above Mount Sapouné; the shadows of the night have left the surface of the sea, which, now dark blue in color, only awaits the first ray of sunshine to sparkle merrily; a cold wind blows from the fog-enveloped bay; there is no snow on the ground, the earth is black, but frost stings the face and cracks underfoot. The quiet of the morning is disturbed only by the incessant murmuring of the waves, and is broken at long intervals by the dull roar of cannon. All is silent on the men-of-war ”

“ You walk with calmness, your soul elevated and strengthened, for you bring away the consoling conviction that never, and in no place, can the strength of the Russian people be broken; and you have gained this conviction not from the solidity of the parapets, from the ingeniously combined intrenchments, from the number of mines, from the cannon heaped{42} one on the other, and all of which you have not in the least understood, but from the eyes, the words, the bearing, from what may be called the spirit of the defenders of Sebastopol. ”

“ You will easily picture to yourself, in the place of those you have just seen, the heroes of this period of trial, who never lost courage, and who joyfully prepared to die, not for the defence of the city, but for the defence of the country. Russia will long preserve the sublime traces of the epoch of Sebastopol, of which the Russian people were the heroes! ”

“ Whether they had left Sebastopol, guided by the instinct which leads their kindred in other parts of the world to forsake sinking ships, or because the garrison rations offended their palates, or whether they had patriotically emigrated, to make war against the English larders, I do not pretend to guess; but, whatever was their motive, it drew them in great abundance to Spring Hill. They occasionally did us damage, in a single night, to the tune of two or three pounds—wasting what they could not devour. You could keep nothing sacred from their strong teeth. ”

“ News of victories came, but nothing could be decisive except the capture of Sebastopol. "If we could only take Sebastopol!" she was always saying to herself, and one of her children said to a general who was starting for the Crimea, "Do hurry and take Sebastopol, or it will kill mamma." In September, 1855, the royal family and the Duchess of Kent were at Balmoral, when late one evening on the third day after their arrival, two telegrams were brought in, one for the Queen, and one for the Cabinet Minister. ”

“ Contrary to these hopes and inspirations, in direct opposition to our prophecies and to our belief, Sebastopol held out against the Allies; and the intelligence conveyed in newspapers which we all thought we should have read in the club-rooms of Sebastopol, was conveyed to the generals of an army which defended its walls, and were given to the leaders of an enemy whom we had considered would be impuissant and defeated, while they were still powerful and unconquered. The enemy knew that we had lost many men from sickness ”

“ The night was made a ruddy lurid day with the glare of the blazing town; while every now and then came reports which shook the earth to its centre. And yet I believe very many of the soldiers, wearied with their day’s labour, slept soundly throughout that terrible night, and awoke to find their work completed: for in the night, covered by the burning city, Sebastopol was left, a heap of ruins, to its victors; and before noon on the following day, none but dead and dying Russians were in the south side of the once famous and beautiful mistress-city of the Euxine. ”

“ The news that Sebastopol had fallen, which we received viâ England, excited indignation and astonishment. The army was enraged, as they felt the verity, whenever it might be realized, must fall short of the effect of that splendid{150} figment. They thought that the laurels of the Alma would be withered in the blaze of popular delight at the imaginary capture. People at home must have known very little about us or our position. ”

“ Before doubting, however, go up to a bastion, see the defenders of Sebastopol on the very place of the defence, or rather enter straight into this house at whose door stand the stretcher-bearers. You will see there the heroes of the army, you will see there horrible and heart-rending sights, both sublime and comic, but wonderful and of a soul-elevating nature. Enter this great hall, which before the war was the hall of the Assembly. Scarcely have you opened the door before the odor exhaled from forty or fifty amputations and severe wounds turns you sick. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Sir,—From the arid and partly-deserted soil of the Crimea, and the everlasting view from Cathcart’s Hill of the now silent ruins of Sebastopol, nothing can be more refreshing to the mind than the aspect of a civilized and inhabited town. ”

“ And so poor Hugh Price of yours is gone. A good-hearted fellow, who could do anything, from crossing the stiffest hunting country to making a champagne cup, singing a love song or mixing a salad--one of the old line of the Rhys of Geeler in Denbighshire. My God, how many other fine fellows lie in that hecatomb in the Valley of Inkermann! Sebastopol seems to be left quite open on one side, so that the Russians may pour in stores and fresh troops, and go and come at their pleasure? ”

“ The force disposable for the defence of Sebastopol was nearly equal in number to the besieging army; and as, from the nature of its position, the place could only be invested upon one side, supplies of all kinds could be conveyed into the town, and the Russian generals could either man the works with their whole forces, or direct incessant attacks against the flank and rear of the allies.
Never did any army ever undertake so vast and perilous an enterprise as that in which the allied commanders found themselves engaged. ”

“ His sappers are at work day and night."
"Pho! don't talk of Sebastopol, general," said his aide-de-camp, laughing. "Our feeding there was so bad that I felt inclined to try whether the Allies fared better than we did; but after the Alma, I thought that the less I considered the matter the better."
"Ah, that day at Alma played the deuce with many a family circle in Sebastopol," said Baur, twisting his moustache angrily.
"Yes," added Anitchoff; "many a widow is there now, weeping for the dear defunct with one eye, and ogling his successor with the other." ”

“ If I were again unluckily sent with a flag of truce into Sebastopol, on any mission such as the burial of the dead and removal of the wounded, or so forth, it would, I knew, be certainly violated by Tolstoff, and myself be made prisoner for the affairs at Yalta. Then if such a duty were again offered me, on what plea could I, with honour, decline it? I could but devoutly hope that no such contingency might happen for me again. ”

“ It seems to all here that the best school for Sebastopol is Sebastopol itself, and that a man who has been six months in the Crimea is more likely to be an efficient general than any one who may be sent out in reliance upon vague reminiscences of campaigns in the field forty years ago. It takes some little time to gain an acquaintance even with the ground, and as autumn is drawing on there is no need for delay. ”

“ A cold Frenchman is rather a morose and miserable being, but his spirits always rise with sunshine, like the mercury of a thermometer. In company with two officers from the head-quarters camp, I had a long inspection of Sebastopol from the ground behind the French position, and I must say the result was by no means gratifying. ”

“ We can stop no longer in Sebastopol;
If we do they will choke us with long iron tools.
So come my brave fellows let’s sing and let’s dance,
Both Turkey, Sardinnia, old England and France;
We will all have a jig while the music does play,
We have nothing to fear for the Russians will pay;
And when we come home we will all keep a pig,
Our wives shall have bustles made of Russian wigs,
We will all take a bumper and drink good health,
So down with the Russians and up with the French. BATTLE
OF
ALMA
Oh! ”

“ The siege-approaches of the French had been rapidly advanced, and it was determined that on the 5th of November the long-deferred assault on Sebastopol should be made. On that very morning, under cover of a thick mist, the English right was assailed by massive columns of the enemy. Menschikoff's army had now risen to a hundred thousand men; he had thrown troops into Sebastopol, and had planned the capture of the English positions by a combined attack from Sebastopol itself, and by troops advancing from the lower valley of the Tchernaya across the bridge of Inkermann. ”

“ There is nothing so awful as the spectacle of the bodies of those who have been struck down by round shot or shell. Some had their heads taken off by the neck, as with an axe; others, their legs gone from their hips; others their arms; and others again, who were hit in the chest or stomach, were literally as mashed as if they had been crushed in a machine. Passing up to Sebastopol, over heaps of Russian dead, I came to the spot where the Guards had been compelled to retire from the defence of the wall above Inkerman valley. Here the dead of the Allies were nearly as numerous as the enemy’s. ”

“ SEVASTOPOL, or Sebastopol, an important naval station of Russia on the Black Sea, on the S.W. coast of the Crimea, in 44° 37′ N. and 33° 31′ E., 956 m. from Moscow, with which it is connected by rail via Kharkov. Pop. (1882) 26,150; (1897) 50,710. The estuary, which is one of the best road steads in Europe and could accommodate the combined fleets of Europe, is a deep and thoroughly sheltered indentation among chalky cliffs, running east and west for nearly 4 m., with a width of three quarters of a mile, narrowing to 930 yds. ”

“ Tents had been landed, and all the troops were fairly under canvas. Our camp was strengthened by a chain of intrenchments dug all round it, and connected with those of the French, which extended to the sea on their left, while our right lay towards the valley of Inkermann, at the entrance of which, on a chalky cliff, 190 feet high at its greatest elevation, rose the city of Sebastopol, with all its lofty white mansions, that ran in parallel streets up the steep acclivity. ”

“ Our chief duty was to watch the Russian forces that were gathered for the relief of Sebastopol. Their outposts were only four miles distant from the little secluded harbour of Balaclava, where under the shadow of an old round Genoese tower, several line-of-battle ships (including the gallant Agamemnon) , and some dozen of transports, were daily disembarking troops and stores, as they lay within ten yards of the red and white marble rocks that rise into mountains and overlook the inlet, as the steep hills enclose a Highland loch at home. ”