Siege of Sevastopol

“ A patrol of the Ninety-Third entered the Redan at midnight and found it abandoned. The long siege was over, and Sevastopol had fallen at last.
Sir Colin Campbell was a man who could admire a [104] brave and skilful enemy. He wrote: "The Russians, it must be acknowledged, made a noble defence; and surely never was a retreat from an untenable position so wonderfully well-managed, carried out as it was in the face of a powerful enemy and without any loss whatever, while the withdrawal of the troops from their defences through the town and across a single bridge was being effected. ”

“ In May 1855 the Crimean theatre of war occupied 174,500 allies (of whom 32,000 were British) and 170,000 Russians. The losses in battle were: allies 70,000 men, Russians 128,700; and the total losses, from all causes and in all theatres of the war: allies 252,600 (including 45,000 English) , Russians 256,000 men (Berndt, Die Zahl im Kriege, p. 35) . In the siege of Sevastopol the Russians are stated by Berndt to have lost 102,670 men dead, wounded and missing. 454 Mulhall (Dict. of Statistics, 1903 ed., pp. 586-587) gives much greater losses to each of the four powers principally engaged. ”

“ The fourth bombardment opened on the 17th, and the fleets once more joined their fire to the numerous great siege guns planted before Sevastopol. The devastating force of the artillery soon obtained a mastery over that of the fortress, and the usual results followed: the enemy’s works were knocked to pieces, his defences ruined, and he lost 4000 men. Now, therefore, was the time for the assault to take place, and, as we have seen, the Guards Brigade were brought up to the front from Balaklava to participate in the operations about to ensue. ”

“ When sleeping in their homes, or praying in their churches, the fiery shot might come crashing through the walls, dealing death and destruction around. The narrow escapes related to us might fill a volume. One lady had barely left the side of a wounded man, when a shot came through the roof, instantly terminating the sufferings of the patient, and injuring another in a neighbouring bed. One charming young girl, Mademoiselle Androvna R——, daughter of a general commanding a division, had been in Sevastopol from the beginning of the siege until the end. ”

“ Not only were the enemy numerous and possessed of technical troops and material for the destruction of our defences, but being presented with a ready-made base in Dalny, they were able to land monster siege-guns. Once again, as at Sevastopol, [Pg 130] our fleet was more useful on land than on its proper element. Yet the enemy lost twice as many men as the garrison, and Port Arthur held out almost twelve months from the commencement of the war. ”

“ This draft started on the 24th of November, and arrived in the Crimea on the 18th of December. [294] In France, 234however, there was not such a dearth of fighting men as seems to have been the case in England, and considerable reinforcements were despatched to the east, so that somewhat later (in February) our allies were able to extend the siege-works that surrounded the south side of Sevastopol.
We have seen that the omission to strengthen the unguarded flank at Inkerman by earthworks had led to serious consequences. ”

“ Petersburg shrank from converting the existing war of cabinets, hitherto purely local, into a general struggle of nations and principles (Klapka, War in the East , p. 101) . For had Great Britain been driven from the Crimea, she would surely have taken her revenge, and have removed the contest from a barren and useless fortress, where unhappily she became involved, to a vital point in the armour of her foe. If there were to be a war at all, it is obvious that the struggle for Sevastopol was the least expensive and the most advantageous form of hostilities that the Tsar could engage in ”

“ When the fall of Sevastopol was known in England, there was much rejoicing that the Allied arms had captured the enemy’s stronghold and great naval arsenal in the Black Sea. But hostilities were not at an end, nor was an immediate peace in prospect. Nevertheless, certain distinct stages in the war were concluded, and victory had more than once smiled upon our standards. ”

“ From the summit of the casemate we looked over the field, traced the lines of the contending armies, and then turned toward Inkermann and the defenses in that direction. The ground all round is cut and torn with rifle-pits, 099trenches, approaches, and defenses, and is a picture of desolation. Sevastopol is a mass of ruins; its inhabited dwellings are not a tenth the number of the fallen or falling walls, and you can ride or walk through whole squares of what were once rows of handsome edifices, but are now nothing but heaps of stones. ”

“ According to an estimate of the enemy’s forces in the Crimea, made by the Foreign Office at home, it was computed that there were some 45,000 men near and in Sevastopol, excluding troops which might be drawn from the Caucasus and Bessarabia. ”

“ The Russians were forced to retire, and the principalities were evacuated. A prudent administration might possibly have succeeded in stopping the war at this point. But the temper of the country was by this time excited, and it was loudly demanding something more than a preliminary success. It was resolved to invade the Crimea and attack the great arsenal, Sevastopol, whence the Russian fleet had sailed to Sinope, and in September 1854 the allied armies landed in the Crimea. ”

“ Sevastopol is to-day stronger than ever, the headquarters of a large army and a large fleet of battle ships, cruisers, torpedo boats, submarines and destroyers. New barracks are being erected, the machine-shops and arsenals have been refitted with modern machinery, and Russia is preparing298 for any opportunity that may offer to recover the prestige she lost in the late war with Japan. ”

“ Six months have already passed since the first cannon-ball whistled from the bastions of Sevastopol, and ploughed the earth in the works of the enemy, and since that day thousands of bombs, cannon-balls, and rifle-balls have been flying incessantly from the bastions into the trenches and from the trenches into the bastions, and the angel of death has never ceased to hover over them.
Thousands of men have been disappointed in satisfying their ambition; thousands have succeeded in satisfying theirs, in becoming swollen with pride; thousands repose in the embrace of death. ”

“ All night the Russians were filing over the bridges to the north side, and on the 9th the victors took possession of the empty and burning prize. The losses in the last assault had been very heavy, to the allies over 10,000 men, to the Russians 13,000. No less than nineteen generals had fallen on that day. But the crisis was surmounted. With the capture of Sevastopol the war loses its absorbing interest. No serious operations were undertaken against Gorchakov, who with the field army and the remnant of the garrison held the heights at Mackenzie’s Farm. ”

“ You comprehend clearly, you figure to yourself, those men whom you have just seen, as the very heroes of those grievous times, who have not fallen, but have been raised by the spirit, and have joyfully prepared for death, not for the sake of the city, but of the country. This epos of Sevastopol, whose hero was the Russian people, will leave mighty traces in Russia for a long time to come. ”

“ The Russians naturally suffered greater loss in men, being more crowded than the besiegers, and obliged to hold troops in readiness to meet a possible assault. The well-stored arsenal of Sebastopol saved them from any fear of being crippled by expenditure of material. The bombardment was renewed more than once, with much the same results: it gradually became clear that Sebastopol would not be taken without a sustained siege. ”

“ On the 9th of the month the Sevastopol—the only Russian battleship still remaining afloat in the harbour—moved from her moorings and sought refuge behind a big boom under the guns of Mantushan fort, on the Tiger peninsula, where, a few nights later, she was energetically attacked by our destroyers. ”

“ It is on record that the gallant men of the 32d, when the flames had subsided, though a heavy fusillade was still kept up by the rebels, were seen raking the ashes in order to find their lost medals, the medals they had won in the deadly fighting that preceded the fall of Sevastopol.
On the next day the sepoy army, though so boastful and vainglorious, dared to make their first attempt to carry the entrenchment by assault. By one bold charge they must have crushed the defenders, if by sheer weight of numbers alone. They advanced, with fiendish yells and much seeming confidence. ”

“ At that date the advantages gained by the battle of the Alma had not been entirely dissipated: the Crimean field army, under Menshikoff, was beaten, and was far away from the scene of hostilities, refitting and awaiting reinforcements; the garrison of Sevastopol—composed of a mere medley of details, imperfectly armed, and many of whom could scarcely be called “combatants”—was physically and morally weak; the entrenchments were slight and incomplete; the guns to oppose an attack were light. On the 17th of October a great change had been effected. ”

“ Sevastopol, also, situated in the peninsula, is a land-locked harbour, and a base of naval operations, defended from the sea, and, in 1854, it was partially protected, on the land fronts, by some indifferent works. If there were a good prospect of rapidly capturing it, the design to do so had much to recommend it. Such an event would injure the prestige of Russia, on which she greatly relies for acquiring power; it would temporarily put an end to a secure harbour suitable to maintain her fleet in the Black Sea, and it would be one step towards the conquest of the Crimean Peninsula. ”

“ On the front, too, the Russian attack came to a standstill and ebbed, for Soimonov’s overcrowded battalions jostled one another and dissolved on the narrow and broken plateau. Soimonov himself was killed, and the disciplined confidence and steady volleys of the defenders dominated the chaotic élan of the Russians. Thus 3300 defenders were able to repulse and even to “expunge from the battlefield” the whole of the Sevastopol column, except that portion of it which drifted away to its left and joined Pavlov. ”

“ In vain will you seek, on even a single countenance, for traces of anxiety, discomposure, or even of enthusiasm, readiness for death, decision,—there is nothing of the sort. You will see the tradespeople quietly engaged in the duties of their callings, so that, possibly, you may reproach yourself for superfluous raptures, you may entertain some doubt as to the justice of the ideas regarding the heroism of the defenders of Sevastopol which you have formed from stories, descriptions, and the sights and sounds on the northern side. ”

“ Sevastopol must have been beautiful twenty years ago; she is the reverse of beautiful now, and I do not wonder that the Russian who walks through her half silent and almost deserted streets vows with compressed lips and lowering brow that Sevastopol must be avenged. She is majestic in her ruins. One feels her greatness, or what it must have been, at every step he takes; and no one can call Russia a barbarous nation when he looks at the remains of her dockyards, which were her pride and glory. To destroy these docks required months of labor on the part of French and English engineers. ”

“ Women carry water to the bastions for the soldiers. Many are killed and wounded. The priests with their crosses go to the bastions and read prayers under fire. In one brigade, the 24th, more than 160 wounded men would not leave the front. It is a wonderful time! Now, however, after the 24th, we have quieted down; it has become splendid in Sevastopol. The enemy hardly fires, and all are convinced that he will not take the town ”

“ Here we are, fifteen months later, with Balaclava and Inkerman behind us, and the world ringing with the story of our valour; and something here and there being said about the staring incapacity of our commanders and the crass dishonesty and stupidity of our contractors. The army which left home in such bright array is transformed to a crowd of ragged vagabonds, and all the services are mixed together in the trenches and the camps before Sevastopol. Here are men of the Horse Artillery whose batteries have lost their horses ”

“ The fighting took place chiefly in the Crimea, where the Russians had a very strong fortress and a large harbour for their ships of war, at a place called Sevastopol. The Russians strove with all their might to defend the fortress; but, after it had been besieged for twelve months, it was taken at last, with great difficulty, by the Allies, and was destroyed.
This war was scarcely over when a dreadful mutiny broke out in India amongst the Sepoys. The Sepoys are Indians whom the English have trained to be soldiers. They make very good soldiers, and are sometimes very faithful ”

“ The immediate result of our acceptance of the Austrian terms might have been the instant acquiescence of Russia, and the consequent evacuation of the Crimea. How would the French army have borne a retreat from before Sebastopol, relinquishing a siege which had cost so much blood and so much suffering? Might not the discontent of the army have disturbed the internal tranquillity of France, and even menaced the throne of the Emperor? ”

“ It was doubtful if the French much out-numbered us in strength, but they certainly did generally preponderate, and at this time take the lead in military operations, either by land or sea.
A siege is at all times rather demoralizing and destructive to discipline. The siege of Sebastopol was so to a considerable degree, because to the ordinary influences of such operations the effects of a winter's campaign were superadded. Most of the old soldiers were used up; and the bulk of our regiments contained an undue proportion of recruits. ”