BATTLE OF INKERMAN.
On Sunday, the 5th of November, 1854, one of the most sanguinary battles ever fought within the memory of man, took place on the heights of Inkerman, under the walls of Sebastopol.
It is a difficult task, in a few lines of prose, to render justice to a bravery which excels that sung by the blind and immortal bard of Greece. We might devote page after page to individual feats of heroic daring in this fearful struggle, when 8,000 British troops and 6,000 Frenchmen defeated an army of 60,000 Russians, who left more killed and wounded upon the battle-field than the whole force the Allies brought against them.
From the preceding pages, the position of the besieging forces is already familiar to our readers. On referring to the map of the Crimea, may be seen a road connecting Balaklava and Sebastopol. From this road to the heights which crown the valley of the Tchernaya, extended the British lines. These heights form a right angle nearly opposite the ruins of Inkerman, and there run parallel with the river from which the valley has derived its name. On the other side of the Tchernaya rise a succession of hills above the ruins of Inkerman, where the Russians had established themselves.
The night between the 4th and 5th November was passed without apprehension by the allied troops. It had rained almost incessantly, and the early morning gave no promise of any cessation of the heavy showers which had fallen for the previous four-and-twenty hours. Towards dawn a heavy fog settled down on the heights, and on the valley of the Inkerman. The fog, and vapors of drifting rain were so thick as morning broke, that one could scarcely see ten yards before him.
At four o’clock the bells of the churches in Sebastopol were heard ringing drearily through the cold night air; but the occurrence had been so usual that it excited no particular attention.
No one suspected for a moment that enormous masses of Russians were creeping up the rugged sides of the heights over the valley of Inkerman, on the undefended flank of the Second Division. There all was security and repose. Little did the slumbering troops in camp imagine that a subtle and indefatigable enemy were bringing into position an overwhelming artillery, ready to play upon their tents at the first glimpse of daylight.
Yet such was the case. The arrival of the Grand Dukes Michael and Nicholas, sons of the Emperor, with large reinforcements, determined Prince Menschikoff to make the attempt to annihilate the besieging forces, and raise the siege.
At daybreak (that is, at six o’clock), the alarm was given in the British camp that the Russians had surprised the advanced picquets, and were already in possession of all the heights commanding their position. The whole army stood to arms without delay. Presently a Russian battery appeared upon the crest of the height known as Shell-hill, near Careening Bay, whilst columns of infantry were descried already descending the hills, or marching up the ravines, which faced the front of the British position. The most serious attack of the Russians was, however, directed against the flank of the British army, along the heights running parallel to the valley of the Tchernaya.
The entire force which the British mustered to defend their vast front and flank lines, was confined to the following. The remainder of the army were in the trenches, prepared to oppose any attack upon the siege batteries:
| Guards, about | 1,000 |
| Second Division | 2,500 |
| Light Division | 1,000 |
| Fourth Division | 2,200 |
| Third Division | 1,000 |
| ——– | |
| 7,700 |
The odds were therefore, frightful, and it was only three hours later that General Bosquet opportunely arrived with his splendid division, six thousand strong, the same which had fought at the Alma.
The Russians in the front had now advanced to within five hundred yards of the encampment, and the action commenced. The musketry fire was awful, and the enemy, who had now guns upon every favorable position, hurled shell and round shot at the advancing lines.
The enemy’s columns continued to push forward, trying to overwhelm the British regiments with their superior numbers. “And now (to quote the words of an eye-witness of the battle) commenced the bloodiest struggle ever witnessed since war cursed the earth. It has been doubted by military historians if any enemy have ever stood a charge with the bayonet, but here the bayonet was often the only weapon employed in conflicts of the most obstinate and deadly character. Not only did the English charge in vain, not only were desperate encounters between masses of men maintained with the bayonet alone, but they were obliged to resist bayonet to bayonet, with the Russian infantry again and again, as they charged the British with incredible fury and determination.”
The battle of Inkerman 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.
It was essentially a struggle between pluck and confidence, against fearful odds and obstinate courage.
No one, however placed, could have witnessed even a small portion of the doings of this eventful day, for the vapors, fog, and drizzling mist, obscured the ground where the struggle took place to such an extent, as to render it impossible to see what was going on at the distance of fifty yards. Besides this, the irregular nature of the ground, the rapid fall of the hill towards Inkerman, where the deadliest fight took place, would have prevented one, under the most favorable circumstances, seeing more than a very insignificant and detailed piece of the terrible work below.
It was six o’clock when all the Head-quarter camp was roused by roll after roll of musketry on the right, and by the sharp report of field-guns.
Lord Raglan was informed that the enemy were advancing in force, and soon after seven o’clock he rode towards the scene of action, followed by his staff, and accompanied by Sir John Burgoyne, Brigadier General Strangways, and several aides-de-camp.
As they approached the volume of sound, the steady unceasing thunder of gun, and rifle, and musket, told that the engagement was at its height. The shell of the Russians, thrown with great precision, burst so thickly among the troops that the noise resembled continuous discharges of cannon, and the massive fragments inflicted death on every side.
Colonel Gambier was at once ordered to get up two heavy guns (eighteen pounders) on the rising ground, and to reply to a fire which the light guns were utterly inadequate to meet. As he was engaged in this duty he was severely wounded, and obliged to retire. His place was taken by Lieutenant-Colonel Dickson, who, in directing the fire of these two pieces, which had the most marked effect in deciding the fate of the day, elicited the admiration of the army.
But long ere these guns had been brought up, there had been a great slaughter of the enemy, and a heavy loss of the British. The generals could not see where to go. They could not tell where the enemy were—from what side they were coming, or where going. In darkness, gloom, and rain, they led the lines through thick scrubby bushes and thorny brakes, which broke the ranks, and irritated the men, while every place was marked by a corpse or man wounded from an enemy whose position was only indicated by the rattle of musketry, and the rush of ball and shell.
Sir George Cathcart, seeing his men disordered by the fire of a large column of Russian infantry, which was outflanking them, while portions of the various regiments composing his division were maintaining an unequal struggle with an overwhelming force, went down into a ravine in which they were engaged to rally them. He rode at their head encouraging them, and when a cry arose that the ammunition was failing, he said coolly, “Have you not got your bayonets?” As he led on his men, it was observed that another body of men had gained the top of the hill behind them on the right, but it was impossible to tell whether they were friends or foes. A deadly volley was poured into the scattered British regiments. Sir George cheered them, and led them back up the hill, but a flight of bullets passed where he rode, and he fell from his horse close to the Russian columns. His body was recovered mutilated with bayonet wounds.
When he fell, Colonel Seymour, who was with him, instantly dismounted, and was endeavoring to raise the body, when he himself received a ball which fractured his leg. He fell to the ground beside his general, and a Russian officer and five or six men running in, bayoneted him, and cut him to pieces as he lay helpless. The Russians bayoneted the wounded in every part of the field, giving no quarter, and apparently determined to exterminate the Allies, or drive them into the sea.
The conflict on the right was equally uncertain and equally bloody. To the extreme right a contest, the like of which, perhaps, never took place before, was going on between the Guards and dense columns of Russian infantry of five times their number. The Guards had charged them and driven them back, when they perceived that the Russians had outflanked them. They were out of ammunition, too, and were uncertain whether there were friends or foes in the rear. They had no support, no reserve, were fighting with the bayonet against an enemy who stoutly contested every inch of ground, when the corps of another Russian column appeared on their right far to their rear. Then a fearful mitraille was poured into them, and volleys of rifle and musketry.
The Guards were broken; they had lost twelve officers dead on the field; they had left one-half of their number dead on the ground; and they retired along the lower road of the valley; but they were soon reinforced, and speedily avenged their loss.
The French advance, about ten o’clock, turned the flank of the enemy.
ZOUAVE CHIEF.
When the body of French infantry appeared on the right of the British position, it was a joyful sight to the struggling regiments. The 3d regiment of Zouaves, under the chiefs of battalion, supported in the most striking manner the ancient reputation of that force. The French artillery had already begun to play with deadly effect on the right wing of the Russians, when three battalions of chasseurs d’Orleans rushed by, the light of battle on their faces. They were accompanied by a battalion of chasseurs Indigènes—the Arab Sepoys of Algiers. Their trumpets sounded above the din of battle. Assailed in front, broken in several places by the impetuosity of the charge, renewed again and again, attacked by the French infantry on the right, and by artillery all along the line, the Russians began to retire, and at twelve o’clock they were driven pell-mell down the hill towards the valley, where pursuit would have been madness, as the roads were covered by their artillery. They left mounds of dead behind them. At twelve o’clock the battle of Inkerman seemed to have been won; but the day, which had cleared up for an hour previously, again became obscured. Rain and fog set in; and as the Allies could not pursue the Russians, who were retiring under the shelter of their artillery, they had formed in front of the lines, and were holding the battle-field so stoutly contested, when the enemy, taking advantage of the Allies’ quietude, again advanced, while their guns pushed forward and opened a tremendous fire.
General Canrobert, who never quitted Lord Raglan for much of the early part of the day, at once directed the French to advance and outflank the enemy. In his efforts he was most nobly seconded by General Bosquet. General Canrobert was slightly wounded, and his immediate attendants suffered severely.
The renewed assault was so admirably managed that the Russians sullenly retired, still protected by their crushing artillery.
The loss sustained by the English army was 2,400 killed or wounded: of the French, 1,726. The Russians, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, 15,000.