XXXV.
THE EXPEDITION AGAINST DARGO.
The defeat at Akhulgo did not turn away from Schamyl the hearts of his countrymen. On the contrary, now thrice delivered by Allah out of the hands of the infidels, he was regarded by them with the greater veneration. Though escaped with only his life and his arms, when he appeared in the aouls of Itchkeria, a territory lying north of the Andian branch of the Koissu, the mountaineers received him as a prophet come directly from God, and mounting their horses followed him. The news of his coming ran before him through all the highlands; the warriors half drew their shaskas at hearing it; the chieftains of the Tchetchenians who had received the cross of St. George from the Russians, tore it from their breasts; and the bards striking with a frenzy of inspiration their lyres, chanted the miraculous deliverance and great deeds of this successor of Mahomet.
Thus going from aoul to aoul preaching faith in Allah and war against his enemies, sending out also disciples to visit in his name the remoter districts, threatening death to all who held with the Russians, here driving away flocks and herds, and there taking hostages, he in a few months succeeded in rallying around his standards great numbers of the Tchetchenians, of the Lesghians, and of the various tribes of Daghestan. Disgusted by the treatment he received at the hands of the Russians, as was also the case with most of the highland tribes who had recently been obliged to submit their necks to the yoke of bondage, even his old enemy Hadji-Murad came over to the side of the Imam, bringing the greater part of Avaria with him. The spirit of fanatic war swept over the whole eastern Caucasus like a tempest; and those tribes, like the Salatanians, who from the nearness of their position to the Russian line were obliged nominally to acknowledge the supremacy of the czar, burned in their hearts to join again the standard of revolt.
His head-quarters Schamyl now established in Dargo, an aoul consisting of about seventy houses, and situated some fifty miles northwest from Akhulgo, in that part of Tchetchenia inhabited by the Itchkerians. Though an open aoul, Dargo was sufficiently protected by the mountains and the thick forests which everywhere covered them; for here the primeval woods had never been disturbed by the axe of any pioneers of civilization. The oaks stretched out against the sky their twisted branches crowned with the glory of two centuries; the beeches with their innumerable leaves spread out a wider shade than those which in Italy inspired the pastoral reed of Virgil; the round-topped elms towered high above the gracefully pointed birches, and the trembling poplars; while below in many localities a vast variety of flower-bearing plants, vines, and creepers formed a tangled web as beautiful to the eye and fragrant to the sense as to the feet impenetrable.
But instructed by the disasters of the campaign of Akhulgo, Schamyl resolved no more to concentrate his forces and attempt to meet the enemy face to face. Accordingly, apportioning them among his chief murids, such as Achwerdu-Mahomet, Schwaib-Mollah, Ulubuy-Mollah, Taschaw-Hadji, Dschewad-Khan, and Hadji-Murad, besides retaining a considerable force under his own command, he was enabled to overawe a very great number of tribes, and to threaten the Russians simultaneously at various points. Inroads were made at one time into the land of the Kumucks, that of Schamchal, and Avaria; at another, the Russian line was threatened; and again, the forts were attacked on the road to Kisliar. If hard pushed the murids retreated; wherever opportunity offered they struck a blow and suddenly retired; those tribes who wavered in their allegiance found themselves unexpectedly visited with retribution; and when the Tchetchenians, aggrieved by Schamyl's apparent neglect of their interests, took advantage of a wound received by him to send messengers to Tiflis to sue for peace, immediately he appeared in their midst, terrifying rather than winning them back to the cause of the patriots.
Such remained the state of affairs until the year 1842, when General Grabbe, less benefited by experience than his antagonist, resolved to make an expedition against Dargo, similar to that of Akhulgo. Differing in his views of the proper mode of conducting the war from his superior, Governor-general Golowin, who resided in Tiflis, away from the scene of actual hostilities, and who was in favor of the less aggressive system of a blockade, he had then just returned from St. Petersburg, whither he had gone to explain his plans of action to the imperial cabinet, and whence partly in consequence of his representations the emperor had sent his minister of war, Prince Tschernitscheff to inspect the military posts in both Cis and Trans-Caucasia. To surprise then the Prince, upon his arrival on the left flank of the line of operations, by a splendid feat of arms which should serve to demonstrate the correctness of his own theory of procedure, General Grabbe undertook the expedition against Dargo.
On the twenty ninth of May, accordingly, he set out at the head of thirteen battalions, or about eight thousand six hundred foot-soldiers. Of cavalry, on account of the difficult nature of the march, he took none, excepting a few Cossacks to attend upon his own person. Every soldier was loaded down with sixty cartridges, and provisions for eight days in his knapsack. The guns, four and six pounders, were drawn each by four horses; and there were besides a few baggage-wagons, which were dragged with still more difficulty over ground where wheels never rolled before.
At the close of the first day's march, the soldiers as they lay around their camp-fires congratulated themselves that they had not heard on the way the report of a single rifle; though some of the sharpshooters of the vanguard pretended that they had seen here and there the slender form of a Circassian flitting like an apparition or a wood-demon behind the large-stemmed trees. But after the soldiers, having cooked and eaten their pottage and swallowed the refreshing draught of wodka, had stretched their limbs wearied with the hard day's march upon the sweet-smelling herbs and branches, suddenly a rattling volley of musketry brought every man to his feet. The Circassians were upon them. But in the dark they could not discern the enemy scattered about among the trees, and could fire only wherever they saw a flash. The contest, however, did not prove to be a serious one, from lack of certain aim, comparatively few falling on either side; but the firing continued at intervals through the night effectually scared away sleep, and thereby rendered the soldiers less fit for the duties of the day following.
When the morning dawning lit up the darkness of the woods, not a Circassian was to be seen. The enemy had in fact begun to put his new tactics into execution, worrying the march he had no wish to arrest, and giving the column of invaders only a foretaste of the retribution which awaited them for daring to profane by their presence the woods free from the foundations of the world. During the freshness of the early morning the column advanced unhindered save by the unevenness of the ground, the thick-standing trees, and the undergrowth which in many places almost barred the way which it beautified. But towards noon, as the route led through a ravine in the forest, the firing recommenced. A considerable body of Circassians posted behind the trees poured a murderous volley in upon the vanguard. The number of the wounded increased to such a degree that the horses and wagons were not sufficient for their transportation. Thereupon several of the higher officers, their minds weighed down with sad presentiments, advised the commanding general to relinquish an expedition which at every step seemed to be involved in greater difficulties and more serious dangers. But the heart of General Grabbe was set upon entertaining the imperial minister of war with the celebration of a great victory; and he kept on.
On the second evening of the march the tents were pitched in a small, open meadow in the hills, skirted by the forest; yet the weary soldiers were not lulled to sleep by the soft murmuring of the night wind in the tree tops, nor by the silvery tinkling of the brook which flowed through the green; but all night long the sharp crack of rifles and the whizzing of bullets drove away repose, and filled the before silent woods with the tumult and the pains of a pandemonium. Nor did the rising sun scatter the enemy with the darkness, but at every step of the morning's march the pitiless missiles of destruction were hurled from invisible foes upon the now nearly decimated column.
Twelve wersts more, and it would be at the end of its march. The little aoul of Dargo, perched on a hill-top, was even descried in the transparent distance. But the eyes which were turned towards it beheld death staring them in the face still nearer; and at length General Grabbe, seeing that to reach his destination however near would imperil the entire column,—and that for a purpose which by this time he must have perceived to be utterly futile,—gave the order to retreat.
Then as the Circassians, estimated to have been nearly six thousand strong, saw that the advanced guard had wheeled about, and that the column was retracing its footsteps, their enthusiasm mounted to frenzy; and slinging their rifles behind their backs they rushed upon the enemy's centre shaska in hand. Several times they broke through it. But the well-disciplined soldiers restoring as often the disordered ranks fought bravely; for they fought for their lives, the Circassians giving no quarter. Still, as the day wore away many a comrade wearied out by both marching and fighting, exhausted from loss of blood, and tormented by thirst still more than by his wounds, dropped behind the column, and throwing away his knapsack in despair, resigned himself to death at the hands of the first warrior who should come up with him.
At night no soul was allowed any other sleep than that of death. Though the enemy was reluctant to waste his powder in the darkness, yet he kept close by the side of his victims; while the wolves of the forest followed howling behind. As the captain at sea when the tempest roars around his vessel ready to ingulf it stands watching through the dismal hours of the night by the wheel, so did the officers of this forlorn column stand around the bivouac fires vociferating orders which in the confusion and the darkness could but imperfectly be executed. And when at last day broke over the mountain tops, the first beautiful day of June, the soldiers looked at its blush in the east with faces pallid with watching and haggard with despair.
Three hundred times, as was estimated, did the soldier discharge his musket, until from want of cleaning it could be used no longer. The officers, who to prevent their coats from being a mark for the rifles had put on those of common soldiers, still recognized by their sharp-eyed foe by means of the superior cast of lineaments and the manlier carriage, were picked off—thirty-six out of sixty. A drummer taken captive was compelled to beat his drum as a signal indicating the direction of the march, but which led those who followed its call into the midst of their enemies. Six cannon at one time fell into the hands of the Circassians, who in attacking the artillery especially displayed a strength of muscle in wielding the shaska, and an agility of limb in parrying or avoiding the bayonet-thrust, which excited the wonder as well as the dread of the enemy.
But the brave Lieutenant-colonel Wittert, burning with shame at the loss of the guns, led on his men to the rescue; when took place one of the most terrible encounters on the march. The officers led the attack sword in hand and the hurra in their throats; while the soldiers advanced on the run with fixed bayonets. The first man, Lieutenant-colonel Hahn, who laid his hand on a cannon, fell back dead; and many shared his fate; for the mountaineers fought for the possession of "the emperor's pistols" like tigers for their prey; some climbing into the tops of the trees the better to take aim at the rescuers below; and when hit themselves frequently lodging in the branches, where they continued to hang a convenient carrion for the foul birds of the forest.
Schamyl arriving at the head of his riders,—alas! for him, too late,—attacked the column of invasion as it was about coming out of the forests. Having intrusted his foot-soldiers to his principal murids, he had been going the rounds of the aouls, collecting his mounted men, and not expecting that the enemy would so soon turn back. Had he arrived on their line of march two days earlier, not a Russian of them all would have ever again seen a krepost. As it was, two thousand left their bones in the woods to be picked by wolves and vultures. The rest succeeded in reaching Girsel-aoul, a fortress on the line about fifty miles north of Dargo, but in sorry plight indeed. Preparations had been made there for a military triumph, with salvos of cannon, music, and colors flying; and the minister of war, Prince Tschernitscheff, had most inopportunely arrived to witness it; but instead he beheld the battalions marching in with faintly beating drums, the men haggard from fatigue and want of food, their uniform tattered and blood-stained, and the officers sadder still at the loss of so many brave soldiers sacrificed in vain.
When some months afterward the minister of war made to the emperor his report on the state of affairs in the Caucasus, General Grabbe was immediately recalled, and his chief, Governor-general Golowin, likewise.