A fatal accident had precipitated the conflict. General Mayran had been up all night engaged in disposing himself the division he commanded. He had them all in hand in the Careening Ravine, and he was eager, he was impatient for the fray. In this frame of mind he was disposed to take every rocket fired from the Mamelon for the signal agreed on; and when, a little before three, one of these blazing missiles writhed and bounded through the air towards the Russian lines, he called out, "That is the signal." The rash step was taken; his division was ordered to move. With the first brigade Mayran went himself; the second was commanded by De Failly. But the troops no sooner rushed out than they were smitten by a heavy fire. The leading soldiers, after the fashion of their countrymen, began to fire on the retreating Russian outposts, and the flash and the sound guided the Russian artillery in training their guns. Then it was still dark, and the troops were unable to see the nature of the ground. Instead of following the left bank of the Careening Bay, and striving to turn the line of entrenchments, they went full in the teeth of a battery. The steamers came up to the mouth of the bay, and, at short range, poured in showers of grape and shell. So that this unhappy column, struggling in the obscurity over rough ground, was torn through and through by the iron sleet hurled at it in front and flank. Mayran was soon among the wounded, but he would neither retire nor give up the command. Another grapeshot striking him in the body, he was carried off mortally wounded; and part of his troops, after a vain but gallant stand, hurried back into the Careening Ravine, shattered and disorganised. But De Failly, bringing up the reserve, rallied them in a hollow, and held his ground.
THE ASSAULT ON THE REDAN. (See p. [110].)
In the meantime, at the signal from the Lancaster Battery, D'Autemarre and Brunet gave the word to advance. Brunet's men were not in order; and in disorder, and as they could, they scrambled into the open. The disorder was increased when a shot struck and killed the general as he quitted the trenches. General Lafont de Villiers took command. Part of the division went towards the Malakoff, under Colonel Lorencez, while the rest were held in hand to meet the exigencies of the moment. The men engaged, like those on the right, were exposed to a crushing fire, and could make no way, but they would not retreat. The attack on the right had, by this time, utterly failed. The attack on the centre made no progress. The left attack was more fortunate. D'Autemarre, on spying the signal, sent forward two battalions, one of rifles, the other of the line. Day had dawned, and the twilight revealed the column to the enemy, but it also allowed the troops to see where they were going. With steady tread in the face of a searching fire, D'Autemarre's men pressed along the ridge, on the right of the Middle Ravine; Garnier, the commander of the rifles, kept his men together and prevented them from firing; and thus they arrived at the ditch of the Gervais Battery, on the proper right of the Malakoff, all together. In a moment they were seen scrambling over the parapet, and then firing their rifles, point blank, they went in with the bayonet. The strife was close, but the French prevailed; and the 19th Line regiment coming up, the two battalions were actually established within the enemy's lines, among the ruins of houses, and under the mighty Malakoff. The column on the right had by this time been reinforced by part of the Guard, chiefly for the purpose of securing it from attack, but also to have a body of men ready to take advantage of any opportunity. The head of Brunet's column was under the Malakoff, exchanging volleys with the enemy's troops, who fired exultingly from their parapets. D'Autemarre's two battalions, as we have said, were inside the Russian lines, and their gallant leaders, Garnier and Manèque, both wounded, had sent officer after officer to the rear begging for reinforcements. Ten minutes had slipped away since Pélissier gave the signal, and such was the condition of the combat.
Lord Raglan had been a spectator of this engagement in the grey dawn. He had seen and heard the false movement of Mayran; he had watched the confused march of Brunet's troops; he had seen dimly the soldiers of D'Autemarre storm the Gervais Battery. The French had not succeeded; but the British commander, admiring their showy bravery, and feeling that he ought to risk something to aid them, directed Sir George Brown to order the assault on the Redan. Alas! here, too, the enemy were prepared. They had a mass of infantry in the Redan; its guns, loaded with grape, were ready to belch it forth; and between the stormers and their object there was the abattis with its strong woodwork and deep ditch. The British columns were small—400 men in each. They were covered by a scattering of riflemen, and with them were to march a party of sailors under William Peel, carrying ladders, a party of soldiers with sacks of wool, and a party of artillerymen to spike the guns of the Redan. When the signal was given, all these gallant men climbed over the parapets and alighted in the open. Then the guns of the Redan opened with energy and effect. The rifles, in open order, gained the abattis, and began to fire on the enemy's gunners. Parts of the two columns of attack struggled in utter disorder up to the same place. But the sailors under Peel were so cut up that only one ladder was borne to the abattis, and Peel was wounded. It was in striving to make the men in the right column form, and in leading them on by voice and gesture, that the brave Lacy Yea met his death. He was struck by grape, and almost instantly died. On the left, Colonel Shadforth was slain as soon as he had left the trenches; and Sir John Campbell, leaping over the parapet, went at once to head the column, and carried them up to the abattis. But there, cheering his soldiers, Campbell was also shot dead. Indeed, the storm of grapeshot strewed the ground with red coats and bluejackets. Lord West and Colonel Lysons found it a vain sacrifice to keep the men under that awful fire, to which musketry was now added from the parapets of the Redan; and accordingly, the remains of the devoted stormers were hurried back into the trenches.
The French attack had failed also. Seeing Brunet's men exposed to a fire of small arms from the parapets of the Malakoff, Colonel Dickson endeavoured to drive the Russians down by shells. But they did not appear to feel these missiles, and Dickson changing to round shot, soon cleared the parapet. D'Autemarre's two battalions held the Gervais Battery for more than half an hour. Their brave commanders, grim and blood-stained, looked eagerly, but in vain, for the reinforcements they had demanded. And as these did not arrive, these two heroic soldiers were forced to withdraw. When the French quitted the Russian entrenchments, the Russian infantry followed. The French halted in a depression of the ground, and as part of their reinforcements had now come up, they turned with the bayonet upon their pursuers and forced them back into the work. Other battalions coming up, these men held fast, and General Pélissier, unwilling to throw a chance away, ordered up the Zouaves of the Guard, and had a momentary thought of making a fresh attack; but receiving unfavourable reports, he halted the Guard, and recalled all the troops. The attack was at an end, and once more the dogged tenacity of the Russian peasant had won the day.
But while Pélissier was thinking of renewing the assault, he sent General Rose with a message to Lord Raglan, saying that he hoped Raglan would agree to a fresh onslaught. At the same time Lord Raglan, seeing how completely our fire had mastered that of the place, ordered Sir George Brown to bring up the supports, and prepare for another assault. He then sent Commander Vico, the French officer at the British headquarters, to inform General Pélissier of the steps he had taken, and to propose that another attempt should be made after the bombardment had continued a few hours longer. Lord Raglan thought that in this way the enemy might be surprised, and the place be won. The two messengers met each other in the trenches, and thus the messages crossed each other. Lord Raglan, therefore, determined to see Pélissier himself. Reaching the Lancaster Battery shortly after seven o'clock, Lord Raglan found the French general ready to fall in with his views. But while they were discussing the details, General D'Autemarre, now senior officer in the French trenches, sent word that the French troops had lost so many men and were so discouraged, that he feared it would be impossible to assault again. It was, therefore, decided that no fresh assault should be made; the troops were withdrawn; and the batteries slackened fire.
We have now to narrate a remarkable episode in the incidents of the morning. It will be remembered that General Eyre was to make a demonstration in the South Ravine. A French force was to aid him by covering his left flank. Their first object was to capture two rifle-pits. The French took one, and our volunteers the other, with ease. Then the French halted, the officer in command having no warrant to go farther. General Eyre, however, exceeding, or rather straining, his instructions, did go farther, and a handful of French breaking from restraint kept pace with him. In the ravine, just before it is joined by the Woronzoff Ravine on the right, there was a cemetery where the Russians had a post. This was carried by our troops, after a very slight resistance; and, not content with this success, they pushed still farther. There were clusters of houses under the cliffs on both sides of the broad basin formed by the juncture of the two ravines. Into these the enemy retired, and General Eyre deeming it desirable to occupy as forward a position as possible, drove the Russians out of the houses, and held them as well as the Cemetery. The troops were now under the Garden Batteries on the one side, and the Barrack Batteries on the other; and before them was the battery at the head of the South Ravine, called the Creek Battery. They were thus exposed to fire on three sides. Nevertheless they still made progress, driving the enemy out of the houses and up the sides of the ravine. Some of them ascended the steep, a few looked into the works in rear of the Flagstaff Bastion, others climbed the opposite side and got shelter at a point commanding the Creek Battery. Thus they were ready, if fortune favoured the assaults on the Redan and Malakoff, to sweep either into the town or make way through the Barrack Battery to the Redan. But the Russians had no sooner fled from the ravine into the place, than the batteries opened on our daring soldiers. Nevertheless here they remained all day, offering to the French in the right of their left attack a splendid spectacle of hardihood. General Eyre was wounded early in the day; but he did not give up the command of his men until five in the afternoon. About nine in the morning he had heard of the failure of the grand assault. Requesting instructions from Lord Raglan, he was told that the French would send a force to relieve him, and hold part of the ground he had won; but that if at nightfall the French had not arrived, then he was to evacuate the ravine. The French did not come; and this noble brigade, bringing with them nearly all their wounded, and these were many, regained the trenches at nightfall. The Cemetery, however, remained in our possession.
The losses of both sides were very great. Of the British there were 22 officers killed and 78 wounded; 244 men killed and 1,209 wounded. The French lost 33 officers killed, 257 were wounded, and 21 were missing. They also lost 1,340 men killed, 1,520 wounded, and 390 missing. The wounded men thus exceeded the dead by 180 only—an unusual proportion. The totals stand—for the British, 1,553; for the French, 3,561 killed, wounded, and missing. The Russian loss, as usual, it is difficult to ascertain. Prince Gortschakoff's published despatch fixes the losses during the 17th and 18th at 16 officers killed and 153 wounded; 781 men killed and 4,826 wounded; giving a total of 5,776 as the amount of the Russian loss from the bombardment and the combat. The Allied losses on the 18th were 5,106. On the 17th, 37 men were killed or wounded in the British trenches. As the French placed more men in their batteries and parallels than we did, they may have lost 100. Adding 137 to the total of the Allied loss in the two days, it still falls short of the loss of the enemy by 533 men. The errors of the day were the fatal change which dispensed with the bombardment; the refusal of the French to assault on the left; the mistake of Mayran, and the consequent failure in the unity of the assault. To these it may be added, that the British assaulting columns, except that led by Eyre, were all too weak, and would probably have failed against the Redan, even had the French succeeded against the Malakoff. And, reviewing the whole operation carefully, there is some ground for the inference, that, although a preliminary bombardment would have given a chance of success, yet, at this stage, it is probable that failure would have been equally the result, because the distance which the stormers and supporters had to traverse to reach the enemy was so great, and also because the spirit of that enemy was still too high, and his losses, immense though they were, not enough to warrant that profound discouragement which precedes the final efforts of a desperate cause.