The Russian cannonade had thoroughly roused the French, but uncertain from what quarter the real attack of the enemy would come, the brigades were kept drawn up near their camps, ready to move in any direction. Suddenly dark masses were seen dimly through the mist moving down on the Tchernaya. They came on with great resolution, and very fast. At one and the same moment a column from the 12th Division assailed the bridge, and another from the 7th attacked the French left. The onset was so impetuous that the French outposts were at once thrust away from the river all along the line, and forced over the aqueduct. The advance of the 7th Division had been equally successful. Issuing from the fog, boldly passing the river, closing in from all sides on the French, the latter, outnumbered, were compelled to retire with all speed up the slopes of the Fedoukine hills. Now the tide of combat was going to change. In crossing the aqueduct the Russians had lost their regular formation, and they had to recover it as well as they could under a heavy fire. Thus their charge was stopped at the moment when victory depended upon its continuance; and while the troops in their front kept them in play, the French generals were executing movements intended to effect a bloody counter-stroke. The column of the 7th Division fell first under this calamity. They had crossed the river and aqueduct with comparatively little opposition, apparently only that of the outposts and the supports. They were advancing up the hill, when General Wimpfen, who commanded a brigade of General Camou's division, sent the 3rd Zouaves to check them. This brought the Russians to a stand. The heavy column, growing vaster as the men scrambling over the aqueduct came up, gave and received a telling fire, but did not advance. All this time, by the orders of Wimpfen, a battalion of the 82nd Regiment was rapidly coming down the hill to the aid of the Zouaves. As soon as the 82nd appeared, the French attacked with the bayonet. The Zouaves went headlong into the right, the 82nd into the left flank of the enemy. The outward ranks were lifted off their feet by the violence of the shock, and the column loosening at the rear, turned and hurried, in dreadful confusion, back over the aqueduct. A battery of artillery on the left of the line of attack poured grape into the flying mass, and augmented the slaughter.
So far the attack on the left had been repelled, but the beaten troops were still at hand to take advantage of any success that might fall to the share of their comrades, who had carried the bridge and were assailing the centre and right.
The Russians had poured over in three irregular columns. Those who crossed by the bridge formed the centre; what may be called the wings had forded the river and the aqueduct. Each column was bravely encountered and overthrown. When General Wimpfen saw that his Zouaves and one battalion of the 82nd were sufficient to deal with the Russian extreme right, he sent the whole of the 50th, with the remainder of the 82nd as a reserve, to fall upon the central Russian columns. Thus, while the battalions of Herbillon's division assailed the centre, the 50th, moving obliquely down the hill, came upon the flank of the Russian column which had passed the aqueduct on the Russian right of the bridge. Exposed to such an assault, the Russians were unable to stand, and, after a brief musketry fight, they turned and sought shelter beyond the aqueduct and the Tchernaya. At the same time, General de Failly, in the centre, had charged, and the effect of the combined movement was to sweep the enemy over the river. The mass of the French were kept behind the aqueduct; but Colonel Danner, with portions of the 97th and 95th, was sent over to re-occupy the bridge-head. On the other side of the road to Balaclava the Russian column had proved too strong for the 19th Chasseurs; and after driving them up the eastern hillock, had, regardless of the tearing flank fire of the Sardinian artillery on Mount Hasfort, sought to deploy and storm the height. They were just moving up when the 2nd Zouaves came over the crest. The Russians began to fire, but the Zouaves continued to march forward, and then, with loud shouts and levelled bayonets, they went down the hill at a charging pace, and literally lifting the Russians off their legs, drove them pell-mell over the aqueduct.
GENERAL SIMPSON. (From a Photograph by Fenton.)
Prince Gortschakoff had heard the beginning of the attack upon the French left. He was, he says, astonished. General Read had frustrated his design of first driving the Sardinians from their entrenchments, and taking himself a solid grasp of Mount Hasfort. To effect this object he had in hand four divisions of infantry, and he was preparing to hurl his bolt when the uproar of Read's untimely onset broke upon his ear. At once he suspended the movement of these divisions, and changed the whole tide of his battle. He felt that he must support the troops of Read, for he could not be sure that the Allies would not assume the offensive, and, by good luck, they might interpose between him and the Mackenzie Heights, and throw the bulk of his army upon the hills and narrow valleys towards Aitodor and Chouliou. Wherefore he directed the cavalry to move up, and should the infantry be repulsed, hold themselves in readiness to charge or to cover the retreat of the 7th and 12th Divisions, and enable them to rally. At the same time he directed the 5th Division to move by its right into the plain and assail the French at and above the bridge. The 17th Division was ordered to descend the Sardinian Mamelon and cross the river, and strive to penetrate through the open space between Mount Hasfort and the most eastern slopes of the Fedoukine heights. The 6th Division moved up to guard the ground opposite the Sardinians above Karlovka and Tchorgoun, and the 4th Division remained in the rear up the valley of Chouliou as a reserve. The attack was vigorous enough, but the columns were defeated in detail and driven back.
But the enemy would not yet own himself beaten. The 17th Division had arrived on the right bank of the Tchernaya. It was formed of regiments that had met the Allies at the Alma and Inkermann. Undismayed by defeat, determined to risk another throw of the dice, Prince Gortschakoff ordered a brigade, composed of three regiments—that is, twelve battalions—supported by a large body of cavalry, to cross the river, and push in between the French and Sardinians. The march of these troops had been seen by the Allies. General Herbillon had reinforced the right by three regiments of Cler's brigade and part of Sencier's brigade, and General La Marmora had directed Mollard's brigade of Trotti's division to descend from Mount Hasfort and, crossing the valley, support the French right. The support, as it happened, was not needed, but it would have been most timely and effectual had the French been overmatched. As it was, the Russians crossed the river and the aqueduct, pushing the French before them, and partly turning their right. They moved with evident resolution, for their columns were struck by the fire of a powerful artillery in flank. A French battery, disregarding the shot and shell poured upon it by the Russian guns on the opposite hills, devoted all its might to the injury of the enemy's infantry. These were now smitten on all sides except their right. For when they saw the deep masses of cavalry facing the gorge into which they had entered, and when they felt the Sardinians on the left of their line of advance, they turned to the right and made a desperate attempt to crown the hillock. The first column which reached the crest was immediately assailed in flank by a French regiment of Cler's brigade, and driven helplessly into and over the aqueduct. But the other deep columns now filling the whole space between the aqueduct and the river still came on with unfaltering resolution, and flung themselves into a focus of fire. But they could make no way. The guns and musketry were too much for them. In vain their officers ran out and waved their swords and showed the way. In vain the columns tried to get along. Presently they fell into confusion; then turned and hurried back over the river, pursued by volleys of musketry and flights of grape and roundshot.
The Russians brought up into line a number of batteries to cover the retreat of the infantry, and their splendid-looking cavalry drew up in glittering lines out of range to protect the guns. But the heavy British pieces in the Sardinian earthworks, opening on the enemy's artillery, soon made them move farther away. It was about eight o'clock of the morning of the 16th. The battle was won.
In this action the Allies lost 1,747 men killed and wounded, of whom only 196 were killed. The Sardinians lost one general officer, the Count Montevecchio. But the Russian loss was awful. The French buried upwards of 2,000 bodies; the Russians more than 1,000. There were 2,250 prisoners in the hands of the French, some wounded, some whole. General Read and two other generals of his corps were among the dead; and among the wounded were eight generals and ten colonels. The Russian loss altogether could not have been less than 15,000 men. The battle of the Tchernaya sealed the fate of Sebastopol.