13. Fort Adda.—The barracks and stores, especially on the east side of the fort, were very much injured, but the batteries were not materially damaged. The only shell which entered, that on the southern half of the western side, blew up the magazine. The loss of life from the explosion was probably very great, and the entire space between the magazine and the gate was covered with stones, timber, and broken shell. The injury to the guns was as follows:—A 10-inch S.B. gun was dismounted by a shell which threw the gun and carriage to a distance of about 15 feet from the slide. Another 10-inch S.B. gun was similarly dismounted, whilst a third was struck on the left side of the platform by a shell which had previously cut off the cascabel of the second gun to the left; the beams of the platform were completely shattered, and the gun with its carriage was overturned and wrecked.
14. Fort Pharos.—The west tower and front were breached in many places; the minaret was partly knocked down, and the whole of the west front of the keep, with its two turrets, were in ruins. The south-east corners of the fort were also much shattered by the shells which passed over the west front. The stores and barracks suffered severely, and the destruction of so much masonry must have added considerably to the moral effect of the fire of the ships. With regard to the sea front, the parapet was hit in several places (seven in all), but only in three cases did a shell enter the battery. The corners of the traverse to the right of the 8-inch Armstrong guns were carried away by two shells; a third shell pierced the sole of the embrasure of the 10-inch Armstrong gun, and threw the large granite block which formed the sill on to the platform of the gun, so the gun might be said to be out of action. Of the S.B. guns, one heavy 10-inch on the west tower was dismounted, by a 16-inch shell from the Inflexible, one 10-inch gun on the west front was capsized and put out of action, and it is not unlikely that another, with its carriage, fell into the crater formed by a shell.
On the rear face, a 36-pounder, having been hit on the cascabel by a chance shell, was thrown completely over the parapet, and left standing on its muzzle at a distance of 30 feet from its original position. Another gun was also unserviceable, owing to the partial destruction of its carriage by a shell. But it was in the casemates below that the fire of the ships inflicted the greatest injury. The front wall of the casemates, which is faced with masonry two feet in thickness, was in many places torn away under the stress of fire, leaving only six feet of rubble as a protection to the guns. Through the latter the heavy shells pierced with ease. The results were as follows:—Under west tower, casemate penetrated, gun not disabled. In casemates Nos. 1 to 12, just one half of the guns were disabled. Of the casemates on the right sea front, No. 17 was the only one in which there was no gun hit. The loss of life in the casemates must have been out of all proportion to the effect produced by the feeble guns (six 5-inch S.B.) mounted within.
On the scarp of casemates Nos. 1 to 12 there were about 13 hits, of which seven pierced the wall.
15. Fort Silsileh.—The fire does not appear to have in any way injured the guns or stores of this fort, though fragments of at least two shells lay around the rifled guns.
The total number of guns dismounted was, four M.L.R. guns, sixteen S.B. guns, and one mortar.
The forts at Alexandria generally were badly knocked about, but the more modern parapets were not seriously injured. If the bombardment were directed against the forts in their defensive capacity, it must be pronounced a failure. If its object were the dismounting of the rifled guns, it must be conceded that such results as attended the work of either the inside squadron (where only one gun of this type was seriously affected), or even of the outside squadron (where less than half of the guns were permanently disabled), do not justify the verdict of success.
In the wider sense, however, of having driven the Egyptian gunners from their batteries and having silenced the forts, the fleet was unquestionably victorious.