Owing to the inability of the Allies to invest the fortress completely, communication continued uninterrupted between the northern part of Sebastopol and the interior of the Crimea; early in October the civilian population quitted the town, and thus relieved the troops of the burden of feeding thousands of useless non-combatants. The forethought of the Russians had collected in the magazines of Sebastopol enormous supplies of guns, ammunition, and warlike stores; the commissariat was well provided; the garrison consisted of 38,000 men—soldiers, military workmen already partially trained to arms, and sailors from the men-of-war which, at the approach of the Allies, had been sunk to block the mouth of the outer harbour. Among the regular troops was an officer in himself worth an army—Todleben, an engineer who had already made his mark in the fighting on the Danube. When it became known that the Allies were sailing for the Crimea he was sent to Sebastopol, where he became the mainspring of the defence. His courage and genius, his versatility and resource, his boundless energy, his power of inspiring enthusiasm and devotion among his men won for him the deepest respect of his enemies, and the fervent admiration of his fellow countrymen, who with good reason claim for him a high place among great military engineers. He soon had an opportunity of displaying his talents. In the middle of October the Allies opened fire upon the fortress, and at the close of the bombardment had reason to be satisfied with the result, for the works were reduced to shapeless heaps, the batteries ruined, the guns disabled. But next morning the assailants discovered that in Todleben they had to meet a master-mind: during the night he had rebuilt the parapets, repaired the batteries, and replaced the damaged guns from the almost boundless supply of cannon at his command. On the 25th, the Russian Field army, which after its defeat at the Alma had retired into the interior of the Crimea to await reinforcements, made an unsuccessful attempt to break the line of communication between the British camps on the Upland and Balaclava. A few days later the Allies determined to assault the fortress, but their project was discovered by the enemy. At dawn on the 4th of November, the garrison and the field army together attacked the British right; and though after a desperate battle, to which the name of Inkerman has been given, the victory remained to the Allies, it was dearly bought: the British casualties were 597 killed and 1760 wounded, while those of the French were 143 killed and 786 wounded. The Russians on their side lost more than 12,000 men, of whom a very large proportion were left dead upon the field.

So far our army had not fared badly in the campaign: the hardships had not been greater than were to be expected on active service, and reinforcements had filled the gaps caused by casualties and disease. Cholera, indeed, hung about the camp, and the men were undoubtedly overworked, for when the Anglo-French generals drew up their plans for the siege, the share in the operations which Lord Raglan undertook was greater than his troops could accomplish without undue fatigue. But despite sickness and overstrain the health of the army was fairly good, and when, a few days after Inkerman, it was officially announced that the Allies would spend the winter in the Crimea, men looked forward to the prospect without great apprehension, for the weather was fine, and the Indian summer, bright, mild, and dry, gave no hint of the rigours of the coming winter. Suddenly a terrific storm of rain and wind burst upon the Crimea, levelled whole camps and blew the tents, and all that the tents contained, far and wide over the Upland; the supplies of food and forage at the front were destroyed, and communication with Balaclava was temporarily cut off by the force of the hurricane. Had the fleet of store-ships then at anchor at Balaclava, or lying off the port, escaped destruction, the damage, in great measure at least, could have been repaired; but twenty-one vessels were dashed to pieces, and eight more disabled. The ships that went to the bottom contained forage, ammunition, war-like stores of every kind, drugs and surgical appliances, warm flannel shirts and drawers, woollen stockings, boots and watch-coats—everything that the army most urgently required. When fresh supplies arrived at Balaclava from England the means of conveying them to the Upland was utterly inadequate, for we had landed without a transport corps, depending for land carriage on such horses and vehicles as could be seized in the Crimea. The animals thus obtained died fast from want of forage, and in January, 1855, the Commissariat department could only muster 333 horses and mules and 12 camels, while the divisional transport consisted of a few ponies, dying from starvation and overwork. Though horses in plenty were to be bought in the countries near the Crimea, and many transports were available to bring them to Balaclava, it was useless to import animals until forage arrived to feed them, and forage unhappily was an article of which the Treasury had neglected to make an adequate provision. Consequently upon the troops fell the whole labour of carrying on their shoulders from the port to the camps everything that was required, not only for their own support, but for the conduct of the siege. As was to be expected, the men broke down terribly fast; in November there were nearly 17,000 on the sick list; in December there were more than 19,000 ineffectives, and in January, 1855, no less than 23,076 men filled the hospitals. The horrors of this period of the war are well described by Field-Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood, who served on shore as a midshipman in one of the Naval brigades.

“In the early part of the winter the battalions at the front were generally on duty two nights out of three, and later, every alternate night. The life of the rank and file was thus spent:—The men were mustered carrying great-coat and blanket, just before dusk, and marched through a sea of mud into the trenches. These were cut up by deep holes from which boulders and stones had been taken, and into these holes on dark nights, the men often fell. When the soldier reached his position, he had to sit with his back to the parapet, and his feet drawn up close under his body to allow others to pass along the four-feet-wide trench. If he was not detailed for a working party, nor for piquet in the trenches or in advance of them, he might lie down, resting as best he could, in a wet ditch. Assuming that the soldier was not on piquet, and that there was no alarm—and these were of frequent occurrence—he could, after the working parties and their reliefs had ceased to move about the trenches, repose till daylight, when he marched back to camp, and after a few hours’ rest had to carry a load of some kind.

“The comparative repose enjoyed by those men who were required only as a guard, or reserve in the trenches, was very different to the condition of those who were employed from 200 to 300 yards in advance of our works, often within conversational distance of the opposing sentries. The reliefs for the sentries could snatch a dog’s sleep for four hours out of six, hoping their comrades would by remaining on the alert give them time to jump up ere the enemy was on them; but for the two hours that each man was out near the enemy, the strain on the nervous system would have been great even to a robust, well-fed man. These sentries had necessarily to stand absolutely still, silent and watchful, and as the severity of the weather became more and more marked, numbers of men whose frames were weakened by want of adequate nutritious food, were found in the morning frost-bitten and unable to move. One battalion which landed nearly 900 strong early in November, was actually in the trenches six nights out of seven, and then became so reduced, not only in numbers,[163] but also in the men’s bodily strength, that it was unable for some time to go there again.

“When the soldier got back to camp, he used to lie, often in a puddle, which chilled his bones, under a worn-out tent, through which the rain beat. The less robust would fall asleep, completely worn out, to awake shivering, and in many cases to be carried to a hospital tent scarcely more comfortable than the tent which they had left, and thence to a grave in two or three days. Those who were stronger, went out to collect roots of brushwood, or of vines, and roasted the green coffee ration in the lid of the canteen, afterwards pounding it in a fragment of shell with a stone, ere they boiled it for use. Others, unequal to this laborious process, would drink their rum, and eating a piece of biscuit, lie down again in the great-coat and blanket which they had brought, often wet through from the trenches.

“In the afternoon the soldier was sent on ‘fatigue’ duty from five to seven miles, according to the position of his camp, usually to Balaclava, to bring up rations. On his return he had again to gather fuel in order to boil the salt beef or salt pork in his mess tin, which did not hold water enough to abstract the salt. A portion of the meat therefore only was consumed, and it was necessary from time to time to tell off men to bury the quantities thrown away. Salt pork which was issued two days out of seven, was frequently eaten by the men in its raw state, from the difficulties of finding fuel to cook it.

“Shortly before dusk the soldier either marched back to the trenches, or lay down to sleep if he was not on piquet in front of the camp. Many men disliking to report themselves sick, were carried back from the trenches in the morning, and died a few hours afterwards. Those who were reported sick were taken to hospital, in many cases merely a bell tent; here the men lay, often in mud on the ground, and in many instances their diet was only salt meat and biscuit.[164] They were moreover so crowded together that the doctors could scarcely pass between the patients.

“The Regimental Medical officers unable to provide comforts, medicine or proper housing, were eager to send down their patients, even in storm and rain, to Balaclava, as the best chance of saving their lives. As we had no ambulances, and the French could not always lend us mule litter-transport, many were necessarily carried on cavalry horses, which slipping upon the hill outside Balaclava, often caused further injury or the death of the patient.

“The small schoolhouse at Balaclava, which we used as a hospital, held only between 300-400 men, thus the great majority of the sick and wounded were necessarily laid on the beach, exposed to all weathers, while awaiting their turn for embarcation in the transports. On the steamer running between Balaclava and the Bosphorus—a voyage of 36 to 48 hours—the soldier seldom got anything but tea and biscuit, sometimes only water. During this short but terribly trying passage, from 8 to 9% succumbed and were thrown overboard. Once on shore there was often a further painful wait on the beach before they were carried up to the hospital.