As the English grew stronger on the field, General Cathcart with the fourth division made a needless attempt to push forward along the slope overhanging the Tchernaya, in which he was killed, and his men suffered heavily. From the nature of the case, there was nothing to be done except to hold the ground, and let the Russians exhaust themselves, as they gradually did. During the latter part of the battle French troops came up. General Bosquet had naturally been distracted between his primary duty of watching the Russians below him in the Tchernaya valley, and the duty of reinforcing his allies. Soon after the action began he sent a couple of regiments towards Mount Inkerman, but an English general, totally misinformed as to the strength of the Russian attack, stopped them as not being needed. Later Bosquet learned the true state of the case, and also saw that the movements in the Tchernaya valley meant nothing, and he therefore despatched heavy and welcome reinforcements to Mount Inkerman, the foremost of which took an important share in the fighting. It is obvious that if the large Russian force available for the purpose had attacked Bosquet in earnest, he could not have spared a man to support the English, who would have been very hardly pressed. When the Russians finally abandoned the action despairing of success, though they had lost fully 12,000 men, they had still 9000 in reserve, besides their broken front lines, while the English had on the field less than 5000 unwounded men. But for the relief given by the French, who had been fighting beside them for the last hour or two, and had borne the weight of the action to an extent represented by a loss on their part of 900 men, the English would manifestly have been fewer still. They had lost over 2300 men, or about a third of those actually engaged; they were in no position to turn the tables on their opponents, even if prudence had not dictated, as the French undoubtedly thought, the choice so difficult in battle of leaving well alone.
Inkerman was not unappropriately christened "the soldiers' battle." Under the conditions of weather no general could have efficiently directed any elaborate scheme, and fortunately none was needed. The shape of the ground and the relative numbers would have compelled resort to the simple tactics which in fact were adopted, even if the air had been perfectly clear. They were in accordance with the habitual practice of the British soldier to form line, and in that formation sustain the attack of columns, and drive them back in rout when their front has been crushed by the wider fire of the line. Thus regimental officers without superior command, even the men uncommanded when their officers were struck down, were ready to sustain the fight in the best way. "No other European troops," says Sir Edward Hamley, "would at that time have formed in a front of such extent without very substantial forces behind them." With an enormous weight of artillery against them until near the close of the action, with odds of infantry against them which began at three to one, and which must have been heavier still for a while when General Pauloff came on the field, they held their ground with an audacious obstinacy which it would be difficult to parallel in European warfare.
The victory of Inkerman marked a decisive point in the campaign. Foiled in this carefully prepared enterprise, the Russians henceforth made no attempt to challenge battle in the open field. They limited themselves to withstanding as far as possible the advance of the siege operations, which were carried on under considerable difficulties, arising both from the nature of the ground and from the skill displayed by Todleben in making the utmost use of every opportunity. The approach of winter was however destined to enforce, not a cessation of hostilities, but the prosecution of them in a slow and uneventful fashion. Reinforcements could no longer reach the Crimea, except at a cost prohibitory even to the vast resources in men of the Russian empire. And though the allies, having their communications by sea, were not liable to the same exhaustion, yet a disaster befel them soon after Inkerman which reduced them for the time practically to the defensive. On November 14 a furious storm burst on the allied camps, followed by much rain and snow. The tents were blown down, and the whole country converted into a wilderness of mud. At the same time many vessels laden with stores were wrecked. For many weeks after this disaster, the sufferings of the English army were intense. The fundamental cause was want of forage: without it the horses died, and supplies could only be conveyed from Balaclava to the camp by the soldiers, already as hard worked in the trenches as they could bear. Food was never actually wanting, but hardly any fuel was to be procured; the soldiers were never dry, and often ate their food raw. Naturally under such conditions they sickened and died in thousands. The French, having shorter distance between their harbour and camp, and a tolerable transport service already organised, in which the English were deficient, and having also a smaller part of the siege works to maintain, suffered materially less. Things improved slowly, but the siege was protracted indefinitely; in fact it became a contest of endurance between the rival powers, in which the command of the sea ensured ultimate victory to the allies.
Early in the new year the French, whose army had now been largely reinforced, took in hand an additional portion of the siege works, thus making for the first time a fairly equal partition of labour with the English.[88] Instead however of taking over the left portion of the English works, which adjoined his own, the French general preferred to undertake the new operations which had long been intended against the east face of the city. Here however the ever active Todleben seized and fortified, just in the nick of time, a knoll some way in advance of the Malakoff redoubt, the main defence of this side of Sebastopol. This new fortification, known as the Mamelon, was so situated as to prevent the English trenches at the south corner of the city being pushed forwards. Consequently the main work of the siege concentrated itself on the new French attack.
Political reasons operated to cause delay, which may be fairly said to be one of the results of divided control. The death of the Czar Nicholas made no difference, for his successor could not but continue the defence. But the opinion of Napoleon III., that the capture of Sebastopol was only feasible if it was completely invested, which meant the detaching of a force to cope with the Russian field army, was persistently pressed. The English government, like the generals on the spot, thought differently; but the emperor must be held responsible for at least part of the waste of time. Conflicts, equivalent in the losses sustained to many pitched battles, occurred again and again. A bombardment of ten days in April, which would have been followed by an assault if the whole siege had been directed by a single enterprising general, cost the Russians over 6000 men. The artillery employed on both sides far exceeded, both in number of guns and in weight of metal, anything that had ever before been seen in a siege. The material progress during forty years of peace was visible in many ways. Steamers brought the contents of the English and French arsenals: the English made a railway from Balaclava up to the camps: a telegraph cable put the Crimea into communication with the western countries, which greatly accelerated the supply of whatever was wanted, though it enabled Napoleon III. to worry the army incessantly with his military ideas. Marshal Pelissier, however, who took Canrobert's place in the spring, was equal to his position, and in concert with Lord Raglan carried on the siege upon the principles already determined. On June 7, after another terrific bombardment, the French stormed the Mamelon, though not without a serious struggle. On the 18th another attack was made which ended in failure. The day had been chosen in the hope that a victory won by English and French in common might supersede the bitterness of Waterloo: but whatever chance of success existed beforehand was wasted by Pelissier's suddenly determining to assault without waiting for a preliminary cannonade. The result was that the French were repulsed from the Malakoff with heavy loss, the English from the Redan, the chief Russian work at the south-eastern corner of the city, with at least equal loss relatively to the numbers engaged, the only success being the capture of a small work in front of the English left.
In spite of this failure, in spite of the death of Lord Raglan which occurred a few days later, the siege went steadily on. The resources of Russia were gradually becoming exhausted. Returns compiled about the date of the Czar's death gave the total cost of the war to Russia at 240,000 men: since that date more than 80,000 had fallen in the Crimea. An ill-conceived attempt to raise the siege by attacking the eastern side of the allies' position from the Tchernaya valley failed disastrously in August. Prince Gortschakoff, now commanding in the Crimea, felt that the end was approaching, and took measures to prepare for the evacuation of Sebastopol, but changed his mind and awaited the final assault. On September 8 the end came: the French trenches had now been brought quite close up to the Malakoff tower, and Pelissier, carefully noting the exact point and moment at which an assault could best be delivered, stormed the great work. A simultaneous attack by the English on the Redan was a necessary part of the plan: the soil in front being solid rock, the assailants had to advance for some distance over open ground, and suffered badly. The capture of the Malakoff was however decisive. During the following night the Russians abandoned Sebastopol, or rather its ruins: for they completed, in blowing up their magazines and forts, the destruction wrought by the bombardments. The siege of Sebastopol takes rank in history not as the most momentous—in that respect it falls far below the Athenian siege of Syracuse—or the most protracted, but as that in which the greatest resources were employed on both sides. Success fell, as might be expected, to the side which represented the greatest advance in material civilisation.
The war nominally lasted for several months longer: the allied armies occupied the Sebastopol peninsula during the winter, and small operations were directed against other points of Russian territory. Substantially however the fall of Sebastopol was decisive; the destruction of the great arsenal and fortress was a heavy blow to Russian power in the Black Sea, and the retention of it had been made so definitely a point of honour by Russia that its capture was a formal symbol of defeat. With the spring of 1856 terms of peace were agreed on, which included the prohibiting any ships of war to sail on the waters of the Black Sea. At one moment it seemed as if France would have acceded to terms which required from Russia practically no sacrifice; but Napoleon III. yielded to remonstrance from England, coupled with the assurance that England was now able, and quite prepared, to carry on the war alone.
The history of England is full of evidence that there is almost no limit to the power which an industrial nation, having command of the sea, can bring gradually to bear upon a warlike enterprise, always assuming that she has the necessary resolution. And no more striking evidence is to be found than from comparing the state of the English army in the Crimea in December 1854 and in December 1855, especially if we bear in mind the expenditure in men and material during the year. Whether anything of the same kind could happen again, whether in another war time would be available for utilising resources which must in a sense be latent till war begins, whether other nations have gained on England in the race of material progress, whether England would again exhibit the national tenacity displayed in the Peninsula and in the Crimea, are questions which every lover of peace will desire to see remaining, as they are at present, matters of speculation.