The battles of the world

by J. Douglas Borthwick

The loss inflicted on the enemy fully shows how well the positions of the redoubts were chosen by Colonel Lake. All the batteries flanked each other, and the Russians were unable to bring up guns to command any of our positions. The troops kiss the batteries, and say that the Miralai Bey (Colonel) was “Chok akill” (very wise) when he made them work.

Captain Thompson aided greatly in recapturing the English lines. He directed, by order, the guns of Arab Tabia and Karadagh, and sent the troops over to attack the Russians.

Major Teesdale was in the hottest fire, and acted with great coolness and bravery. He is the admiration of the Turks. He showed them how English officers behave in battle.

All the Turkish officers did their duty nobly. Kerim Pacha was slightly wounded, and had two horses killed under him; Hussein Pacha was hit; two Colonels, and many other officers, were killed.”

Another account thus graphically describes the fall of Kars:—

“Omer Pacha, gradually overcoming the difficulties of that deficiency in transports found himself at the head of about 15,000 troops in Abasia, a good many of these being his own trustworthy veterans. He had gradually edged them down towards redoubt Kaleh, which he fixed on as his basis of operations. On the 30th Shemserai was secured, and, having driven in the Russian outposts from Sogdidi and endeavoured to open relations with Schamyl, while conciliating the Princess Dalian and the Christian population in his own neighbourhood, he moved inland in a south-eastern direction. But, owing to the difficulties of the country, which is an entanglement of woods interspersed with very rich but neglected farm lands, and owing still more to the precariousness and uncertainty of any supplies from the inhabitants, his progress was extremely slow. He did all that lay in his power, purchasing provisions in every direction, and organizing, as his principal resource, a regular commissariat at Redoubt Kaleh. The river Phasis, which flows from the Caucasus to the Euxine, is navigable for nearly a hundred miles from the sea; and he had hoped to have availed himself of this channel for important manœuvres. His plan was this:—The first strong Russian post was at Kutais, where the great high road—by Gori, into Georgia, and down to Tiflis—would take his advancing columns over the celebrated Soorem Pass. Once master of Kutais, and with his communications well secured upon the Black Sea along his rear line, he hoped either to be able to defeat all the local Russian garrisons and posts between Soorem and the capital of the fertile province lying beyond and below it, or else to recall by the terror of his progress the army of General Mouravieff, then menacing Armenia, and beleaguering Kars. In either case a great blow would be struck, and the hard-pressed troops of General Williams relieved. Then, should it even prove too late to advance permanently that year beyond Mingrelia, he could at least strengthen himself in Kutais, make it his new centre for future operations, and call up, meantime, additional forces for the campaign of spring. General Mouravieff would then be pressed from the side of Armenia, where he was now acting offensively, and from the side of Imeretia, on which he would be thrown also upon the defensive. But it was already too late; and the Russian chief knew it. Well informed of the true state of the Kars garrison, he never disquieted himself, or in the slightest altered his plans, in consequence of Omer Pacha’s diversion. Should the Muchir even beat the militia which now guarded the northern gorges of Georgia, he felt sure that it would all come to the same result. The season, the floods, scarcity, would compel the victor to retreat; much more would such become his necessity if, in the interim, he, General Mouravieff, should succeed in reducing Kars, and, while thus liberating his own army for an encounter with the Ottoman, should rob the latter of the chief motive which prompted this venturous advance by depriving it of its character as a diversion. Indeed, in such a contingency, the further Omer might have penetrated, the worse, perhaps, would be his situation; since General Mouravieff, by not returning directly towards Tiflis (which would be rather better able than Kars had been to stand a siege in its turn and to hold any assailant in play), but by moving diagonally, north-east by north, along the excellent Russian line from Alexandropol to Akhazik, would himself take Omer Pacha in flank and rear, shatter his line of communication, overwhelm his detached supports, and cut him off from the sea.

For these reasons, General Mouravieff tranquilly and steadily persisted in the blockade of Kars; and never for a moment showed any inclination to turn aside to face the Turkish invader. A month and seven days had now elapsed since the assault on Kars was repulsed so gloriously, when Omer Pacha at length brought his labouring columns through the miry woodlands as far as the Ingour. There he saw, for the first time, a regular stand prepared by the enemy, about 12,000 strong, intrenched on the opposite bank, and commanding the passage by batteries. They were chiefly the Russian militia of Georgia and were under the command of General Bragation-Makrausky. The Turks had some 20,000 men. The stream was barely fordable in half-a-dozen places, by which the enemy’s intrenchments could be turned. The Turks passed it, up to their armpits in water, holding their muskets aloft; our countrymen—Colonel Ballard, Captain Dymsck, and others—showing a splendid example worthy of English officers. The engagement lasted five hours, when the Russians fled, leaving behind them 60 prisoners, five gun-carriages and ammunition carts, and 400 killed. They appear to have carried off their wounded. Omer Pacha had 220 wounded and 68 killed. Pressing on the track of the fugitives he came up with them before the end of November, within sight of Kutais, and obtained another advantage. But the floods had come; the Phasis had assumed the dimensions of a torrent; great forest trees were swept down the stream as if they were reeds—now engulfed out of sight in the eddies, now reappearing on the surface for a moment as they were borne away; the roads were impassable to artillery, and almost to infantry; the whole country was transformed into an alternation of morass and lagoon; a day’s march was the work of a week; the troops were broken up and islanded, as it were, into helpless detachments; the commissariat could not act; the supplies arrived with greater irregularity, incertitude, and insufficiency from day to day; the whole army was suffering incredible hardships and privations; it was threatened with annihilation unless a retrograde movement were promptly made; and, finally, came the news Kars had succumbed at last. The conquerors, therefore, retired, unpursued, and gradually straggled back to Redoubt Kaleh, where Omer Pacha soon succeeded in restoring their tone and refreshing their energies.

So ended the war of 1855 with Russia; for this was really its last incident, General Mouravieff having already dismantled the fortifications of Kars, and withdrawn the bulk of his forces to Gumri. It was on the 28th of November that General Williams at last surrendered to him the stubborn Armenian fortress. The heroic garrison had long been macerated by the failure of rations and by disease. Even their ammunition was expended. In another assault on the day of their surrender they would have had no means of firing half-a-dozen rounds from their guns, and they were completely past the power of personal resistance as a body, being unable to wield their weapons, and hardly able to stand erect. They had borne literally the fiercest extremities of famine. They were now a corps of spectres, with scarcely the strength to speak. Yet these men had furnished indiscriminately the sentinels who had mounted guard over the little pile of half-rotten farina which was to be doled out in a biscuit a day for each; and the trusty sentries never touched the food which was the sole remaining common stock. Under such circumstances it was that General Williams rode out with a flag of truce, and told Prince Mouravieff that he would surrender Kars provided all the courtesies and honours of war were conceded to the garrison. General Kmety and some few attendants had tried a different expedient—they stole out and cut their way through the leaguer on the only serviceable horses left.

Mouravieff listened with attention to General Williams, who threatened, if his various stipulations were not granted, to burst every gun and destroy every military trophy still extant in Kars. The Russian chief replied with chivalrous warmth and visible emotion as he looked at the emaciated hero, that all was granted, and that he was proud as an enemy to testify that General Williams and those under him had immortalised themselves. Nothing, in short, could surpass the nobility of sentiment displayed (both then and in the subsequent treatment of the prisoners) by Prince Mouravieff and the Russian army.”