It was in the summer of 1845, and only a few months after Woronzoff's arrival in the mountains. With a force of ten thousand infantry and a few hundred Cossacks, he set out for Dargo, taking instead of the northern track previously followed by General Grabbe, the route by the river Koissu and through the district of Andi. On their march to its principal aoul, called also Andi, the Russians were not attacked by the mountaineers, though closely watched by them. Here and there small parties would appear in the distance, but they seemed to be disposed, as usual, to spare their powder, and contented themselves with occasionally rolling down stones upon the heads of their adversaries as they passed through the narrower defiles. The column therefore advanced with good spirits, having full rations, confiding in their new leader, and rather underrating than dreading an enemy who attacked them with stones instead of bullets.
At Gogatel, a small fort situated south of the Andian range, which runs parallel with the Andian branch of the Koissu, Woronzoff established a depot of such provisions and munitions of war as could not conveniently be transported further. This was but a single day's journey from Dargo; and on the seventeeth of July, all preparations having been fully made, and summer being in mid-reign, the order of march was given out for the morrow.
The soldiers, lightly laden, set off cheerfully by the light of the resplendent dawn; and before the freshness of the morning was gone they had crossed by the pass of Retschel into the beech-woods of Itchkeria. Then began the fight. The hostile tribes of all the region round were up in arms, and waiting in the depths of the woods for the enemy. As his vanguard reached the first narrow and precipitous defile they were received by a murderous fire from behind numerous trunks of trees which, felled across the way, served as breast-works for the one party and obstacles to the progress of the other. Besides these barricades, the barriers no less difficult of removal, which were woven by nature, of thousands of vines and flower-bearing creepers, the narrowness and steepness of the paths, added to the opposition of the enemy, rendered the march so difficult that on an average it did not exceed one and a half wersts the hour. Still Woronzoff fought his way through; and as the shades of night began to gather under the woods he was in sight of Dargo. But it was the aoul in flames which, joined to the reappearing stars, now lit up the way; for Schamyl, having gathered together whatever of wood, straw, and grain could not be taken away, had set it all on fire, thereby leaving to the enemy the conquest of merely the blackened stone walls of the houses. Indeed the burning ruins of his own residence supplied the bivouac fires by which the weary soldiers cooked their evening meal, and then lay down to sleep.
The next day the fight was renewed. Schamyl had retired with a force of about six thousand warriors to a height which commanded the aoul, and thence opened a fire upon the Russians with their own cannon, the trophies of former victories. The "emperor's pistols" consumed indeed too much powder to be fired with any great rapidity, nor did the mountaineers know how to take aim over a six-pounder as well as they did along the barrels of their rifles; still one ball came bounding into the very tent of the staff of officers, and it became necessary, therefore, in order to prevent accidents, to scale the height. After not a little hard fighting this was finally done at the point of the bayonet; but the Circassians retired, dividing the honors of the field with the enemy, for they carried off the guns.
Dargo was taken, but not Schamyl. What then was to be done? Woronzoff finally decided that he would send the half of his force back to Gogatel to get a supply of provisions, and on their return push through the woods and regain the Russian line by the route northward. But this movement on Gogatel gave the mountaineers another chance at their enemies. With Schamyl at their head and strengthened by reinforcements, they attacked the escort party both going and returning. The Circassians give themselves no rest until they have had blood for blood; and the two preceding days their own had flowed pretty freely. Not satisfied with the slow though certain work of the rifle they now rushed in upon the battalions, and with shaska and poniard fought hand to hand. Generals Wiktoroff and Passek fell defending themselves with their swords. Rain and tempest made the battle still more terrific. The brave General Klucke did his best; but when he arrived at Dargo he had left thirteen hundred of his men, together with the two generals, behind in the woods. Three hundred mules also with their packs, and a considerable number of wagons loaded with grain, besides one cannon, fell into the hands of the enemy.
But with what of the convoy was saved Count Woronzoff set out from Dargo on his return. The soldiers were put on half rations, and the horses had nothing to eat but grass. Through the valley of the Aksai, to the Russians a valley of death, inasmuch as General Grabbe had before strewn it with his slain, led the way. Nor was it now scarcely less wet with blood. For Schamyl's men fought the retiring battalions step by step. Wherever the mountains projecting up to the very bank of the Aksai left only a narrow passage for the troops, the way was stopped by barricades. The Circassians taking aim from behind the rocks and the beech trees, brought down so many victims that the few horses of the Cossacks sufficed not to transport the wounded, so that whoever was disabled was necessarily abandoned to his fate.
When then the commander saw that so many of his brave soldiers were left behind to fall into the hands of a foe whose hate left no room in his breast for mercy, he resolved to make a halt, and send for reinforcements. Fortunately for him some natives who, bribed by large sums of gold, had undertaken under cover of night to carry despatches to the fortress of Girsel-aoul, succeeded in getting through, and conveying to the garrison intelligence of the hazardous situation of their countrymen. Thereupon three thousand infantry and three hundred Cossacks under General Freitag hastened to their relief. And great indeed was the joy of the famished battalions when their comrades arriving shared with them the contents of their knapsacks, took the wounded upon their horses, and helped to beat off the enemy. The march then proceeded without further difficulty, and on the first of August the conquerors of Dargo, less three thousand of their dead, arrived in safety at Girsel-aoul.
For this sad service of his master, heralded at St. Petersburg and through Europe as a great victory—and such are Russian victories in the Caucasus—Count Woronzoff was made a Prince! But when a few months afterward he met the emperor at Sebastopol for the purpose of exchanging views respecting the future conduct of the war, it is understood that the latter became at last fully convinced that the Caucasus could not be subjected by the method of direct invasion, but only by adhering to the policy of gradually drawing closer and closer around the mountains the line of the fortresses, in connection with the use of light, movable columns as a means of supporting them. Accordingly no more hostile expeditions into the interior have since been undertaken, and no more such triumphs as that at Dargo have been gazetted. Woronzoff, convinced himself that the successful termination of the war was to be hoped for only from long-continued perseverance in maintaining the armed blockade and active siege of the mountains, contented himself during the half a dozen years of his command in the Caucasus with attempting to carry these views into execution, and also in endeavoring to accomplish the Augean task of cleansing the administration of both government and army of the corrupt practices which had long prevailed in both. In the latter undertaking he met with a good degree of success; but in the former, though aided by all army in both Cis and Trans-Caucasia of from one hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand men, he made on the whole no progress. Nor have his successors, Generals Read and Mouravieff been able to do more. The genius of Schamyl and the Circassian love of liberty, combined with the natural resistance of Caucasian rocks and forests, have proved to be more than a match for them.