England might now have withdrawn from the contest but for her alliance with France,--an entangling alliance, indeed; but Lord Palmerston, seeing that war was inevitable, withdrew his resignation, and the British cabinet became a unit, supported by the nation. Lord Aberdeen still continued to be premier; but Palmerston was now the leading spirit, and all eyes turned to him. The English people, who had forgotten what war was, upheld the government, and indeed goaded it on to war. The one man who did not drift was the secretary for foreign affairs, Lord Palmerston, who went steadily ahead, and gained his object,--a check upon Russia's power in the East.
This statesman was a man of great abilities, with a strong desire for power under the guise of levity and good-nature. He was far-reaching, bold, and of concentrated energy; but his real character was not fully comprehended until the Crimean war, although he was conspicuous in politics for forty years. His frank utterances, his off-hand manner, his ready banter, and his joyous eyes captivated everybody, and veiled his stern purposes. He was distrusted at St. Petersburg because of his alliance with Louis Napoleon, his hatred of the Bourbons, and his masking the warlike tendency of the government which he was soon to lead, for Lord Aberdeen was not the man to conduct a war with Russia.
At this point, as stated above, the war might have terminated, for the Russians had abandoned the principalities; but at home the English had been roused by Louis Napoleon's friends and by the course of events to a fighting temper, and the French emperor's interests would not let him withdraw; while in the field neither the Turkish nor French nor English troops were to be contented with less than the invasion of the Russian territories. Turkey was now in no danger of invasion by the Russians, for they had been recalled from the principalities, and the fleets of England and France controlled the Black Sea. From defensive measures they turned to offensive.
The months of July and August were calamitous to the allied armies at Varna; not from battles, but from pestilence, which was fearful. On the 26th of August it was determined to re-embark the decimated troops, sail for the Crimea, and land at some place near Sebastopol. The capture of this fortress was now the objective point of the war. On the 13th of September the fleets anchored in Eupatoria Bay, on the west coast of the Crimean peninsula, and the disembarkation of the troops took place without hindrance from the Russians, who had taken up a strong position on the banks of the Alma, which was apparently impregnable. There the Russians, on their own soil and in their intrenched camp, wisely awaited the advance of their foes on the way to Sebastopol, the splendid seaport, fortress, and arsenal at the extreme southwestern point of the Crimea.
There were now upon the coasts of the Crimea some thirty-seven thousand French and Turks with sixty-eight pieces of artillery (all under the orders of Marshal Saint-Arnaud), and some twenty-seven thousand English with sixty guns,--altogether about sixty-four thousand men and one hundred and twenty-eight guns. It was intended that the fleets should follow the march of the armies, in order to furnish the necessary supplies. The march was perilous, without a base of supplies on the coast itself, and without a definite knowledge of the number or resources of the enemy. It required a high order of military genius to surmount the difficulties and keep up the spirits of the troops. The French advanced in a line on the coast nearest the sea; the English took up their line of march towards the south, on the left, farther in the interior. The French were protected by the fleets on the one hand and by the English on the other. The English therefore were exposed to the greater danger, having their entire left flank open to the enemy's fire. The ground over which the Western armies marched was an undulating steppe. They marched in closely massed columns, and they marched in weariness and silence, for they had not recovered from the fatal pestilence at Varna. The men were weak, and suffered greatly from thirst. At length they came to the Alma River, where the Russians were intrenched on the left bank. The allies were of course compelled to cross the river under the fire of the enemies' batteries, and then attack their fortified positions, and drive the Russians from their post.
All this was done successfully. The battle of the Alma was gained by the invaders, but only with great losses. Prince Mentchikof, who commanded the Russians, beheld with astonishment the defeat of the troops he had posted in positions believed to be secure from capture by assault. The genius of Lord Raglan, of Saint-Arnaud, of General Bosquet, of Sir Colin Campbell, of Canrobert, of Sir de Lacy Evans, of Sir George Brown, had carried the day. Both sides fought with equal bravery, but science was on the side of the allies. In the battle, Sir Colin Campbell greatly distinguished himself leading a Highland brigade; also General Codrington, who stormed the great redoubt, which was supposed to be impregnable. This probably decided the battle, the details of which it is not my object to present. Its great peculiarity was that the Russians fought in solid column, and the allies in extended lines.
After the day was won, Lord Raglan pressed Saint-Arnaud to the pursuit of the enemy; but the French general was weakened by illness, and his energies failed. Had Lord Raglan's counsels been followed, the future disasters of the allied armies might have been averted. The battle was fought on the 20th of September; but the allied armies halted on the Alma until the 23d, instead of pushing on directly to Sebastopol, twenty-five miles to the south. This long halt was owing to Saint-Arnaud, who felt it was necessary to embark the wounded on the ships before encountering new dangers. This refusal of the French commander to advance directly to the attack of the forts on the north of Sebastopol was unfortunate, for there would have been but slight resistance, the main body of the Russians having withdrawn to the south of the city. All this necessitated a flank movement of the allies, which was long and tedious, eastward, across the north side of Sebastopol to the south of it, where the Russians were intrenched. They crossed the Belbec (a small river) without serious obstruction, and arrived in sight of Sebastopol, which they were not to enter that autumn as they had confidently expected. The Russian to whom the stubborn defence of Sebastopol was indebted more than to any other man,--Lieut.-Colonel Todleben,--had thoroughly and rapidly fortified the city on the north after the battle of the Alma.
It was the opinion of Todleben himself, afterward expressed,--which was that of Lord Raglan, and also of Sir Edmund Lyons, commanding the fleet,--that the Star Fort which defended Sebastopol on the north, however strong, was indefensible before the forces that the allies could have brought to bear against it. Had the Star Fort been taken, the whole harbor of Sebastopol would have been open to the fire of the allies, and the city--needed for refuge as well as for glory--would have fallen into their hands.
The condition of the allied armies was now critical, since they had no accurate knowledge of the country over which they were to march on the east of Sebastopol, nor of the strength of the enemy, who controlled the sea-shore. On the morning of the 25th of September the flank march began, through tangled forests, by the aid of the compass. It was a laborious task for the troops, especially since they had not regained their health from the ravages of the cholera in Bulgaria. Two days' march, however, brought the English army to the little port of Balaklava, on the south of Sebastopol, where the land and sea forces met.
Soon after the allied armies had arrived at Balaklava, Saint-Arnaud was obliged by his fatal illness to yield up his command to Marshal Canrobert, and a few days later he died,--an unprincipled, but a brave and able man.