On the 2nd March, 1855, the Emperor Nicholas died, worn out, it has been said, in body and soul by the protracted struggle in the south of his dominions, and, in particular, by the reverses sustained by his troops in Eupatoria at the hands of the Turks. But the death of the Czar had little effect upon the war in the Crimea. His successor, Alexander, prosecuted the defence with unabated energy. In May an expedition to Kertch harassed the Russians considerably, while the newly-arrived Sardinians, in conjunction with the French, obtained a signal success on the Tchemaya.
These were, however, but side issues, and the main armies maintained their dreary watch upon Sebastopol, where work and counterwork, mine and countermine, employed the ingenuities of the engineers of both nations.
The appearance of Sebastopol at this time has been ably shown by Mr. Conolly in his history of the Royal Engineers:—
“Parallels and approaches now covered the hills, and saps daringly progressed in front; dingy pits filled with groups of prying and fatal marksmen, studded the advances and flanks; caves were augmented in size and number in the sides of the ravines to give safety to the gunpowder, ... while new works were thrown up in front to grapple with the sturdy formations of the Russians.”
Sorties by the enemy were frequent, and, on the night of the 22nd March, a most determined attack was made upon the working parties of the allies from four different points. It failed, however, to accomplish much, and matters continued as before.
On Monday, the 9th April, another terrific bombardment occurred, the British gunners directing their special attention to the Flagstaff Bastion. For several days, until the 18th April, the battery was plied mercilessly with shot and shell, and reduced to a state of distress bordering on annihilation; it still, however, remained unassaulted, and during a temporary truce was patched up once more. On the 21st, however, its fire was reduced to complete silence.
Count Tolstoy in his stirring pictures of “Sevastopol,” so admirably translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude, has given us a vivid glimpse of affairs in this awful battery, “the Fourth Bastion,” as the Russians called it. “You want to get quickly to the Bastions,” says Tolstoy, showing an imaginary visitor through the beleagured town, “especially to that Fourth Bastion of which you have been told so many tales. When anyone says, ‘I am going to the Fourth Bastion,’ a slight agitation or a too marked indifference is always noticeable in him! When you meet someone carried on a stretcher, and ask, ‘Where from?’ the answer usually is, ‘From the Fourth Bastion.’
Passing a barricade, you go up a broad street. Beyond this the houses on both sides of the street are unoccupied, the doors are boarded up, the windows smashed, ... on the road you stumble over cannon-balls that lie about, and into holes full of water, made in the stony ground by bombs. Before you, up a steep hill, you see a black, untidy space cut up by ditches. This space is the Fourth Bastion. The whiz of cannon-ball or bomb near by impresses you unpleasantly as you ascend the hill, bullets begin to whiz past you right and left, and you will perhaps consider whether you had better not walk inside the trench which runs parallel to the road, full of yellow stinking mud more than knee-deep!”
To reach the bastion proper, “you turn to the right, along that narrow trench where a foot soldier, stooping down, has just passed, and where you will see Cossacks changing their boots, eating, smoking their pipes and, in fact, living! Soon you come to a flat space with many holes and cannons on platforms and walled in with earthworks. This is the bastion. Here you see perhaps four or five soldiers playing cards under shelter of the breastwork, and a naval officer sitting on a cannon rolling a cigarette composedly. Suddenly a sentinel shouts ‘Mortar!’ There is a whistle, a fall, and an explosion, mingled with the groans of a man. You approach him as the stretchers are brought; part of his breast has been torn away; in a trembling voice he says, ‘Farewell, brothers.’
‘That’s the way with seven or eight every day,’ says the officer, and he yawns as he lights another cigarette.”