ENTRANCE TO BALACLAVA HARBOUR.
The Russians, who expected every moment to see the enemy swarming over their walls, must have looked on the unintelligible paralysis of the Allies as an intervention of Providence on their behalf. Oddly enough, when Raglan was making his flank march from north to south, Menschikoff, instead of springing on him and destroying his army, was marching with equal stupidity from the south to the north.[184] Here the allied attack was looked for; here all available troops were hurried. Nachimoff, who remained on the south bank of the harbour, had just 3,000 troops to hold indefensible works against an army of 40,000 men. He behaved with high spirit; he sank his ships so as to block the channel. Admiral Korniloff hastened from the north side to his aid and took command, and filled the troops with his own determination to hold out to the last, no matter how heavy were the odds against them. Colonel Todleben—whose master mind was about to revolutionise the art of fortification—accompanied him, and these two perfectly dauntless men, profiting by the blunder of Canrobert and Burgoyne, simply wrecked the expedition of the Allies. The time spent in waiting for the siege-train was precisely what Todleben prayed for.
Inspirited by Korniloff’s enthusiasm, and guided by Todleben’s genius, the Russians toiled like galley-slaves to strengthen their fortifications. Korniloff succeeded in inducing Menschikoff to march 25,000 troops into the town, so that on the 17th of October, when the siege-train of the Allies had arrived, Sebastopol, which had been at their mercy on the 25th of September, was virtually impregnable. On the 17th of October an attempt was made to demolish the earthworks of the enemy by a general bombardment, after which it was the intention of the Allies to dash forward and storm the southern half of the town.[185] The English batteries did not fail, for they seriously damaged the Redan Fort of the enemy. Nachimoff’s sacrifice of the sunken fleet, however, prevented our ships from getting far enough up the harbour to assist our land force, and though the sea batteries were open to attack, shoal water prevented our ships from getting close enough to them to do them much harm.[186] The failure of the bombardment was followed up by a series of attacks on the position of the Allies, the results of which may now be summarised. The great flank march from north to south had left every road from Russia open to the enemy. Reinforcements swarmed into the Crimea, even from the Russian Army of the Danube, which was liberated when the Austrians occupied the Principalities. The English army at the end of October numbered 25,000. The French had 40,000 in the field. But 120,000 combatants had rallied to the standards of Prince Menschikoff. They held not a fortress but a great entrenched camp, defended by impregnable works on which, says Lord Raglan, plaintively, in one of his despatches, “an apparently unlimited number of heavy guns, amply provided with gunners and ammunition, are mounted.” Now, it is a rule of warfare that the besieging force should be five times as strong as the besieged. No general with a grain of prudence will attempt to lay siege to a stronghold unless his force is three times as strong as that of the garrison, and unless he has an army of observation besides to protect him from molestation. Before Sebastopol the besiegers were only half as strong as the besieged, and they had no covering force whatever. Like the Athenians at Syracuse, the besiegers had become the besieged. If Lord Raglan did not complete the parallel by sacrificing his army to an eclipse of the moon, he did his best to emulate that historic achievement by sacrificing it to the flank march from the Belbeck to Balaclava.[187]
In these circumstances the Russians promptly adopted offensive tactics. Menschikoff ordered Liprandi to march round to the rear of the British position and attack Balaclava, from which we drew our supplies, and on the 25th of October the Russians suddenly drove the Turks from the redoubts that formed one of our chief defences. This gave him the northern half of the Balaclava valley. The British cavalry were withdrawn from the southern half westwards behind redoubts, which were still in our hands, and the road to Balaclava, with all our shipping and our stores, was clear. Yet not quite clear. Sir Colin Campbell and the 93rd Highlanders were in the way, and his consummate skill and their stubborn valour saved our base of operations. At a glance Campbell saw that Liprandi meant to annihilate the Scots, by hurling against them overwhelming masses of cavalry covered by artillery. To such an onset a single regiment in square formation could obviously offer no effective resistance whatever. In an instant Campbell conceived the novel and daring project of receiving the Russian cavalry in line.[188] Such a
SIR COLIN CAMPBELL.
manœuvre could be possible only where a commander and his troops had implicit confidence in each other, and where officers and men, instinct with barbaric strength and courage, went forth to battle under the iron discipline of civilised warfare. In grim silence the Scots obeyed the stern, curt orders of their leader, and formed the famous “thin red line tipped with steel,” on the solidity of which, for a moment, the fate of the army depended. Their flanks were covered by the Turks who had fled from the redoubts. A hundred sick men, who crawled from the hospital to rally round their chief, were formed under Lieutenant-Colonel Daveney as “supports.” The Russian commander, with great ability, modified his plan of attack and struck swiftly not only at the centre, but strongly at Campbell’s right flank, where the Turks were posted. The dense masses of cavalry first reeled and then broke up when they came within the central zone of fire, but the Turks fled, leaving the “thin red line” uncovered on the right. The Russians, feeling that the game was now in their hands, charged again, confident that they could roll up the line at this unprotected spot. Campbell was, however, equally alert. When the Turks ran away he ordered his grenadier company to wheel to the right. It went swiftly and silently round, with automatic precision, like a door on a hinge, and met the