The British Expedition to the Crimea

by Sir William Howard Russell

On reaching the street we found the people returning to the town—that is, the Tartars were flocking back from the villages where they had been hiding, with bundles of property, much of which they had probably stolen from the Russian houses.

GREAT DESTRUCTION OF STORES.

As every wrecked house bore a strong family likeness to its fellow, we entered only one or two, and then wandered through the streets, which were almost deserted by the inhabitants during the heat of the day. Towards evening a number of wounded Russians—forty-seven, I believe—were brought down from Yenikale, whither they had been taken by the gunboats from various places along the coast, and were landed on the quay. They were subsequently sent to the hospital. The Tartar arabas and droschkies were pressed into the service. As each wounded man passed, the women crowded round to look at him out of the houses; but there was more of curiosity than compassion in their looks; and they took care to inform us they were Jews, and had no sympathy with the Muscovite. Once they stared with wonder at the taste and inborn politeness of a French soldier, who joined the group as a Russian was borne by on a litter. The man's eyes were open, and as he went past he caught sight of the Frenchman and smiled feebly, why or wherefore it is impossible for me to say, but the Frenchman at once removed his cap, made a bow to the "brave," and stood with uncovered head till the latter had been carried some yards beyond him.

In the evening all the inhabitants remaining in the town flocked out of their houses and conversed at the corners of the streets, or at favourite gossip-posts. They were an unhealthy and by no means well-favoured race, whether Tartars, Greeks, Jews, or Muscovites. It must be remembered, however, that all the people of rank had fled. Some of the tradespeople, with greater confidence in our integrity than could have been expected, kept their shops open. In a well-fitted apteka or apothecary's shop, we got a seidlitzy imitation of soda-water, prepared from a box, marked in English, "Improved Sodaic Powders, for Making Soda-water;" and some of our party fitted themselves at a bootmaker's with very excellent Wellingtons, for which they paid at their discretion, and according to a conqueror's tariff, 15s. a pair; the proprietor seemed rather apprehensive that he was not going to receive anything at all. Indeed it would have been well if the inhabitants had remained to guard their houses, instead of flying from them, and leaving them shut up and locked, the very thing to provoke the plunderer.

The dockyard magazines at Kertch contained quantities of military and naval stores—boiler plates, lathes, engineers' tools, paint, canvas, hemp and chain cables, bales of greatcoats, uniform jackets, trowsers and caps, knapsacks, belts, bayonets, swords, scabbards, anchors, copper nails and bolts, implements of foundry, brass, rudder-pintles, lead, &c. The French were busy for a few days in taking the clothing, &c., out of the storehouses and destroying it. The valuable stores were divided between the allies, according to their good fortune and energy in appropriation. Numbers of old boats, of large rudders, covered with copper and hung on brass, of small guns, of shot, shell, grape, and canister, were lying in the dockyard. An infernal machine of curious construction attracted a great deal of attention. Like most devices of the kind, it had failed to be of the slightest service. Outside the walls of the dockyard, which was filled with oxen and horses, was another long range of public buildings and storehouses, which had been nearly all gutted and destroyed. Soldiers' caps, belts, coats, trowsers, cartouche-boxes, knapsacks, and canteens, were strewn all over the quay in front of them. In a word, Kertch had ceased to be a military or naval station, and the possession which Russia so eagerly coveted a few years before was of no more use to her than the snows of the Tchatir Dagh.

On Friday night the work of destroying Russian stores began; the French hurled guns into the sea, tore up the platforms, and exploded the shells found in the magazines. Parties of boats were sent in all directions to secure and burn prizes, to fire the storehouses and huts on the sandbanks; by day the sky was streaked with lines of smoke, and by night the air was illuminated by the blaze of forts, houses, magazines, and vessels aground on the flats for miles around us.

The Austrian Consul was found to have a large store of corn, which he concealed in magazines painted and decorated to pass as part of his dwelling-house. It was all destroyed. Amid the necessary destruction, private plunderers found facility for their work. The scene presented by the town could only be likened to that presented by Palmyra, fresh from the hands of the destroyer, or some other type of desolation. Along the quay there was a long line of walls, which once were the fronts of storehouses, magazines, mansions, and palaces. They were empty shells, hollow and roofless, with fire burning luridly within them by night, and streaks and clouds of parti-coloured smoke arising from them by day. The white walls were barred with black bands where the fire had rushed out of the window-frames. These storehouses belonged to Russians, and were full of corn—these magazines were the enemy's—these mansions belonged to their nobles and governors—and these palaces were the residences of their princes and rulers; and so far we carried on war with all the privileges of war, and used all the consequences of conquest. In the whole lengthened front facing the sea, and the wide quay which bordered it, there was not an edifice untouched but one. This was a fine mansion, with a grand semicircular front, ornamented with rich entablatures and a few Grecian pillars. The windows permitted one to see massive mirrors and the framework of pictures and the glitter of brasswork. Inside the open door an old man in an arm-chair received everybody. How deferential he was! how he bowed! how graceful, deprecatory, and soothing the modulation of his trunk and arms! But these were nothing to his smile. His face seemed a kind of laughing-clock, wound up to act for so many hours. When the machinery was feeble, towards evening, the laugh degenerated into a grin, but he had managed with nods, and cheeks wreathed in smiles, and a little bad German and French, to inform all comers that this house was specially under English and French protection, and thus to save it from plunder and pillage. The house belonged, on dit, to Prince Woronzoff, and the guardian angel was an aged servitor of the Prince, who, being paralytic, was left behind, and had done good service in his arm-chair.

The silence of places which a few days before were full of people was exceedingly painful and distressing. It reigned in every street, almost in every house, except when the noise of gentlemen playing on pianos with their boot-heels, or breaking up furniture, was heard within the houses, or the flames crackled within the walls. In some instances the people had hoisted the French or Sardinian flag to protect their houses. That poor device was soon detected and frustrated. It was astonishing to find that the humblest dwellings had not escaped. They must have been invaded for the mere purpose of outrage and from the love of mischief, for the most miserable of men could have but little hope of discovering within them booty worthy of his notice.

SPIT OF ARABAT.

It was decided to occupy Pavlovskaia, because it was in a fine position to command the entrance to Kertch and Yenikale, at a place where the channel is narrowed by one of the sandbanks from Taman to the breadth of a mile and a half. Defensive lines were thrown up around Yenikale of the most massive and durable character. They enclosed the ramparts of the old town, and presented on every side towards the land a broad ditch, a steep parapet defended by redoubts, and broken into batteries, which were aided by the fire of the pieces on the walls.