The British Expedition to the Crimea

by Sir William Howard Russell

THE contest on which the eyes of Europe had been turned so long—the event on which the hopes of so many mighty empires depended, was all but determined. On the 9th September, Sebastopol was in flames! The fleet, the object of so much diplomatic controversy and of so many bloody struggles, had disappeared in the deep! One more great act of carnage was added to the tremendous but glorious tragedy, of which the whole world, from the most civilized nations down to the most barbarous hordes of the East, was the anxious and excited audience. Amid shouts of victory and cries of despair—in frantic rejoicing and passionate sorrow—a pall of black smoke, streaked by the fiery flashings of exploding fortresses, descended upon the stage, on which had been depicted so many varied traits of human misery and of human greatness, such high endurance and calm courage, such littleness and weakness—across which had stalked characters which history may hereafter develope as largely as the struggle in which they were engaged, and swell to gigantic proportions, or which she may dwarf into pettiest dimensions, as unworthy of the parts they played. A dull, strange silence, broken at distant intervals by the crash of citadels and palaces as they were blown into dust, succeeded to the incessant dialogue of the cannon which had spoken so loudly and so angrily throughout an entire year. Tired armies, separated from each other by a sea of fires, rested on their arms, and gazed with varied emotions on all that remained of the object of their conflicts. On the 8th we felt that the great success of our valiant Allies was somewhat tarnished by our own failure, and were doubtful whether the Russians would abandon all hope of retaking the Malakoff. On the next day, ere noon, we were walking about the streets of Sebastopol, and gazing upon its ruins.

The weather changed suddenly on the 7th September, and on the morning of the 8th it became bitterly cold. A biting wind right from the north side of Sebastopol blew intolerable clouds of harsh dust into our faces. The sun was obscured; and the sky became of a leaden wintry grey. Early in the morning a strong force of cavalry, under the command of Colonel Hodge, received orders to move up to the front and form a chain of sentries in front of Cathcart's Hill, and all along our lines. No person was allowed to pass this boundary excepting staff officers or those provided with a pass. Another line of sentries in the rear of the camps was intended to stop stragglers and idlers from Balaklava, the object of these arrangements being in all probability to prevent the Russians gathering any intimation of our attack from the unusual accumulation of people on the look-out hills. If so, it would have been better to have kept the cavalry more in the rear, and not to have displayed to the enemy a line of Hussars, Lancers, and Dragoons, along our front. At 11.30 the Highland Brigade, under Brigadier Cameron, marched up from Kamara, and took up its position in reserve at the Right Attack; and the Guards, also in reserve, were posted on the same side of the Woronzoff Road. The first brigade of the Fourth Division served the trenches of the Left Attack the night before, and remained in them. The second brigade of the Fourth Division was in reserve. The Guards, who served the trenches of the Left Attack, and only marched that morning, were turned out again after arriving at their camp, and resumed their place with alacrity. The Third Division, massed on the hill-side before their camp, were also in reserve, in readiness to move down by the Left Attack in case their services were required. General Pelissier, during the night, collected 36,000 men in and about the Mamelon, to form the storming columns for the Malakoff and Little Redan, and to provide the necessary reserves.

A FEARFUL STRUGGLE.

The French were reinforced by 5,000 Sardinians, who marched up from the Tchernaya. It was arranged that the French should attack the Malakoff at noon, and, as soon as their attack succeeded, we were to assault the Redan. Strong columns of French were to make a diversion on the left, and menace the line of Bastion du Mât, Centrale and Quarantine Bastions. The cavalry sentries were posted at 8.30 A.M. At 10.30 A.M. the Second and the Light Division moved down to the trenches, and were placed in the advanced parallels as quietly and unostentatiously as possible. About the same hour, General Simpson and Staff repaired to the second parallel of the Green Hill Battery, where the Engineer officers had placed them for the day. Sir Harry Jones, too ill to move hand or foot, nevertheless insisted on being carried down to witness the assault, and was borne to the trenches on a litter, in which he remained till all was over. The Commander-in-Chief, General Simpson, and Sir Richard Airey, the Quartermaster-General, were stationed close to him.[23] The Duke of Newcastle was stationed at Cathcart's Hill in the early part of the day, and afterwards moved off to the right to the Picket-house look-out over the Woronzoff Road.

At 10.45, General Pelissier and his Staff went up to the French Observatory on the right. The French trenches were crowded with men as close as they could be packed, and we could, through the breaks in the clouds of dust, which were most irritating, see our troops all ready in their trenches. The cannonade languished purposely towards noon; but the Russians, catching sight of the cavalry and troops in front, began to shell Cathcart's Hill and the heights, and the bombs and long ranges disturbed the equanimity of some of the spectators by bursting with loud "thuds" right over their heads, and sending "the gunners' pieces" sharply about them. After hours of suspense, the moment came at last.

At five minutes before twelve o'clock, the French issued forth from the trenches close to the Malakoff, crossed the seven mètres of ground which separated them from the enemy at a few bounds—scrambled up its face, and were through the embrasures in the twinkling of an eye. They drifted as lightly and quickly as autumn leaves before the wind, battalion after battalion, and in a minute after the head of their column issued from the ditch the tricolour was floating over the Korniloff Bastion. Our Allies took the Russians by surprise, very few of the latter were in the Malakoff; but they soon recovered themselves, from twelve o'clock till past seven in the evening the French had to meet repeated attempts to regain the work: then, weary of the fearful slaughter, despairing of success, the Muscovite General withdrew his exhausted legions, and prepared, with admirable skill, to evacuate the place. As soon as the tricolour was observed waving through the smoke and dust over the parapet of the Malakoff, four rockets were sent up from Chapman's attack one after another, as a signal for our assault upon the Redan. They were almost borne back by the violence of the wind, and the silvery jets of sparks they threw out on exploding were scarcely visible against the raw grey sky.

Now, it will be observed that, while we attacked the Redan with two divisions only, a portion of each being virtually in reserve and not engaged in the affair at all, the French made their assault on the Malakoff with four divisions of the second Corps d'Armée, the first and fourth divisions forming the storming columns, and the third and fifth being the support, with reserves of 10,000 men. The French had, probably, not less than 30,000 men in the Right Attack on the 7th of September. The divisional orders for the Second Division were very much the same as those for the Light Division.

Division Orders.

June 17th, 1855.

1. The Light Division being about to be employed with others in the attack on the Redan, provisions will be issued and cooked this afternoon for to-morrow, and care must be taken that the men's canteens are filled with water this afternoon. Each man will be provided with twenty rounds of additional ammunition, to be carried in his haversack.