LORD RAGLAN'S BALAKLAVA DESPATCH.
Lord Raglan To the Duke of Newcastle.
(Received November 12.)
Before Sebastopol, October 28, 1854.
My Lord Duke,—I have the honour to acquaint your Grace that the enemy attacked the position in the front of Balaklava at an early hour on the morning of the 25th instant.
The low range of heights that runs across the plain at the bottom of which the town is placed, was protected by four small redoubts hastily constructed. Three of these had guns in them, and on a higher hill, in front of the village of Camara, in advance of our right flank, was established a work of somewhat more importance.
These several redoubts were garrisoned by Turkish troops, no other force being at my disposal for their occupation.
The 93rd Highlanders was the only British regiment in the plain, with the exception of a part of a battalion of detachments composed of weakly men, and a battery of artillery belonging to the Third Division; and on the heights behind our right were placed the Marines, obligingly landed from the fleet by Vice-Admiral Dundas. All these, including the Turkish troops, were under the immediate orders of Major-General Sir Colin Campbell, whom I had taken from the First Division with the 93rd.
As soon as I was apprised of this movement of the enemy, I felt compelled to withdraw from before Sebastopol the First and Fourth Divisions, commanded by Lieutenant-Generals His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge and the Honourable Sir George Cathcart, and bring them down into the plain; and General Canrobert subsequently reinforced these troops with the First Division of French Infantry and the Chasseurs d'Afrique.
The enemy commenced their operation by attacking the work on our side of the village of Camara, and, after very little resistance, carried it.
They likewise got possession of the three others in contiguity to it, being opposed only in one, and that but for a very short space of time.
The farthest of the three they did not retain, but the immediate abandonment of the others enabled them to take possession of the guns in them, amounting in the whole to seven. Those in the three lesser forts were spiked by the one English artilleryman who was in each.