The British Expedition to the Crimea

by Sir William Howard Russell

Turning down by Captain Powell's battery, where the sailors were getting their arms in order, I worked through ammunition mules and straggling artillery-wagons towards the town. Balaklava was below—its waters thronged with shipping—not a ripple on their surface. It was almost impossible to believe that but twelve hours before ships were dragging their anchors, drifting, running aground,, and smashing each other to pieces in that placid loch. The whitewashed houses in the distance were as clean-looking as ever, and the old ruined fortress on the crags above frowned upon the sea, and reared its walls and towers aloft, uninjured by the storm.

On approaching the town, however, the signs of the tempest of the day before grew and increased at every step. At the narrow neck of the harbour, high and dry, three large boats were lying, driven inland several yards; the shores were lined with trusses of compressed hay which had floated out of the wrecks outside the harbour, and pieces of timber, beams of wood, masts and spars, formed natural rafts, which were stranded on the beach or floated about among the shipping. The old tree which stood near the guard-house at the entrance to the town was torn up, and in its fall had crushed the house into ruin. The soldiers of the guard were doing their best to make themselves comfortable within the walls. The fall of this tree, which had seen many winters, coupled with the fact that the verandahs and balconies of the houses and a row of very fine acacia trees on the beach were blown down, corroborate the statement so generally made by the inhabitants, that they had never seen or heard of such a hurricane in their life time, although there was a tradition among some that once in thirty or forty years such visitations occurred along this coast. The City of London, Captain Cargill, was the only vessel which succeeded in getting out to sea and gaining a good offing during the hurricane of the 14th, and the Captain told me, in all his experience (and as an old Aberdeen master, he has passed some anxious hours at sea) he never knew so violent a gale.

There was an affair of pickets during the night of the 15th between the French and the Russians, in which a few men were wounded on both sides, and which was finished by the retreat of the Russians to their main body. This took place in the valley of Balaklava, and its most disagreeable result (to those not engaged) was to waken up and keep awake every person in the town for a couple of hours.

During this winter newspaper correspondents in the Crimea were placed in a rather difficult position. In common with generals and chiefs, and men-at-arms, they wrote home accounts of all we were doing to take Sebastopol, and they joined in the prophetic cries of the leaders of the host, that the fall of the city of the Czar—the centre and navel of his power in those remote regions—would not be deferred for many hours after our batteries had opened upon its defences. In all the inspiration of this universal hope, these poor wretches, who clung to the mantles of the military and engineering Elijahs, did not hesitate to communicate to the world, through the columns of the English press, all they knew of the grand operations which were to eventuate in the speedy fall of this doomed city. They cheered the heart of England with details of the vast armaments prepared against its towers and forts—of the position occupied by her troops—the imbecility of the enemy's fire—of the range of the guns so soon to be silenced—of the stations of our troops on commanding sites; and they described with all their power the grandiose operations which were being taken for the reduction of such a formidable place of arms. They believed, in common with the leaders, whose inspiration and whose faith were breathed through the ranks of our soldiers, that the allied forces were to reduce Sebastopol long ere the lines they penned could meet the expectant gaze of our fellow-countrymen at home; and they stated, under that faith and in accordance with those inspirations, that the operations of war of our armies were undertaken with reference to certain points and with certain hopes of results, the knowledge of which could not have proved of the smallest service to the enemy once beaten out of their stronghold.

Contrary to these hopes and inspirations, in direct opposition to our prophecies and to our belief, Sebastopol held out against the Allies; and the intelligence conveyed in newspapers which we all thought we should have read in the club-rooms of Sebastopol, was conveyed to the generals of an army which defended its walls, and were given to the leaders of an enemy whom we had considered would be impuissant and defeated, while they were still powerful and unconquered. The enemy knew that we had lost many men from sickness; that we had so many guns here and so many guns there, that our head-quarters were in one place, our principal powder magazines in another, that the camp of such a division had been annoyed by their fire, and that the tents of another had escaped injury from their shot, but it must be recollected that when these details were written it was confidently declared that, ere the news of the actual preliminaries of the siege could reach England, the Allies would have entered Sebastopol, that their batteries would have silenced the fire of their enemy, that the quarters of their generals would have been within the enceinte of the town, that our magazines would have been transferred to its storehouses, and that our divisions would have encamped within its walls.

MISERABLE STATE OF OUR ARMY.

How much knowledge of this sort the enemy gleaned through their spies, or by actual observation, it is not needful to inquire; but undoubtedly, without any largely speculative conjecture, it may be inferred that much of the information conveyed to them, or said to have been conveyed to them, by the English press, could have been ascertained through those very ordinary channels of communication, the eye and ear, long ere our letters had been forwarded to Sebastopol, and translated from English in usum superiorum. However, it is quite evident that it was not advisable to acquaint the enemy with our proceeding and movements during a siege which promised to assume the proportions and to emulate the length of those operations of a similar character in which hosts of men conveyed by formidable armadas from distant shores, set down to beleaguer some devoted fortress.

Although it might be dangerous to communicate facts likely to be of service to the Russians, it was certainly hazardous to conceal the truth from the English people. They must have known, sooner or later, that the siege towards the end of November had been for many days practically suspended, that our batteries were used up and silent, and that our army was much exhausted by the effects of excessive labour and watching, to which they have been so incessantly exposed. The Russians knew this soon enough, for a silent battery—to hazard a bull—speaks for itself. The relaxation of our fire was self-evident, but our army, though weakened by sickness, was still equal to hold their position, and to inflict the most signal chastisement upon any assailants who might venture to attack it. In fact, I believe nothing would have so animated our men, deprived as they were of cheering words and of the presence and exhortations of their generals and destitute of all stimulating influences beyond those of their undaunted spirits and glorious courage, as the prospect of meeting the Russians outside their intrenchments. Rain kept pouring down, the wind howled over the staggering tents—the trenches were turned into dikes—in the tents the water was sometimes a foot deep—our men had neither warm nor waterproof clothing—they were out for twelve hours at a time in the trenches—they were plunged into the inevitable miseries of a winter campaign. These were hard truths, which sooner or later must have come to the ears of the people of England. It was right they should know that the beggar who wandered the streets of London led the life of a prince compared with the British soldiers who were fighting for their country, and who, we were complacently assured by the home authorities, were the best appointed army in Europe. They were fed, indeed, but they had no shelter. The tents, so long exposed to the blaze of a Bulgarian sun, and drenched by torrents of rain, let the wet through "like sieves."

On the night of the 20th of November, three companies of the Rifle Brigade (1st battalion), under Lieutenant Tryon, displayed coolness and courage in a very smart affair. In the rocky ground in the ravine towards the left of our left attack, about 300 Russian infantry established themselves in some caverns and old stone huts used by shepherds in days gone by, and annoyed the working and covering parties of the French right attack and of our advances. These caves abounded in all the ravines, and were formed by the decay of the softer portions of the rock between the layers in which it is stratified. It was found expedient to dislodge them, and at seven o'clock this party was sent to drive the Russians out. The Rifles soon forced the enemy to retreat on the main body, but when the Rifles had established themselves for the night in the caves, they were assailed by a strong column. The action ended in the complete repulse of the Russian columns, but we had to deplore the loss of a most promising and excellent officer, Lieutenant Tryon, who was killed by a shot in the head. Seven men killed and eighteen or nineteen wounded.

General Canrobert issued a very flattering ordre du jour, in which he especially eulogized the intrepid bravery and noble energy of the three companies of the 1st battalion of our Rifle Brigade in the action, and Lord Raglan mentioned it in very handsome terms.