1854.
BOMARSUND—TURKEY—BULGARIA—WALLACHIA.
War with Russia—Detachment attached to Baltic fleet—Second company to the Aland Islands—Landing—Brigadier—General Jones—Preliminary services—Operations—Fort Nottich attacked—Adventure at Fort Tzee and escape from it—Bomarsund captured—Destruction of the forts—Conduct of the company—Sickness; it returns to England—Detachment to Turkey—Augmentation to the corps—Seventh company withdrawn from Hurst Castle—Eleventh and seventh companies to Turkey—Odessa—Services of the first detachment in Turkey—Corporal Cray—Gallipoli; Boulair; Ibridgi—Commendation by Sir George Brown—Tenth and eighth companies to Scutari—Redoubt Kaleh—Works there—Circassia—Working-pay—Companies attached to divisions of the army—Buyuk Tchekmedjie—First detachment to Varna—Followed by the tenth company—Also by the eleventh—Complimentary order for services of the latter—Contrast between the French and English sappers—Works at Varna—Also at Devno—Encampments at Aladyn and Varna—Works at Gallipoli and Boulair—Eighth company to Varna—Gallantry of corporal Swann and private Anderson—Sappers join at Varna from the fleet—Coast of Circassia—Photographers—Detachment to Rustchuk—Trestle bridge at Slobedzie—Bridge of boats over the Danube—Return to Varna of a portion of the sappers from Rustchuk—Misconduct of the detachment; also of the seventh company—Spirited conduct of corporal Cray—Major Bent and party of sappers to Bucharest—Private Anderson and the Austrian Dragoons—Fourth company to Varna—The Somerset Fund—The Central Association.
To obtain a religious protectorate in Turkey, Russia menaced the independence of the Sultan, which led to a long diplomatic negotiation between the Western powers and the Czar; but as the Emperor Nicholas persisted in interfering with the rule of the Sultan, and attempted to enforce his pretensions by occupying with a belligerent army the Danubian principalities, Great Britain and France declared war against Russia. Measures were instantly taken to give effect to the declaration by despatching powerful expeditions to the East and the Baltic.
To the Baltic fleet were attached, on the 9th March, one sergeant and nineteen rank and file of the second company, under the command of Lieutenant Nugent of the engineers, which embarked at Portsmouth on board the ‘Duke of Wellington,’ flag-ship of Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Napier, and accompanied it in its reconnaissance of the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Finland as far up as Cronstadt. The object of sending the party with the fleet was, that it might take the lead of the seamen and marines in any escalading operations ashore; but the nature of the service was such that no occasion offered for resorting to the expedient. During the time that the cholera was rife in the fleet, several of the detachment were seized with the malady, and three died.
When it was resolved to make a descent upon the Aland Islands, a division of the French army was despatched from Calais to carry out the enterprise. The second company, of eighty strong, under Captain F. W. King, royal engineers, was added to the force, and sailing from Deptford in the ‘Julia’ transport on the 15th July, with every conceivable engineering requirement, arrived at Calais on the 17th, and took on board 225 officers, non-commissioned officers, and rank and file of the 51st infantry of the line. The sappers were the only troops that accompanied the French contingent.
Before daylight on the 8th August, the second company, 600 of the royal marines, and 2000 French troops landed at a small cove a few miles N.E. of Bomarsund, and taking a winding route by the village of Monkstetta, encamped about 1,200 yards from Fort Tzee, sheltered by a hill on which the breaching battery was afterwards constructed. The advance of the van was formed by the sappers from the flag-ship, carrying besides their carbines an assortment of bill-hooks, hand-saws, axes, and hatchets, and the column was closed in rear by the second company under Captain King.
The British operations were wholly carried out under the direction of Brigadier-General Jones, R.E., an officer of matured judgment and experience, gained by hard service in the Peninsular War, and by some forty years of after study and experiment. He was assisted by Captain H. St. George Ord, and four other officers of the corps.
Nearly five days were employed in collecting the tools and stores, cutting roads, effecting preliminary reconnaissances, preparing an hospital, and in providing domiciles for the temporary accommodation of the company, by making huts of the branches of fir trees; while a strong party, about 400 yards from the hill, worked with unflagging industry in making fascines and filling sand-bags, which, when finished, were carried by the seamen and marines to the depôt near the site of the intended battery.
Meanwhile two or three attempts had been made by some officers of the corps, attended by a few intrepid sappers, to trace the battery; but the enemy opened so heavy a fire upon the parties, that a suspension of their exertions necessarily followed. Determination and tact, however, got over the difficulty. No trace was used, but a simple alignment struck, from which, on the 13th August, under shade of the evening, sergeant John Jones and twenty-four rank and file, began to construct the battery, under the orders of Captain Ord. Without the chance of digging a shovel-full of earth to give solidity and strength to the cover, the battery was built on the bare rock entirely of fascines and sand-bags. The sappers reared it unassisted, except that the royal marines carried the material from the engineer’s park to the hill. Sergeant John Jones had the honour of laying the first sand-bag. In ten hours, the detachment, unrelieved, nearly completed the battery, which would soon have opened upon Fort Tzee; but the French having forestalled the arrangement by obtaining the surrender of its commandant, the battery was free for other employment, and its direction was consequently changed against Fort Nottich. Speedily the epaulement which flanked the battery was prolonged, the platforms promptly laid, and three 32-pounders having been placed in position, the embrasures were unmasked by some daring sappers, and the firing, which lasted about nine hours, ended at the fall of the day in the capture of the garrison. It was surrendered to Captain Ord, R.E., who had with him to receive the formal capitulation, a force of 100 of the royal marines and five rank and file of the sappers.
The added work was partly constructed in the day, under fire, as was also the laying of the platforms. Corporal Peter Leitch,[[135]] a first-class carpenter with some handy men of the company, attended to this service. The working party was relieved every four hours day and night, until the battery was completed, and also during the siege, to throw fatigue and danger equally upon all. The guns fired by the seamen and marine artillery were first drawn by them to the battery on sledges of a novel construction, over steep and rugged ascents. When they reached the camp, however, their labours were considerably diminished, as a road to assist them had been cut by the sappers, up the hill to the breaching battery, under the orders of Captain King. Corporal George Luke acted as overseer in this duty. Two of the men were allotted to each of the guns to keep the embrasures in good order. This they usually attended to while the gun was loading, and not a few displayed a stoical coolness and intrepidity in repairing the damaged merlons, and clearing away the debris occasioned by the enemy’s cannonade. Though the fire upon the battery was warm at times, the casualties only embraced two killed, of whom one was the Hon. Lieutenant Cameron Wrottesley, R.E., and one wounded. None of the sappers were even touched; and this good fortune, as well for them as the seamen and marines, was attributed to the prudence of Brigadier-General Jones, who had men appointed to look out and warn the battery when the enemy’s guns were fired. These “look-out” men were sappers—alert spirits with quick eyes and stout hearts—who gave the alarm the instant a flash was seen at the fort. The better to enable them to give the intimation they took ground in advance of the battery in some chasms of the rock, where, although partially screened by the natural cover of their hiding places, it was a wonder that they escaped unhurt.[unhurt.] Privates James Moncur[[136]] and Thomas Ross[[137]] were most conspicuous in this hazardous duty.