CHAPTER XIV
SEVASTOPOL AND BALAKLAVA
When the Crimea was annexed to Russia in 1783, Prince Potemkin recognized the natural strength and military advantages of a village called Ak-yar and the marine advantages of its harbour, which is a narrow, deep fiord, extending inward several miles between low hills. A few weeks after the treaty was signed which gave Russia sovereignty over the peninsula, Catherine the Great, upon his recommendation, issued an edict directing the creation of a military and naval station and a fortress at that point.
She passed two days here in 1787 and rechristened the place with a combination of two Greek words: Sevastos-polis, which means, in English, “honoured” or “august city.” From that time Sevastopol (it is pronounced Sevas-tow-pol—with the accent on the “tow”—) next to Cronstadt, the Gibraltar of the north, has been the most strongly fortified place in Russia, the military and naval headquarters of the Black Sea, with a shipyard for the construction of vessels, shops for the manufacture of guns, engines, and other machinery and equipment, both military and naval; and the natural advantages have been improved with such skill and expense as to make the finest and best equipped military harbour in Europe. Sevastopol is purely a military town. Every resident is either connected with the army or navy, or is dependent upon one or the other branches of that service.
The city was almost entirely destroyed during the Crimean war, but was immediately rebuilt and made stronger than ever. The Crimean war was the result of the intervention of Great Britain, France, and Sardinia for the protection of Turkey against the aggressive movements of Russia, which insisted upon a treaty with the sultan giving the czar the protectorate over all members of the Greek Church in his dominion, who comprise about three fourths of the population of Turkey in Europe. This claim could not be conceded by Turkey without ceasing to remain an independent state, and war was declared against Russia in March, 1854. England and France sent fleets and armies to support Turkey and a campaign was fought on the Danube to resist the Russian invasion. Fleets of transports, loaded with Sardinians, French, and British troops were sent to the Black Sea, through the Bosphorus, and landed at Varna, which is now the port of Bulgaria, in April and May, 1854, but cholera broke out there, and in September following, an army of 25,000 British, 25,000 French, and 8,000 Turks was transferred to the Crimea, and disembarked thirty miles north of Sevastopol, where they fought the battle of Alam and commenced the siege of Sevastopol.
The Battle of Balaklava followed on the 25th of October and that of Inkerman on the 5th of November. Inkerman was known as the soldiers’ battle, because of the absence of officers of high rank. The British camp was surprised by the Russians on a dark and drizzly morning when most of the officers were absent, and the soldiers sustained a hand to hand fight against five times their number of Russians until 6,000 French came to their aid and completed the rout of the enemy.
Balaklava was one of the fiercest battles ever fought and will be ever remembered for the charge of the Light Brigade. No more spectacular exhibition of nerve and courage was ever witnessed, and the act was performed before an audience of 50,000 men. The charge of Pickett’s division of the confederate army at the battle of Gettysburg was made by several times the number of men and was repeated again and again each time they were driven back. For desperate tenacity of purpose and heroic determination, the charge of the First Minnesota infantry at Gettysburg is more notable, but for dramatic effect nothing could exceed the charge of the 600—or in reality 723—English cavalrymen, who in obedience to a mistaken order, rode a mile and a half between two Russian lines, under a murderous fire of musketry to silence a battery that had been seriously harassing the British position.
The British forces suffered severely in the campaign, more than the French or the Sardinians, and almost as much as the Russians. The Turks suffered least of all, notwithstanding the fact that the war was fought in their behalf. They were an insignificant factor in the struggle.
Grafskaya Pristan—Monumental Landing Place, Sevastopol