We now come to the siege which, if not the most important it has been our task to describe, must be the most interesting to our readers. No siege has ever been conducted under similar circumstances. Such have been the facilities of communication, and so effective and intelligent the means employed for collecting information, that the siege of Sebastopol may be said to have been carried on in the presence of the whole civilized world. It has been a living and an exciting panorama. When our ancestors, the Crusaders, were before Antioch or Jerusalem, their relations at home had no opportunity for mourning losses or celebrating triumphs, till time, by throwing all into distance, had weakened the pain or the joy of the intelligence received; whereas, in this case, there is no half-forgotten friend, no changed or decayed interests: all is moving, associated with us, and affecting us, as if the events were passing within the boundaries of our own seas.
May we not, then, ask, without entertaining less commiseration for the sufferings, or admiration for the deeds of the parties engaged, whether this circumstance does not heighten, or even, in a degree, exaggerate the effect of the events? The siege of Sebastopol is extraordinary and important in all ways; but the readers of this volume will find instances of deeper and more protracted suffering, and greater sacrifice of human life, than have been experienced there. Soliman II. lost 40,000 men in four days before Vienna! The want of water before Jerusalem produced infinitely more misery than the excess of it in the Crimea; and the allies have never experienced anything like real scarcity of food. No siege has ever been placed before the world in such vivid, such affecting colours. As a poem, the “Iliad” is doubtless pre-eminent above all such histories; but divest it, or the “Jerusalem Delivered,” of their poetry and their superhuman agencies, and they will hear no comparison with Mr. Russell’s extraordinary (I was about to use a much stronger word) correspondence with the Times: physically and mentally, no man could have been better calculated for the task he undertook. Collected in a volume, his letters will pass down to posterity in company with “Drinkwater’s Gibraltar,” the only work we remember that is worthy of the association.
With his graphic pictures fresh in the minds of every one, it is discouraging to attempt an account of this noble struggle, but as the “Great Sieges of History” would be incomplete without it, we must do as we did with that of Gibraltar, sketch slightly the early scenes, dwell principally upon the great catastrophe, drawing largely and gratefully upon a better historian than ourselves; and asserting occasionally our privilege of commenting upon what passes.
The first thing in this great expedition that strikes a reflective mind, is the facility of transport. Thought naturally travels back to the days when an army from Western Europe, on its way to Constantinople, was diminished by hundreds of thousands in the mere transit. Compare the march of Peter the Hermit, Walter the Penniless, and their countless hosts, with the passage of the gallant allies to nearly the same scene of action—want, fatigue, harassing enemies, and death,—with privations and inconveniences only felt from habitual ease and indulgence. But, perhaps, this very circumstance enhances the cheerfulness and courage with which the armies have encountered and passed through dangers and difficulties to which their previous life had not at all broken them in. Never, we believe, did an army better preserve its spirits; a gleam of sunshine, a scintillation of success, could always restore the Englishman’s hearty laugh, the Irishman’s humorous joke, the Scotchman’s sly, sniggering jeer, whilst not even weather or enemies could silence the music or the gaiety of the French.
Next to the consideration of the troops and the voyage, our attention is drawn to the matériel with which they were to work. Although the expedition was long debated, and at last delayed till too late a period of the year, we are forced to the painful conviction that the authorities at home threw this great stake without due forethought or knowledge. Their acquaintance with what they had to contend with was very imperfect, and their inattention to the probable wants of the troops and the defectiveness of many of the arms and implements were disgraceful; but this was soon remedied by our noble fourth estate: without “our correspondent,” Sebastopol would have proved even worse than a Walcheren.
On the 14th of September, the English and French hosts had become “an army of occupation” in the Crimea; the English troops amounting to 27,000, of which number not more than 1,000 were horse. And here, within four-and-twenty hours, the defects of the commissariat and the deficiencies of the medical staff were painfully felt. The disembarkation was effected with comparative ease, only attended with the usual confusion of such affairs, seasoned with the fun and spirits of the sailors, accustomed to paddle in the surf. On the 18th the armies proceeded towards the great point of their destination, and then, for the first time for five hundred years, the peoples of the two most enlightened, and in all ways most conspicuous nations of the world, marched side by side against a common enemy. The result was worthy of the union—the battle of the Alma was won, with a loss of 3,000 men, notwithstanding the vast superiority in numbers of the Russian cavalry. But we must confine ourselves to the siege; and we are not sorry to shun the description of a battle, as we quite agree with Mr. Russell, that “the writer is not yet born who can describe with vividness and force, so as to bring the details before the reader, the events of even the slightest skirmish.” Amidst alerts and skirmishes, whilst being awfully thinned daily by cholera, the allies marched upon and took possession of Balaklava. From this place they had a good sight of Sebastopol; and here, like Richard I., who got within a short distance of Jerusalem, but was unable to enter it, Marshal St. Arnaud, who commanded the French army, was obliged, by sickness, to leave for France, his goal in view.
The armies then prepared for besieging Sebastopol in due form. An opinion, almost amounting to a general one, prevails, that the allies ought to have taken advantage of the panic created among the Russians by their defeat upon the Alma, and have immediately proceeded against Sebastopol. We will not presume to say they certainly ought to have done so, but the calamities of the winter proved greater than any losses they would have sustained by such a spirited attack; and when we glance back at the captains of whom it has been “our hint to speak,” we do not see one who would not have made the bold attempt. The allied generals seemed to forget that whilst they were making preparations, they were affording opportunities for the enemy to effect much greater, because the latter were at home.
On the night of the 10th of October the British troops broke ground before Sebastopol, fifteen days after they had by a brilliant and daring march on Balaklava obtained a magnificent position on the heights which envelope Sebastopol on the south side, from the sea to the Tchernaya. And here again the advantage of being at home was evident; the Russians immediately commenced a severe and destructive fire, whilst the allies were not in a state to respond by a single gun before the 17th. On that day, however, they began with spirit. The besiegers soon found that the city was a very different place from what they had expected, and that they had to deal with brave, active, and persevering enemies, always on the watch to take advantage, and evidently commanded by skilful and enterprising officers. All ideas of a coup de main were over: they had before them a siege which would test every quality they possessed, either as men or soldiers.
The usual routine of extensive sieges went on, sometimes one side having the advantage, sometimes the other; the scene being occasionally varied by splendid attacks of the shipping. But, although the works of the allies gradually advanced, no decisive advantage was gained: the Russians knew the vast superiority of earthworks over every species of fortification, and were indefatigable with the mattock and spade. Towards the end of the month a great diminution in the numbers of the troops began to be felt; there was a steady drain, in one way or another, of from forty to fifty men a day. And in this awful state they had great cause of complaint of want of most necessaries, and particularly of the badness of the fusees, so important for their projectiles.
Unless ours were a volume instead of a chapter, it would be impossible to follow the daily occurring interest of this struggle. In no siege have the opponents been better matched: failures, from accident, want of skill, or disparity of numbers, were frequent on both sides; but no instance of treachery, or deficiency of courage and endurance, disgraced either besieged or besiegers: the triumph will be the greater from being achieved over a brave, energetic, and indefatigable enemy. But, whilst viewing with heartfelt admiration and gratitude the almost superhuman exertions and exploits of the allied troops, a sad conviction creeps into the mind that these efforts were not always judiciously directed; that there was a deadening paucity of that military genius in the leaders, to which such gallant hearts would so nobly have responded if it had existed. A disciplined soldier is little more than a machine; in all battles his exertions are necessarily confined to his own immediate small sphere of action, and therefore all the courage, all the devotion that man is capable of, must lose their due effect if the general’s head do not well guide the soldier’s arm. Another chilling reflection likewise arises on reviewing the contest: the Russians have been, at least, quite as well commanded as the allies; and a despotic ruler has provided better for the comforts of his tools than a representative government has for those of the brave soldiers who were fighting for its principle.