The Great Sieges of History

by William Robson

By no instance, in the course of this siege, is the want of that indescribable something called genius more evident than in that glorious but lamentable day of the action of Balaklava. The firmness of the brave Scots, who stood “shoulder to shoulder,” unshaken by such a charge as infantry have seldom sustained—the charge of the heavy brigade, worthy of the guards who once received the command to “up and at ’em”—were eclipsed by the desperate onslaught of the light cavalry, which has secured immortality to the brave devotedness of British soldiers. But why were these invaluable lives sacrificed? Why, when every one of such men was worth a host, were these heroes “hounded” on to death, as a spectacle before two armies? The fault was not in the brave men, it was not in their officers; but, as fault there was, it must have been somewhere. We can fancy a Murat, the first sabreur in Europe, in the place of Lord Cardigan; we can believe that with the eye and judgment of a general, relying on his reputation, he might have refused to perform such a palpable and wanton sacrifice; but Lord Cardigan had not the reputation of a Murat to fall back upon; he is a rich nobleman, commanding a regiment for his amusement, and not a soldier of fortune who has gained his rank by his meritorious deeds. With the same spirit with which he would have accepted a personal challenge he led on his men to the charge; but that is not the spirit to which the fate of nations should be intrusted in the battle-field: great captains have not unfrequently obtained honour by remonstrance against rash orders, and sometimes by disobeying them altogether. But, whether the fault of the charge lies with Captain Nolan, Lord Lucan, or Lord Cardigan, we never can conceive how the order for it could have emanated from a general who was so placed as to have the position to be attacked, with its defences and defenders, all before his eyes as in a panorama! Whispers had permeated the armies that our light cavalry had not maintained the character it upon all occasions assumed; such feelings are common in large hosts, but no general should consent for the sake of jealous rumours to sacrifice one of the most efficient arms under his command.

Lamentable as was this affair, the day of Balaklava was, on the whole, advantageous to the besiegers; the purpose of the enemy to remove us from a most eligible position was defeated, and they had such “a taste of our quality” as taught them to respect, if not to fear us. The worst result was the awful diminution of a force in which we were before but too weak: of our brave cavalry, 387 were killed, wounded, or missing; and of horses, 520.

Very strangely, the Russians claimed as a great victory their taking of the guns of the redoubts from the poor terrified Turks; and, in their pride of heart, made, the next day, an attack, with 5,000 men, upon our right flank; but they were repulsed by the division under Sir De Lacy Evans, with the loss of 500 men.

The work in the trenches now became very trying to the men. From the first, the British army was deficient in numbers for such an undertaking. Severe labour, change of climate, unusual exposure exhausted them. The French, from their numbers, made more progress in the works, and our men were overtasked by an endeavour to keep pace with them. The guns, too, became shaky, from continual use. In this arm the Russians excelled us: their guns could bear much more frequent firing, from the excellence of the iron of which they are composed.

This is the first war in which the rifle has been employed to any extent, but its merits became so fully appreciated, that we have no doubt it will be generally adopted, and the soldier, instead of firing at random, will be trained so as to throw no ball away.

One feature of the Russian character has been very prominent in this great struggle—a brutal want of humanity. They partake of the attribute of their eastern origin, in the little value they attach to the lives of their own troops, provided they gain their end; and they have no particle of mercy for a fallen foe. In the mêlée, arising from the rash Balaklava charge, they hurled the bolts of their artillery, indiscriminately on friends and enemies; and, after all contests, it was their invariable habit to bayonet the wounded French and English.

By the 30th of October, the position of the allies was rendered very much worse by the closing in upon them of the Russians in their rear. They might be said to be as much besieged in their lines as their enemies were in Sebastopol. But the sea is the Englishman’s constant source of comfort and relief; the port of Balaklava was theirs, and the sea on that side was free to them. The Russians removed every combustible part from their houses and buildings, so that, with the exception of flesh and blood, the allies had nothing to fire against but stone walls and mounds of earth. The most keen and active deer-stalker or chamois-hunter could not be more cunningly and anxiously on the watch for a shot than were the whole bodies of riflemen in both armies during the long siege. Great skill was likewise acquired in gunnery; a shot, a shell, or a rocket seemed sometimes to drop, like magic, à point nommé.

But now, as winter approached, the troops became sensible of the miseries of their situation, and of the culpable neglect of those who ought to have provided for their comforts. Things, which in England would have been cast to the dunghill, became valuable, and were sold at absurd prices: a tattered rug, 50s.; a pot of meat, 15s.; a sponge, 25s.; a half worn-out currycomb and brush, 20s.!

With bad weather, sickness, of course, increased, affecting equally French, English, and Turks; and, until the matter was forced upon the authorities at home by the Press, was not duly attended to. But what is still more strange, men there, upon the spot, were deaf to this imperative duty, and the eloquent Times correspondent says: “The authorities generally treat the medical officers with cool disrespect and indifference.” There is no portion of this siege that will descend to posterity on the page of history with more honour to us as a people than that displaying the ready and earnest sympathy felt by most classes at home for our suffering compatriots: the public voice thundered in the ears of officials, and forced them to their duty; individual charity, individual exertion, were instantly put forth; and woman! constant to her character of “a ministering angel,” forsook the home of comfort, and the bed of down, for the contaminated atmosphere of a military hospital, and attendance by the wounded soldier’s couch. We care not what may be the high-sounding title of the general who shall achieve the conquest of the Crimea, it will pale beside that of Miss Nightingale, the leader of the Sisters of Mercy.

At this period of the siege, spies, of a bold and artful kind, occasionally made their appearance in the allied camps. If the commanders had read our siege of Antioch, they might have followed the example of Bohemond: he roasted the bodies of some dead prisoners, and made it understood that the Crusaders served all spies in that manner; he cleared his camp of that dangerous kind of vermin, against whom, we must say, the allies were not sufficiently watchful. How eloquently does a passage of Mr. Russell’s account of the 4th of November bear out our frequently-expressed conviction of the incapacity of the leaders! He says: “Whenever I look at the enemy’s outworks, I think of the Woolwich butt. What good have we done by all this powder? Very little. A few guns judiciously placed, when we first came here, might have saved us incredible toil and labour, because they would have rendered it all but impossible for the Russians to cast up such entrenchments and works as they have done before the open and perfectly unprotected entrance to Sebastopol. Here has been our great, our irremediable error.” And when we look at the bitter consequences of that error, what can we say of the commanders by whom it was committed? In all ethics there is nothing so fallacious and injurious as the constantly-quoted “De mortuis nil nisi bonum;” it is deceptive as to the dead, it is disheartening to the good, and encouraging to the bad of the living. Lord Raglan was an amiable gentleman, well-versed, we dare say, in the routine of office; but by no means fit to head such an enterprise against such an enemy. But was not all the English policy, at starting, of this do-nothing character?