The Great Sieges of History

by William Robson

Convinced that the capture of the Malakoff was all that was to be wished, the French general would not allow a further waste of good men to be made, by persisting in the other attacks by his troops.

But the Malakoff was not yet safe: General Bosquet was struck by a large fragment of a shell, and was obliged to give his command to General Dulac. A powder-magazine in the curtain, near the Malakoff, blew up, and serious consequences were apprehended.

Hoping to profit by the accident, the Russians advanced in dense masses, and in three columns, and attacked the centre, left, and right of the Malakoff. But they were prepared for within the work. McMahon had troops he could depend on; and after, as their own general says, six desperate attempts, the Russians were compelled to beat a retreat. From that moment they relinquished any offensive attack: the Malakoff was taken, past fear of recapture. It was then four o’clock in the afternoon.—A few short sentences thus tell the result of the contest for this key of the fortifications; but the fact can only be duly appreciated by reflecting that seven thousand brave men were sacrificed in it on the part of the French, and as many, no doubt, on the part of the enemy. War and its horrors were never duly painted till they came under the eye of Mr. Russell; his picture of the hospital of St. Paul throws all the terrific scenes of Dante into shade.

We now proceed to a portion of our story in which Englishmen, we are grieved to the heart to say, can take no pride. Never did an army go through the fatigues and dangers of a campaign with more courage, more devotion, more firmness, or more patient endurance; and at the last to be cut off from partaking of the great honour of the closing triumph, is disheartening to their future endeavours, and a source of deep regret to their countrymen at home.

At a few minutes past twelve the British left the fifth parallel. The enemy’s musketry commenced at once, and in less than five minutes, during which they had to pass over two hundred yards, from the nearest approach to the parapet of the Redan, they had lost a large portion of their officers, and were deprived of the aid of their leaders, with the exception of acting Brigadier-general Windham, and Captains Fyers, Lewis, and Maude: the rest had been struck down by the volleys of grape and rifle balls which swept the flanks of the work towards the salient. As they came nearer, the enemy’s fire became less fatal. They crossed the abattis without much trouble: it was torn to pieces by our shot; the men stepped over and through it with ease. The light division made straight for the salient and projecting angle of the Redan, and came to the ditch, which is about fifteen feet deep. The escalade party proceeded to plant their ladders, but they were found too short!—had they not been so, they would not have been of much use, as there were but six or seven brought to the place. In ancient times, when men only fought hand to hand, seven ladders have achieved wonders; but where all who mounted could be swept off by musketry, such a number was useless. But the gallant officers set their men the example of leaping into the ditch, scrambling up the other side, and thence getting on to the parapet with little opposition; whilst the Russians who were in front ran back, and opened a fire upon them from behind the traverses and breastworks. When upon the parapet, strange and new it is to say, the soldiers seemed bewildered; their gallant officers cheered them on, coaxed them on, but instead of following them, they persisted in firing, loading and firing! The officers began to fall fast. The small party of the 90th, much diminished, went on gallantly towards the breastwork, but they were too weak to force it, and joined the men of other regiments, who were keeping up a brisk fire upon the Russians from behind the traverses. Colonel Windham had got into the Redan with the storming party of the light division, below the salient on the proper left face, but all his exertions were as futile as those of the gallant officers of the 90th, 91st, and the supporting regiments.

As the light division rushed out in the front, they were swept by the guns of the Barrack Battery, and other pieces on the proper right of the Redan, loaded heavily with grape, which thinned them grievously before they could reach the salient or apex of the work they were to assault. The columns of the second division issuing out of the fifth parallel, rushed up immediately after the light division, so as to come a little down on the slope of the proper left face of the Redan. The first embrasure was in flames, but running on to the next, the men leaped into the ditch, and, with the aid of ladders and of each others’ hands, scrambled up on the other side, climbed the parapet, or poured in through the embrasure which was undefended. Colonel Windham was one of the first men in on this side. As our men entered through the embrasures, the few Russians who were between the salient and the breastwork retreated behind the latter, and got from behind the traverses to its protection. From this place they poured in a thick fire on the parapet of the salient, which was crowded by the men of the light division, and on the gaps through the inner parapet of the Redan; and the British, with an infatuation which all officers deplore, began to return the fire of the enemy without advancing behind the traverses, loaded and fired as quickly as they could, producing little effect, as the Russians were all covered by the breastwork. Groups of riflemen likewise kept up a galling fire from behind the lower traverses, near the base of the Redan. As soon as the alarm of the attack was spread, the Russians came rushing up from the barracks, and increased the intensity of the fire, from which the English were dropping fast, and increasing the confidence of the enemy by their immobility. In vain their officers by word and deed encouraged them on; they were impressed with an idea that the Redan was mined, and that if they advanced they should be blown up: and yet many of them acted in a manner worthy of the men of the Alma and Inkermann. But what availed these few?—they were swept down by the enemy’s fire the moment they advanced to the front. In the same manner, the courage of the officers only made them a mark for the Russian fire, and they fell as soon as they advanced. All was confusion, regiments were confounded, and men refused to obey any but their own officers. We are at a loss to account for the conduct of Colonel Windham, it was that of a hero,—indeed, he is the British hero of the day; but he must have seen that with such a handful of men his efforts were unavailing: he gathered together one little band after another, only to have them swept down by the enemy’s guns: his own escape was miraculous. The men kept up a smart fire from behind the lower parts of the inner parapet, but no persuasion or commands could induce them to come out into the open space and charge the breastwork. Whilst our men were thus being terrifically thinned, the Russians gained reinforcements, not only from the town but from the Malakoff, which had now been abandoned to the French. But Colonel Windham did not blench; he sent three times to Sir E. Codrington, who was in the fifth parallel, to beg him to send up supports, in some order of formation; but none of his messengers reached the general in safety: all were wounded and disabled. Supports were sent, but they came in disorder from the fire they had to pass through, and they were in such small numbers, that they appeared only to be sent to feed the slaughter. Seemingly rendered careless of life, the colonel passed from one dangerous position to another, exposed to a close fire, and, wonderful to relate, untouched, but he found the same confusion everywhere—all firing away at the enemy from behind anything that could screen them, but all refusing to charge. He, at length, got some riflemen and a few men of the 88th together, but as they did not, as he appeared to do, “bear a charmed life,” they were no sooner out than they were swept away like chaff: the officers, as conspicuous by their courage as their dress, going down first. This carnage lasted an hour. The Russians were now in dense masses behind the breastwork, and Colonel Windham went once more back across the open space to the left, to make another attempt to retrieve the day. In his progress he had to pass through the fire of his own men and the incessant volleys of the Russians, but he still was safe. Within the inner parapet of the left, he found the men becoming thinner and thinner. A Russian officer stepped over the breastwork, and tore down a gabion, to make room for a fieldpiece. Colonel Windham exclaimed to the soldiers who were firing over the parapet, “As you are so fond of firing, why don’t you shoot that Russian?” They fired a volley, but all missed him; and soon the fieldpiece began to play on the salient with grape. Finding no time was to be lost, and seeing nothing of his messengers, Colonel Windham determined to go himself in quest of supports. “I must go to the general for supports,” said he to Captain Crealock, of the 90th, who happened to be near him. “But, mind that it be known why I went, in case I am killed.” He crossed the parapet and ditch, and succeeded in gaining the fifth parallel, through a storm of grape and rifle-bullets in safety. Sir Edward Codrington asked him, if he really thought he could do any good with such supports as he could afford him, and said he might take the Royals, who were then in the parallel. “Let the officers come out in front—let us advance in order, and if the men keep their formation, the Redan is ours,” was the ready reply of this truly British soldier; but the game was ended: as he spoke, the men were seen in full flight from the Redan, by every means of egress, followed by the Russians, who not only bayonetted them, and shot them down with musketry, but even threw stones and grape-shot at them. Large masses of Russians, supported by grape from several field-pieces, had poured upon the broken, confused parties of the British, and crushed them as if beneath an avalanche. When it came to this point, their native courage revived, and they had recourse to their national weapon. The struggle was desperate, but, from the numbers of the Russians, necessarily short. Officers, only armed with swords, had little chance in such a mêlée; they fell like heroes amidst the gallant part of their men. The pursuing Russians were soon forced to retire by the fire of the English batteries and riflemen, and, under the cover of that, many escaped to the approaches. General Pelissier, on becoming aware of the failure of the English attack, sent over to General Simpson to ask if he meant to renew it; but the British Commander-in-Chief is reported to have said that he did not feel in a condition to do so. The reserve was certainly strong enough to have returned to the attack, and General Simpson talked of making it the next morning; but the Russians saved him the trouble.

The French had a long and severe contest in the rear of the Malakoff, but, although they failed in the other two attacks, they nobly maintained their footing in their grand prize.

When the siege of Sebastopol becomes a subject of remote history, we have no doubt that it will be viewed in this light:—The Malakoff Tower was known to be the key to the place, and the capture of it was the principal object with the allies. The French being by far in greatest numbers, were alone able to undertake this capture, the British army not being in a condition to sustain such a drain as the attempt was sure to produce. But, “to make assurance doubly sure,” diversions were necessary, and it was agreed that the British should attack the Redan, whilst the French attacked the Little Redan and the Curtain. These last will all be supposed to be mere diversions, and that they fully answered their purpose.—Now, whether the allied generals had thus laid their plans, we will not presume to say; but such is a very fair assumption. But Englishmen will ask, Why were so many of our brave countrymen made enfans perdus in an attack that, from beginning to end, was so mismanaged as never to have a chance of success? To which the reply will be: Your loss has certainly been grievous; but remember, it was a common cause, and, in this attempt, which brought about such glorious results, where you had 2,447 men placed hors de combat, your brave allies had 7,000. There is another circumstance that gives countenance to this idea. In all Oriental warfare, it has been the practice to place the worst troops in the van; they were flogged up with whips, and pricked up with lances to meet the enemy, whom they were supposed to fatigue and exhaust before the élite of the army engaged. Now, though General Simpson sent in to the Redan regiments of nominally great experience and tried courage, he really sent in the rawest part of his army; for these regiments had been so thinned by the campaign as to contain very few of the men who came out in them: the Guards, the Highlanders, the third and fourth divisions were untouched. But whether they served as enfans perdus, or were lost in what was meant to be a successful attack, the friends of those who fell in this disastrous affair must console themselves in their grief by reflecting that no honour is lost—the means, and the method of employing those means, appear to have been quite inadequate to the object in view.

However great was the triumph of the French, they never dreamt that it would be so speedily followed by such important consequences.

At eight o’clock, the Russians began quietly to withdraw from the town, after having placed combustibles in every house, with a view of making a second Moscow of Sebastopol. With great art, the commander kept up a fire of musketry from his advanced posts, as if he meant to endeavour to regain the Malakoff. Before two o’clock in the morning the fleet had been scuttled and sunk. About two o’clock flames were observed to break out in different parts of the town, and to spread gradually over the principal buildings. At four, explosion followed upon explosion, and the Flagstaff and Garden Batteries blew up; the magnificence of the scene being heightened by the bursting of the numberless shells contained in the magazines. During all this time, the Russian infantry proceeded in a steady, uninterrupted march over the bridge to the north side, so that by six o’clock the last battalion had passed over: the south side of Sebastopol was thus evacuated, and left to its persevering and brave conquerors.