Seeing how desperate was the condition of the fortress, Prince
Gortschakoff had resolved, after the Battle of the Tchernaya, to abandon
Sebastopol. In letters to the Minister of War, of August 18 and 24,
1855, he expressed this intention, saying there was not a man in the
army who would not call it folly to continue the defence longer. With a
view to conducting a retreat he pressed forward rapidly the construction
of the bridge across the harbor, which was to have a roadway of sixteen
feet and to bear heavy vehicles. He also conferred with Todleben on
other measures to protect the withdrawal, and accordingly barricades
were built across the streets and formed into armed and defensible works
which were intended, as a last resort, to hold in check the assailants.
Preparations were also made for blowing up the principal forts and
magazines.
Another great cannonade had begun on August 17th. The French lines had
now approached so close to the place that new additions to them were
immediately destroyed or rendered untenable by the fire from the
Malakoff and Little Redan; and the shower of small shells, easily cast
into the trenches from the ramparts, and called by the French
"bouquets," greatly increased their losses. For the silencing of the
artillery, which thus hindered the French sappers, the allied batteries
opened in full force against the part of the enemy's lines from the
Redan to the great harbor. But the town front was not included, and the
English batteries suffered greatly from want of support by the works on
their left.
On August 20th Gortschakoff entered the fortress, and went round the
lines of defence, upon which the fire of the allies was just then at its
height. What he saw might well confirm him in his resolution to retreat.
There was no longer either a city or a suburb to defend, for both were
heaps of rubbish and cinders. The parapets of the works, dried in the
heats of summer and split in huge fragments by the shot, were crumbling
into the ditches. The interior space was honeycombed with holes made by
the shells. Gabions and sandbags could not be procured to repair the
embrasures, which remained in ruins. Many of the dismounted guns could
no longer be replaced, not because there were not plenty in the
arsenals, but because to mount them by night, under the deadly fire of
the mortars, entailed such frightful sacrifices of men.
The defenders of the works were packed in caves under the parapets; the
gunners lay dead in heaps on the batteries; the wounded could not be
removed by day, because the communications with the rear were now
searched throughout by the fire of the allies, and so lay where they
fell, in torment in the sun beside the more fortunate slain. On landing,
the Prince had passed the hospitals, full to overflowing, and the
ambulances with the wounded crowding what had been the squares. There
was nothing to relieve the horrible monotony of destruction and
devastation except the bridge, which promised retreat from this misery,
and which was approaching completion.
Yet it was after this visit that the Russian General changed his mind in
the direction of what he had before termed folly. "I am resolved," he
wrote to the Minister of War, on September 1st, "to defend the south
side to the last extremity, for it is the only honorable course which
remains to us." Calculating that the daily loss of the garrison was from
eight hundred to nine hundred, and that he could bring twenty-five
thousand men from the army outside to reenforce it, by leaving only
twenty thousand to guard the Mackenzie Heights, he considered he might
still prolong the defence for a month. Everything was against such a
cruel determination; but he proceeded to execute it so far as in him
lay. Yet it did not rest with him to determine the end.
The cannonade once more reduced the Malakoff, its dependencies and
neighbors, to absolute silence, and enabled the French to push their
works yet closer. The soil between the Mamelon and Malakoff could be cut
into like a cheese, and the trenches were more easily made and better
constructed here than elsewhere. The English trenches before the Redan
had been stopped by solid rock; the French approaches to the Little
Redan, now only forty yards from it, had also got into soil so stony as
no longer to afford cover. The most advanced approach to the Malakoff
was separated from it by only twenty-five yards; in the soft soil the
trenches might have been pushed to the very edge of the ditch, but only
with great loss, and, besides, the facility of mining below them would
increase as the distance lessened. It was therefore deemed that the time
for assault had come, and it only remained to determine the details.
Accordingly, a council of war considered the matter. After the members
had delivered their opinions, Pélissier expressed himself thus: "I too
have my plan, but I will not breathe it to my pillow." There is,
however, no need to be so reticent with the reader. The French commander
had learned that the relief of the troops in the works before him took
place at noon, and that in order to avoid the great additional loss
which would be caused by introducing the new garrisons before the old
ones moved out, the contrary course was followed of marching out most of
the occupants before replacing them. Thus noon was the time when the
Malakoff would be found most destitute of defenders, and noon was to be
the hour of the assault. Also another advantage was offered to the
French. The salient of the Malakoff had been adapted to the form of the
tower which it covered, and was therefore circular; consequently there
was a space in it which could not be seen or fired on from the flanks;
that was the space upon which the troops were to be directed.
Roadways twenty yards wide were made through the trenches, and then
masked by gabions, easily thrown down, by which the reserves could be
brought up in the shortest time. The Malakoff, the curtain, and the
Little Redan were each to be attacked by a division, supported by a
brigade; and four divisions, with other troops, were destined to attack
the central bastion and works near it, and break thence by the rear,
into the flagstaff bastion. But first the cannonade was to be renewed.
It began on September 5th, and this time it encircled the whole
fortress, the French batteries before the town opening no less
vigorously than the rest. At night a frigate in the harbor was set on
fire by a shell, and the conflagration for hours lighted up the
surrounding scenery. On the 6th and 7th the _feu d'enfer_ went on, the
Russians replying but feebly; on the night of the 7th a line-of-battle
ship was set on fire by a mortar, and burned nearly all night; it
contained a large supply of spirits, the blue flames from which cast a
lugubrious light on the ramparts from the harbor to the Malakoff,
producing, says Todleben, "a painful impression on the souls of the
defenders of Sebastopol."
Daylight on the 8th found the Russian defences completely manned, the
guns loaded with grape, and the reserves brought close up. But the
assault was not yet begun, and the result of these preparations to
receive it was increased havoc in the exposed ranks of the defenders.
The attack on the Redan was to be directed by General Codrington. His
division, and the Second, under General Markham, were to supply the
column of attack, of which the covering party, the ladder party, the
working party (to fill up the ditch and convert what works we might gain
to our own purpose), and the main body were to number seventeen hundred,
and the supports fifteen hundred. The remainder of these two divisions,
numbering three thousand, was to be in reserve in the third parallel.
Also, in the last reserve, were the Third and Fourth Divisions.
No attack on the Redan would have been undertaken by the English as an
isolated operation. Our compulsory distance from that work, the want of
a place of arms (that is to say, a covered space in the advanced
trenches of sufficient extent to harbor large bodies of troops), the
construction of which was forbidden by the rocky soil, and the still
unsubdued fire from the ramparts, all condemned an assault. But it was
deemed necessary as a distraction in aid of the French, and it fulfilled
the purpose.
The portion of Codrington's troops destined to head the attack on the
Redan moved rapidly and steadily across the open space, though suffering
much loss from the heavy fire of round-shot, grape, case, and musketry
now directed on them from every available point, and those in front
passed with ease over the battered rampart and entered the work. But the
rest, with too strong a reminiscence of their mode of action in the
trenches, lay down at the edge of the ditch and began firing, alongside
of the covering troops, who alone should have performed this duty. The
supports also reached the ditch, and some of them entered the work. But
the great reserves, in moving through the inches toward the point of
issue, were obstructed and discouraged by meeting the numbers of wounded
men and their bearers, who were of necessity brought back by the same
narrow route, a difficulty which also hindered some of the French
attacks. Colonel Windham, the leader of the attacking troops, finding
that his messages for support produced no result, took the ill-advised
step of going back himself to procure reënforcements. It was not
surprising that before he returned his men also had withdrawn. It is
probably in reference to this that the _Engineer Journal_ said, in
excusing the troops, that "they retired when they found themselves
without any officer of rank."
They had been overwhelmed by the numbers which the Russians brought into
the open work; and as they hurried back they suffered not less heavily
than in their advance. It was unfortunate for them that the French had
spiked the guns in the Malakoff instead of turning them on the enemy
moving into the Redan, as they ought to have done. With the immense
increase of difficulties in making way through the crowded trenches, and
renewing the attack against works now fully armed and manned, the
attempt was postponed till next day, when fresh troops, headed by the
Highlanders, were to renew it.