[Sidenote: MENACE ODESSA.]

As the fleets drew off from the land, leaving behind them the forts of

Sebastopol, both north and south, between which the usual daily duel of

cannon and mortar was going on, the French went somewhat to the

westward, and steered NW. by W., while we kept on a course N. by W. The

Admiral made signal to the fleet that "the rendezvous" was to be "five

miles S. by E. of Odessa," and it was immediately conjectured that the

object of visiting that place was to induce the Russians to take away

their forces from Nicholaieff and Cherson, in the expectation of a

descent upon them at Odessa. The speed of the squadron was not very

great, as most of the vessels had heavy boats in tow, and the signal was

made from the Admiral, "Steer four miles an hour--course NW. by N."

The _Triton_ was ordered to keep close to the Admiral, and not to follow

the signals of smaller vessels, and at 2.10 the flagship signalled that

"the Admiral's course was no longer to be regarded by the fleet," but

that they were to keep in their proper direction, as already indicated.

At four o'clock the _Triton_ was ordered not to exceed four knots an

hour, the Admiral's ship began to press on in front, and before evening

was well in advance of the squadron, attended by a despatch gun-boat.

The French, detained by their heavy batteries, made the best of their

way on our port quarter. The night was fine, and the fleet moved slowly,

and in extended order, for fear of collisions, but just before dawn the

_Stromboli_ made a slight dint in the huge bulk of the _St. Jean

d'Acre_, and carried away one of the boats.

On Monday, the 8th of October, a hot bright sun lighted up the round

mirror of sea of which the fleet formed the centre. The sea gives a poor

human creature a curious sense of his own importance. Wherever it is not

broken in upon the land, it concedes to the vessel that has the honour

of bearing him the position, or at least the sensation, of being the

very centre and navel of the universe; if it has not already smitten him

down on some cruel deck or wobegone cot, by its own peculiar protest

against the arrogance of mankind. Although many big ships were near, and

a great flotilla was moving all round the edges of our great circle, Her

Majesty's ship _Innominata_ appeared on this fine Monday morning to be

the central point on a bright, flickering, shivering mirror, fringed by

columns of smoke, or framed in by the masts of the distant fleet, fine

as cobwebs on the edge of some ancient cheval glass of Louis Quatorze.

The French fleet was away hull down on the port quarter, the grand,

showy, big tricolors at the peak just topping the horizon, and the

English fleet we could not see, for the reason assigned in the _Critic_,

which I have never heard disputed, and shall therefore give in

preference to any other.

About 8.30 something very like a three-decker under full sail, suffering

terribly from refraction, came in view--a tall white column standing out

of the sea. The haze gradually expanded as we advanced, and at last

"land" was reported from the bows, and a hapless wight was despatched up

into the clouds, to make any statements which might strike him as to the

general configuration and geographical characteristics of the coast we

were approaching, and to look out for "the British fleet at anchor," or

afloat, as the case might be. I am not aware that his information was

important or curious, and he only confirmed the profound observation of

Sir Fretful Plagiary, after a lengthened sojourn among the sea-gulls;

but, at about nine o'clock, even landsmen could make out "land" with

good telescopes, and were obliged to abandon the secret joys in which

they had indulged at the disappointment of the Quartermaster, when he

found that "a regular fog-bank" had been mistaken by him for _terra

firma_, and to admit that the "cloud," after all, was a "material

guarantee" of the Czar, and belonged indeed to Russland. The canvas of

the line-of-battle ship gradually resolved itself into a tall,

snow-white pillar, some 200 feet above the level of the sea, which marks

Cape Fontana, south of Odessa, and by degrees, as we rose the land, a

white light-house, a guard-house, a white telegraph-house and station,

white farmhouses, white villas embowered in green trees, pagodas,

minarets, domes, and church spires appeared in view, and clustered

together, till we had a day-dream of Constantinople and Naples together

with a dash of Boulogne in it, and Odessa came in sight. As I am neither

a voluntary tourist, a universal gazetteer, nor a photographer, I shall

not attempt to describe the city, which must, indeed, be well known to

Englishmen, though few artists can do justice to it. These barbarous

Russians have a rare knack of building graceful, light, cheerful, and

clean-looking cities, which even the "_Stones of Venice_" might not

utterly despise; and, if it be distance which lends enchantment to the

view, they have at least the satisfaction, denied to more civilized

people, of saying there is one point of view from which their cities win

the senses.

[Sidenote: APPEARANCE OFF ODESSA.]

As we slowly drew up to our inevitable "five miles S. by E. of Odessa,"

we passed a wonderful creation, which, compared to the slow efforts of

our ancient builders, seemed almost the work of enchantment. There stood

an extensive city, built on the curve of a high sea-shore, with

descending terraces and broad flights of steps, to the beach, which was

enclosed by broad quays and the walls of ports and casemated batteries,

all shining brightly in the morning sun. Broad esplanades, or

boulevards, lined with trees towards the sea-front, ran along the top of

the bank, with a background of stately mansions, worthy of the best

"rows" near the Regent's Park, and we could see a numerous and

gaily-dressed crowd of men and women passing along the promenade, gazing

on the dark clouds of smoke which were slowly drifting in on them from

the distance. Behind, and in continuation of this esplanade, are

splendid residences, with pillared porticoes and ornamented peristyles,

magnificent public institutions--the temples erected by Despotism to

Civilization, in hope of making peace with her--barracks, palaces,

governor's house, prisons, rising in front of a confused but graceful

mass of domes, columns, steeples, and spires. One huge dome is of an

intense ultramarine blue, and is topped by a gilt cupola; another is of

bright green, surmounted by a golden star; here is a Greek temple, there

a Tartaresque-looking mosque; there an unmistakable "little Bethel,"

here a Byzantine church; again, an Eastern minaret-like spire; farther

on, an indubitable Sir Christopher Wren steeple; and, next to it, a

grand dome and cupola, which at once reminded you of St. Peter's or St.

Paul's. This beautiful city is surrounded on the left by woods,

bestudded with the houses of Princes and Counts engaged in the corn

trade, and of merchants deeply interested in the state of the English

barometer. There is one dismantled three-masted vessel inside the port,

but the quay at the upper end of the harbour encloses a considerable

number of small coasting vessels; and even now we can see some boats

creeping down for shelter along the coast under the batteries.

At the distance of about three miles from the town, we found the

_Valorous_ and _Furious_ at anchor, and a French steam-squadron beside

them of great force, with an Admiral's flag flying from the _Asmodée_;

indeed, the French vessels, to the number of four pendants from large

steamers, and of ten pendants from gun and mortar vessels, had already

arrived, or had preceded us. The esplanade was, as I said, crowded with

people. The city was as peaceful as a drop-scene at the theatre, but the

operations of war were going on, nevertheless, and little could we tell

what alarm, confusion, terror, and dread, dwelt within that beautiful

capital on which we gazed so placidly. As the first ship of the English

squadron cast anchor, a long line of dust was observed rising over the

hilly coast to the north of Odessa and by the beach, which is lined with

trees and a thick hedge of bushes, and we soon made out bayonets

glistening in the sun, and a strong body of Russian infantry, with

field-pieces and baggage, consisting of some five or six thousand men,

marching in all haste towards the city. Two small camps could be seen on

the hill-side towards the north, and a part of this column halted and

encamped outside Odessa. A number of mounted officers accompanied the

men, and some of them rode out through the gaps in the hedge, upon the

beach, and reconnoitred the fleet, which was drawing up towards the

harbour. The eternal Cossacks, in groups of two or three, were standing

by their horses as vedettes, beside the numerous signal and telegraph

stations which line the coast at intervals, and are in connection with a

semaphore in Odessa, which was tossing about its arms like Niobe gone

mad. Others were galloping over the fertile steppe, appearing and

disappearing over the low lines of hills, and numerous herds of cattle

all over the country afforded proof that we had exaggerated the general

exhaustion of the enemy's resources, if any were needed in addition to

the prosperous appearance of all the white farmhouses and hamlets, with

their enormous stacks of hay and corn around the homesteads. Some of the

inhabitants seemed to be moving away from the place by the north road,

and many waggons and carts were visible going to and fro by the road to

the northward.

The French fleet approached towards their anchorage from the south at

the moment that the top-gallant masts and smoke-wreaths of the British

fleet peered above the horizon, and at 3.30 the _Royal Albert_, followed

at intervals by the rest of the ships, came up with signals flying for

the anchoring of all at two cables' length, in order of seniority. This

noble vessel let drop her bower in thirteen fathoms water, about three

and a half miles from Odessa, soon after four o'clock, P.M. The smaller

steamers and gun-boats were then disposed of, the tows cast loose and

secured, and with the beams of the bright setting sun lighting up the

whole of this tremendous array of batteries, with their polished

muzzles grinning from innumerable ports, the people of Odessa saw the

fleets of England and France anchor in their bay, and exhibit to them

upwards of eighty vessels of war, ready at a moment's notice to lay

their homes in the dust. The evening passed quietly; the Admiral made

but few signals, but it was known that nothing would be done, and that

till the work of sounding off Kinburn and laying down buoys for the

fleet had been accomplished, the attack would not come off. The _Viper_

received orders to start at dawn for Kinburn, whither the _Spitfire_ had

already proceeded, for the purpose of making the requisite surveys.

On the morning of October 9th, the wind came round from the SSW., and

brought with it clouds, fog, and vapours, which quite shut out the sun

from us. The shore could not be seen in detail, and the day was so murky

that we were unable to ascertain if the inhabitants of Odessa were

"flitting," as the more prudent would assuredly do, with such a

tremendous armada floating before them. The sky was of a dark leaden

grey, and seemed surcharged with rain and storm. Now and then a solitary

ray broke through this veil, and lighted up a patch of houses in the

stately city, or illuminated bits of the seaboard, displaying for a

moment the Cossack pickets and vedettes on the cliffs, and snug

farmhouses, surrounded by numerous stacks of hay and corn; small

detachments of troops on the march over the steppes, and _eilwagen_, or

lumbering Germanesque-looking diligences, traversing the coast-road, a

few stray horsemen riding at full speed across country, and herds

dotting the wide-spread plains.

[Sidenote: DIVIDED COUNCILS.]

The fleet must have presented a spectacle full of grandeur and menace to

the Odessans. It extended for the space of five miles in front of their

town,--a dense array of hulls and masts, yards and rigging, which, from

shore, looked as if it were one unbroken network of ships resting on the

water. The nine line-of-battle ships towered aloft in the centre, and

the heavy steamers, gunboats, bomb-vessels, and transports, to the

number of sixty, filled up the intervals, and extended along the flanks

of the flotilla. The esplanade in front of a magnificent pile of public

buildings was covered with a crowd of people, among whom were many

officers and soldiers and well-dressed women; and the gunners all ready

for action, inside the parapets of the long low batteries which guard

this Queen of the Euxine, were visible to us all on board. These

glimpses of the city were, however, infrequent, and were soon denied to

us altogether, for down came the Black Sea fog, and wrapped us all in

its clammy, unctuous, and chill embrace so closely that we could not see

much beyond the limits of our own ship. The ever active and

indefatigable little _Spitfire_ joined the fleet. She had been away

somewhere or other taking soundings and bearings as usual, and her

appearance was a sure sign that some place on the enemy's coast was to

be favoured by a visit before long. Captain Spratt no doubt had a useful

little budget of information for Sir Edmund Lyons when he went on board

the _Royal Albert_. In the forenoon Sir Edmund Lyons left the flagship

in his barge, and was towed by the _Danube_ to the French Admiral's

ship, where he remained for some time.

Subsequently to the Admiral's return, he signalled to each ship to

notify her draught of water. This was done accordingly by signal, and

the people of Odessa must have seen dimly a brave show of bunting in our

armada, as it required many flags to express the various draughts

forward and aft of each ship. In the afternoon the wind freshened and

the sea rose a little, causing that peculiar ground swell which

distinguishes this part of the Euxine. The fog settled down on the water

about three o'clock, slowly descending from the sky above, and distilled

itself into drops of rain, which ran down the masts and fell from spars

and rigging.

Before it became so very thick, our only amusement had been watching a

considerable force of cavalry and horse artillery, drawn up on the

cliffs, about six miles from Odessa and three miles from our anchorage.

These were evidently intended to act as a flying column of observation,

and to march on any part of the coast which might be threatened by our

troops. It consisted of four troops of some Lancer regiment, and, from

the time I first saw it, at nine in the morning, till it was lost in the

fog, it only moved once, and then it was merely to form in squadrons and

trot, wheel round, and draw up in double line again. Now a few rockets

would have put these gentry to flight at any time, but we did not seek

to inflict useless loss or annoyance upon the enemy. A gun-boat might

have run in within easy range and shelled them at her leisure with the

most complete impunity; nay, more--had the Admirals desired to inflict

such a great blow on Russia, who vaunts herself to be invulnerable, and

who boasts that, Antæus-like, she acquires fresh strength from every

overthrow, the mortar-vessels, gun-boats, and floating batteries might

have gone close enough to pour long-range shot, rockets, and bombs into

the town, without the chance of being hit by the enemy, save by great

luck. The city could not be missed, but it is very nice practice to hit

a long low black line--a snake in the grass, wheeling and twisting

about--at a distance of 2,500 yards. Let the world know that Odessa was

"spared" once more, and, indeed, no one who looked at the city, which

blends the magnificence of the East with the solid and massive grandeur

of the West, could feel any desire for its destruction, unless it were

absolutely necessary for the success of the war and for the attainment

of peace.

When the fleet was off Odessa, the advice of the highest person in

France on the project of bombarding the town was sought by the French

Admiral, and his reply implied a "radical opposition"[28] to any such

proceeding, nor was our Admiral authorized by the home authorities to

attack Odessa unless he was certain of success.[29] Sir Edmund Lyons and

Admiral Bruat acted all along in the most perfect accord, but there was

this difficulty in their mutual relations, that Admiral Lyons was not

under the orders of the British Commander-in-Chief of the army, while

Admiral Bruat was directly under the control of Marshal Pelissier, and

the latter was opposed to any operations which would require large

detachments from the French army. It was proposed at one time to send in

a flag of truce to Odessa with some such proposition as this to the

Governor--"Are you the Governor of a commercial town or of a military

station? If you say Odessa is purely a commercial town, destroy your

forts, abandon your efforts to fortify it, deliver up your gun-boats, if

any, and we promise to respect the place. If you say Odessa is a

military station, you must expect to see it treated as such by the

Allied fleets." However, in case of the Russians refusing to give up

their guns, &c., and setting us at defiance, it would have been

necessary for us to attack the town _coûte qui coûte_, and there were

many reasons why at that particular time such a course would not have

been desirable.

[Sidenote: DIVIDED COUNCILS.]

Odessa is built of stone and stucco, and is composed of large open

places and squares, offering little combustible matter, and placed at

such a distance behind the shore batteries as to be accessible only to

mortar-vessels and horizontal fire at a very long, and therefore at a

very uncertain, range. The houses are roofed with iron, and in many

cases there is no woodwork in the flooring or ceiling of the different

stories, but iron girders and tiles and slabs of stone are used instead

of planks and rafters. Many of the houses are detached, and stand like

so many palazzi in their own grounds. Under these circumstances a

general fire would have been almost out of the question, and the damage

caused by a bombardment would not have been very decisive or extensive.

With all the efforts of friends and foes to destroy it, how much of

Sebastopol remained after it had fallen into our hands! The Russians, by

the agency of powder, of piles of wood, of tar, of turpentine, and of

all sorts of combustibles, tried to get it into a blaze, but they

failed, notwithstanding a favourable breeze; and we rained shells on it

for months, and never succeeded in creating any conflagration of

importance. Well, Sebastopol contained much more wood than Odessa does,

and was more accessible to our fire. The inference is, that we could not

by any bombardment of the fleet have set the town in a blaze, or have

inflicted damage which would have compensated the Allies for the

expenditure of all their shell. It is evident that at some period or

another our fire would have ceased from exhaustion of means. Even a

line-of-battle ship's powder magazines and shot and shell rooms are not

illimitable. It is equally clear that a line-of-battle steam-ship could

not have come in close enough to the forts to develop her fire, without

running the greatest risk of being disabled before she could have got

into position. The moment would have eventually arrived when our

bomb-vessels and gun-boats and heavy steam-frigates would have been

compelled to cease firing, and that probably before much injury had been

done to a large, distant, stone-built town like Odessa; and then, if the

Russians could have fired even one gun as we retreated, they would have

claimed, and with some colouring--which would have seemed very bright

and decided in some circles in England and in many cities and towns of

despotic Germany and of free America--the credit of having beaten off

the Allied fleets!

Sir Howard Douglas declares that a 13-inch mortar ought to hit a large

object such as a fort, at the distance of 4,000 yards; but I know that

many of our bombs missed Kinburn when fired from a distance of less than

3,000 and 3,600 yards. The whole of the glacis and of the ground before

the fort for some hundred yards was burrowed up and pitted by the

craters of bombs, which made prodigious holes in the soft sand on which

they expended their force. For one shell which would fall through the

roof of a house in Odessa, three or four would fall in the public

streets, squares, and yards, where they would be comparatively harmless.

These large missiles take up great space, and the fleet _did not hold

enough to lay Odessa in ruins_. Had the Admirals been provided with all

the appliances for destroying Odessa, they might have caused great

damage to property and loss of life by firing on the place during their

stay; for, though destruction is difficult, damage and loss may easily

be effected, and there can be no doubt that a vigorous fire would have

occasioned the enemy a considerable amount of both. The French Admiral,

indeed, suggested that a certain number of gun-boats and mortar-vessels

should go in every night, and throw shell into the town; but Lord Lyons

was of opinion that such a petty measure of warfare was unworthy of us;

that we ought either to destroy Odessa, or refrain from a partial

attack, which the Russians would say, and not without pretence, had been

unsuccessful the moment it was abandoned.

The expedition, however, was never intended to operate against Odessa,

but to occupy the forts at the mouth of the Dnieper. These forts were

Oczakoff, or Ochakov, on the north, and Kinburn on the south side of the

entrance. The former is built upon a small promontory, called Oczakoff

Point; the other is situated on a long narrow spit of sand, which may be

considered as the north-western termination of the extraordinary spit of

Djarilgatch. The distance between Oczakoff and Kinburn, across the

entrance to Cherson or Dnieper Bay does not exceed a mile and a quarter,

and the passage up the Dnieper to Nicholaieff winds close to Kinburn,

and is not more than three-quarters of a mile from the forts. A very

extensive and dangerous sandbank, twenty miles long and of varying

breadth, lies between Odessa and the entrance to the Bug and Dnieper.

This bank commences at the distance of ten miles outside Odessa, and

thence runs across to Kinburn. The water on it does not exceed three

fathoms, and in some places is even less, but up to the distance of

three-quarters of a mile from the shore from Odessa to Oczakoff, there

is a belt of deep water, about three miles broad, between the shore and

the great sandbank. At a mile from Kinburn the water begins to shoal

rapidly from three fathoms in depth to a few feet. The entrance to

Cherson Bay is guarded, as it were, by the island of Beresan, and

numerous beacons and lights were formerly used to guide the mariner to

the channel, which is difficult and tortuous. The coast is well

provided with telegraphs.

Nicholaieff (the name of which is spelt by us in six different ways)

lies on the east bank of the Bug, at the distance of thirty-five miles

from the forts. Cherson Bay, which is formed by the confluence of the

Bug and Dnieper, before they flow through the channel between Oczakoff

and Kinburn, is very shallow, the navigation is extremely dangerous and

intricate, and the mouths of the Dnieper, which resemble on a small

scale the debouchments of the Danube, are almost unknown to us. The Bug

varies from three miles and a half to two miles in breadth as far

upwards as Nicholaieff, below which a sudden bend contracts its course,

the passage of which is here defended by formidable works. Its depth is

about three fathoms, but there are many sandbanks in the channel, which

winds from one side to the other of the river, and a vessel would in any

position be under easy rifle range from both sides of the stream at the

same time. It is more than thirty miles from Kinburn to the entrance of

the Dnieper, and Cherson is fifteen miles above the ill-defined boundary

where the extensive _marais_ through which the Dnieper, with many muddy

mouths, eats its way to the sea, ceases to become part of the mainland,

and is resolved into water. Persons at home endeavouring to connect this

expedition with a demonstration against Perekop might well be puzzled

when they saw that it was upwards of fifty miles from Cherson to the

Isthmus, and that the crow's flight between Kinburn and Perekop, as he

passes over the desolate Taurida--bleak, waterless, and

lifeless--exceeded ninety miles. Kinburn fort was a regular casemated

stone-built work, mounting forty guns, according to the most extreme

calculation--some giving only twenty and others thirty-two guns--but

north of the fort on the spit running towards Oczakoff the Russians had

built two sand batteries. Oczakoff Fort was not very strong, but on the

coast between it and the ferry, across the arm of the sea which runs up

to Kesandria, the enemy threw up three small batteries, with heavy guns,

one near the ferry of three guns, and two of five and three guns

respectively to the west of Oczakoff, which bore upon the channel

between that place and Kinburn. There was a good road along the spit

between Kinburn and Cherson, which, according to the best charts, are

about forty-eight or fifty miles apart by this route. The vast

importance of retaining possession of this place could not be overrated.

[Sidenote: FLEET IN A FOG.]

On the 10th of October the fog continued, and was worthy of the best

efforts of the London atmosphere in November. It was not so rich in

colour, so yellow, or so choky, but it was equally thick and clammy. In

colour it was white, and sometimes the sun stamped a moonlike imitation

of his orb upon it, and in favourable moments one could see a faint

indication of his existence above. Now and then you caught a dark

outline of a vessel looming through the mist; you strained your eyes to

make out your neighbour, but you might as well have tried to pick out

the details of Turner's "blubber boilers" or of his phantom ships, and

as you looked the vision disappeared. The water flowed with a heavy

oily roll, and the only noise to be heard was the plash of the lazy

waves against the paddle-wheels, the bumping of the rudder, and the

creak of an odd timber, as he rubbed against his fellows. "But hark!

There is a gun!" A dull burst of sound, followed by reverberations like

the muttering of distant thunder, which are caused by the echoes of the

report against the sides of the ships, denotes that the Admiral wishes

to indicate his position, to some straggler, who has not yet joined the

fleet. Solemnly, through the silence which intervenes between these

signals, comes the full rich boom of the church bells from Odessa.

Possibly Papa Nicholas or Papa Daniel is even now persuading a nervous

and fashionable congregation that the fog which hides their enemy from

view is the result of his own intercession with saint or martyr, and

these bells, which chime so sweetly, may be using their metal tongues to

call down disaster on our heads, and to invoke the blessing of Heaven on

the soldiers of the Czar. As the day advanced the fog darkened,

deepened, thickened. The rolling of drums--the beat of paddle-wheels as

a solitary steamer changed her berth with caution--the striking of the

bells of the ships, and the reports of guns at long intervals, were the

only evidence that a great fleet was lying all around us. All

communication between the ships ceased, for no one could tell where his

next neighbour was; in fact, a philosopher would have found this a

charming place for study and reflection. But those who were accustomed

to more active existence found the time very heavy on their hands, and

the excitement of seeing the men "knock about the guns," of hearing them

and the boys say their gunnery catechism, "No. 4,"--"Takes out tompions,

bear out the port, worms 'em, sponges, rams 'ome, runs out, and

trains,"--of watching the barometer, of seeing the fowls fed, and of

inspecting the various dogs, pigs, and birds which constitute the pets

of the crew, and the more substantial enjoyments of the officers, palled

after a time, and one--even off Odessa, and cheek by jowl with the

enemy--was fairly obliged to yawn by General Ennui. What was happening

around us no one could see or say, and there was a horrible gloomy

misanthropical curiosity seizing upon every one to ascertain the longest

time a Black Sea fog was ever known to last, which elicited most

startling declarations from morose old tars, that "If it's a riglar

out-and-out 'un, with a light breeze from the sutherd and vesterd, it

may last for a matter of a fortnight--ay, that it may." Sundry dismal

experiences were not wanting to enforce the probability of such a lively

event taking place again. "And then the bad weather will set in; and,

with sogers aboord, I'd like to know what we can do?"

At 3.30 P.M. the fog began to clear away, and one after another the

ships of the fleet appeared in sight, as if coming out in a dissolving

view. The Admiral availed himself of the pleasing change in the weather

to make signal for a lieutenant from each ship to repair on board the

_Royal Albert_. The change was as great as if one had come out of a dark

room into the leading thoroughfare of a large and busy city. The cutters

and gigs glided about in all directions, visits were paid from ship to

ship, and some boats swept in to have a nearer look at the shore. When

the lieutenants went on board they received instructions for the

disposition of the respective ships to which they belonged for the

following day. The arrangements were simple. The gun-boats were to sweep

the beach, if there was any resistance. The following was to be the

order of formation on shore:--

+-------+-----------------------------

| | French.

| | + Flag.

| |

| | + Commissariat.

| | + Sappers and Miners.

| | + Land Transport Corps.

| | + Reserve Ammunition.

| | + Artillery.

| | + Cavalry.

| |

| BEACH | + 63rd Regiment } Second

| | + Royal Marines } Brigade.

| | + Royal Marines }

| |

| | + Staff.

| |

| | + 20th Regiment }

| | + 57th Regiment } First

| | + 21st Regiment } Brigade.

| | + 17th Regiment }

| |

| | + Flag.

+-------+-----------------------------

It will be seen from this plan that the French formed the left and the

English the right of the force.

At 6 o'clock the fog lifted, and the lights of Odessa twinkled in the

distance. In order to strengthen the belief of the inhabitants that we

were going to attack the place to-morrow, the Admirals made signal "to

send down topgallant-masts," the usual preliminary for action in big

ships.

All was quiet during the night. On the 11th of October the sun rose

unclouded. Odessa looked more beautiful than ever. Clouds of dust were

seen rising from its streets, as if large bodies of troops were moving

about all over the town. The eternal Cossacks were watching on the

cliffs near us, walking up and down to keep themselves warm, or playing

with their shaggy little ponies. Wherever there was a good view of the

fleet to be had a crowd of people collected, and the esplanades and

terraces, and even the housetops and parapets of the batteries, were

occupied by spectators. The cavalry on the hill to the north of the town

were visible at early dawn, each man dismounted, at the side of his

horse. The flagship, at 8.30 A.M., signalled to the fleet to "Prepare

three days' provisions for troops to land with." At 11 A.M. the French

fleet got up steam, and several of our steamers followed the example. At

11.10 signal was made to gun-boats "to get up steam for slow speed," and

officers from each ship, in pursuance of instructions received, repaired

on board the Admiral's, where they were made acquainted with the exact

duty required of them in connection with the plan of attack, and were

subsequently sent in to the Admiral, who examined each of them himself

as to their respective tasks. Admiral Bruat went on board the _Royal

Albert_, and remained with Sir E. Lyons for some time. Sir H. Stewart

was also present. The following was the plan of attack on Kinburn:--

[Sidenote: DEPARTURE FOR KINBURN.]

"No. 1. The line-of-battle ships to engage the Fort Kinburn and two

sand batteries on the point, will anchor in about 30 feet, in a

line extending northward from fort, bearing E., and about 1,200

yards distant from it.

"No. 2. The four French line-of-battle ships to form the southern

division, so that the _Montebello_ will be the fourth ship from the

south, and the _Royal Albert_, as the fifth ship, will be the

southern ship of the English division.

"No. 3. The line-of-battle ships are to weigh together and form a

line abreast, north and south, at a cable apart. The southern

line-of-battle ship is then to steer so as to bring the south end

of Kinburn Fort bearing E. by compass; and to shield her from any

danger that may not have been discovered, or from approaching too

close to the bank to the S., she is to be preceded by two steamers,

the ---- and the ----, each at a cable apart, and in advance, on her

starboard bow, and showing their soundings. When the south

line-of-battle ship brings the south end of Kinburn to bear E., she

is to steer for it. The rest of the ships will then steer the same

course, keeping one cable apart, and all anchor together in a line

nearly north and south, just without the flag buoys that will be

placed during the previous night.

"No. 4. The nine ships will then be in position for the first five

or six to engage Fort Kinburn at from 1,200 to 1,400 yards, and

perhaps less, and the other three to take the sand batteries in

flank and rear at about 1,000 yards.

"No. 5. The three French floating batteries are to be placed on a

line NNW. and SSE. of each other, to the SW. of Fort Kinburn, at

about 600 yards distant from it.

"No. 6. The mortar vessels are to anchor in a line E. and W., at

2,800 yards distant, with the fort bearing NE. from the outer

vessel of the line.

"No. 7. The English mortar boats to be towed by the _Odin_, on a

line E. of the French.

"No. 8. If the outer mortar vessel brings Oczakoff telegraph on

with the east end of Fort Kinburn, bearing N. 20 E. (magnetic), and

steers for it till the Oczakoff telegraph and Odzah Point subtend

an angle of 70 degrees, she will be about the requisite distance,

of 2,800 yards from Fort Kinburn; the rest can take their stations

at a cable distance east of her.

"No. 9. The _Sidon_, _Curaçoa_, _Tribune_, _Dauntless_, and

_Terrible_ to anchor close off the North Sand Battery on Kinburn

Spit, or, when ordered, to join the squadron of gun-boats, &c.,

that have previously entered within the straits, should any large

ships of the enemy from Nicholaieff appear for the relief of

Kinburn.

"No. 10. The disposable paddle steamers can find good positions

between the line-of-battle ships for directing their fire with

steady aim at the embrasures of the casemates or at any position

where the enemy maintains his fire, or off the N. and NW.

extremity of the Kinburn Spit, to enfilade the batteries and their

approaches.

"No. 11. The gun-boats will attend to protect the army during the

landing, and those not ordered to remain to cover their flank to

take up position between the other ships as opportunity offers, and

by a careful attention to the plan of attack are not to fire in the

direction of the other ships.

"No. 12. The Admiral holds the captains responsible for there being

no firing, unless the men can distinctly see the objects they are

directed to fire upon.

"_Triton_ and _Beagle_ to attend _St. Jean d'Acre_. Each ship's

boats to land her own troops. Reserve ammunition for the Marines to

be landed with them. _Spiteful_ and _Furious_, assisted by

_Triton_, to land 21 cavalry horses, 7 staff horses, 27 regimental

staff horses from No. 197, and 60 Sappers, with tools, &c.

"The captain of each ship is to be responsible for the

disembarkation of his own troops and baggage.

"PROCEEDINGS OF THE ADVANCED SQUADRON FOR BUOYING THE

DANGERS.

"The ships denoted in the margin, piloted by the _Spitfire_, are to

start at 1 P.M. and anchor in the following position, as shown in

the chart No. 2,201, from Odessa to Knieper Bay:--

A. B. C. D. E. F. G. H.

No. 2. A. _Valorous._

B. _Dauntless._

No. 1. C. _Gladiator._

D. _Furious._

E. _Spiteful._

F. French mortar-boat.

G. French mortar-boat.

H. French mortar-boat.

[Sidenote: BOMBARDMENT OF KINBURN.]

"The vessels anchored at C, D, and E, on the north side of the

passage, are after sunset to show a red light to the west, and

those at F, G, and H, are to show green lights in the same

direction, as guides for the fleet on passing through during the

night. The vessel at A, _Valorous_, to show lights vertical over

the side, screened from NW. round by E. to S., and seen to the W.

only. The four gun-boats _Clinker_, _Cracker_, _Grinder_, and

_Fancy_, accompanied by four French gun-boats of shallow draft of

water, will proceed, after the former vessels have anchored, to the

rendezvous, at 8 P.M., near the _Valorous_, anchored at A. The four

English gun-boats to be provided with buoys (white). The vessel at

No. 2 A to provide two boats, that are to be despatched and

anchored upon the SW. extremity of Oczakoff Bank, in four fathoms,

to be a guide, by showing lights for the French gun-boats to

commence buoying the edge of that bank with black buoys. The two

boats on their return to the _Valorous_ to place a white buoy on

the end of Kinburn Spit, in five fathoms water.

"The _Spitfire_, assisted by the boats of the _Dauntless_, at B,

will mark the edge of the bank--ere landing--west of Kinburn, with

small white flags, placed in five fathoms.

"N.B. All white buoys are to lie on the south side of the channel,

and black buoys mark the north edge of it, and are consequently to

be left on the port hand in passing to eastward."

The evening of the 11th was unsettled--wind from SW. and S. On the 12th

the weather was again unfavourable; on the 13th it blew briskly, sending

in a heavy sea; but the wind abated towards night, and orders were given

to prepare to weigh at dawn next morning. On the morning of Oct. 14, the

fleet weighed and stood along shore towards the Liman of the Dnieper.

The weather was beautiful, and we could admire at our leisure the

numerous clean-looking, snug villages, the immense flocks and herds, and

well-filled farmyards, which met the eye along the steppe. The fleet

anchored three miles west of Kinburn Fort at three o'clock. On the 15th

the troops landed about four miles below the fort, without the smallest

opposition, or even the appearance of an enemy, in the order already

indicated. The 17th Regiment was the first to land, and the French were,

for a wonder, behind us. The weather continuing fine, the troops set to

work, intrenching themselves on the sandy spit; only a few Cossacks were

visible all that day, but in the afternoon, as a few French troopers

were patrolling in front of our lines on the plain towards Cherson, they

came upon a picket, which consisted of eight men, hid in some brushwood.

They charged the Cossacks at once with great gallantry, killed two, and

took two prisoners out of the party.

CHAPTER IV.

The Fleets open Fire--Effects of the Fire from Floating Batteries,

Mortar-vessels, and Gun-boats--A Flag of Truce--The Governor of

Kinburn surrenders--Terms of the Capitulation--Kinburn Fort

described--A bad lot of Muscovite Infantry--Oczakoff destroyed--A

Cruise up Cherson Bay--Expedition up the Bug--Scenery on the

Banks--Fight with a Battery--Sharp Practice--Order for the

Return--Divine Service celebrated at the confluence of the Bug and

the Dnieper--Operations by the French--Great Men on Shore--The two

Admirals go on a Cruise--Sir E. Lyons and Sir H. Stewart part

company.

The sea was too rough on the 16th of October to open fire, but every

preparation was made for the day following. It was a dull, grey dawn,

with the wind off shore, and the sea was quite calm. Early in the

morning, the Russians in the Fort of Kinburn, perceiving that the French

had crept up to a ruined village during the night, and that they were

busily engaged in making their first parallel, under cover of the

houses, at about 650 or 700 yards from the place, opened a brisk fire

upon them from the guns _en barbette_ in the eastern curtain. They were

answered by two French field-pieces from the screen of a broken wall.

The fleet at anchor was perfectly still, but the mortar-vessels,

floating batteries, and gun-boats were getting up steam, and by nine

o'clock they might be seen leaving the rest of the armada, and making

towards the south side of the fort. The three French floating batteries

took up a position close to the casemates, and the mortar-vessels and

gun-boats were drawn up further away, and more to the eastward, so as to

attack the angle of the fort, and fight the guns _en barbette_ on the

curtains. The floating batteries opened with a magnificent crash, at

9.30 A.M., one in particular distinguished itself by the regularity,

precision, and weight of its fire throughout the day. At 10.10 A.M. the

bomb ketches opened fire. The enemy replied with alacrity, but his

batteries must have been put to a severe test. At 11.10 A.M. a fire

broke out in the long barrack inside the fort, and speedily spread from

end to end, driving the artillerymen from their guns. Small explosions

of ammunition took place from time to time inside the works.

[Sidenote: SURRENDER OF KINBURN.]

At 11.15 A.M. the Russian Jack was shot away, and was not replaced. The

fire in the fort raged more furiously, fed by constant bombs and

rockets, and at 12.35 a fresh conflagration burst out. Soon afterwards

Admiral Stewart, in the _Valorous_, and the French Admiral (second in

command), in the _Asmodée_, followed by a fleet of eleven steamers, came

round the Spit Battery into Cherson Bay, delivering broadsides and

engaging the fort and outworks as they passed. They were preceded by the

_Hannibal_, which completely ripped up the sand batteries on the Spit.

The _Valorous_, _Asmodée_, steam frigates, and nine line-of-battle ships

took up their position in magnificent style opposite the seaward face of

the fort, which was already seriously damaged by the tremendous fire of

the floating batteries, gun-boats, and mortar-vessels, and Kinburn was

soon entirely in flames. The Russian fire was quite silenced, save from

one gun. The second in command, whose name was something like

Saranovitzky--a Pole by birth--inflamed by courage and its Dutch ally,

declared he would not surrender, and prepared to blow up the magazine

before the enemy should enter. In this resolve he was supported by the

officer of engineers and by the officer of artillery. Amid the crash of

falling buildings, the explosions of shells, the thunder of the fleet,

and the smoke and flame of their crumbling houses and batteries, the

Russians held a council of war, at which it was put to the vote whether

they should surrender or not, and the majority carried the question in

the affirmative, on the side of humanity and reason. In vain the fanatic

Pole, the artilleryman, and the engineer, tried to persuade the Governor

and the majority to persist in the madness of continuing a purely

passive resistance, for active opposition was out of their power. "We

can hold out for a week," said they.

"What then?" asked the Governor. "You have not been able to fire a shot

for three-quarters of an hour. Are you likely to be in a better state

two hours hence, and, above all, where are the men to live in the

meantime?" Such arguments, enforced by tremendous broadsides and by the

knocks of cannon-balls against every wall of the fort, prevailed. The

second in command, the artillery officer, and the engineer, finding

themselves deserted by officers and men, abandoned their suicidal

determinations, and agreed to surrender. The white flag was hoisted,

much to the satisfaction of every humane sailor in the Allied fleet, who

could feel no pleasure in destroying a brave enemy, and much more to the

gratification of those who were allowed to desist from a demonstration

of hopeless courage.

Two boats, each bearing a flag of truce, pushed off, one from the

English and another from the French Admiral, at the same time. Sir

Houston Stewart proceeded to land near the battery, where he found the

French General already advancing to parley with the Governor.

Major-General Kokonovitch appeared with a sword and pistol in one hand

and a pistol in the other. He threw down his sword at the officer's

feet, and discharged his pistols into the ground, or at least pulled the

triggers with the muzzles pointed downwards, in token of surrender. He

was moved to tears, and as he left the fort he turned round and uttered

some passionate exclamation in Russian, of which the interpreter could

only make out, "Oh, Kinburn! Kinburn! Glory of Suwaroff and my shame, I

abandon you," or something to that effect. Kokonovitch wept as he threw

down the pen with which he signed the articles of surrender, but he had

no reason to be ashamed of his defence.

So Kinburn was ours, as far as the flames and smoke would allow us to

occupy it. By the terms of the capitulation the garrison were permitted

to retire with everything except their arms, ammunition, and cannon; the

officers were allowed to wear their swords, the men to carry knapsacks,

clothing, regimental bugles, church property, relics, and pictures. When

the Major-General was asked to use his influence, or to give a pledge

that no harm should befall such of the Allies as might enter the place,

he said he would do so, "but at the same time I must tell you," added

he, "that the flames are at this moment very near the grand magazine."

This was a friendly caution, which produced, of course, a corresponding

effect, and steps were at once taken to prevent any such lamentable

losses as were caused after the evacuation of Sebastopol by the rashness

of the troops. The defenders of the northern forts on the Spit were not

aware for some time of the reduction of the principal battery, or at

least paid no attention to it, and hammered away from one gun till a

shot from the _Terrible_ utterly destroyed the casemate.

The prisoners sold their kits and all they could dispose of--droschkies,

horses, spare clothing, and food, by a rude kind of public auction on

the Spit.

As the garrison marched out they were ordered to pile their arms, but

many of them, with rage and mortification depicted on their features,

threw them on the ground at the feet of the conquerors. On the whole,

they seemed "the worst lot" of Muscovite infantry I ever saw, and

consisted of either old men or lads--the former fine soldier-like

fellows enough, but the latter stupid, loutish, and diminutive. They

availed themselves of the license in the fort to fill all their

canteens, and in some instances their stomachs also, with "vodka," and

many of them were drunk when they marched out, but intoxication had the

effect of making them extremely amiable and facetious. The officers bore

their misfortune with dignity, but felt it deeply, as was evident from

their grave demeanour and stern countenances. Few of them wore

decorations, and only one was dressed in full uniform. A Chef de

Bataillon or Major, wearing a long light-blue cloak with red collar, who

limped along with difficulty, had a good deal of influence over those

around him, and kept the drunken soldiers in awe by his look, and a

sergeant in a long green frock-coat with yellow facings and stripes,

aided him in repressing the mirthful disposition of some of the

bacchanalians on the line of march.

Kinburn Fort had fifty-one guns mounted _en barbette_, inside and in the

outworks, six flanking guns in casemates, and twelve mortars, and of

these twenty-nine were dismounted, smashed, or disabled in gun or

carriage. In the Centre Spit Battery there were ten guns, of which two

were disabled; and in the Spit or North Battery there were ten guns, of

which three were smashed. We arrived just in time to prevent the latter

work from assuming most troublesome dimensions, for the casemates were

ready for nine guns more, and the platforms indicated they would be of

large calibre. The guns in position were small eighteen and twenty-four

pounders, of great weight and thickness, and some of ancient date;

inside we found a small park of guns ready for mounting. Some were of

the date of 1852, and the piles of shot and shell and stores of

ammunition of all kinds were out of all proportion to the size of the

place.

At six o'clock, on the 18th, the Russians, with their usual incendiary

propensities, set fire to the fort below Oczakoff, and after blowing up

the magazines, which went into the air with two heavy explosions,

retired. On the 19th, in compliance with the wishes of the French

Admiral, Sir Edmund Lyons decided on despatching a squadron, under the

orders of Sir Houston Stewart, to co-operate with the French squadron

under Rear-Admiral Pellion in protecting the left flank of the Allied

troops who set out on a reconnaissance towards Cherson.

[Sidenote: UP THE BUG.]

Before the squadrons weighed a French boat left the Rear-Admiral's ship

with a flag of truce for Oczakoff. She carried a reply to the request

sent by the Russian general under a flag of truce the previous day, and

informed him that the "major-general who had commanded in Kinburn _se

porte à merveille_, that forty-five wounded Russians were in the French

ambulances, and that the French general regretted he could not state the

names of the officers who were prisoners," but he did not say whether

that was owing to any difficulties in orthography or not. As the boat

neared the beach, an officer, followed by two soldiers, came from the

town to meet them. One of the men bore a tremendous flag of truce--there

could be no Hango mistake about it; he had a large tablecloth suspended

from a pole, under the weight of which he staggered as he walked. The

boat touched the beach, and, with much formal bowing and martial

civilities, the missive was handed to the Russian, who retired with his

tablecloth waving behind him up the hill, and was lost to sight amid the

houses. Two old priests scrambled down to the ruins of the fort, and,

with their flowing robes and long beards, seemed like ancient prophets

invoking maledictions--as no doubt they were--upon the fleet.

Early on the 20th, the French Rear-Admiral stood up Cherson Bay with the

lighter vessels of his squadron before the English Admiral was aware of

his intention. Soon after dawn our smaller gun-boats started in the same

direction, and Rear-Admiral Sir Houston Stewart, having sent off his

despatches to Sir Edmund Lyons, hoisted the signal for the large

gun-boats and steam-sloops under his command to weigh anchor and follow.

At nine o'clock A.M. he led the way, with his flag flying in the

_Stromboli_, towards the confluence of the Bug and Dnieper. He was

followed by the _Gladiator_, _Spiteful_, and _Triton_ steamers, by the

_Wrangler_, _Snake_, and _Viper_. A whole shoal of gun-boats, _Boxer_,

_Cracker_, _Clinker_, _Fancy_, _Grinder_, &c.,--were some miles in

advance, in company with the French squadron, threading their way among

the intricate shoals which guard the entrance to the Dnieper.

At last, entering the mouth of the Bug, we observed some of the French

squadron coming down the river, and the two Admirals met and held a

conference on board the _Stromboli_.

The French Admiral assured Sir Houston Stewart that he had been up the

river to the Spit, which extends from the western bank for some distance

into the stream, at about seven miles from Ajiojhio Point on its western

entrance, and that he had not seen any sign of an enemy. The Admiral

resolved to have a look for himself, and proceeded slowly up the river

in the _Stromboli_, which was followed by the small gun-boats. On both

sides the banks were high, and the brown steppe, studded with herds and

farmhouses, presented no object of interest. About three miles up, on

the left-hand bank, we came upon a small village. Five miles up, on the

right-hand bank, there was another village, with two pretty churches.

There were guard stations and look-out posts on both banks. The river

was three or four miles broad up to the Spit, where it narrowed

considerably. The cliff was upwards of 100 feet high, and could scarcely

be commanded by the guns of a ship. However, it was advisable to

ascertain what defences existed on the lower part of the river till it

contracted into such dimensions as would bring a ship within range from

both banks. The _Cracker_ and _Grinder_ went on ahead, the _Stromboli_

followed with the Admiral's flag flying, examining bearings and

farm-yards at our leisure, and the _Spitfire_ came next, engaged in her

labour of sounding, and probing, and angling every bit of the earth's

face and of the waters under the earth within reach of lead, glass, and

compass. They were now near the Spit, and we could see the stream beyond

it.

Above the Spit there was a high bank rising to the steppe behind, and at

the distance of some hundred yards from the edge there was a tumulus,

behind which I fancied I saw artillery. The _Cracker_ had run on ahead,

and the _Grinder_ was just drawing on parallel with this high bank--we

were all peering at it, and one officer was saying to the other, "Well!

I wonder the Russians have not got a battery on that cliff"--when from a

seam in its side, parallel with the water, a puff of white smoke spirted

out, and the rush of a shot followed, which terminated in a splash in

the water close to the side of the _Grinder_. "Tell _Grinder_ he may

give him a shot in reply," cried Admiral Stewart. The little _Grinder_,

with more valour than discretion, at once put down his helm and ran in,

drawing across the _Stromboli_, at which the enemy opened another gun at

the moment. This shot fell short. And now light field-pieces, on the top

of the cliffs, opened; none of the shot from the Russians had yet fallen

closer than twenty yards to us. The drum beat to quarters on board the

_Stromboli_, and the men rushed on deck in a state of high delight to

clear for action; berthings were removed, and guns got ready, but

_Grinder_ being intent on doing his _devoir_ got in our way, so that his

recall was hoisted. The _Stromboli_ slowly craned over towards the bank.

The principal work was a trench in the cliff, half-way up, and when you

came to squint along a gun, and saw only four little black eyes staring

at you over a parapet of earth which did not seem three inches high, you

began to understand the difficulty of striking such objects. "Try 2,500

yards!" The gun was trained. At the words, "Well! Fire!" the iron globe,

whose curve you could trace through the air, hurtled with the peculiar

hiss of its race, over the parapet, knocking up a black pillar of earth

from the crest of the hill, and bounding far away to the rear. "Too

high!" The Russians replied at once. The shot flew over Captain Spratt's

head, who was at the foretop, and plunged into the water 200 or 300

yards beyond us. The Muscov had been playing the game of firing short,

to entice us well under his battery. _Stromboli_ kept edging nearer, the

captains of the guns were all intently gazing along their sights. "Try

2,000 yards." Away flew the iron messenger again, but he only told the

Russians to bob their heads and keep out of his way, and passed behind

them. Aimed "too high" again. The _Spitfire_, _Cracker_, and _Grinder_

were now coming into action. The enemy's field-pieces took to shell, and

studded the air above us with smoke-clouds, the angry hum of their

splinters was heard on all sides. Whiz!--right across our deck comes a

shot, and plashes into the water over our counter. Our long gun at the

bow sends a shot in reply, at 1,700 yards, which goes right into their

battery this time. Whiz! whiz! two shots, one after the other, one

dashing up the water close to her sides, the other cutting the jib

foot-rope of the _Stromboli_.

[Sidenote: NICHOLAIEFF.]

Sir Houston Stewart resolved to return. That there was no intention of

going up to Nicholaieff with a steam-sloop, a surveying sloop, and some

small gun-boats I need not say, and had the enemy been driven from the

Spit ten times a day he could have returned at any time, and have

constructed just such another flying defence as that with which we were

engaged. Indeed, the Admiral would not have replied to the enemy's fire

at all, but that Jack is dissatisfied if not permitted to return a shot

whenever one is sent at him. With a parting salute, the _Stromboli_ set

her jib, slewed round, and steamed slowly down the river. The enemy

continued to fire after us, but the _Spitfire_, _Grinder_, and _Cracker_

covered the movement, and a shell from the latter burst in the

earthwork, and appeared to do some mischief. As we returned towards the

Liman, the _Spiteful_, _Triton_, and _Arrow_, which had remained off the

mouth of the Bug--"an unpleasant position," said Sir Houston Stewart,

"which will be appreciated by London lodgers"--were seen steaming up to

us, as they apprehended that they could help us out of a scrape; but the

emulative gunners had not a chance of doing anything.

The little flotilla remained at its anchorage off the Bug, for the

night, without any apprehensions that the enemy from Nicholaieff could

do any harm. Mr. Brooker, one of the most active and intelligent

officers of the _Spitfire_--and that is indeed saying much, where all

were so able and so willing--volunteered to go in the _Cracker_ after

dusk, to ascertain the force and position of the enemy's batteries; but

it was judged inexpedient to hazard the loss of a gun-boat, which would

be made a subject of great rejoicing and triumph to the enemy, while the

success of the experiment would not be of much importance, inasmuch as

we were not in a position to attack and occupy Nicholaieff. Had Marshal

Pelissier listened to the demand of Sir Edmund Lyons for 15,000 or

20,000 men, there would, indeed, have been some utility in a

reconnaissance, for the operations of our steam fleet might have

mystified the enemy so completely as to enable us to land a force, and

by a _coup de main_ to destroy, though not to occupy, Nicholaieff. The

town is 5,000 yards from the Spit, on the confluence of the Ingul and

Bug, and it would be necessary to force batteries, booms, sunken

vessels, gun-boats, in very shoal and difficult water, and get round

into the Ingul itself, before the fleet could fire a shot on the place.

Every vessel would have to run the gauntlet of high banks lined with

riflemen which their guns could not reach.

On Sunday, 21st, in the forenoon, Church pendants were hoisted, and

Divine Service according to the Church of England was duly celebrated,

for the first time since Christianity blessed the earth, in the

confluence of the Bug and Dnieper, within sight of the spires of many

Greek orthodox churches. Afterwards, the French had a little _missa

solennis_ of their own. At 2.30 P.M., three large and one small gun-boat

of their squadron got up steam and weighed. They stood straight up the

river, and great was our excitement lest they should silence the battery

which we had left with its teeth drawn, if not its tongue tied.

Before they started, Sir Houston Stewart, having signalled for an

officer of the _Spitfire_ to come on board, went off in the _Cracker_,

attended by the _Grinder_, to examine the coast to the SSE., and to

ascertain the cause of the numerous fires, indicated by pillars of

smoke, in that direction. The Allied troops were supposed to be

advancing for forty miles along the Spit, to destroy the forage and

provision, so as to make the country waste. However harsh this measure

may appear, it was a necessary operation. When Sydney Smith drew his

terrible picture of John Bull's afflictions in a probable

invasion--corn-ricks blazing on every side--sows of the best breed

running about with their throats cut, he must have had a prophetic

inkling of the operations of the troops on their way to Cherson.

Our Allies sidled up to the Spit, where we were engaged. Perhaps they

had some notion that they might succeed in destroying the battery which

their good friends, the English, had not reduced to silence. The day was

very dull, and there was immense refraction, so that the end of the

cliff appeared to be lifted out of the water, and the vessels to have

wavering hulls and quivering masts. At last they arrived off the Spit,

and the enemy opened fire upon them at once. The small gun-boat stood

bravely on till it was within 1,500 yards of the shore--the others

anchored at 1,800, and they then engaged the breastwork very sharply.

The French averred that they dismounted one gun at least, and drew down

a great body of the enemy before they retired. This they did after half

an hour's dalliance, and then they anchored off the mouth of the Bug,

close to us once more.

[Sidenote: WAS IT THE CZAR?]

Meantime we had seen a sight which led us to believe that His Majesty

the Czar, or one of his Imperial family, was actually honouring our

little squadron by a minute inspection. Perhaps he was thinking how much

better they would look if they were all assembled to run for a marine

Cesarewitch. It might, indeed, have been after all only a Governor of

Cherson whom we saw, but there certainly did appear, on the east bank of

the Bug, about mid-day, some great man on a big, black horse, followed

by ten or twelve mounted officers, and some few orderlies. This august

personage rode over to the Cossack post, dismounted, and honoured us,

through his glass, by a good look, which he interrupted from time to

time by a few words to those around him. Presently a Cossack came

galloping across the steppe at full speed, to the group of cavaliers. He

dismounted, and walking to the surveyor of our navy, knelt down, and

appeared to kiss his feet, as he handed him a despatch. The great man

read the missive, mounted his horse, and, followed by his suite, rode

off to a neighbouring post. The next time we saw him he was visiting the

Cossack post higher up the river, after which he proceeded along the

road towards Nicholaieff. Some time after the French boats had returned,

the English gun-boats came in sight. They all came back, having

disturbed immense quantities of wildfowl, which have frequented the

banks of the Borysthenes since remotest history. The vessels anchored in

their old place, and Admiral Stewart left the _Cracker_, and went on

board the _Stromboli_. At night strict watch was kept. Fire-ships are

not much to be feared by steamers, but still the wind was strong down

from Nicholaieff, and the Russians might attempt something. Look-out

men, sentinels, and loaded carronades were placed fore and aft, and with

these precautions we went to sleep--in the waters, for the time being,

of Her Majesty the Queen and of His Imperial Majesty Louis Napoleon.

On October 22 the wind chopped round and blew up the Bug. At ten o'clock

A.M., Admiral Stewart went on board the _Spitfire_, and proceeded

southwards, towards Kinburn Spit, to look out for the expeditionary

column. Fires were still blazing along the horizon. As he bore away, a

French gun-boat came with a despatch from Admiral Pellion, which

politely placed at the disposal of Sir Houston Stewart several

_chaloupes cannonières_ lying off the mouth of the Dnieper, in case he

felt inclined to destroy certain large boats on the beach below

Stanislaff. As the _Spitfire_ was forging ahead, the little _Danube_,

with an admiral's flag, red at the mizen, was seen on the horizon. It

could be no other than Sir Edmund Lyons. The echo of the guns, and the

distant scent of gunpowder, had enticed him into our waters to see what

was going on. Sir Houston Stewart, Captain Spratt, Commander Cowper

Coles, went on board the _Danube_, which, accompanied by the _Spitfire_,

immediately steamed towards Kinburn Spit. They got within half a mile of

the _marais_, which binds the coast with a belt of long deep rushes, but

not a soldier was visible, with the exception of one solitary Cossack.

There were some traces of the troops at Skadovska, about thirteen miles

from Kinburn, for black columns of smoke rose up from the Spit in that

direction. But the reconnaissance failed in detecting the line of march

of the troops or in opening communications with them.

At 2.30 P.M. the Admirals returned from their cruise, and stood in

towards Stanislaff. As they approached, it was clear the enemy thought

two British Admirals did not fly their flags together for nothing. A

strong body of infantry was drawn up on the heights among the houses,

lest the admirals and post-captains should land and take Stanislaff by

assault, or the _Danube_ and _Spitfire_ attempt to bombard the place. A

very considerable force of field-artillery was stationed in the rear.

The Russians had erected a solid, compact-looking sand battery with five

embrasures, on the sand-bank below the town, where no trace of such a

work existed twenty-four hours previously. The Admirals having taken a

good look at the place, now parted company; Sir E. Lyons returned in the

_Danube_ to the fleet, and Sir H. Stewart steamed away in the _Spitfire_

to the anchorage of the Bug, and afterwards went on board the

_Stromboli_.

The reconnaissance burned all the stores and houses which could render

service to the enemy for seven or eight miles towards Cherson. Ere we

left we discovered two large rafts of wood concealed in the rushes off

the mouth of the Dnieper.

Sir Edmund Lyons presented one of the rafts to the French--an act of

courtesy and consideration which our Allies estimated at its full value.

Their dimensions were as follows:--The first 420 feet long by 63 feet

wide, and six feet deep. The second, nearly the same length as the

first, 54 feet broad; it grounded in eight feet water. At a rough

calculation the two rafts contain 90,000 cubic feet of the finest

timber, and the present made by the English fleet to the French, through

our Commander-in-Chief, cannot be estimated at a lower value than

£20,000; at least if the timber was in England, it would be well worth

the money, for the majority of the balks, spars, and centre pieces

composing it are of the very finest white oak.

The dockyards of Nicholaieff are supplied with timber and wood from the

Government of Ligtewski, which contains several large forests of fine

trees. These are situated chiefly in the neighbourhood of Minsk,

Mohilev, and Vitebsk. The wood is floated down the Dnieper to Cherson in

rafts firmly clamped and bound together, with strong and substantial

huts upon them for the navigators. Each raft is generally composed of

4,000 large trunks of oak-trees, which are covered with knees and

smaller pieces roughly shaped after drawings and instructions sent to

the cutters. This is done, that the timber may be made available at once

for use in the dockyards. After being floated as far as the current will

take them down the Dnieper, they are met by the Government steamers

outside or inside the bar off the mouths of that river, and thus towed

up to Nicholaieff. Some small steamers must be kept at Nicholaieff, at

all events at this moment, but they have never stirred, nor have we seen

any traces of them in the Bug. Cherson was the great ship-building and

maritime yard for the Black Sea fleet in former days, but the difficulty

of building large ships there, or rather of getting them away when once

they were built, on account of the shallowness of the water on the bar

of the Dnieper, forced the Russian Government to remove their

establishments to Nicholaieff, on the confluence of the Bug and of the

Ingul. The bar of the Bug has a depth of eighteen or nineteen feet; the

bar of the Dnieper has only eight feet water upon it in ordinary

seasons. The ships of the line are built at Nicholaieff, but it is not

improbable that small vessels and frigates of light draught may still be

constructed at Cherson. The arsenal at Nicholaieff is very extensive,

but its principal supplies of timber came from the Dnieper, and the loss

of these two rafts will be no inconsiderable injury. Fine oak timber

such as they contain is very dear and scarce in Russia. The timber in

the casemated Spit Battery, and the expense of erecting it, came to no

less a sum than 45,000 silver roubles, or £7,500 English currency.

[Sidenote: DEFENCE OF KINBURN.]

On Sunday, the 28th of October, Captain Paris joined the Allied squadron

blockading the Bug and Dnieper, with orders to take the command as soon

as Admiral Stewart went; and we left that officer with the _Beagle_,

_Viper_, _Snake_, and another English gun-boat, and four French

gun-boats, to keep up that dismal duty. Admiral Stewart sailed from the

Bug on Tuesday morning, the 30th of October, and joined the fleet at

Kinburn. A portion of the fleet which had gun-boats to tow started for

Kamiesch the same evening. The Allied fleet, under Sir E. Lyons and

Admiral Bruat, Sir H. Stewart and Admiral Pellion, sailed the following

day for the same anchorage.

Ere the expeditionary force returned to Kamiesch and Kazatch the most

effectual measures which could be adopted were used to put the garrison

of Kinburn in safety for the winter. All the curtains of the Fort of

Kinburn were rebuilt, the ruins cleared away, the damaged guns removed,

and ships' fine guns put in their place; the fosse cleared out and

deepened, the palisades repaired, the south-eastern gateway filled up,

and its approaches covered by a strong ravelin; the crest of the

parapets repaired solidly and well with fascines and earthwork, the

Russian guns rendered efficient, the casemates cleared out and filled

with stores or adapted as barracks, and the interior buildings in course

of reconstruction and renovation. The result proved the defensive

preparations were so formidable, that the enemy never attempted to

operate against the French troops stationed there, although the sea (a

very unusual occurrence) was frozen hard across to Oczakov.

Kinburn having been secured against the attack of any forces the enemy

could bring against it, and covered completely by the guns of the

formidable flotilla we left to protect it, the greater portion of the

fleet sailed for Balaklava and Kamiesch before November.

The blockade of the Bug and the Dnieper was of course raised by the

first frost, and the gun-boats engaged in that service had dropped down

and joined the flotilla at Kinburn. Before the expedition started,

nearly all the smaller gun-boats were despatched to reinforce Captain

Sherard Osborne's flotilla in the Sea of Azoff, where that active and

energetic officer was harrying the Russians as a hawk perturbs a field

of larks.[30]

The Cossacks showed themselves from time to time in the neighbourhood of

Kinburn, but the state of the Spit prevented them from establishing a

camp or even a grand guard near the fort. Three military and three

naval French officers, who went out shooting on the Spit a few days

after the sailing of the ships for Kamiesch, were picked up and made

prisoners by these lynx-eyed gentry. They surrounded our gallant Allies

under cover of a fog, and then lured them one after another into their

snares, by shouting in French, and discharging their carbines. They

literally used snares, for they had ropes all ready for each man as they

caught him, and to bind him if he resisted or tried to give the alarm to

his comrades.

CHAPTER V.

Promotions--Peaceful Toils--Improvements--Memorandum of October

15th--Expedition to Eupatoria countermanded--Intelligence by

Telegraph--State of Affairs in Sebastopol--Want of Proper System

and Organization--French Review--Extract from Divisional Orders.

During the progress of the Kinburn Expedition, General Orders announced

the promotion of Colonel Windham to the rank of Major-General "for

distinguished services in the field," and his appointment to the command

of the Fourth Division, with which he served as Assistant-Quartermaster-General

until he was named to the command of that Brigade of the Second

Division, at the head of which he fought on the 8th September.

Lord William Paulet assumed the command of the 2nd Brigade of the Fourth

Division, and occupied General Bentinck's old quarters on Cathcart's

Hill.

[Sidenote: PREPARING FOR WINTER.]

The camp before Sebastopol, into which Russian projectiles not

unfrequently obtruded, was nevertheless tranquil and laborious, as some

new settlement in Australian bush or America's backwoods. The Russians

continued to pound away at intervals at the ruins of the town they had

been forced to abandon. They did little harm to us, and might as well

have saved the ammunition, which they often condescended to expend even

on a single soldier, wandering among the broken walls or across the

plain. Our old friend Bilboquet, long silent, now opened his mouth, and

sent shot at the works by Traktir Bridge, or at anything he saw moving

in the valley below his muzzles. The English army, convinced that it was

to winter in camp, set seriously to work to guard against the effects of

weather from which it suffered so grievously, and to make itself as

comfortable as possible. Hutting and road-making were the occupations of

the hour, and rapid progress was made in both. Strong wooden huts sprang

up on every side, and here and there a solid stone dwelling was in

course of construction.

It was a striking contrast between the sufferings of the former

winter--exposure, want of clothing, and famine--with the prospect of

plenty and comfort, and it was pleasant to observe the cheerfulness and

the activity that prevailed. Drainage was not neglected, and, indeed, it

was a question whether it was not almost overdone. Some of the ditches,

dug along each side of the roads, and around the stores, hospital huts,

and other establishments, were of formidable width and depth, and of a

dark night proved dangerous to wanderers through the camp, especially if

they had been taking "just one more glass" in the quarters of some

hospitable friend. But the rain frequently descended in torrents, the

water swept down the slopes in sheets and floods, and deep drainage was

essential.

Mr. Doyne, the superintendent of the Army Works Corps, proceeded

vigorously with his labours. Mr. Doyne divided the road into miles, and

at every mile was placed a station-hut and a lamp, with a corporal and

two men to act as police. We heard nothing but the clatter of the spade

and the thud of the pick, varied by frequent explosions of small mines,

with which builders and road-makers got rid of the rock that impeded

their work. Besides working at the roads, parties were busy at various

small jobs, clearing wells, &c. But the want of proper system and

organization, which was so often deplorably shown during this war, was

again visible. With different arrangements, half the men, perhaps a

quarter of them, could have done the work of the whole 10,000 employed

on the roads, and probably have done it better, because they would have

been less crowded. Thus, for instance, a regiment of the Third Division,

at the farthest extremity of the camp, marched down to work at

Balaklava, returning at night, daily performing a distance of nearly

fifteen miles. Of course, this was just so much power taken out of the

men, and the army was full of boys whose strength was not equal to a

good day's work. It could not, in fact, be got out of them, even though

they had not to walk long distances.

There were frequent alarms, but many were of opinion--some of them

persons whose opinion had weight--that our Muscovite friends had not the

remotest idea of attacking us, and that Lord Panmure's information to a

contrary effect, derived from Berlin, proceeded, in fact, from St.

Petersburg, or, at any rate, from friends of our enemies, who desired to

prevent us taking advantage of what little fine weather remained to

undertake fresh expeditions against them.

The telegraph brought information that the Russians were about to

abandon the north side also. There was no visible sign of such

evacuation, nor was there any probable reason to assign for it,

excepting that the Russians would find it impossible to supply their

army during the winter. On this point opinions differed widely. Some

thought that the Russians would experience no difficulty in bringing

enough supplies by the road from Perekop; others doubted that the road

was sufficient, and were also of opinion that the Russian means of

transport would run short. It was pretty certain that no large depôt of

provisions existed, and also that none had ever existed, not even at the

commencement of the siege, near at hand. In the previous winter the

Russians--who doubtless never contemplated a siege of such duration, and

probably never dreamt of an attack by land at all, or made sure of

speedily beating off any naval force brought against their great

fortress--had a constant stream of supplies pouring into the town. It

was urged that they had taken advantage of the summer to lay in stores;

but the drought of that season was as unfavourable to such an operation

as the wet and cold and heavy roads of winter; and, unless by camels,

which could do but little, transport must have been very difficult. The

loss of beasts of draught and burden must have been prodigious, and the

wear and tear of the ill-made carts proportionately large. The chief

motive for retaining the position was, that negotiations would be

conducted more favourably that winter, whilst the enemy had a footing in

the Crimea, than if they had moved out, leaving us to garrison

Sebastopol and Simpheropol.

On the 15th of October, the army was ordered to be under arms at

half-past 5 A.M.; working parties, for railways, roads, &c., to come on

duty at 9 instead of 8 A.M.: this latter relaxation was granted in order

to give the men time to breakfast and refresh themselves after the

turn-out.

Late on Wednesday night (October 17th) the reserve ammunition column was

warned to be ready early in the morning, as there was every probability

of an attack. On Thursday forenoon (October 18th) the French were formed

up in the Valley of the Tchernaya, awaiting a foe who came not. About

noon, fresh movements of troops were made; and it was reported that

large masses of Russians were visible, but the enemy did not show.

On Saturday afternoon, October 20, our Allies treated the Russians to a

fine view of the Imperial Guard in the cavalry plain of Balaklava. The

day was fine, and ponies were put into requisition, and no end of

scarlet jackets, interspersed with the blue frocks of the cavalry, might

be seen converging from all points towards the parade-ground. The

Grenadiers, Chasseurs, Zouaves, Engineers, and Artillery of the Guard,

were drawn up across the plain. General M'Mahon, followed by a numerous

staff, to which Sir Colin Campbell and a large number of English

officers temporarily attached themselves, minutely inspected them. The

Grenadiers looked martial and imposing in their long blue coats and

lofty bearskins; the Chasseurs smart and active in their excellent and

service-like costume; the Zouaves, as usual, picturesque and effective.

The Chasseurs and Zouaves excited the admiration of our officers. They

were then probably the most perfect soldiers in the world--I do not mean

in respect to fighting merely, but as regards military qualities and

dress, equipment, powers of marching and endurance--everything, in

short, that constitutes perfection in a soldier.

[Sidenote: CHANGES AND FAREWELLS.]

The Russians meantime continued firing at the town, week after week,

with little reply. They fired principally at Sebastopol Proper, but now

and then they dropped a shot or shell into the Karabelnaia, and

sometimes took the flagstaff on the Malakoff for their mark.

Occasionally, some artillery officer, as if suddenly exasperated, jumped

up in a fury, and ordered half a dozen mortars to be fired at once. It

is difficult to understand why the Allies spared the place, unless it

were that we expected them to walk away, and leave us their forts in

good condition, which was expecting rather too much. Outside the town

the French set hard at work levelling siege works, filling up trenches,

&c., though why they took that trouble it was hard to say, unless they

contemplated the probability that they, in their turn, might be besieged

by the Russians.

In the space comprised between the lines where our batteries once stood

and the harbour, the ground was literally paved with shot sunk in the

earth: there were ditches and trenches in which they lay thick as apples

in a basket. They might be seen of every size, from the great

thirteen-inch shell, and 68-pounder, down to the little fellows of

pleasant vinous appellation, very nasty to meet passing through the air.

Fragments of shell macadamized the roads--jagged, rusty bits of iron,

infinitely various in size and form. One thought, how many a stout

fellow received his quietus from those rugged splinters. Then one came

upon ill-treated cannon, some trunnionless, others with muzzles knocked

off, some burst in pieces, and others bearing indentations as from the

hammer of Cyclops. You walked up into the Redan or into the Malakoff,

marvelled at the dimensions of those famous works, and felt surprised

rather at their having ever become ours than at their having so long

resisted the utmost efforts of English and French. They were indeed a

medley of earthworks, stone, heaps of shot, broken shell, and damaged

guns, everything rugged and battered--a work of giants reduced to chaos.

And then the gloomy, fetid bomb-proofs, in which for so long a time the

stubborn Russians lurked, worse than most dungeons.

Early in November it became known that Sir William J. Codrington would

succeed Sir James Simpson in command of the army, with the local rank of

General, and that Sir Richard Airey, Quartermaster-General, would be

replaced either by Colonel Wetherall or Colonel Herbert.

General Codrington announced his elevation in the following Order:--

"HEAD-QUARTERS, SEBASTOPOL, _November 12_.

"I have assumed the command of the army in obedience to Her

Majesty's orders. It is with a feeling of pride and with a feeling

of confidence in the support which I know will be heartily given,

to any officer honoured with such a commission.

"The armies of France and Sardinia are united with us on this

ground. We know their gallantry well, for we have seen it; we know

their friendship, for we have profited by it; we have shared

difficulties, dangers and successes--the groundwork of mutual

esteem; and all will feel it our pleasure, as well as our duty, to

carry on that kindly intercourse which is due to the intimate

alliance of the nations themselves. Our army will always preserve

its high character in the field. The sobriety, the good conduct,

and the discipline which it is our duty to maintain, are the best

sureties of future success, and I trust to the efforts and

assistance of all ranks in thus keeping the army to be an

instrument of honour, of power, and of credit to England.

"W. J. CODRINGTON,

"General Commander of the Forces."

General Simpson's farewell appeared the night before, and was as

follows:--

"General Sir James Simpson announces to the army that the Queen

has been graciously pleased to permit him to resign the command of

this army, and to appoint General Sir William Codrington, K.C.B.,

to be his successor.

"On resigning his command, the General desires to express to the

troops the high sense he entertains of the admirable conduct of

the officers and men of this army during the time he has had the

honour to serve with them. In taking leave of them, he tenders his

best thanks to all ranks, and offers his earnest wishes for their

success and honour in all the future operations of this noble army.

"General Sir William Codrington will be pleased to assume the

command of the army to-morrow, the 11th instant.

"By order, "H. W. BARNARD, Chief of the Staff."

[Sidenote: THE NEW COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF.]

The public dissatisfaction caused by the second failure of the English

army to take the Redan fell heavily on the aged veteran, who had in the

earlier part of his career done service to the State, and gained a high

character for gallantry, skill, and ability. No doubt, with an English

army only to lead, Sir James Simpson would have acted with vigour, but

he was paralyzed by the action of the French. He was ignorant of their

language, slow and cautious, and it is no wonder that, where Lord Raglan

failed, General Simpson did not meet with success. The courage and

activity General Codrington displayed at Alma, at Inkerman, and in

command of the Light Division during the trying winter of 1854-5, seemed

to have justified his rapid promotion, and although he was in actual

charge of the operations of an army on the day of the 8th of September,

he was regarded as an administrative rather than a judicial officer, and

was rewarded as signally because he failed as he could have been had he

succeeded. A French officer said to me, "If General Codrington had taken

the Redan, what more could you have done for him than make him General,

and give him the command of the army? But he did not take it, and he is

made General and Commander-in-Chief!" There was no opportunity of

testing the ability of General Codrington as a commander during the

subsequent part of the campaign, but he managed, by his despatches, to

lower himself in the estimation of the public, although it is certain

that a part of his success and elevation was due to his skill in private

correspondence.

Sir W. Codrington came out from England on the 23rd of February, 1854,

with the rank of Colonel in the Coldstream Guards. He entered the army

as an Ensign and Lieutenant on the 22nd of February, 1821; became

Lieutenant in April, 1823; Captain in July, 1826; Lieutenant-Colonel and

Colonel on the 9th of November, 1846; and Major-General on the 20th

June, 1854. He commanded a Brigade of the Light Division throughout the

early portion of the campaign, and succeeded to the command of that

Division on the retirement of Sir George Brown. Possessed of a strong

constitution, a spare vigorous frame, quiet in manner, energetic in

action, vigilant, and painstaking, Sir William Codrington acquired a

high reputation throughout the war, and was often spoken of as the

coming man--_the General_, who was at last to arise out of the _débris_

of old-fogeyism, red-tapery, staffery and Horse-Guardism, of the British

army; but the Redan dammed the current which had set so long and so

quietly in his favour, because it was supposed that he did not exhibit

all the qualities attributed to him in an eminent degree by the army,

and his failure produced all the backwater, eddies, and whirlpools

usually formed on such occasions. Sir W. Codrington was possibly

struggling with the internal conviction that the attack had become

hopeless, and consequently felt some hesitation in sacrificing more

soldiers when he perceived the failure of our assaults and the confusion

of the regiments swarming on the face of the salient; in that supreme

hour he did not display that extreme coolness, resource, self-possession

and energy which every one had from his antecedents at Alma and

Inkerman, and in the trenches, attributed to him. The revulsion of

popular feeling either in a nation or an army, is often unjust in

proportion to its violence, and there were very many who thought "it

would be only fair to give Codrington another chance." Sir W. Codrington

received the local rank of Lieutenant-General in Turkey on the 30th

July, 1855. Sir Colin Campbell had been gazetted to the same rank on the

23rd January in the same year. The only officers with the army senior to

Sir W. Codrington were Lord Rokeby and Lieutenant-General Barnard, Chief

of the Staff. The others had all gone home, or were preparing to leave

the field in possession of the new General.

Although too active and able a soldier to be neglected in a war like

this, it is possible that Sir W. Codrington would not have had a chance

of obtaining his distinguished position but for a piece of good fortune.

On the 20th of June, 1854, certain promotions took place, more

particularly among colonels of the Guards, and among them was that of

Colonel Codrington to be a Major-General. Of course the effect of such

a promotion would have been to remove him from his regiment and take him

home; but the Major-General was most anxious for active service. By the

time the _Gazette_ was promulgated the expedition to the Crimea was

spoken of, and Major-General Codrington tried hard to evade the

necessity of returning home, which to many was by no means disagreeable,

if we may judge from the alacrity with which they availed themselves of

it. He was lucky enough to succeed in his object, and thus got an

opportunity of entering on the career which in a very short period led

him to such great honours and to so proud a position. The Acting

Quartermaster-General had just died, and Brigadier-General Airey, who

commanded a brigade of the Light Division, was selected as his

successor. The brigade thus left vacant was given to Major-General

Codrington, whose anxiety for active service led him to leave no stone

unturned in the search for it; and I well remember that, being then with

the Light Division, I heard some expressions of dissatisfaction because

the "lucky Guardsman" obtained the command. Only a very short time,

however, elapsed before officers and men discovered that he was one of

the best soldiers in the army, and his reputation extended beyond the

limits of his brigade to every regiment in the field. The Light Division

hailed his accession to the command on the second and final retirement

of Sir George Brown with the liveliest satisfaction, for he had won the

confidence of the men by coolness and unexaggerated intrepidity in the

field, and had gained the affection of the officers by his amenity and

kind manners.

Although no one regretted that General Simpson had ceased to be

Commander-in-Chief of this army, all felt sorrow for the circumstances

under which the veteran resigned his command. His simplicity of manners

and singleness of mind never failed to conciliate the regard, if not the

respect and admiration, of those around him; but he failed in

determination and firmness in a matter of vital importance to our army

when opposed to a sterner will, greater vehemence, and force of

character. Such an error in judgment, or rather such weakness, was

especially culpable in the Commander-in-Chief of an army situated as our

own has been. The General was a victim to writing, like his predecessor.

He was more of a clerk than a General. Now, is it the Horse-Guards which

enforces all this scrivenery? If the army cannot be commanded without

all these forms and returns, let us have, in future, a writing General,

and a fighting General. It certainly was not despatch-writing which

consumed our Generals' time hitherto, for those documents were always

brief enough.

[Sidenote: DIVIDED COUNCILS.]

Again we were suffering from the evils of divided councils, Allied

armies, and telegraphic instructions. Sir Edmund Lyons was not a man to

let the grass grow under his feet; but one foot he could not move, for

he was tied by the leg, just as he was when he in vain opposed the

famous flank march on Balaklava, and advocated a rush at the town ere

the enemy could have recovered from the effects of their dismay. We were

necessitated to act in concert with our Allies, and the rule seemed to

be that neither France nor England should act independently of the

other, but that they might act as they pleased respecting the Sardinians

or the Turks. There is always a want of decision and energy in Allied

councils, and even Marlborough and Eugene had to regret that no two men

can take precisely the same view of all the parts and accidents of any

single matter. General Simpson ever evinced the utmost readiness to

accede to Marshal Pelissier's suggestions, or to any proposition made by

either generals or admirals of character and experience, so that no

obstacle to any energetic steps arose from him, but if he wished to

march against the enemy he could not have done so without the

co-operation of Marshal Pelissier. It was doubtful if the French much

out-numbered us in strength, but they certainly did generally

preponderate, and at this time take the lead in military operations,

either by land or sea.

A siege is at all times rather demoralizing and destructive to

discipline. The siege of Sebastopol was so to a considerable degree,

because to the ordinary influences of such operations the effects of a

winter's campaign were superadded. Most of the old soldiers were used

up; and the bulk of our regiments contained an undue proportion of

recruits. To see a body of our soldiers coming back from the roads in

the evening--to mark their careless air--listen to their loud voices in

the ranks as they tramped through the dust--one would scarcely think

them capable of being turned out as a clean, smart regiment at ten

minutes' notice. They were often clad on such occasions in coarse and

rather dirty fatigue-suits of grey linen, and, but for their forage-caps

with the regimental numbers, they would not look, to any lounger in Hyde

Park or the Phoenix, like those British soldiers, all kempt and compact

as they usually are presented to the public gaze at home, whom they are

accustomed to see. The officers, too, often mere boys or young lads not

long from England, rode or marched along with the men, without adding

much to their martial aspect. The latter either sang a quick march-song

in chorus, or whistled some air to keep the step. Such high spirits were

pleasant to see, but occasionally the march became too noisy and riotous

to suit the notions of a strict disciplinarian; old soldiers did not

commit these irregularities, but young recruits who had seen little of

military life, and who scarcely knew what drill was, were apt to exceed

the bounds of decorum and military rule when they found themselves free

from parades, and field-days, and inspections, and put to work on the

roads like labourers.

The extraordinary fineness of the weather all this time afforded a daily

reproach to the inactivity of our armies. Within one day of the first

anniversary of that terrible 14th of November, which will never be

forgotten by those who spent it on the plateau of Sebastopol, the air

was quite calm. From the time the expedition returned from Kinburn not

one drop of rain fell, and each day was cloudless, sunny, and almost too

warm. The mornings and nights, however, began to warn us that winter was

impending. It is certainly to be regretted that the Admirals could not

have undertaken their expedition against Kaffa, for the only ostensible

obstacle to the enterprise was the weather, and our experience and

traditions of the year before certainly suggested extreme caution ere we

ventured upon sending a flotilla, filled with soldiers, on such an awful

coast, even for the very short passage to Theodosia.

BOOK IX.

THE WINTER--POSITION OF THE FRENCH--THE TURKISH

CONTINGENT--PREPARATIONS FOR THE NEXT CAMPAIGN--THE ARMISTICE--THE

PEACE AND THE EVACUATION.

CHAPTER I.

Anniversaries--An Explosion--Casualties--Terrible Scene--Cause of

the Catastrophe--Accident in the Redan--Samuel Goodram--Love of

Fighting--Contrast between the Years 1854 and 1855--The Flank

March--Mistakes in the first Instance--Russian Troops--The Sports

of Sebastopol.

The month of November would seem to have been ruled by some genius

unfavourable to our arms. If it gave to us the glorious remembrance of a

profitless and bloody victory, it also brought with it a day of disaster

and gloom--the beginning of a long series of calamities. The first

anniversary of that day passed away amid mutual congratulations and

reminiscences, rendered all the more joyous by the contrast between the

present and the past. We had beheld a spectacle of unusual splendour and

grandeur, one indeed which no native of these isles has ever yet

witnessed, so far as I am aware. On the 14th of November, 1855, the

purity of the air--the health of the troops--the abundance of

stores--the excellence of the roads--the quantity of hutting--the

hospital accommodation--the fineness of the day--the beauty of the

sky--the dryness of the soil--the prospects of the army--the bright-hued

future: all these were contrasted by a myriad tongues in endless

difference of phrase, coloured by many a recollection of personal

suffering. There was no sorrow, no calamity could reach us now, and of

all things which fate could grant us, most of all were we desirous of

meeting that alone with which fate seemed to threaten us--an assault by

the enemy. But, suddenly, up from the very centre of our camp, so that

every ear should hear and every eye should see, rushed with such a crash

as may forewarn the world of its doom, and with such a burst of flame

and smoke as may never yet have been seen by man, except in the throes

of some primeval eruption, a ghastly pillar of sulphureous vapour. It

spread as it rose, bearing aloft for hundreds of yards men, horses,

fragments of limbs, rocks, shells, and cannon-shot, and then extended

its folds in writhing involutions, as though it were tortured by the

fire within, raining them down over the astounded soldiery below! For a

moment the boldest lost heart, and "the bravest held his breath." There

was no safety in flight--the wings of the wind could not have left that

dreadful shower of iron behind; and as one of the most collected and

cool soldiers in the army said to me, "I had only presence of mind to

throw myself on the ground and ask the forgiveness of God, and I

received his mercy!" In fact, the effect resembled some great convulsion

of nature. Many thought it was an earthquake; others fancied it was the

outburst of a volcano; others, that the Russians had got hold of Lord

Dundonald's invention, and that they had just given it a first trial.

Indeed, one officer said to another, as soon as he recovered breath and

could speak, "I say, that's a nice sort of thing, is it not? The sooner

we go after that the better." He was persuaded the Russians had thrown

some new and unheard-of instrument of destruction into the camp.

I was riding from head-quarters, reading my letters, and had just

reached the hill, or elevated part of the plateau, at the time, and

happened to be looking in the very direction of the park when the

explosion took place. The phenomena were so startling as to take away

one's breath. Neither pen nor pencil could describe them. The earth

shook. The strongest houses rocked to and fro. Men felt as if the very

ground upon which they stood was convulsed by an earthquake. The

impression of these few moments can never be eradicated. One's

confidence in the stability of the very earth was staggered. _Suppositos

incedimus ignes._ What part of the camp was safe after such a

catastrophe? The rush of fire, smoke, and iron, in one great pillar,

attained a height I dare not estimate, and then seemed to shoot out like

a tree, which over-shadowed half the camp on the right, and rained down

missiles upon it. The colour of the pillar was dark grey, flushed with

red, but it was pitted all over with white puffs of smoke, which marked

the explosions of the shells. It retained the shape of a fir-tree for

nearly a minute, and then the sides began to swell out and the

overhanging canopy to expand and twist about in prodigious wreaths of

smoke, which flew out to the right and left, and let drop, as it were

from solution in its embrace, a precipitate of shells, carcasses, and

iron projectiles. The noise was terrible; and when the shells began to

explode, the din was like the opening crash of one of the great

cannonades or bombardments of the siege. I clapped spurs to my horse and

rode off as hard as I could towards the spot as soon as my ears had

recovered the shock. As I rode along I could see thousands hurrying away

from the place, and thousands hastening to it. The smoke became black;

the fire had caught the huts and tents. General Windham overtook me,

riding from head-quarters as hard as he could go. He was ignorant of the

cause and locality of the explosion, and was under the impression that

it was one of the French redoubts. Sir Richard Airey followed close

after him, and General Codrington rode towards the fire a few minutes

afterwards.

[Sidenote: THE GREAT EXPLOSION.]

On arriving close to the place, I saw that the ground had been torn up

in all directions. The fragments of shell were still smoking, and shells

were bursting around in most unpleasant proximity. Captain Piggott, in

a short time, came up with the ambulances at a gallop, and urged the

horses through the flames and amid the exploding shell in order to

render assistance to the sufferers; and in this arduous duty he was

manfully and courageously assisted by Surgeons Alexander, Muir, Mouat,

and others. As we were all looking on at the raging fire, an alarm

spread that the mill used as a powder magazine had caught fire. A

regular panic ensued--horses and men tore like a storm through the camp

of the Second Division. I did not escape the contagion, but, at my

servant's solicitation, mounted my horse, and rode off like the rest. I

soon came up to Colonel Percy Herbert, who was actively engaged in

trying to get the men of his Division under arms, but he told me he

could find neither drummers, buglers, officers, nor sergeants. The panic

was soon over. The mill did not catch, though the roof and doors and

windows were blown in. The officers, in the most devoted way, stripped,

and placed 300 wet blankets over the powder inside just as the flames

were raging behind the mill and at the side of it within 200 yards.

Hundreds of rockets rushed hissing and bursting through the air, sheets

of flame shot up from exploding powder, carcasses glared out fiercely

through black clouds of smoke, and shells burst, tossing high in air

burning beams of wood and showers of sparks, and boxes of small-arm

ammunition exploded with a rattling report like musketry, and flew about

in little balls of fire.

My reading in military matters is not sufficient to enable me to say,

with any confidence, that there never was so terrible an explosion; but

having witnessed and heard the explosions at Pavlovskaia and Kertch, at

Oczakoff, of the French magazines on the 17th of October, 1854, and of

the Russian forts on the 9th of September, 1855, I must say that, in

volume of sound, in appalling effect, they were far exceeded in

vehemence and grandeur by this tremendously abrupt and startling

catastrophe. The quantity of Russian powder which went up was about

1,700 barrels, and there were about 800 barrels of French powder

exploded in the three magazines. Each barrel contained about 100lb.

weight of gunpowder, so that the total quantity which furnished the

elements of this prodigious combustion cannot have been less than

250,000lb. But in addition to that enormous mass of powder there were

vast mounds of shell, carcasses, rockets, and small-arm ammunition,

contributing to the intensity and violence of the fiery blast.

Appalling as was the shock to those who were near, the effect was little

diminished by distance. The roar and concussion were so great in

Balaklava that the ships in harbour, and outside at anchor, trembled and

quivered, and the houses shook to their foundations. The ships at

Kamiesch and Kazatch reeled and rolled from side to side. Mules and

horses, seven and eight miles away, broke loose, and galloped across the

country, wild with fright. The noise pealed through the passes at Baidar

like the loudest thunder. The sense of hearing was quite deadened in

many persons, and their nervous systems have not yet recovered the

shock, so that any sudden noise startles them. The French had 6

officers killed and 13 wounded; 65 of their men, mostly of the

artillery, were killed, and 170 wounded, of whom many will never

recover. The destruction in money value of articles appertaining to the

siege-train was very great. But when we came to men--to those gallant

fellows who had survived the battles and the dangers of the

campaign--our loss was irreparable. What value could be placed on those

noble artillerymen of the siege-train who, with little praise or

encouragement, stood by their guns in so many bombardments, and who had

acquired skill, practice, and hardihood in the greatest siege the world

ever saw?

The casualties in the Light Division were as follows:--

7th Fusiliers, 1 killed, 12 wounded; 19th Regiment, 9 wounded; 23rd

Fusiliers, 2 killed, 6 wounded; 33rd Regiment, 2 killed, 13

wounded; 34th Regiment, 1 killed, 14 wounded; 77th Regiment, 3

killed, 6 wounded; 88th Regiment, 2 wounded; 90th Regiment, 1

wounded; Rifle Brigade, 1 killed, 6 wounded; total 10 killed, 69

wounded.

[Sidenote: SUPPOSED CAUSE OF THE EXPLOSION.]

The Right Siege Train suffered as severely--seven poor fellows were

buried the first night, and the bodies of three more artillerymen were

so torn and scattered that their remains could not be collected for

interment. To this loss of ten must be added that of seven artillerymen

"missing." The total of the casualties in the train amounted to

fifty-two. Mr. Yellon, Deputy Assistant-Commissary of the field train, a

most active, zealous officer, whose name was mentioned along with that

of Mr. Hayter in Colonel St. George's despatch, was blown to pieces.

Lieutenant Roberts had his left arm broken, and was severely burnt;

Lieutenant Dawson lost his leg above the ankle from a dead shell, which

struck him as he was in the act of carrying off a live shell from the

park to a place of safety. The legs, arms, and trunks of men were blown

into the camps of the Rifle Brigade and of the 34th Regiment, on the

extreme right of the Light Division. I saw lying amid a heap of ruins,

of old iron stores, rubbish, shot, splinters of shell and beams of wood,

a man's arm scorched and burnt black, on which the tattered pieces of

clothing retained the traces of a sergeant's gold stripes. The dead were

terrible to look upon; but the living in their agony were still more

frightful. I solemnly declare, that from the lips of none of these

mutilated masses which I saw stretched out in long rows in every

hospital did I hear either groan or sigh. No sound escaped them, as

those who could see rolled their sad orbs and gazed upon the stranger,

except in one instance, when an involuntary expression of pain was

uttered by a poor French soldier in the hospital of the 23rd, where he

had been trepanned, and was all but beyond the reach of his misery.

Although the Russians have been justly praised for their endurance of

pain, I must say I never beheld them submit to such tortures as our men

experienced. As I looked upon the shattered frames before me, in which

such noble spirits were enshrined, I could not but remember the howls of

a Russian corporal, at Kinburn, who had been wounded in the heel. The

surgeons displayed the greatest courage and kindness, and every man was

at his post in the midst of fire and shell. Drs. Muir, Watt, Mouat, and

Longmore particularly distinguished themselves.

Marshal Pelissier named a commission of inquiry to report upon the cause

of the disastrous accident. Our men declared, of course, that it was the

work of an incendiary. General Codrington seemed to give credence to the

report, inasmuch as he ordered the army to turn out an hour before

daybreak, to be prepared for the Russians if they really had calculated

on crippling us.

The manner in which this great disaster was caused is said to have been

this:--Some French artillerymen were engaged in shifting powder from

case to case in the park, and as the operation is rather dangerous,

every precaution was taken to prevent accidents. The powder was poured

from one case into the other through copper funnels, and no fire was

allowed near the place where the men were so employed. As one of the

soldiers was pouring the powder out of a case he perceived a fragment of

shell gliding out of it into the funnel, and, not wishing to let it get

into the other case, he jerked the funnel to one side; the piece of

shell fell on the stones, which were covered with loose powder, and is

supposed to have struck fire in its fall, for the explosion took place

at once. Miraculous as it may appear, this artilleryman, who was, as it

were, in the focus of the explosion, escaped alive, being only slightly

burnt and scorched. His comrade, who held the other case was blown to

atoms. Another strange incident was the death of the French commandant

of artillery for the day. He was near the park at the time of the

explosion, and as soon as he had seen everything in order, he went off

to have a look at the French batteries in and about Sebastopol, on which

the Russians had just opened a heavy fire. As he rode along, a

cannon-shot struck off his head. The escapes were astounding.--Clothes

were torn off men's backs; the chairs or beds on which they sat, the

tables at which they were eating, the earth on which they stood, were

broken and torn by shot, shell, rocket-irons, shrapnell, grape,

canister, and musket-balls, which literally rained down upon them. The

distance to which fragments flew exceeds belief. It is difficult to

explain it by mere names of localities. One piece of shell flew over

Cathcart's Hill; another killed a horse in New Kadikoi. Some struck men

and horses in the Guards' camp. In the Land Transport Corps of the Light

Division fourteen horses were killed and seventeen were wounded. One

flew over my hut; another struck the ground close to it; another went

into the camp of the Land Transport Corps behind it. Mrs. Seacole, who

keeps a restaurant near the Col, avers that a piece of stone struck her

door, which is three and a half or four miles from the park. Pieces

struck and damaged the huts in New Kadikoi. There had been some warnings

of the dangers of carelessness already.

The day before the explosion Samuel Goodram, No. 6 Company, Coldstreams,

a soldier of the same regiment, and a sergeant, were on duty in the

Redan; the two men went into one of the casemates to remove powder and

rubbish, while the sergeant remained outside. Scarcely had the men

entered before an explosion took place. Goodram was blown into the air,

and then buried amid fragments of gabions and falling earth, and both

men were buried in the Guards' cemetery next day. I am the more

particular in giving names, that I may relate an anecdote of Goodram at

the attack on the Redan. The night before the attack, the Coldstreams

were on duty, and were relieved some hours before the assault. On

arriving at camp, Samuel Goodram was missing; and it was feared that he

had gone away to indulge in potations, or had been hit as he came from

the trenches. But this gallant soldier had remained behind from a pure

love of fighting, and from a desire "to have a go in at the Roosians."

Knowing that the assault would take place in a few hours, Goodram, as

the regiment mustered and marched off, had secreted himself in the

trenches, and employed his leisure time before his comrades left in

filling the breast of his coat and every available place about his

person with cartridges from their boxes, fearing that his private supply

of fifty rounds would fail him before he had got his fill of fighting.

When the storming party was advancing from the fifth parallel, Goodram

appeared, rifle in hand, and joined it as a volunteer, and his regiment

claim him as being the first private soldier in the Redan on that

memorable day. He was twice driven out of the Redan, and was over and

over again engaged individually with the Russians, and in these

encounters he received two wounds--one in the side and one in the

arm--but still kept up a fire when driven back by the last rush of the

enemy's infantry, and forced over the parapet with the rest of our men

into the ditch. Instead, however, of retiring with the others, as

opportunity offered, and keeping in the ditch or getting under cover in

the parallels, Goodram made an impromptu rifle-pit on the broken glacis

outside the ditch, and there he maintained his fire on the enemy till

his ammunition became exhausted, and his wounds so painful that he could

no longer use his rifle. Then he shouldered his arms and marched stiffly

up through the trenches and across the open space till he reported

himself to his regiment. He was, I believe, tried for being absent

without leave and for stealing his comrades' cartridges, but Minos

himself could not have condemned a soldier like this to any severe

punishment for a crime which Minos's jurymen would have called heroic.

[Sidenote: RETROSPECTS]

CHAPTER II.

The Situation--Retrospects.

Either the year 1854 was remarkable in the annals of the Crimea for its

severity, or we enjoyed a season of exceptional mildness in 1855. Storms

lowered over us and passed away; dark skies threatened us and melted

into floods of golden sunbeams. The wind seemed alone to be busied in

tossing the French steamers at sea and keeping the mail late, in which

it succeeded very effectually, so that our letters were behind time with

the greatest regularity. The country was open in every direction to

carriage, man, or beast; the trenches were dry; in fact, the weather

presented contrasts of endless variety to that which prevailed the year

before, and afforded ground for infinite speculation and comment. There

was no reason, however, to suppose that the English army would have had

much reason to congratulate itself on the fact that the clemency of the

season had averted the evils which want of roads, excessive fatigue, and

a false position would have entailed upon them, inasmuch as it is

certain the bad weather paralyzed the enemy, cut off their reserves,

impeded their transport of food and of reinforcements, and prevented

their making another attempt--not at Inkerman, of which, they had to

their cost learnt the strength, but from the Traktir bridge, or at some

point of the Tchernaya then in their possession, from which they could

have debouched into the plain of Balaklava, and made a grand attack on

the rear of our lines. Although those lines had been greatly

strengthened, and the profile altered and improved, they were far from

being perfect or unassailable. In November, when rumours to the effect

that the Russians were gathering a force towards Baidar, with the

intention of assaulting us, prevailed, the country between Tchongar,

Perekop, and Simpheropol was, however, in such a state that it was with

the utmost difficulty the garrison of Sebastopol could be fed, and very

strong reinforcements were kept for weeks waiting at Odessa,

Nicholaieff, and Cherson, till the spring of 1855. But for these

impediments, the Russians would have had a prodigious army about

Sebastopol early in December, 1854, and if they had been indisposed to

try another Inkerman, they could certainly have pressed us much harder

in the trenches, and wearied our men by strong and repeated sorties. At

times it was difficult for even a single battalion to march from the

army of the Belbeck or Mackenzie's Farm into the city, or to effect the

usual reliefs.

If to these considerations be added the notorious sentiments and

opinions of persons high in authority, who advocated _the abandonment

of the siege_,[31] and the retreat of the army from the Crimea after the

battle of Inkerman, it will be seen that our prospects would not have

been much better had weather like that we enjoyed in the latter part of

1855 prevailed last winter. The inconvenience to which the famous flank

march subjected the army became more apparent every day after the

failure of the first bombardment. The flank march was opposed, or was

viewed with disfavour, by officers of great authority, and by one whose

sagacity and skill are seldom deceived in military operations, although

he is not a soldier, and does not command on land.[32] The descent on

the Crimea itself was a bold stroke; it was the first step towards the

capture of Sebastopol. The battle of the Alma left the approach to the

city open to us whenever we liked. Prince Menschikoff's flank march to

Bakshiserai and Simpheropol, although somewhat ridiculed at the time, is

now considered a judicious and daring movement, but it certainly

uncovered the north of Sebastopol, the Tchernaya, and Balaklava; and as

it was determined by our generals to abandon the dashing character of

the expedition, and to assume for our operations a strategical

character, to which they had no previous pretensions, we were obliged to

look out for harbours, and the inlets of Balaklava, Kamiesch, and

Kasatch met the eye and fixed our destiny. Then came the period during

which, without let or hindrance, or attempt at interference or

prevention, the Russians were allowed to recover from their alarm and

flock back to Sebastopol, under the direction of a man of extraordinary

genius. Then they began the rudiments of the vast works which baffled

our efforts for eleven long months of trial, suffering, and bloodshed,

heroically endured and overcome.

[Sidenote: WINTER ARRANGEMENTS.]

It is now perceived that if the advice of Sir George Cathcart had been

followed, the city might have been ours by a vigorous assault on the day

after we arrived on the plateau. The ships alone could never have

defended the place, and the greater portion of the feeble garrison, such

as it was, consisted of the _equipages_, or crews, of those very ships.

The enemy, when they retreated to the north side, would have been as

impotent as they were when they had crossed over in the autumn of 1855,

and Sebastopol, in all its beauty, and with all its vast stores and

riches, would have been in our possession. That is the hypothesis as to

the result of vigorous action from the south side. But had we approached

the city from the north side, there can be no doubt that the forts would

speedily have fallen; the fire of the shipping could have affected our

operations but very slightly, and the only inconvenience would have been

the want of a harbour at which to land siege-trains and stores, in case

any mishap prevented the army carrying the place. The anchorage is good

all along the coast up to Eupatoria, and, except on the great gale of

the 14th of November, no damage would have occurred to our merchantmen

or men of war riding off the coast. The mouths of the Katcha, or even of

the Belbek, when the fire of the battery which just reached the latter

was reduced, could have been made available for landing such stores and

_matériel_ as we required. With the northern forts, the whole city of

Sebastopol and the remainder of the fleet would have been ours;[33] our

army could have reposed on its laurels for the winter in an impregnable

position; a year would have been saved in the war; and the Crimea would

have been cleared of the Russians early in the spring of 1855.