scarce. The few houses that existed in the vicinity of the camp had
early been demolished, and the old timbers borne away for fuel.
Brushwood and young trees, wherever they could be found, were also taken
away; and when the cold became extreme, and the ration wood reduced to a
few sticks, the ground was turned over in every direction, by perishing
men, to collect the roots for firing. Earth was brought from the rear,
in baskets, to fill the gabions; and sand-bags, ready for use, were also
brought from the park, or wherever the earth could readily be obtained.
As they frequently caught fire and burst on the explosion of the guns, a
substitute was found for a time by making the bags from the skins of
sheep and from bullocks’ hides, which stood remarkably well, but they
could not be procured in sufficient quantity for the work. The inner
necks of the embrasures were revetted with sand-bags and the cheeks
lined with fascines. The basis of all the works was the gabion. In
places not opposed by artillery, stones were used for lining the
trenches, which gave them the appearance of ancient walls. The traverses
were revetted with old gabions, discarded casks, worn biscuit-bags from
the fleet, and ammunition cases. Indeed every material was pressed into
the siege that could be turned by ingenuity to any useful purpose. On
all sides the works exhibited a curious employment of rude expedients
and adaptations to meet the straits and difficulties of an unexampled
attack.
With all these shifts, from the inadequacy of material resources to
carry on the works, such was the recklessness of the soldiers in seeking
means to afford them a modicum of comfort, that the sand-bags were
constantly abstracted from the trenches to line their trousers and
gaiter their legs; and when wood could not be readily procured, they
made no scruple in frosty weather, of purloining fascines and gabions to
light their fires. Mandates against such practices were disregarded, and
vigilance was no match for men driven by cold to such extremities.
On the 24th October, a battery for three guns and a 10-inch mortar was
opened on the left above the picket-house to destroy a two-decker lying
snugly in the inner harbour. A few red-hot shot being sent into her, she
hastily moved off, and the battery was quickly turned to swell the
general armament against the enemy’s land works.
The same night two privates were out in some advanced works tracing a
battery under Major Gordon. When returning by a whistle-signal from the
Major, they were mistaken for Russians, and fired upon by a party of the
79th Highlanders. The result was that private James Bland, a good
sapper, was struck down by a rifle-shot which passed through both his
thighs.
It was not long before the Madras traversing platform, considered to be
the specific for a great siege, was shown to be a failure. From the hard
and uneven bottom of the trench the platforms were, to save them from
injury and secure their efficiency, laid upon sand-bags well tamped, but
the violent and sudden action of the guns in their recoil shivered the
platforms to pieces. A rude substitute was expeditiously furnished by
tearing down some dilapidated wooden houses in the neighbourhood of the
camp; and resorting to the old expedient of sleepers and floors, the
platforms, so prepared by the sapper carpenters, were found to be far
less liable to derangement than the engineering-exotic from Madras.
While the Russians and our allies experienced very heavy losses in the
destruction of their magazines, no accident whatever occurred to the
English powder-magazines, “although more than once exposed to the test
of the fall and explosion of a 12-inch shell.”[161] Offering, as the
record does, a tribute of credit to the efficiency of the contrivance,
it is no less a testimonial to the skill of the sappers, who, in
consequence of the special nature of the service, constructed the
magazines themselves. The magazines on the left were constructed on the
established model, in places assigned to them by the old engineers, but
on the right the ammunition was dispersed in sheltered spots in small
receptacles attached to the parapets of the different batteries. The
large depôts of ammunition were formed in the caves of the neighbouring
ravine; and all the magazines were well protected by sand-bags.
On the 25th October was fought the memorable cavalry combat at
Balaklava. Sergeant Joseph Morant and six privates, having in charge
thirty Turkish arabas drawn by sixty bullocks, had nearly passed the
valley with the train when the fight commenced. The escort was moving to
the port for stores, and several of the waggons still within the
boundary of the battlefield, were swept and pierced by shots from the
Russian artillery. As this was no place for a cumbersome train of
conveyances, Morant and his men goaded and whooped on the oxen to
Balaklava; and speedily loading the arabas, returned, after the action,
to the engineer park in front of Sebastopol. These seven sappers and
eleven others who were in the vicinity of the battle, were honoured with
the distinction of the Balaklava clasp.
There was only one sapper actually engaged in the battle. Sir Colin
Campbell, anticipating an attack, ordered an able sapper to be sent to
the Turkish redoubts to superintend any repairs that might be needed.
Sergeant Dickson despatched private James Lancaster for the duty. At
five o’clock on the evening of the 24th, he arrived at No. 4 redoubt,
situated close under the hills of the plateau where the corps
d’observation of General Bosquet was encamped. All night Lancaster
worked with the Turks in strengthening the faces of the redoubt; and in
the morning stretched himself in a shallow trench to take a little
sleep. He had not long covered himself with a tarpaulin—a cold
substitute for a blanket—when the Russians attacked No. 1 redoubt, which
was a considerable distance from No. 4. Instantly awakened by some
Turks, who seemingly wanted an Englishman to keep alive in them the
little valour they possessed, he was quickly among them. There was also
a British artilleryman in the redoubt, with whom the sapper, sharing the
kin of country, behaved as became their national prestige. While the
cannonading was doing its work on No. 1, a Russian battery pushed up to
a height opposite No. 4, and opened its guns on No. 3. The attack was
sharp, but the Turks wanting spirit and firmness, made a weak defence,
and flew from the fort. In time Nos. 1, 2, and 3 were taken. When the
guns in No. 3 were silenced, the Russian battery increased its fire on
No. 4, which answering with an energy probably emboldened by the
nearness of supports, checked the enemy in his career of success; and
though No. 4 might easily have been captured, it escaped the fate which
sealed the others. It is due to the gallantry of the Turks in No. 4 to
acknowledge that while many of the infantry vaulted in alarm over the
parapet at the first blush of the fight, and ran from the opportunity to
cover themselves with honour, there were not wanting stanch
artillerists, firm and courageous, to stand to the guns; and, as
instructed by the British gunner, to work them manfully. The Pasha in
command was an old but a brave officer, and his worst trouble was to
beat back the flying Turks to join in the defence. The enemy now
commenced another movement by collecting on the heights overlooking the
plain between the redoubts, the whole strength of his cavalry—a solid
menacing body, which in its heaviness threatened that day to strike a
decisive blow. Meanwhile the Turks in No. 4, regarding any display of
courage on their part as useless, and their position untenable, withdrew
the two guns to the rear, halting them on the crest of a slope; and
after spiking the ordnance and breaking the spokes of the wheels and the
shafts of the carriages, tumbled them into the valley. The garrison then
retired to the position where the Highlanders were drawn up. The
artilleryman and sapper stood by the Turks to the last, but in the
retreat each took a different direction. While sitting in the valley a
short distance from the redoubt, Lords Lucan and Cardigan with their
staff galloped up to the sapper, and grouped round him. Learning the
cause of his presence there, he was asked what he knew of the attack.
Lancaster answered to the effect that two of the forts had already been
taken, and the others, having been abandoned, would, he feared, soon
follow. Away rode the commanders and the staff; the trumpets sounded,
and removing the cavalry behind a mound, soon after occurred those
cavalry dispositions, and that extraordinary conflict, which prevented
the Russians from pouring into Balaklava, and capturing the great base
of the allied operations. Private Lancaster succeeded in making good his
retreat, under a heavy fire, without mischance.
Neglecting to erect earth-works to defend the right of the position
towards Inkermann led to an attack by the Russians, which was met and
repulsed with vigour on the 26th October, by the division under the
command of Sir De Lacy Evans. The sappers turned out and marched to
Victoria Hill, in readiness, if required, to take part in the action. A
portion of them was posted behind a rubble wall in “Water” Valley, which
was loopholed during the fight; and four men were in the 5-gun battery.
The usual parties were also distributed to the trenches, working away in
the different batteries as if the combat were at a distance. The fire on
the 21-gun battery was very sharp, but under its fierceness a brigade of
carpenters, directed by corporal Kester Knight, repaired a platform no
less than five times in the course of two hours. It was broken each time
by the heavy recoil of the gun. Once, while mending it, a shot plunged
through the embrasure and shattered a wheel of the carriage; but looking
upon the incident almost as one of the civilities of the siege, the
carpenters continued to work vigorously till they had obtained something
like the desired solidity.
Another attack followed on the 5th November, in which the English and
French, numbering about 14,000 bayonets, were opposed by an army of
nearly 60,000 fighting men. For upwards of ten hours the conflict
lasted, and ended in a victory to the allies, while the Russians, driven
from the hills at all points, took refuge in flight. The losses in the
Anglo-French ranks were very severe, but those of the enemy, incredible
as it may seem, far exceeded the total force of the allies engaged. This
splendid achievement, in which the soldiers stood against overwhelming
odds with unconquerable firmness and bravery, will ever rank in the
annals of war as one of the most remarkable struggles of modern times.
Occupied in the trenches, and forming a guard over the engineer park,
the sappers and miners did not fire a shot in either of the engagements.
They were, however, drawn up while the fight at Inkermann was raging,
prepared to defend the siege depôt had the Russians penetrated to the
engineer plateau. Being in position during the battle, the sappers and
miners have been considered entitled to the Inkermann decoration, and
341 non-commissioned officers and men of the corps present on the
occasion had the honour of receiving the clasp.
Though the night was thick and foggy, the Russian columns were seen
surging towards Inkermann from the Mamelon. None of our siege guns could
be brought to bear on them; and as it was considered an object of the
first moment to rake the masses, orders were given to alter the
embrasure of a gun in the old right Lancaster battery, beyond the right
of the first parallel. Lance-corporal Trimble, a young and agile
soldier, had charge of the two embrasures in the battery, and had with
him four men of the 47th regiment to assist in the repairs. No sooner
was the decision communicated to the corporal, than he leaped into the
opening, followed by his party. Gabions, barrels, fascines, and
sand-bags, quickly disappeared; all were thrown or pushed into the ditch
in front of the battery, as the readiest means of performing a service
from which so much was expected. Then commenced the reformation of the
splay by cutting away full half of the merlon on the right cheek, which
separated the 24-pounder from the Lancaster gun. When finished, the
embrasure had a skew form, with a widened mouth; but as the service was
pressing, and the artillerymen impatient—for twice did they stop the
work to try the effect of a few rounds—it could not be revetted, and the
parapet was necessarily left without a gabion to bank up the earth. The
47th men took a bold and active part in the service, and within an hour,
under a fire that would have made many a head reel, the corporal and his
men completed the alteration. Barely had they jumped from the opening,
when the gunners recommenced a cannonade from the Lancaster which made
deadly gaps in the Russian battalions, as in winding round the Mamelon
they retreated to their own lines. For their assistance in this hurried
duty, one or two of the linesmen were made corporals and decorated with
medals; and Trimble, though his rewards were deferred, was promoted to
be second-corporal, and honoured with a special gratuity of ten pounds
and medal for gallant conduct.
From the stern grandeur of the battle, it was not improbable the attack
would be repeated, when, in some degree, the Russians had recovered from
the shock. To render an approach less likely to succeed, Lieutenant
Ravenhill and a party of sappers repaired to the heights to destroy the
road winding from the head of Sebastopol harbour up the ravine to
Inkermann. This was simply as a first defensive resource, to be followed
by regularly planned works. The hill-top and its slopes were covered
with killed and wounded, among whom perhaps the sappers might have
performed any amount of duty without accident; but possessing a settled
distrust of the honour of the Russians, they first collected all the
arms they could see within sixty yards of their work, and broke them in
pieces. Thus relieved from a temptation to which the vanquished in their
hatred have been known treacherously to yield, the sappers moved to the
site of their work, and in eight hours dug a trench across the road
eight feet deep and twelve broad.
A few nights later, privates Charles Harris and Nicholas Garrett
revetted an embrasure in the 21-gun battery, which had been torn to
pieces in the early part of the morning. Shot and shell frequently fell
into the work, but the sappers swerved not from the peril it seemed
impossible to escape. Lieutenant Murray stood himself in the aperture to
relieve the men of the necessity for watching, and warned the two
gallant fellows when projectiles were approaching. In such instances, to
lessen the chances of risk, all three threw themselves on the sole of
the work, and, when the danger passed, resumed the revetment, quitting
it only when the embrasure was finished.
When the Russians learnt that a descent was to be made on the Crimean
coast, they sank several of their large war vessels and blocked up the
passage into the harbour of Sebastopol. Since nautical skill and
manœuvring were confessedly unequal to master the difficulty,
submarine blasting was proposed as the readiest and most effectual
method, and four sapper divers, selected from volunteers at Chatham,
accompanied by the necessary apparatus and stores, sailed in the
‘Prince’ on the 27th October, and arrived in the harbour of Balaklava on
the 7th November. Several other sappers, then before Sebastopol, who had
been practically trained in the art by actual service in the demolition
of the wreck of the ‘Royal George,’ were to have been engaged in the
perilous duty.
On the 11th November was commenced the second parallel on the left
attack, 360 yards in advance of Chapman’s battery. The ground presented
a surface of interminable rock, which caused the soil, as before, to be
brought from a distance to form the parapets. The labours of the sappers
were confined chiefly to mining the hill and blasting the rock, and also
placing the gabions in position. Some 350 yards in front of the new
parallel a row of Russian riflemen was established, who picked off the
guard of the trenches with fatal rapidity. A dash was made for the pits
on the 20th, which, after a smart little combat, were captured and
occupied by our light troops. The holes were afterwards connected by
boyaux to the second parallel. On the right attack a place of arms was
formed to shelter the troops when drawn up for assault. A long boyau was
run out half way to the intended spot, and the centre portion of the
parallel was thrown up by flying sap. Communications being also effected
with the rear by means of a double set of approaches, guns and cohorns
were mounted in the batteries to defend the stormers and play on the
works. This new formation afterwards took its place in the series of
trenches for the second parallel.
For two or three weeks the weather had been unpropitious. Snow was upon
the ground, and sometimes rain, sleet, and hail varied the inclemency,
while frost intervening, nipped the men with its cold grasp, and added
to their sufferings. The prevailing aspect of the clouds was gloomy and
lowering, but there was nothing to indicate the approach of that
memorable storm, which on the 14th November, swept over the Black Sea
and the Crimea. Early in the morning the hurricane began its portentous
howling, and it was not long before it committed terrific havoc at sea.
Ingenuity and precaution did much to save the ships from disaster, but
many of the transports, too soon becoming unmanageable, were engulfed as
by a spell in the raging surf, or broken to pieces on the shore. Among
these was the ‘Prince,’ a magnificent steamer of heavy tonnage,
freighted with winter clothing for the army and the diving machinery.
For two hours she stood bravely against the storm, but at length driven
against the rocks at Balaklava, her timbers were rent in every
direction, and she went down. The four sapper divers on board of her,
sergeant William Carne, and privates Samuel Lewis, Thomas Price, and
Thomas Toohey, sank in the wreck, as also Captain W. M. Inglis, who had
been observed on a spar struggling to gain the shore, when a wave of
foam broke over him, and he was seen no more.
A like fate attended the ‘Rip Van Winkle;’ and the two sapper
photographers—corporal John Pendered, and lance-corporal John
Hammond—well educated and trained at great expense in the art, perished
in the foundered vessel. The knapsacks and kits of the eighth company
were also lost.
On shore the hurricane was not so calamitous, but the tents were all
torn up and blown to a distance. Only one solitary marquee remained to
mark the site of the encampment. In common with the army the sappers and
miners felt the shock of the storm, and were left shivering on the
heights, unclad and comfortless. Those in the trenches experienced equal
misery, but their zeal in the prosecution of the works was only checked
by the fury of the raging wind and the deluging rain. The road to
Balaklava soon became one long morass, and both man and horse, in
travelling to the port, had to wade the distance up to their knees in
mud. From this time the suffering and privations of the troops
considerably increased in extent and severity; but, borne with
uncomplaining endurance and fortitude, earned for them the abiding
admiration and sympathies of their countrymen.
Two days after the conflict at Inkermann, parties of the corps were
allotted for the duty of raising appropriate field-works to protect the
right, which, shortly after, were increased by the fourth company
encamped on the heights. Ill able to spare the men from the general
works, the seventh company under Captain Gibb was removed from Gallipoli
to take part in the operation. Arriving at Balaklava on the 28th
November, the company reinforced the camp before Sebastopol on the 2nd
December. Until the 17th, it was employed in the work of the trenches
forming the ‘right attack,’ but on the following day it moved to the
heights of Inkermann to complete the approaches against the town, and to
erect batteries to oppose those of the enemy on the side of the
Tchernaya. The fourth company being relieved, was returned to the
operations of the right attack. At these lines the sappers, whose
numbers varied between 58 and 31, worked only by day, except in a few
special instances when the firing of the enemy was too hot and accurate
to admit of day labour being carried on with any chance of success. The
chief of their work was performed in the parallel, Redoubte du 5me
Novembre, and the Mortar and St. Laurent’s batteries. They also laid the
platforms, formed the embrasures and traverses, and restored them when
injured. Two magazines in the St. Laurent’s battery, constructed by the
French of indifferent rubble, were so damaged by shells that both were
rebuilt by the English sappers in a serviceable style, with a roof of
sand-bags and fascines, covered with a thick substratum of well-tamped
earth. Relieved from duty one afternoon, the party was thrown into the
trenches at night to level the top of the parapet. Though few in number,
they worked with so much energy, that the object of their employment was
fully accomplished in the darkness. Another night they crept down into
the glen on the right, and tearing down some Russian houses, the timber
brought away with them was afterwards turned to account for platforms,
&c. In the general business of the trenches they were much impeded by
the severity of the weather. The depth of the snow almost baffled them;
but by removing it day after day from the interior of the lines, they
made commendable progress in the batteries. Blasting rock was one of
their ordinary duties; and after the 21st January, when the line troops
were wholly withdrawn, the sappers were the only British soldiers
working in concert with the allies. A 24 lb. shot struck one of the
tents of the seventh company on the 4th February, and, singularly
enough, glanced off the canvas without occasioning any casualty. After
completing the Mortar battery and perfecting the details of the St.
Laurent, the company, on the 7th, quitted the heights, leaving the works
solely to the French.
As the siege wore on, it was found advantageous to make each relief
commence its allotted labour at the most advanced point, and work
backwards. The infantry parties usually opened ground as far as
practicable, using straw baskets to gather earth for cover in places
where it was insufficient. Wherever the pick was used it struck upon
rock, which offered an unfailing obstruction to the progress of the
lines. The sappers invariably followed these surface pioneers, and
blasted or removed the stony portions. “In this service,” it is
recorded, “these men’s exertions have been altogether invaluable, and
such as could not be supplied from any other part of the army.”
On the 1st December the strength of the corps in the East was as
follows:—
No.
Present at the siege and effective 401
Sick in field hospitals 40
Balaklava 23
Bucharest 14
Varna 17
Gallipoli 11
Constantinople and Scutari 18
———
Total 524
———
A feeble force compared with the extreme exigencies of the period.
Two sappers in charge of the field electric telegraph for service in the
Crimea, arrived at Balaklava on the 7th December, and repaired to the
camp on the 19th, taking with them the instruments, batteries, insulated
wire, and appliances, packed in two waggons. Twenty-four coils of wire,
each a mile long, were packed in them, as also a subsoil plough,
appropriate tools, and boats. The apparatus, only available for short
distances, was worked by six or eight men. To establish a communication
between any two points, the wire, which uncoiled from a drum, revolving
horizontally in a carriage drawn in advance, was laid in a shallow
trough made by the plough, which served the double purpose of cutting
the furrow and depositing the line. The trough was just deep enough to
protect the wire from ordinary accidents. Equally effective was the
apparatus for communicating with vessels at sea. The two sappers were
specially instructed in the electric telegraph establishment at Lothbury
in the mode of working the instruments, laying the wire, and in the
ingenious manipulation required to give effect to the process. Such,
however, was the state of the weather from snow storms, hard frosts, and
heavy rains, it was some weeks before the telegraph could be employed.
Meanwhile, as the instrument was regarded as an important appendage to
the army, sergeants James Anderson[162] and Montgomery, with several
non-commissioned officers and privates, were educated in the art by
corporal Peter Fraser; so that when the time arrived for using it, there
was an adequate staff of operators to attend to its scientific details
and requirements.
Up to this period, in addition to the casualties already mentioned, the
following men were put hors de combat:—
Private James Dilling—killed, by the bursting of a gun.
The wounded were—
Private John McLean—slightly, in the head, by the bursting of a shell.
” James Wheeler—severely, in back of head and right shoulder, by
splinters of shells.
” William Haines—severely, in back, by a spent 32 lb. shot rolling
over the parapet on him.
” John Hutton—slightly, in the head.
” John Giles—severely, in left clavicle, and collar-bone broken,
by grape-shot. After returning to England had a severe attack
of small-pox, from which he recovered, but lost his right eye.