1854-1856.
THE WAR IN THE CRIMEA.
When the Royal Irish reached England in June, 1854, after a six
months’ voyage from Calcutta, they were greeted by the news that
for the first time since Waterloo Britain had become embroiled in
a European war, and in alliance with France had sent troops to
protect Turkey against the Russians, who had invaded the part of
the Sultan’s dominions then known as the Danubian principalities.
The Czar had long cast covetous eyes on Turkey, whose European
provinces on the Ægean and the Sea of Marmora prevented the expansion
of Russia towards the Mediterranean, and thus limited her seaboard
to the Baltic and the Black Sea. In the middle of the nineteenth
century Turkey appeared to be so decadent a country that its ruler
was commonly described as “the sick man”; the Czar actually threw
out suggestions to England that she should divide with him “the sick
man’s heritage,” and on her indignant refusal he determined to bide
his time and pick a quarrel with the Sultan on the first opportunity.
A pretext soon presented itself in a dispute between the Greek and
Latin branches of the Christian faith concerning their respective
rights in the Holy Places of Jerusalem: the Czar hotly espoused
the cause of the Greek Church, while the Emperor Napoleon III.,
reviving the historic claim of France to represent the Latin Church
in Palestine, vigorously supported the views of the Roman Catholics.
The Sultan, profoundly indifferent to the rivalries of those whom
his religion taught him to regard as infidel dogs, attempted to
propitiate both sides, but with such conspicuous ill-success that
the Czar declared war against him in October, 1853, and invaded the
Turkish provinces on the Danube. To defend Turkey against this wanton
and unprovoked attack, England and France in the spring of 1854
landed a considerable number of troops at Varna, a Bulgarian port on
the Black Sea. It was from no love of the Turks that England thus
plunged into war with Russia: she took up arms in pursuance of the
foreign policy which for centuries she has followed on the Continent,
and sided with the weaker state--not on altruistic grounds but solely
to preserve the balance of power in Europe, and to prevent the Czar
from possessing himself of Constantinople, and thus obtaining direct
access to the Mediterranean Sea.
The Anglo-French troops were still at Varna when, in the interests of
peace, Austria brought such pressure upon the Czar that he recalled
his armies from Turkish soil. But though the immediate danger to
Constantinople was averted by this intervention, the governments of
England and France agreed that there would be no safety for Turkey,
and therefore no tranquillity in European politics, until the Russian
fleet in the Black Sea had been captured or destroyed, and its base
at Sebastopol levelled to the ground. When the demolition of this
great naval station was thus determined on, the allies knew little of
Sebastopol,[159] except that it was a fortress in the south of the
Crimea, a peninsula jutting into the Black Sea from the mainland of
Russia: and no soldier in western Europe had any conception of the
difficulties awaiting the Anglo-French Expedition when it put to sea
from Varna on September 7, 1854. Exclusive of the crews of the great
fleet of warships by which the transports were escorted, the fighting
men numbered about 63,000, of whom 28,000 were French, 7000 Turks,
and 28,000 British. The French were under Marshal St Arnaud; Lord
Raglan, who had served on Wellington’s staff in the Peninsular war,
commanded the British troops. Neither of these officers lived to see
the end of the campaign: St Arnaud died in September, 1854, and was
succeeded by General Canrobert who, after a few months, resigned his
post to General Pélissier: Lord Raglan fell a victim to cholera at
the end of June, 1855, and was replaced by General Simpson. The Turks
were commanded by Omar Pasha.
The effort to collect and equip for war the comparatively small body
of men forming the British quota of the combined forces had greatly
taxed the military resources of England. After the fall of the great
Napoleon had restored peace to Europe, enormous reductions had been
made in our military expenditure;[160] not only was the _personnel_
of the army cut down, but the _matériel_ was allowed to fall into
decay. For more than thirty years every arm and every department of
the service was systematically starved, with results well summed up
by Lord Palmerston, who in 1846 bluntly informed his colleagues in
the Cabinet that our military weakness was such that England existed
“only by sufferance and by the forbearance of other Powers.” This
opinion was endorsed by the highest authority in the British army,
for Wellington himself acknowledged that our supply of guns, arms,
ammunition, and all kinds of stores was inadequate. Nor were these
grievous shortcomings atoned for by any high standard of efficiency
amongst the troops, for though the drill and discipline of the army
were alike excellent, neither the soldiers nor the departments vital
to their existence in the field were trained in the slightest
degree for active service; indeed, until 1853, when a few thousand
men spent some weeks under canvas, no camp of exercise had been
formed in England since the end of the Great War with France.
Marksmanship was almost a lost art; and although the deadly volleys
of the British infantry in the Peninsula had won for our troops the
reputation of the best shots in Europe, musketry was so entirely
neglected during the dead period after Waterloo, that the injunction
“Fire low, and hit ’em in the legs, boys,” was the only instruction
given to recruits. Even in the Foot Guards the men were considered
to be masters of their weapon if, once in every three years, they
fired thirty rounds of ball cartridge. The military education of the
officers was no better than that of the rank and file; there was no
attempt to teach them anything beyond barrack-square drill; the vast
majority grew up ignorant of every detail of their profession, and
as the Staff College at Camberley was not then in existence, the
officers selected for employment on the staff proved in the majority
of cases to be blind leaders of the blind. The few veterans of the
Peninsula who were still to be found among the Generals had seen war
on a grand scale; the officers who had served in eastern and colonial
campaigns had acquired much useful knowledge in these distant
operations, but with these exceptions the Staff and regimental
officers were as untrained in the practice, as they were unversed in
the theory of war.
When the Royal Irish reached England they were quartered at Chatham
and Canterbury. At first there seemed no likelihood of their being
actively employed, for when the regiment had left India many men
had volunteered into other corps, and the climate of Burma had
told so heavily on those who still remained with the Colours that
a large number of them were unfit for active service. Fortune,
however, befriended the XVIIIth; in October the flank companies
under Brevet-Lieutenant-Colonel Edwards were ordered to Windsor, to
strengthen the militia battalion which had replaced the regiment of
Foot Guards at the Royal Castle. Her Majesty, Queen Victoria was much
impressed by the bronzed and soldierly appearance of the detachment,
and learning from Colonel Edwards that the regiment was most anxious
to serve in the war, she was pleased to direct that the XVIIIth
should proceed forthwith to the Crimea, where reinforcements were
urgently required. As the result of the medical examination proved
that less than four hundred men were fit for the campaign, volunteers
were invited from other regiments: four hundred joined from the
94th, a hundred and fifty from the 51st, and smaller contingents
from other corps. On December 8, 1854, the regiment, eight hundred
and forty-eight strong,[161] embarked at Portsmouth in the s.s.
_Magdalene_, and reached the Crimea at the end of the year, about
three months and a half after the Allies had made good their footing
on Russian soil.
To enable the reader to understand the condition of the British
Expeditionary Force when the _Magdalene_ steamed into the harbour of
Balaclava, it is necessary to give a very short account of the main
events of the war up to the end of 1854. Between the 14th and 18th
of September the Allies[162] were engaged in landing at Kalamita
Bay, about thirty miles north of Sebastopol; two days after their
disembarkation was completed they forced the passage of the river
Alma, defeating the Russians so completely that they were allowed
to march southward without molestation, and to form bases on the
coast within a few miles of Sebastopol, the British establishing
themselves at Balaclava, a little port eight miles to the south, the
French at Kamiesch Bay, six miles to the south-west of the fortress.
The Russian stronghold lies on the shores of a harbour, in shape not
unlike a T: the top of the letter is represented by an arm of the sea
running eastward from the Euxine for about four miles, and varying
in width from a thousand to twelve hundred yards, while the leg is
formed by a narrow creek which from the south runs into the main
inlet, about two miles from the entrance to the open sea. On these
deep and sheltered waters the whole of the Russian fleet could ride
in safety, protected by a ring of forts from attack by land or sea,
and the labours of successive generations of engineers had converted
the western shore of the creek, or inner harbour, into a vast arsenal
and dockyard, round which a thriving and populous city had sprung
up. The Generals of the Anglo-French forces soon ascertained by
reconnaissance that they had not nearly men enough to invest the
whole perimeter of the fortress, and at the same time to repel the
attacks to be expected from the enemy’s field troops. All they could
hope to accomplish was to pour upon one portion of the defences a
fire so heavy as to become insupportable; and as the real power of
the defence was obviously concentrated in the arsenals, stores, and
barracks round the inner harbour, the Allies selected the southern
works, those protecting the heart of the fortress, as the object of
their first attack, and took up positions on the plateau between
Balaclava and Sebastopol. Bounded on the north by the harbour, on
the west and south by the sea, and on the east by the valley of the
Tchernaya, the surface of this plateau, or “Upland” as the British
termed it, was seamed by ravines which, beginning as mere depressions
in the ground, grew deeper as they approached the fortress, finally
becoming precipitous gorges, difficult for troops to cross. Close
to the harbour the ground between these gorges rose into gentle
elevations, crowned by works which, as soon as the Russians realised
that the southern side of the fortress was threatened, were heavily
armed and greatly strengthened. The largest of these ravines,
dividing the plain from south to north, descended to the head of the
inner harbour, and served as the boundary between the British on the
right, and the French on the left of the besiegers’ line.
Owing to the inability of the Allies to invest the fortress
completely, communication continued uninterrupted between the
northern part of Sebastopol and the interior of the Crimea; early
in October the civilian population quitted the town, and thus
relieved the troops of the burden of feeding thousands of useless
non-combatants. The forethought of the Russians had collected in the
magazines of Sebastopol enormous supplies of guns, ammunition, and
warlike stores; the commissariat was well provided; the garrison
consisted of 38,000 men--soldiers, military workmen already partially
trained to arms, and sailors from the men-of-war which, at the
approach of the Allies, had been sunk to block the mouth of the outer
harbour. Among the regular troops was an officer in himself worth
an army--Todleben, an engineer who had already made his mark in the
fighting on the Danube. When it became known that the Allies were
sailing for the Crimea he was sent to Sebastopol, where he became the
mainspring of the defence. His courage and genius, his versatility
and resource, his boundless energy, his power of inspiring enthusiasm
and devotion among his men won for him the deepest respect of his
enemies, and the fervent admiration of his fellow countrymen, who
with good reason claim for him a high place among great military
engineers. He soon had an opportunity of displaying his talents.
In the middle of October the Allies opened fire upon the fortress,
and at the close of the bombardment had reason to be satisfied with
the result, for the works were reduced to shapeless heaps, the
batteries ruined, the guns disabled. But next morning the assailants
discovered that in Todleben they had to meet a master-mind: during
the night he had rebuilt the parapets, repaired the batteries, and
replaced the damaged guns from the almost boundless supply of cannon
at his command. On the 25th, the Russian Field army, which after
its defeat at the Alma had retired into the interior of the Crimea
to await reinforcements, made an unsuccessful attempt to break the
line of communication between the British camps on the Upland and
Balaclava. A few days later the Allies determined to assault the
fortress, but their project was discovered by the enemy. At dawn
on the 4th of November, the garrison and the field army together
attacked the British right; and though after a desperate battle, to
which the name of Inkerman has been given, the victory remained to
the Allies, it was dearly bought: the British casualties were 597
killed and 1760 wounded, while those of the French were 143 killed
and 786 wounded. The Russians on their side lost more than 12,000
men, of whom a very large proportion were left dead upon the field.
So far our army had not fared badly in the campaign: the hardships
had not been greater than were to be expected on active service,
and reinforcements had filled the gaps caused by casualties and
disease. Cholera, indeed, hung about the camp, and the men were
undoubtedly overworked, for when the Anglo-French generals drew up
their plans for the siege, the share in the operations which Lord
Raglan undertook was greater than his troops could accomplish without
undue fatigue. But despite sickness and overstrain the health of
the army was fairly good, and when, a few days after Inkerman, it
was officially announced that the Allies would spend the winter
in the Crimea, men looked forward to the prospect without great
apprehension, for the weather was fine, and the Indian summer,
bright, mild, and dry, gave no hint of the rigours of the coming
winter. Suddenly a terrific storm of rain and wind burst upon the
Crimea, levelled whole camps and blew the tents, and all that the
tents contained, far and wide over the Upland; the supplies of food
and forage at the front were destroyed, and communication with
Balaclava was temporarily cut off by the force of the hurricane.
Had the fleet of store-ships then at anchor at Balaclava, or lying
off the port, escaped destruction, the damage, in great measure at
least, could have been repaired; but twenty-one vessels were dashed
to pieces, and eight more disabled. The ships that went to the
bottom contained forage, ammunition, war-like stores of every kind,
drugs and surgical appliances, warm flannel shirts and drawers,
woollen stockings, boots and watch-coats--everything that the army
most urgently required. When fresh supplies arrived at Balaclava
from England the means of conveying them to the Upland was utterly
inadequate, for we had landed without a transport corps, depending
for land carriage on such horses and vehicles as could be seized in
the Crimea. The animals thus obtained died fast from want of forage,
and in January, 1855, the Commissariat department could only muster
333 horses and mules and 12 camels, while the divisional transport
consisted of a few ponies, dying from starvation and overwork. Though
horses in plenty were to be bought in the countries near the Crimea,
and many transports were available to bring them to Balaclava, it
was useless to import animals until forage arrived to feed them, and
forage unhappily was an article of which the Treasury had neglected
to make an adequate provision. Consequently upon the troops fell the
whole labour of carrying on their shoulders from the port to the
camps everything that was required, not only for their own support,
but for the conduct of the siege. As was to be expected, the men
broke down terribly fast; in November there were nearly 17,000 on the
sick list; in December there were more than 19,000 ineffectives, and
in January, 1855, no less than 23,076 men filled the hospitals. The
horrors of this period of the war are well described by Field-Marshal
Sir Evelyn Wood, who served on shore as a midshipman in one of the
Naval brigades.
“In the early part of the winter the battalions at the front
were generally on duty two nights out of three, and later,
every alternate night. The life of the rank and file was thus
spent:--The men were mustered carrying great-coat and blanket,
just before dusk, and marched through a sea of mud into the
trenches. These were cut up by deep holes from which boulders and
stones had been taken, and into these holes on dark nights, the
men often fell. When the soldier reached his position, he had to
sit with his back to the parapet, and his feet drawn up close
under his body to allow others to pass along the four-feet-wide
trench. If he was not detailed for a working party, nor for
piquet in the trenches or in advance of them, he might lie down,
resting as best he could, in a wet ditch. Assuming that the
soldier was not on piquet, and that there was no alarm--and these
were of frequent occurrence--he could, after the working parties
and their reliefs had ceased to move about the trenches, repose
till daylight, when he marched back to camp, and after a few
hours’ rest had to carry a load of some kind.
“The comparative repose enjoyed by those men who were required
only as a guard, or reserve in the trenches, was very different
to the condition of those who were employed from 200 to 300 yards
in advance of our works, often within conversational distance of
the opposing sentries. The reliefs for the sentries could snatch
a dog’s sleep for four hours out of six, hoping their comrades
would by remaining on the alert give them time to jump up ere
the enemy was on them; but for the two hours that each man was
out near the enemy, the strain on the nervous system would have
been great even to a robust, well-fed man. These sentries had
necessarily to stand absolutely still, silent and watchful, and
as the severity of the weather became more and more marked,
numbers of men whose frames were weakened by want of adequate
nutritious food, were found in the morning frost-bitten and
unable to move. One battalion which landed nearly 900 strong
early in November, was actually in the trenches six nights out of
seven, and then became so reduced, not only in numbers,[163] but
also in the men’s bodily strength, that it was unable for some
time to go there again.
“When the soldier got back to camp, he used to lie, often in
a puddle, which chilled his bones, under a worn-out tent,
through which the rain beat. The less robust would fall asleep,
completely worn out, to awake shivering, and in many cases to be
carried to a hospital tent scarcely more comfortable than the
tent which they had left, and thence to a grave in two or three
days. Those who were stronger, went out to collect roots of
brushwood, or of vines, and roasted the green coffee ration in
the lid of the canteen, afterwards pounding it in a fragment of
shell with a stone, ere they boiled it for use. Others, unequal
to this laborious process, would drink their rum, and eating a
piece of biscuit, lie down again in the great-coat and blanket
which they had brought, often wet through from the trenches.
“In the afternoon the soldier was sent on ‘fatigue’ duty from
five to seven miles, according to the position of his camp,
usually to Balaclava, to bring up rations. On his return he had
again to gather fuel in order to boil the salt beef or salt pork
in his mess tin, which did not hold water enough to abstract the
salt. A portion of the meat therefore only was consumed, and
it was necessary from time to time to tell off men to bury the
quantities thrown away. Salt pork which was issued two days out
of seven, was frequently eaten by the men in its raw state, from
the difficulties of finding fuel to cook it.
“Shortly before dusk the soldier either marched back to the
trenches, or lay down to sleep if he was not on piquet in front
of the camp. Many men disliking to report themselves sick, were
carried back from the trenches in the morning, and died a few
hours afterwards. Those who were reported sick were taken to
hospital, in many cases merely a bell tent; here the men lay,
often in mud on the ground, and in many instances their diet was
only salt meat and biscuit.[164] They were moreover so crowded
together that the doctors could scarcely pass between the
patients.
“The Regimental Medical officers unable to provide comforts,
medicine or proper housing, were eager to send down their
patients, even in storm and rain, to Balaclava, as the best
chance of saving their lives. As we had no ambulances, and the
French could not always lend us mule litter-transport, many were
necessarily carried on cavalry horses, which slipping upon the
hill outside Balaclava, often caused further injury or the death
of the patient.
* * * * *
“The small schoolhouse at Balaclava, which we used as a hospital,
held only between 300-400 men, thus the great majority of the
sick and wounded were necessarily laid on the beach, exposed to
all weathers, while awaiting their turn for embarcation in the
transports. On the steamer running between Balaclava and the
Bosphorus--a voyage of 36 to 48 hours--the soldier seldom got
anything but tea and biscuit, sometimes only water. During this
short but terribly trying passage, from 8 to 9% succumbed and
were thrown overboard. Once on shore there was often a further
painful wait on the beach before they were carried up to the
hospital.
* * * * *
“We who saw the ‘old soldier’ die without a murmur may well be
excused dilating on his virtues, when we endeavour to describe
what he suffered for our country, the ministry of which, having
given him a task far beyond his strength, failed to supply
him with clothes and food. It is impossible to overpraise the
disciplined silence of men under privations, which in a few weeks
reduced one battalion from nearly 1000 effectives to a strength
of 30 rank and file.”[165]
This misery was at its height when the Royal Irish disembarked at
Balaclava on December 30, 1854; casualties, hardships, and disease
had so thinned the British ranks that in January, 1855, to meet all
requirements of the siege Lord Raglan had only 11,000 men at duty
on the Upland, many of whom were only fit to be in hospital: one
day, indeed, after providing fatigues to bring up the necessaries of
life from Balaclava, he could only turn out two hundred and ninety
officers and men to guard his trenches--about one-twentieth part of
the garrisons of the forts opposite his works, against which at any
moment the Russians might have directed a sortie. The regiments upon
which the war had told most heavily had almost ceased to exist: one
battalion paraded for duty with a few officers, a sergeant, and seven
rank and file. With his army in such a condition, it was impossible
for Lord Raglan to continue responsible for the whole of the ground
allotted to him at the beginning of the siege, and the French, who
had been very largely reinforced, and whose sufferings, though great,
were in comparison with ours but insignificant, relieved him on the
extreme right of his line. The material result of this necessary
but deplorable admission of weakness was to “sandwich” the British
between two wings of the French army, while morally it reduced us to
the position of a mere contingent in the forces of Napoleon III. By
England’s persistent neglect of all things military she had sown the
storm, and her unhappy soldiers in the Crimea reaped the whirlwind;
and it was not for many months, after thousands of lives had been
wasted[166] and money spent like water, that her army was once more
able to take its proper place in the forces of the alliance against
Russia.
The Royal Irish were not at once sent up to the front, but for
nearly a fortnight were employed on fatigues about the port. Thanks
to this delay they were able to see their baggage and camp equipage
safe on shore, and thus, when ordered to the Upland, they began the
campaign well prepared to face the hardships that awaited them. In
this respect they were far better off than the regiments which first
landed in the Crimea. The original expedition had disembarked with
hardly any vehicles; the men were so much enfeebled by the climate of
Varna that they could not bear the weight of their knapsacks, which
with the rest of the baggage were left on board the transports; and
when these vessels ultimately reached Balaclava, knapsacks, stores,
and regimental property of every kind were lost in the confusion
which for many months reigned supreme at our base of operations. The
miseries undergone by the troops who landed at the beginning of the
war have already been described; and the ragged, jaded starvelings
who dragged themselves from the camps on the Upland to the port of
Balaclava on the daily quest for food were in pitiable contrast to
the well-fed, well-clothed, well-shod men of the XVIIIth. These
material advantages doubtless contributed largely towards the
comparative immunity from sickness enjoyed by the regiment during the
siege, but an even more important factor in its well-being was the
presence in its ranks of a large number of soldiers who had been on
active service, and of many officers who had learned in two long wars
not only to take care of themselves, but also of the men under their
command.
On January 12, 1855, the Royal Irish received orders to join
Major-General Sir William Eyre’s brigade, then composed of the 4th,
38th, and 50th regiments, which formed part of the third division
under Lieutenant-General Sir Richard England; and leaving a guard
over such of their property as they could not carry with them, they
started for the Upland. Their introduction to campaigning in the
Crimea was a rude one; a blizzard raged as they floundered through
deep snow along a track, marked by the bodies of transport animals
killed by starvation and overwork; and when late in the afternoon
they reached Eyre’s camp, they were told off by companies to find
shelter in the lines of other corps, for their own tents had been
left standing at Balaclava from want of transport to move them. When
the Royal Irish succeeded in bringing up their tents from Balaclava,
they settled down in camp with the handiness of seasoned troops.
Most of the officers dug out the earth inside their tents to a depth
of eighteen inches, piling the soil on the curtains to keep out the
wind. There was no means of draining the inside of these habitations,
“holes in the ground, roofed over with canvas,” as they were well
described, but as the camp of the third division was pitched on dry
and porous ground the XVIIIth were not troubled with water inside
their tents, nor outside had they the miseries of mud and standing
pools which made the camps on low ground so wretched. As for “warming
the tents,” continues Captain Kemp’s[167] statement,
“in mine we improvised a stove out of an old square biscuit-tin;
we let part of it into the earthen wall of the dug-out tent, and
made a chimney-pipe out of round meat tins, slipped one inside
the other. This chimney passing through the soil, came out clear
of the canvas and was then turned upwards for a couple of feet.
It answered well, though we were at times half smothered with the
smoke. Wood for fuel was very scarce. A small quantity was served
out for the soldiers’ cooking places, but the men had to carry
it into camp on their shoulders for a distance of two miles or
more. Their cooking was done in the usual trench in the open, but
in very severe weather--rain, wind or snow--it was impossible to
keep the fires going: this was one of the great hardships of the
campaign. The cooking for the officers was done close to their
tents, in holes or trenches dug by the servants, who used to
throw the earth round the kitchen, and cover it with any bits of
canvas they could find. Our servants had to forage for firewood,
and generally brought back nothing but the wet roots of vines
which they had grubbed up.”
Each officer took out with him to the war a canteen containing
cooking utensils, plates, dishes, and cups, but the wear and
tear of camp life soon made havoc of this kit. At a farewell
dinner given in March by the XVIIIth to Colonel Reignolds when,
completely broken down by hardships, he made over the regiment to
Brevet-Lieutenant-Colonel Edwards and went home invalided, each of
the officers had to cook some part of the feast in his own kitchen,
and brought the remnants of his plates, knives and forks, and the
articles of food he had provided to the dinner, where empty jam pots
took the place of soup plates and champagne glasses.
As soon as the Royal Irish joined Eyre’s brigade they began to do
duty in the trenches, where parties were sent for twelve hours at a
time to guard the works, make good with sand-bags the damage done to
the parapets by the enemy’s projectiles, and improve the drainage.
In March, when the weather began to moderate, the tour of duty was
increased to twenty-four hours, much to the men’s satisfaction,
as those who were not wanted by day for guards or working parties
snatched some hours’ sleep in the dry caves of the great ravine
which, as has already been mentioned, marked the left of the
British front. The duty, heavy for all, was particularly hard on
the officers, who were often in the trenches for seventy-two hours
in the week. By day they had to direct the men at their labours, by
night to be prepared to meet an attack from the fortress. Thanks to
their incessant care in seeing that the men were always ready for any
emergency, and to half-hourly visits to the sentries, the officers
of the XVIIIth were never surprised, and whenever the regiment was
in the trenches the Russians received so unfriendly a welcome that
they never attempted to push home, though on several occasions they
crossed bayonets with the outlying sentries. These local attacks were
not the only dangers of night work during the siege. If the wind
served, and the Russians heard a party at work, they threw fireballs,
which on striking the ground burst into a great flare; then, guided
by the light, they poured grape upon the labourers, who used to throw
themselves for shelter behind the parapet of the trench until the
cannonade ceased. Things began to brighten on the Upland in March:
a great burst of indignation at home against the archaic methods
by which the army was administered had roused the officials of the
War Office and the Treasury to a tardy sense of their shortcomings:
a gang of navvies from England had almost finished a railway from
Balaclava to the camps; a transport corps had been organised and was
doing good service,[168] and the troops, once more properly clothed,
discarded the weird garments with which they had covered their
nakedness during the winter months, and began to resume the bearing
of British soldiers. So marked was the improvement in the appearance
of the men that some martinets considered that only one thing was
required to bring the army up to its old level--the resumption
of the stock, which by general consent had been discarded at the
beginning of the war: but this relic of barbarism was not taken
into use for many months, and then only on the ceremonial parades
at the end of the war. In justice to the XVIIIth it should be said
that throughout the siege all ranks managed to turn out respectably
attired. The officers wore their red shell-jackets or blue frocks
under the regimental great-coat; and they were also provided with
a non-regulation garment, much like the “coat-warm-British” of the
present day, made of serge, lined with rabbit-skin, and reaching
almost to the knee. The great-coats of the men looked decent, and
concealed the blankets below them, converted into loosely fitting
under-coats by the simple expedient of cutting holes in them for the
men’s arms to come through. All ranks had fur caps, the envy of the
whole army. About this time the Minié rifles, with which the army
were then supposed to be armed, were issued to the Royal Irish, who
had been hurried off to the war equipped with Brown-Bess percussion
muskets, the same weapons that they had used in Burma.
Even in the worst part of the winter the Allies never wholly
discontinued their siege operations, and as the weather became
less severe their parallels were pushed forward steadily towards
Sebastopol. The Russians on their side had not been idle: large
reinforcements from the field army so abundantly made good the losses
of the garrison that Todleben could command the services of 6000, and
even on occasions of 10,000 men in carrying out his improvements
of the defences. He seized and fortified fresh ground overlooking
some of the works of the Allies, and devised a successful method of
harassing the men on duty in the trenches. Under cover of darkness
he dug numbers of shallow rifle-pits within musketry range of our
lines, posting in each a marksman whose duty it was to shoot at every
living target he could see. These pits were gradually connected by
continuous trenches, and became a source of much annoyance to the
Anglo-French troops, who found them difficult to deal with: to turn
the sharpshooters out with the bayonet was costly, while to shell
so small a mark as they presented was very difficult, and therefore
little sandbag forts were run up at intervals on the parapets of the
trenches, manned by soldiers detailed to keep down the skirmishers’
fire. In spite, however, of Todleben’s efforts the Allies succeeded
in arming their batteries with an imposing number of heavy guns,
and early in April finished their preparations for a vigorous
bombardment, the prelude (as it was universally believed) to the
storming of Sebastopol. The French could bring to bear 378 pieces
of ordnance; the British had only 123 guns and mortars available,
but as for the most part they were much more powerful than those of
the French, the difference in weight of metal was not great. The
cannonade began on the 9th of April, and raged for ten days and
nights, for though the guns did not fire after the sun was down, the
mortars continued to play upon the fortress throughout the night.
Though mitigated by Todleben’s genius for rapid repairs, the effect
of the bombardment was very great, and all ranks were awaiting orders
for the attack when Canrobert, who on the death of St Arnaud had
succeeded to the command of the French, decreed that the assault was
to be postponed.[169] The fire of the guns was gradually allowed to
die down: the digging parties resumed work upon the approaches: and
the Russians were allowed to carry out the restoration of their works
without interruption other than that of occasional shots from our
batteries. This bombardment cost the enemy 6000 men: in the ranks
of the Allies the casualties were far smaller, amounting among the
French to 1585, among the British to 265 of all ranks.
Up to the middle of June the record of the XVIIIth is one of
exceedingly hard work, unbroken by the excitement of any important
engagement. The Royal Irish were employed in many different ways.
They toiled along the track, first from Balaclava, and then from
railhead to the camps on the Upland, laden, to use the soldiers’
expression, “like commissariat mules,” with stores; they were on
fatigues of every kind, from digging parallels and throwing up
batteries to making gabions and fascines; and they took their turn
in the trenches, where, though they demanded and often obtained the
dangerous privilege of guarding the approaches nearest to the enemy,
their losses were small. Between the 6th of February, when their
first casualty occurred, and the 17th of June, only six men were
killed and thirty-six wounded. Of these injuries, however, many were
of the gravest nature: on one occasion a shell from a Russian mortar
burst among a detachment on its way to the trenches and struck down
ten of the party. To save the lives of the wounded the surgeons had
to perform amputations upon each of them, and seven men lost a leg
apiece, two an arm each, while the least hurt escaped with the loss
of a hand. This comparative immunity from casualties, however, was
not to last, for the regiment was now to be called upon to undergo
an ordeal nearly as severe as those in its campaigns under William
III. and Marlborough. At the beginning of June the immediate object
of the Allies was the capture of three outlying fortifications,
outposts which covered the left of the line of Russian defences. The
trenches of the French right attack were faced by the White Works
and a hill called “the Mamelon,” the latter of which barred the way
to the Malakoff redoubt, one of the keys of the main position; the
British sap led to “the Quarries,” where a number of works covered
the Redan, a fort as formidable and as important as the Malakoff
itself. On the 6th of June another great bombardment began; five
hundred and forty-four pieces of heavy ordnance hurled shot and shell
into the Russian works, and though answered by almost an equal number
inflicted great injury: many cannon were dismounted and earth-works
ruined before darkness imposed silence upon our guns, though not upon
our howitzers, which continued to fire throughout the night. Thanks
to the boundless energy of Todleben and the dogged industry of his
men, much of the damage was made good before dawn; the cannon were
remounted and the parapets rebuilt; but early in the morning the
English and French re-opened fire with such terrible effect that in
two hours the _morale_ of the defenders was seriously affected. Then
the infantry of the Allies was let loose, and after heavy fighting
succeeded in taking the points assailed. In these achievements the
XVIIIth had no part, as the third division was not employed in the
capture of the Quarries.
As soon as these three outlying works had been taken, the Allies
began to prepare for an attack on the Malakoff and the Redan, and on
the 17th of June the batteries concentrated a furious fire on the
Russian fortifications, with results so destructive to the enemy’s
artillery that everything appeared to promise success for the assault
on the morrow. Lord Raglan and Marshal Pélissier, who had recently
been placed in command of the French army, had already agreed upon
their plans; remembering how rapidly during the night of the 6th-7th
of June the Russians had re-fitted their batteries, the Generals
decided that the cannonade should be resumed at daylight for two
hours, when it was calculated that the enemy’s guns would be silenced
and the repairs of the night destroyed. The infantry was then to come
into action, the French against the Malakoff, the British against
the Redan. Barnard’s brigade of the third division was to support
the storming columns, while on the extreme left Eyre, with the other
brigade of the same division, was to threaten the fortifications
on the Russian right of the Redan and in front of the Dockyard
Creek, and to convert his demonstration into a serious attack if
the assault on the Redan proved successful. Raglan’s preparations
for the execution of his part of this scheme were completed, when
suddenly, late on the night of the 17th, Pélissier informed the
British Commander-in-Chief that he had resolved to dispense with
the preliminary bombardment, and to storm the Malakoff at daybreak.
Against his own judgment, and in an evil hour for the Allied armies,
Raglan consented to this all-important change of plan; the infantry
attacks on the Malakoff and the Redan were delivered without adequate
artillery preparation; Todleben, who had done wonders during the
night, was ready at every point, and the combined assault was beaten
back with heavy loss. The only troops on whom Fortune smiled this day
were those of Eyre’s brigade, who fought magnificently, and worthily
sustained the honour of the British army. The brigade was at this
time composed of the 9th, XVIIIth, 28th, 38th, and 44th regiments,
but so heavily had the campaign told upon them that, when in the
small hours of the 18th of June Eyre mustered these five battalions,
there were but two thousand men in their depleted ranks. Covered by
an advance-guard of a hundred and fifty sharpshooters--volunteers
from each company in his command--the General left his camp while
it was still black night, and marched down the great ravine towards
the Dockyard Creek. At daybreak, just as the troops detailed for
the assault on the Redan were swarming out of the trenches in which
they had been assembled, Eyre’s advance-guard reached a cemetery,
surprised the occupants of the rifle pits by which it was defended,
and captured it without much trouble. This cemetery marked one flank
of the enemy’s line, the other rested on a mamelon;[170] and to quote
the words of Eyre’s report, the intervening ground “was intersected,
and the road barricaded with stone walls, which our men were obliged
to pull down under fire before they could advance. In rear of this
position, towards the fortress, the enemy occupied several houses,
there were bodies of the enemy seen in rear, but in what strength
I could not say. This position, under cover of the walls of the
fortress, was strong.” Well might General Eyre describe the position
as “strong.” The suburb, of which these houses formed part, consisted
of villas standing in gardens, planted with peach-trees in full
blossom, and surrounded with low stone walls, thickly overgrown with
vines. From several points it was commanded by the Russian artillery;
to our “half-left” was the Garden Wall battery; in front rose the
Creek battery, built at the head of the inner harbour of Sebastopol;
on our right was the Barrack battery, and hidden behind the Redan
were field-guns, which after the assault on that work had failed
turned their fire upon Eyre’s regiments.
Before describing the doings of the XVIIIth in detail it will be well
to give a short account of the work done by the brigade as a whole.
Such an account is to be found in the letter to ‘The Times’[171] by
Sir William Russell, the celebrated war correspondent, who, writing
only two days after the battle, seems to have obtained his facts from
the reports supplied to Eyre by the officers commanding his units.
As Russell’s letter is in substantial agreement with Eyre’s report
to his divisional general, its evidence appears valuable. After
mentioning that the advance-guard occupied the cemetery with small
loss, he says--
“the moment the enemy retreated, their batteries opened a heavy
fire on the place from the left of the Redan and from the Barrack
battery. Four companies of the XVIIIth at once rushed on out of
the cemetery towards the town, and actually succeeded in getting
possession of the suburb. Captain Hayman was gallantly leading on
his company when he was shot through the knee. Captain Esmonde
followed, and the men, once established, prepared to defend the
houses they occupied.[172] As they drove the Russians out, they
were pelted with large stones by the latter on their way up to
the battery, which quite overhangs the suburb. The Russians could
not depress their guns sufficiently to fire down on our men, but
they directed a severe flanking fire on them from an angle of the
Redan works. There was nothing for it but to keep up a vigorous
fire from the houses, and to delude the enemy into the belief
that the occupiers were more numerous than they were. Meanwhile
the Russians did their best to blow down the houses with shot
and shell, and fired grape incessantly, but the soldiers kept
close, though they lost men occasionally, and they were most
materially aided by the fire of the regiments in the cemetery
behind them, which was directed at the Russian embrasures; so
that the enemy could not get out to fire on the troops below. The
9th regiment succeeded in effecting a lodgment in the houses in
two or three different places, and held their position as well as
the XVIIIth.... While these portions of the 9th and XVIIIth, and
parties of the 44th and 28th were in the houses, the detachments
of the same regiments and of the 38th kept up a hot fire from the
cemetery on the Russians in the battery and on the sharpshooters,
all the time being exposed to a tremendous shower of bullets,
grape, round-shot, shell. The loss of the brigade under such
circumstances, could not but be extremely severe. One part of
it, separated from the other, was exposed to a destructive fire
in houses, the upper portion of which crumbled into pieces or
fell in under fire, and it was only by keeping in the lower
storey, which was vaulted and well built, that they were enabled
to hold their own. The other parts of it, far advanced from our
batteries, were almost unprotected, and were under a constant
mitraille and bombardment from guns which our batteries had
failed to touch.”
Though the repulse of the main British column left Eyre in a
situation of hourly increasing peril, he resolutely continued to hold
the points which the dash and bravery of his troops had gained. At
first he hoped that the Redan might yet be stormed, when his brigade
would be ready to follow up the victory; and when it became clear
that the attack was not to be renewed he declined to fall back,
until an authority higher than his own had decided how much of the
ground that his brigade had won was to be retained. Though Eyre was
wounded comparatively early in the day, it was not until late in the
afternoon that, after giving orders for the gradual withdrawal of the
troops from the houses nearest to the enemy, he made over his command
to the next senior officer and quitted the battlefield. The process
of withdrawal took several hours, and it was not until 9 P.M. that
the Royal Irish, the last regiment of the brigade to retire, began
its march back to the camp of the third division.
How the XVIIIth fared must now be told, as far as possible, in the
words of the officers who had the honour to be present. Late on the
17th, the rumour had run through the lines of the Royal Irish that
the town was to be assaulted next day. The men were wild with joy at
the prospect of taking part in the attack, and talked and sang in
their tents so incessantly that the officers could get no rest during
the few hours allowed the regiment for sleep. At 1 A.M. on the 18th
of June, a date ever memorable in the annals of the regiment, six
hundred and sixty-nine officers and men paraded in front of the camp
of the 9th regiment, where the brigade was formed, the XVIIIth in
front, the 44th, 38th, 28th, and 9th regiments following in the order
named. On the march down the great ravine occurred an interesting
instance of the rigidity of the drill which, in the middle of the
nineteenth century, fettered the movements of the British army. It
has been mentioned that every infantry regiment then had two flank
companies of picked men: those of the right, or grenadier company,
were chosen for height and strength; those of the left, or Light
company, were selected for activity and intelligence. On the parade
ground the rule was that all battalion movements should be made from
the right, and consequently that in column the grenadier company
should always lead. Colonel Edwards had learned in the school of the
Chinese and Burmese wars that all drill is but the means to one end,
the successful attack on an enemy; and thinking that on this occasion
the quick-moving “Light Bobs” were the men first to be employed,
marched off “left in front.” This daring innovation did not long pass
unnoticed, and almost within sight of the enemy he was ordered to
halt, and countermarch his regiment in order to bring the grenadier
company to the head of the column. In 1855, the countermarch was an
evolution slow and ponderous in broad daylight, and doubly difficult
of execution in semi-darkness, at a time when the pulses of all
ranks were throbbing with the excitement of a night march and an
impending battle. After the manœuvre was carried out, the brigade
once more advanced, forming into a mass of close columns whenever the
ground permitted. Though it was now almost day the Russians had not
yet detected the presence of Eyre’s troops, and the General took an
opportunity of addressing the Royal Irish, telling them he knew they
would prove themselves good soldiers and “this day do something that
will ring in every cabin in Ireland.” Then he added, “Now, men, above
all things you must be quiet or you’ll get peppered!” In answer to
this very reasonable appeal a shout arose from the ranks, “All right,
your Honour, we’ll get in. Three cheers for the General!” Before the
officers could stop them the men had given three lusty cheers. Eyre
remonstrated, but the Royal Irish were far too eager for the fray to
be sensible, and in response to his reiterated entreaties for silence
they burst out into stentorian cheering, this time for Old Ireland.
“Let them go in and attack,” cried the General in despair; “they will
only draw fire upon us!”
From a letter written by Colonel Edwards two days after the battle,
it appears that while the advance-guard was driving the Russians from
the cemetery at the point of the bayonet, the XVIIIth
“halted in the open ready for action. Just here the first
round-shot danced among us, and as the advance party had
extended and were under such cover as they could find, we met
the intruder. That peculiar thud (once heard, never forgotten)
denoted that the round-shot had told, two men being killed. But
we were compelled to wait a little longer, and then the Grenadier
company moved off in skirmishing order, soon followed by Nos. 1
and 2 companies. These three companies occupied the ruined houses
on the Woronzoff road.”
As the grenadiers, led by Captain Armstrong, were pressing forward
they found their way obstructed by one of the stone walls mentioned
in General Eyre’s report. Two subalterns raced for the wall, and
leapt it at the same moment: Lieutenant Taylor landed safely on the
other side, but Lieutenant Meurant was shot dead as he rose at the
jump. Soon afterwards the remainder of the regiment in column of
sections was moved forward in support, along a lane leading towards
the suburb from the great ravine, the rocky cliffs of which gave the
XVIIIth some cover from cannon shot. The Russian riflemen, however,
speedily found the range, “and the men,” says Colonel Edwards,
“commenced to fall fast. The General had given me orders to stand
there, but the casualties were then so great that I put the men
behind the houses and walls, which saved them much. I did not see
the General again; he was wounded across the head.
“All this time the men were coming back from the front, hopping
or crouching according to the nature of the wound, amongst them
my friend Captain Hayman, supported by two men, shot through
the knee, but with a cheerful smile on his face. Seeing that
the advance was much weakened I supported them with two other
companies, sending Major Kennedy to the front; he was shortly
after slightly hit on the side of the head, but not compelled
to return. The enemy knew well the position of the houses they
were in, and threw the shell amongst them. Fancy one of these
visitors falling within ten feet of you--down you must lie, and
close too, and wait for its bursting, when you are fortunate if
you have nothing worse than dust to complain of! They not only
gave shells, but rifle-balls and grape, and many a poor fellow
who went out to help a wounded comrade was obliged in his turn to
be carried in desperately wounded.
“Again the front calls out for ammunition and more men. ‘Up, my
boys, catch hold of that barrel of ammunition, and rush through
the whizzing balls, the tearing grape!’ Away they go with a
cheer! About 12 o’clock the last company but one went out and
other companies, returning, dreadfully thinned, formed the
support. Shortly after one, more men were wanted; I sent out the
last company and went myself. Away we hop from stone to stone
or bush: ‘ping-ping’ passes the rifle-bullet crashing around
you; you feel the grape; never mind, on you must go! I found the
advanced parties in a row of houses under the battery, regularly
enclosed by a screen of projectiles; you could only creep about.
In the morning these houses had been occupied by the Russians;
by the time I got there, everything was broken:--pier glasses in
shivers; the piano (or as a man called it, the music-box) torn
open; beds, tables and wardrobes in jumbles of masses. The enemy
did not like our being there, nor did they like that the houses
gave us cover; they therefore set fire to them with shells. About
3 o’clock I received an order to retire, which I could not comply
with as there were eighteen wounded men to bring away, which
could not be done till dark.”
According to Colonel Edwards, the three companies of the XVIIIth in
the ruined houses on the Woronzoff road and the other battalions
of the brigade also received this order, and gradually drew back,
leaving the greater part of the Royal Irish in a most dangerous
situation.
“Every moment our small party was decreasing. What weary hours
they seemed from three till eight, and just before it was time to
move, the enemy brought field-pieces to bear upon the houses,
and they commenced knocking them down about our heads. At last I
heard with joy ‘The last wounded man has been carried off, Sir.’
‘Well, then, go away by twos and threes: keep up a warm fire.
When across the open, bugler, sound the Regimental Call and the
Retire.’
“The work is done, but out of 669 men who left the camp, 250 of
the Royal Irish had suffered more or less. We did not get home
till ten o’clock, wearied and exhausted. The remainder of the
brigade acted on our right, and the 44th lost nearly as many in
proportion as we did. Our brigade was more than successful, and
have received great praise, especially the Royal Irish regiment.”
In so broken and disjointed a combat it is always difficult for the
General to select officers and men for special commendation. Eyre
appears to have found it impossible to do so, and after stating in
his report that every one in his brigade “most nobly performed his
duty,” and that “the conduct of all was so exemplary that he could
scarcely with justice particularize individuals,” he contented
himself with mentioning the names of his staff and the officers
commanding the advance-guard and the five regiments of the brigade.
Colonel Edwards’ report on the part played by the XVIIIth doubtless
recorded some of the deeds of valour performed by the Royal Irish;
but unhappily no copy of this document has been preserved in the
archives of the regiment. His letter, vivid and deeply interesting
as it is, was written, it is believed, for the information of Her
Majesty, Queen Victoria, and aims obviously at giving a general
account of the engagement, without any unnecessary detail. The
“Digest of Service” should have contained every particular of the
doings of the regiment, but unfortunately it was compiled by an
officer who recorded the adventures of the XVIIIth in the Crimea in
two or three loosely-written pages of foolscap, from which everything
of historical value was omitted. Thus the only accounts of the
exploits of the Royal Irish on the 18th of June are to be found in
a few statements, contributed by officers many years after the war
was over, and in the dry official words announcing the bestowal of
decorations. Every soldier knows that for one specially brave deed
reported after an engagement, scores pass unnoticed or are forgotten,
and therefore the instances now given can be regarded only as
specimens of the conduct of the regiment as a whole.
Captain Thomas Esmonde was awarded the Victoria Cross[173] for two
acts of bravery, the first of which was performed on the 18th of
June. The Gazette runs as follows: “for having, after being engaged
in the attack on the Redan,[174] repeatedly assisted at great
personal risk under a heavy fire of shell and grape, in rescuing
wounded men from exposed situations; and also, while in command of a
covering party two days after, for having rushed with the most prompt
and daring gallantry to a spot where a fire-ball from the enemy had
just been lodged, which he effectually extinguished before it had
betrayed the position of the working party under his protection,
thus saving it from a murderous fire of shell and grape, which was
immediately opened upon the spot where the fire-ball had fallen.”
Captain Dillon volunteered to rescue from under a heavy fire of grape
and musketry seven wounded men, who were lying in the houses nearest
to the Russian works, and succeeded in doing so.
Sergeant John Grant belonged to one of the companies in the houses
nearest to the Russian battery, and brought a message from his
captain to Colonel Edwards. When Colonel Edwards saw that Sergeant
Grant was bleeding from two severe wounds he desired him to fall back
out of harm’s way, but Grant so earnestly begged to be allowed to
return to his officer that Colonel Edwards permitted him once more to
risk his life in crossing the fire-swept belt of ground between the
supports and his own company. Grant lived for many years to enjoy an
annuity of £20, which accompanied the medal for meritorious service
in the field, awarded to him for this act of bravery.
Lieutenant T. D. Baker displayed great gallantry throughout the day,
as did Sergeant John Gleeson, Corporal Niel O’Donnell, and privates
J. Weir, E. Loughton, and J. Byrne.
As an instance of the spirit shown by the wounded who were left
upon the field, this story is quoted from Russell’s account of the
battle. During the armistice of the 19th for the collection of the
wounded and the burial of the dead, Major-General Eyre came to the
part of the cemetery where a sergeant of the Royal Irish lay, with
both his legs broken by a round-shot. “General,” exclaimed the
non-commissioned officer, “thank God, _we_ did _our_ work, anyway.
Had I another pair of legs, the country and you would be welcome to
them!”
The operations of the 17th and 18th cost the French 3500 men,
the British 1500, the Russians 5400, and of the six generals and
commanders, French and English, who led the attacks on the 18th,
four were killed and one disabled. When Eyre’s casualty returns
were made up, it was found that his brigade had lost 562 killed and
wounded. To this total the Royal Irish contributed no less than 259,
almost 39 per cent of the regiment as it went into action. Among the
officers, Lieutenant J. W. Meurant was killed, and ten were wounded,
several being dangerously or severely injured. They were--Major J.
C. Kennedy; Captains J. Cormick, A. W. S. F. Armstong, M. Hayman, H.
F. Stephenson, and J. G. Wilkinson; Lieutenants W. O’B. Taylor, W.
Kemp, F. Fearnley, and C. Hotham. Of the other ranks 57 were killed
or mortally wounded, 16 were dangerously and 87 severely wounded,
and 88 more slightly injured.[175] The wounded were gradually carried
back to the camp of the IIIrd brigade, which they soon filled to
overflowing. To our modern ideas the preparations for their reception
were singularly rough. “So many of us had been hit,” writes Captain
Kemp, who himself had been struck by a bullet in the knee, “that
the orderly room and mess huts and every other available place was
appropriated for our use. At first my leg was doomed to come off,
and I was laid on the amputation table for the purpose, but as I was
too weak then it was left on till the morrow. Next day I was allowed
to retain it by the decision of one of the staff surgeons, who said,
most luckily for me, ‘Let us give the poor lad a chance,’ but I
became very ill from fever and the intense heat of the tent,[176] and
shortly afterwards was ordered home. I was moved to Balaclava in one
of the ‘carrying chairs’ slung on the side of a mule, and fainted
nearly all the way from sun and weakness.”
After their double repulse at the Malakoff and the Redan the Allies
lost no time in resuming the ordinary operations of the siege: their
approaches were steadily pushed forward, and their guns kept up a
heavy fire upon the fortress. In July the average daily loss in
Sebastopol was two hundred and fifty, while each day in August saw
the strength of the garrison diminished by eight or nine hundred
officers and men. The Russians, magnificently stubborn fighters as
they were, began to realise that the place was becoming untenable.
The parapets were crumbling under the projectiles of the Anglo-French
artillery; many guns were disabled or worn out, and though there
was still a large reserve of cannon in the arsenal, the fire of our
mortars made it impossible to mount them on the shattered batteries.
Round the disabled guns the dead lay in great heaps, while the
wounded could not be moved till darkness brought some respite to the
harassed garrison. Barracks, arsenals, and store-houses were all more
or less in ruins; and the hospitals, overflowing into the streets and
squares of the town, were rapidly emptied into a cemetery, grimly
termed “the grave of the Hundred Thousand.” Towards the end of August
the Russians determined to abandon Sebastopol; they began to build
a bridge across the outer harbour, strong enough to carry guns and
waggons upon its sixteen feet of roadway; threw up barricades across
the streets of the town, and laid great mines under the forts and
magazines. On the 5th of September, the Allies once more brought all
their guns into action, and bombarded the fortress, almost without
intermission, for three days and nights, and on the 8th, the French
once more assaulted the Malakoff, and the British the Redan. As the
third division was in the reserve and did not come into action,
the XVIIIth regiment was not engaged, and therefore all that need
be said about the result is that we failed to take the Redan, while
the French carried the Malakoff, and succeeded in holding it against
the strenuous efforts of the enemy to recapture it. These attacks
were made by the Russian rear-guard to gain time for the retreat of
the main body from the southern shores of the harbour, and were so
far successful that when the French General heard that the head of
the enemy’s column was marching over the bridge, he was still too
uncertain of ultimate success to attempt any interference with the
retirement. During the night the Russians successfully exploded many
of their mines; destroyed their few remaining warships; set fire to
the town in many places, and called in the troops from the forts;
and by daybreak on the 9th the whole of the garrison, carrying with
them most of the wounded, had crossed the bridge, broken it behind
them, and found safety on the heights to the north of the harbour
of Sebastopol. The losses on both sides in this, the last important
episode in the Crimean War, were very heavy. Our defeat at the Redan
cost us 2271 officers and men, among whom were three generals,
wounded: the French casualties amounted to 7567 of all ranks,
including five generals killed and four wounded: the Russians lost
nine generals and 12,906 other officers and men.
With the fall of the fortress the war in the Crimea came virtually
to an end. The Allies had accomplished their self-imposed task of
destroying Sebastopol and the Black Sea fleet; there was no immediate
object to be gained by a pitched battle with the Russian Field army;
disagreements on questions of future policy caused a considerable
amount of friction between the Ministers of Queen Victoria and the
Emperor Napoleon III., and fettered the movements of the Generals,
who engaged in no further operations except two comparatively
unimportant raids against the towns of Eupatoria and Kilburn, in
neither of which the XVIIIth regiment took part. The French, indeed,
were not anxious, if indeed they were able, to continue the war;
but the English had atoned, though very tardily, for their previous
neglect of their army, by preparing so energetically for another
campaign, that in November there were in the Crimea 51,000 British
troops, a contingent of 20,000 Turks, raised, trained, and officered
by Englishmen, and a German legion of ten thousand men.[177] The
good health of this large body of soldiery showed how excellent
our system of administration had become at the seat of war; at
home recruits were forthcoming in great numbers; the militia had
relieved the troops in the United Kingdom and the Mediterranean
of much garrison duty; Malta was full of trained soldiers, eager
to be employed on active service; in short, the Army, purified by
the ordeal it had passed through, had become once more a first-rate
fighting machine. But the troops arriving after the fall of the
fortress had no opportunity of distinguishing themselves, for though
the enemy annoyed us by cannonading Sebastopol from the northern
shore of the harbour, he made no offensive movement against the
camps on the Upland. Thus the second winter in the Crimea was a
time of comparative rest for the greater part of the army, though
not for the regiments placed at the disposal of the Royal Engineers
to complete the destruction of the forts, arsenals, and dockyards
of the fortress. To the Royal Irish fell a very heavy task, the
demolition of the docks in the inner harbour. As Colonel Edwards
was senior to the engineer officer in charge of the work, the
headquarters of the XVIIIth remained outside the town, and Major
Call was placed in command of the working parties, which practically
consisted of the whole of the Royal Irish. The labour of preparing
the docks for destruction was very great, and the hardships of the
men extreme: to quote the words of the general order of February 7,
1856, praising the zeal and perseverance of all ranks, and thanking
Major Call, among other officers, for his valuable services, “the
work was carried out in the depth of winter; the docks occasionally
flooded, the shafts filled with water, the pumps choked with frost;
but all ranks united to overcome difficulties, and the mass of ruins
is a proof of the success attending the cheerful performance of a
laborious duty.”
This official record is not the only testimony to the good behaviour
of the Royal Irish while they worked like navvies in the docks.
General C. G. Gordon, who as a young officer of Royal Engineers had
served in the Crimea, replied to a request for information about the
doings of the XVIIIth at the siege of Sebastopol in a characteristic
letter:--
“PORT LOUIS, 3/3/82.
“MY DEAR MAJOR SAVILE,--Thanks for your note received to-day. I
am afraid I cannot write anything which would be of value about
the 18th Royal Irish, as it is now 28 years ago or nearly so,
since the Crimea. I know that they were a favourite regiment with
the R.E. for work, both in the trenches and in the destruction
of the docks, from the energy and pluck of the officers and men,
and it was then that I formed my opinion of Irishmen being of a
different nature than other Britishers inasmuch as they required
a certain management and consideration, which, if given them,
would enable you, so to speak, to hold their lives in your hand.
The officers liked the men and the men liked the officers; they
were a jovial lot altogether, but they would do anything if you
spoke and treated them as if you liked them, which I certainly
did. You know what great hardships they went through in the Docks
in working at the shafts which, 30 feet deep, were often full
of water, if left, unpumped out, for 12 hours. Poor devils! wet,
draggled, in their low ammunition boots, I used to feel much for
them, for the Generals used to be down on them because they were
troublesome, which they were when people did not know how to
manage them.
“Kindest regards to General Edwards, a fine, clever old officer
who had all our respect.
“I am sorry I can write you no details.--Believe me, yours
sincerely,
“C. G. GORDON.”
It will be noticed that neither in the official expression of thanks
nor in Gordon’s letter is there any reference to the fact that the
Russians frequently shelled the working parties at the docks. The
troops were so used to being under fire that they looked upon it as
an everyday occurrence, and a few casualties were considered unworthy
of notice. Thanks, however, to Colonel Elliot’s diary, we know that
rheumatic fever and frost-bite were not the only dangers to which the
Royal Irish were exposed. On December 3, 1855, the Russians fired two
hundred and fifty shells, wounding four men of the regiment; on the
21st they dropped three shells into a barrack-room, luckily without
hitting any one, but smashing beds, knapsacks, and rifles in every
direction; on the last day of the year a shell carried away the arm
of a private, ---- Fitzgerald.
While with immense difficulty the English and French engineers
were levelling the naval and military buildings to the ground, and
shattering the docks beyond all hope of restoration, the diplomatists
of Europe were doing their utmost to bring hostilities to an end;
late in February an armistice was arranged, and on the 30th of
March, 1856, the world was gladdened by the news that peace had been
proclaimed. The effort to save Constantinople from the Russians,
though successful, had cost England dear, as these grim figures show--
----------------------+--------+--------+---------+---------+-------
| | | | |
| Killed.| Died of| Died of | Wounded.| Total.
| | Wounds.| Disease.| |
----------------------+--------+--------+---------+---------+-------
Officers | 157 | 86 | 147 | 515 | 905
| | | | |
Non-Commissioned | | | | |
Officers | 161 | 85 | 574 | 579 | 1,399
| | | | |
Privates | 2,437 | 1,848 | 15,320 | 10,782 | 30,387
----------------------+--------+--------+---------+---------+-------
| 2,755 | 2,019 | 16,041 | 11,876 | 32,691
----------------------+--------+--------+---------+---------+-------
Though our Allies also suffered severely, the losses of the Western
Powers and of the Ottoman Empire pale into insignificance before
those of the Russians. During the last six months of the siege
81,000 soldiers were killed or wounded in or around Sebastopol; the
whole campaign in the Crimea cost the Czar 153,000 troops; while the
reinforcements from the interior of Russia endured such terrible
hardships on the march to the Black Sea that hundreds of thousands of
men broke down on the way. It is believed that Russia’s total loss
during the war was not less than half a million of men.
The casualties in the XVIIIth Royal Irish regiment were--
_Officers_--
Killed Lieutenant J. W. Meurant.
Died of disease Lieutenant E. D. Ricard.
Wounded Major J. C. Kennedy.
Captains J. Cormick, A. W. S. F. Armstrong,
M. Hayman, H. F. Stephenson,
J. Wilkinson.
Lieutenants W. O’B. Taylor, W. Kemp, F.
Fearnley, C. Hotham.
In the other ranks, 41 were killed, 44 died of wounds, 70 died from
accident or disease, and 275 were wounded. Their names will be found
in Appendix 2 (I).[178]
During the first nine months of its service in the Crimea, the
regiment was reinforced by 289 non-commissioned officers and men,
who arrived in drafts from home, and later from Malta where the
four reserve companies were stationed; and on September 9, although
between 140 and 150 men had been killed or died in hospital, and
219 had been invalided or become ineffective from various causes,
there remained, exclusive of officers, no less than 724 effectives
present with the Colours.[179] The XVIIIth regiment was among the
last to leave the Crimea; it was not until June 20, that it embarked
on H.M.S. _Majestic_, an eighty-gun ship, fitted with an auxiliary
screw. Though the crew received their soldier passengers most
hospitably, the voyage was not an agreeable one. The subalterns were
berthed in the cockpit, where, as one of them recorded in his diary,
“there was no room to wash, or dress, or put our baggage; sentries
and reliefs passed through our sleeping-place all night long, shaking
us out of our hammocks; then at a certain hour ruthless sailors came
and packed away the hammocks, whether you wanted to get up or not;
and finally, there was no place to be sick, for the bulwarks were
so high that you could not see over them!” On the 18th of July the
Royal Irish landed at Portsmouth, entrained for Farnborough, and were
marching thence to Aldershot when they were ordered to quicken their
pace as Queen Victoria was waiting to welcome the regiment. Colonel
Edwards thus describes Her Majesty’s inspection of the soldiers who
had fought her battles in China, Burma, and the Crimea: “When formed
in line the appearance of the regiment showed signs of service, the
old clothing, long beards, and the dust of the march giving the men
but a sorry aspect. Her Majesty, passing down the line on foot,
requested me to point out men most deserving of her notice. My answer
was, ‘Were I to do so, the whole regiment would step to the front.’
However, several of the wounded officers and men were presented. When
the Queen arrived in front of the Colours, I respectfuly submitted to
Her Majesty that the regimental badge of the Harp and Crown had been
removed from the uniforms of the men, and the Queen most graciously
gave orders that they should be restored.”
For their services in the Crimea many officers, non-commissioned
officers, and men received promotion or reward. Lieutenant-Colonels
C. A. Edwards and J. C. Kennedy were appointed to be Companions
of the Order of the Bath; Edwards also was made a Brevet-Colonel;
Major G. F. S. Call, Captains J. Cormick, A. W. S. F. Armstrong, J.
Laurie, and M. J. Hayman each received a step in brevet rank. Captain
T. Esmonde was one of the first to receive the Victoria Cross, and
the newly instituted medal for distinguished conduct in the field
was awarded to Sergeant H. Morton, Corporals M. Egan and T. Murphy,
and the following private soldiers, viz., R. Baglin, E. Erwin, T.
Flannery, H. Forrestall, R. Marshall, W. Major, J. M. Guinness, N.
O’Neill, J. Sessman, 2830 P. Whelan, 3521 P. Whelan.[180] In the
matter of foreign decorations the XVIIIth fared well, as each of our
Allies presented orders or medals to specially deserving officers
and men. Brevet-Colonel Edwards, Brevet-Majors Armstrong and Hayman,
Sergeant-Major T. Watt, and Sergeant J. Grant were created members
of the French Legion of Honour by Napoleon III., who also bestowed
war medals on Colour-Sergeant E. Dunne, Sergeant J. Harvey, Sergeant
J. Gleeson, Corporal N. O’Donnell, and Privates J. Cox, E. Laughton,
and J. Byrne. Victor Emmanuel gave the Sardinian war medal to
Lieutenant-Colonel J. C. Kennedy, Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel Call,
Lieutenant T. D. Baker, and Private J. Weir. The Turkish Order of
the Medjidie was awarded to Colonel Edwards, Lieutenant-Colonel J.
C. Kennedy, Brevet-Major Cormick, and Lieutenants C. Hotham, O’B.
Taylor, W. Kemp, and C. J. Coote. The British medal for the Crimea
and clasp for Sebastopol and the Turkish medal were awarded to all
who had taken part in the siege, and the word “Sebastopol” added to
the battle honours of the regiment.
[Illustration: MAP N^o. 6.
Sketch Map
of the
CRIMEA
1855-56
W. & A.K. Johnston Limited, Edinburgh & London.]
A stained-glass window has been placed in the north transept of St
Patrick’s Cathedral in honour of those who fell in the war with
Russia.