INVASION OF THE CRIMEA.

CHAPTER I.

I.

The great

resources

THE morning of the 18th of October disclosed the CHA P. superior strength of the enemy in that very species of contest to which he had been imprudently challenged. In the night-time, as now was apparent, he had so used his great resources as to be ready once more for closed on the strife, with parapets restored and re-armed.

de

of the ene

my as dis

the morning of the 18th by

the appear.

ance of

the work been ef

which had

fected in

The French, it was known (with the hope of being able to act the more effectively afterwards), had termined to abstain one day more from a renewal of their fire; but the English cannonade was to proceed. the night. Accordingly, though with a more careful economy suspension of ammunition than had been hitherto observed, the of the English fire was resumed, and steadily maintained all cannonade the day.

The Redan and the Barrack Battery were brought to a state of ruin, which made it impracticable for the enemy to repair and re-arm his works under the fire of the English guns. The position of the Left Attack proved so commanding that the guns there estab

VOL. IV.

A

Continued

French

during the 18th of October.

The Engnonade,

lish can

18th of

October.

CHAP. lished searched the interior of the enemy's batteries I. with a terrible power, and obliged him to determine

Death of

Colonel
Hood.

Feat of Captain Peel's.

that he must double the number of his traverses. In killed and wounded the Russians this day lost 543

men.

Pending the French preparations, the destruction brought about in the Redan and the neighbouring battery was not regarded as furnishing an opportunity for the storming of the Karabel faubourg; and, since plainly it might now be expected that the havoc wrought in the day-time would be repaired by the enemy in the course of the night, the success of this second cannonade did not serve to rekindle the hopes with which the first morning had opened.

Amongst those who fell on this day was Colonel Hood of the Grenadier Guards. Whilst in command of a covering party in the trenches he was struck in the side by a round-shot, and died almost immediately. He had not lived in vain. We marked him on the day of the Alma, and saw how he led his battalion.* There occurred on this day one of these incidents of war which show how instantaneous in heroic

* Lord Raglan wrote of Colonel Hood as an excellent officer, and one ' deeply lamented.'-Letter to Secretary of State, October 23, 1854. An officer of the Grenadier Guards writes thus of his honoured chief: 'He was looking out of an embrasure when a round-shot caught him in the side. He died almost immediately-died as a soldier, as did his 'father before him. He is a very great loss to us.' The officer who wrote thus-Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar-was himself wounded on the following day; and I see that Lord Raglan in communicating the incident adds: His Serene Highness, however, insisted upon remain'ing in the trenches until the detachment to which he was attached " was relieved at the usual hour.'-Ibid.

I.

natures is the process of both the thought and the CHAP. resolve from which brave actions spring. The horses which were drawing an ammunition-waggon for the 'Diamond' Battery having refused to face the fire, some volunteers went to the waggon to clear it, and they succeeded in bringing in their loads; but before the powder could be stowed away in the magazine, a shell came into the midst of it whilst the volunteers were still gathered close to the heap. A voice cried out, "The fuse is burning!' Then instantly, and, as the narrator says, 'with one spring,' Captain Peel darted upon the live shell, and threw it over the parapet. The shell burst about four yards from his hands without hurting any one.*

At about ten o'clock, Lord Raglan was summoned from the front by intelligence which seemed to announce that at last, after an interval of a month, a Russian army once more had ventured to appear in the field. The enemy could be plainly seen marching in some force along a ridge over Tchorgoun; and the movement was even of such a kind as to have in it something of menace. Lord Raglan, followed by his Staff, rode at once to the eastern edge of the Chersonese, and stationed himself at a point from which he saw spread out before him not only the whole plain of Balaclava, but the slopes of the highlands beyond it.

After a scrutiny of more than an hour, it at length

* Captain Lushington to Admiral Dundas, 23d October 1854. On the 18th there fell, in the sailors' batteries, Lieutenant Greathead. He was one of the splendid body of officers belonging to the Britannia, our flag-ship.

A Russian

force of

all arms

descried

in the di

rection of

Tchor

goun.

I.

command

CHAP. became evident that, for the time, nothing was about to be attempted against our flank and rear; but still there remained the fact that the enemy in some force Liprandi's was once more operating in the field. Liprandi, in truth, by this time had been entrusted by Prince Mentschikoff with the command of a detachment of all arms, then in course of assembling at Tchorgoun, and was poising his wings, as it were, for the swoop which he afterwards made.

of the detachment of

Tchorgoun.

Mr Calvert's

warning

to the prospect of

having to winter the army on

Although the enemy, as we know, had been long before sending patrols into the neighbourhood of Tchorgoun, it was a new thing for Lord Raglan to have within sight a force of all arms really seeming to threaten Balaclava. Close following upon that dark change of prospect in regard to the siege which had been opened to him by the silencing of the French batteries, there was added now to his cares the visible presence of hostile troops preparing to act on his flank.

Nor were these troubles all. Without merit or fault of mine, it happened to me, the same day, to be in regard made the means of casting upon Lord Raglan's mind the shadow of approaching calamity. Mr Cattley was a gentleman of much good sense and intelligence, the Cher who acted as interpreter at the English Headquarters.* On the 18th of October he came to me in my tent, and spoke to this effect: 'I see now that this siege ' is likely to last a long time, and what I fear is, that

sonese.

* His nom de guerre was 'Calvert;' there being reasons which at the time made it desirable that his real name should not become known to the enemy. He had been the English Consul at one of the ports—at Kertch, if I rightly remember.

6

I.

if Sebastopol should not fall in the interval of CHAP. ' autumn time yet remaining, there may be an idea

' of wintering here.

But does Lord Raglan know
The army

'what a winter here is likely to be?
'would have to encounter bleak winds, heavy rains,
sleet, snow, bitter cold. But cold like the cold in

England is not the worst of what may come. Once in some few years it happens that there comes a fortnight or so of Russian cold.* When I speak of "Russian cold," I mean cold of such a degree that 'if a man touches metal with an uncovered hand the 'skin adheres. I am not a strong man, and I feel 'certain that a winter here under canvass would kill 'me. With that belief I have naturally determined not to pass a winter here.+ Upon that, my mind is 'made up, so it is not on my own account that I am 'concerned it is about the army that I am anxious. 6 The army ought not to winter here. You are in 'the habit of seeing Lord Raglan. Somebody ought 'to speak to him. I do not like to speak to him myself.'

It was obvious, of course, that the statement would be most appropriately made direct to Lord Raglan by Mr Cattley himself, and I do not consider that his reasons for not taking the step personally were well founded; but, upon the whole, I judged that it

* Cruel as was the first winter endured by the Allied armies on the Chersonese, the apprehended contingency of a fortnight of Russian 'cold' did not occur.

+ Mr Cattley, notwithstanding this, was induced to remain at Headquarters, and was not killed by the winter. He died, I think, at Headquarters, in the summer of the following year.