The Russian Campaign by Brian Withecombe

Author:Brian Withecombe [Withecombe, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Brian Withecombe
Published: 2022-12-15T05:00:00+00:00

EIGHT

Rear-admiral Courtenay stood by the port nettings on his flagship’s quarterdeck and surveyed the coastline through his telescope, every so often pausing and asking his Flag-lieutenant to make a note about something which he had seen. He was not the only one scanning the coastline; his Flag-captain James Cazenove was also doing so, as was the ship’s Commander Ian Campbell.

Vengeance, a 100-gun screw ship-of-the-line, was cruising along the east coast of the Black Sea, where it was known the Russian Army had set up a number of outposts and fortified positions during their advance to the south. Edward had a small squadron and his job was to find units of the Russian Army who were still where they should not be and destroy them. He had with him the screw-liner Avid 80, and two screw frigates with a sailing sloop as its eyes. His intelligence pack told him the Russians were not really venturing out of their forts because they would then come into contact with the local tribes who would promptly attack them so their occupation of each part where there was a strongpoint or a fort was really limited to the immediate area of each one.

The sloop-of-war Bembridge had swept ahead of the squadron, being careful not to fall foul of some of the Russian steamships that might be in the immediate area, although many of them were safely bottled up in the main Naval Base at Sebastapol. Nonetheless, it was known there were Russian ships at large in the Black Sea, so caution had to be exercised. Her commander, Arthur Benson, had already reported back to the Flag as to where she had found evidence that the Russians had built a fort or in some other way fortified a position they had taken from the Turkish forces, and they were now being inspected. Thus, the reason for Edward Courtenay’s scrutiny, since Vengeance and her attendant ships were now just off the part of the coastline where Russian forces were in control, or rather, in control of the areas immediately around their strongpoints.

It would of course be very easy for Edward to simply order that his squadron close the land and bombard the positions until such time as the Russians left, but that would not achieve the result required as once his ships had gone, they would simply move back. It was therefore necessary to remove the occupying forces entirely, and the only way that could be done was by a land action.

The information available showed that where the squadron was now positioned, there were two or three fortified positions or strongholds occupied by the Russians and from intelligence provided by the Turkish authorities, based on what they had been able to gather, it seemed there could well be as many as 1500 or so Russian soldiers. Edward knew he could not match that with what he had available from his ships. The squadron could mount a force of around 300 Royal Marines (the sloop did not carry

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