Victoria's Wars by Saul David

Author:Saul David [David, Saul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General
ISBN: 9780141904283
Google: 4izE-9hi6IUC
Publisher: Penguin UK
Published: 2006-05-03T14:00:00+00:00

* The proportion of dead rose as many of the injured succumbed to their wounds. One historian has estimated the total number of fatalities on all sides at ‘over 5,000’ (Royle, Crimea, 231).

For two whole days the allies remained at the Alma, burying their dead, tending their wounded and replenishing their strength and supplies. Raglan was anxious to press on, but Saint-Arnaud, stricken by an illness that was probably stomach cancer, advised caution. He assumed the Russians would contest both the intervening rivers — the Katcha and the Belbec — and felt that without siege artillery the allies would not be able to capture the formidable Star Fort that guarded the north of Sevastopol Harbour. Far better, he said, to probe the outer defences and give time for reinforcements, including the heavy cavalry, to arrive. Raglan did not agree, but he was under orders to cooperate with the French and had neither the strength of personality nor the will to harangue a sick man.

The march finally resumed on 23 September, and a day later, having crossed the Belbec, Cardigan’s cavalry reported an ‘impracticable’ marsh and a causeway dominated by enemy cannon. This information, added to French fears about the strength of the defences in their path, and their belief that the north side of the harbour had no safe anchorage from which they could be resupplied, led to the joint decision to skirt round Sevastopol, so that it could be attacked from the southern uplands. With panic still gripping the town, it was almost certainly a lost opportunity. But the decision not to pursue Menshikov’s beaten army, and instead to waste two days on the Alma, had set the safety-first tone that would be the hallmark of the campaign.

The famous flank march around Sevastopol began on 25 September, with the cavalry leading the way. But Lucan took a wrong turn in dense forest, leaving an unsuspecting Raglan and his staff as the vanguard, an error that nearly cost them their lives. As they debouched from the forest, they came in sight of a powerful Russian force, the rearguard of Menshikov’s army, which, by complete coincidence, was in the process of withdrawing to the north to prevent being bottled up in Sevastopol. Fortunately Airey raised the alarm, and the British commander made his escape, leaving Lucan’s cavalry the task of speeding the Russians on their way.

The rest of the march was uneventful, and during the afternoon of the 26th, having bivouacked en route, the British reached the small port of Balaklava. From the north its harbour had the appearance of a lake, being almost entirely landlocked and with high hills obscuring its narrow exit. Yet it was deep and sheltered enough to accommodate the largest battleship. The town itself was on the south-east of the anchorage, its pretty green-tiled villas festooned with flowers and vines. Aside from seventy militiamen, who put up no more than a token resistance, the port was largely deserted: most of its 1,500 inhabitants had already fled the approaching invaders, leaving their homes to be ruthlessly pillaged.

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