CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE
A week later, the Russians attacked the English entrenchments at Balaklava and gained some slight advantage. It was then that the Earl of Cardigan led the Light Brigade on their famous charge to save the field pieces captured by the Russians. The action is well described in the graphic and stirring poem by Alfred Tennyson:—
The Charge of the Light Brigade
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
No; tho' the soldier knew
Some one had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell!
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.
Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke,
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel'd from the sabre-stroke
Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not,—
Not the six hundred.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder'd.
Honor the charge they made!
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!
A few days later Prince Menshikof renewed the attack. For three hours the Russians tried to force "the Thermopylae of Inkermann," and they had nearly won the battle when a small band of French came to the aid of their allies. The Russians, thinking it was the whole French army, fell back a little in disorder and the day was lost. Eleven thousand lives were thrown away in this "badly planned, badly conducted" action.
The winter came on, and all the armies, especially the English, suffered terrible hardships from cold, storm, and disease. Still the "parallels" and mines drew near the walls, and the Russian engineers in turn, under the direction of Todleben, strengthened the fortifications of the town and built new redoubts.
One serious battle marked the winter. Omer Pasha landed twenty thousand Turks at Eupatoria, which had been greatly strengthened and fortified. Nicholas sent an imperative order to take the place by assault and drive the Turks into the sea. The attempt was made recklessly and failed disastrously.
This was a crushing blow to the Emperor. In Europe he was called the "Don Quixote of Autocracy," but in Russia his successes in the East and West, the part which he had seemed to play of "king of kings," blinded the people to real facts. The awakening came. The "invincible fleet" was sunk at Sevastopol; the army was vanquished; the ports of Russia on all its seas were blockaded or burned, Odessa, Kronstadt, Sveaborg, the Siberian ports, even the towns on the Amur. It was suddenly seen that owing to the silence of the press the government officials had practised all sorts of corruption undetected. "The greater men's hopes had been, the more they expected the conquest of Constantinople, the upheaval of the East, the extension of the Slav Empire, the deliverance of Jerusalem, the harder and more cruel was the awakening." Voices, pamphlets, broadsides, spread the tumult of popular judgment. Even the Emperor was not spared in the sudden outburst of injured pride.
"Arise, O Russia!" they said, "devoured by enemies, ruined by slavery, shamefully oppressed by stupid government officials and spies, awaken from thy long sleep of ignorance and apathy! We have been kept long enough in serfage by the successors of the Tartar kans. Arise and stand erect and calm before the throne of the despot; demand of him a reckoning for the national misfortunes."
Nicholas saw that he had been wrong. "My successor," he said, "can do as he pleases. As for me, I cannot change." He heard the sudden voice of the nation calling him to appear before the bar of history and truth. He could not bear to live. Less than a month after Eupatoria the word went forth: the Emperor is dead."
The End of the Krim War and the Beginning of Freedom
The burden of the new Emperor was indeed hard to bear. All Europe was arrayed against him. The money in his treasury was almost gone. The people were weary of war.
Alexander declared, however, that he was bound to accomplish the wishes and designs of his illustrious ancestors, "Peter the Great, Catherine, Alexander the Blest, and his father of imperishable memory." He was willing to renew the conflict, and go to destruction rather than yield a point of honor. A new conference of the Six Powers met at Vienna, but as no agreement could be brought about the Krim war went on.
Victor Emmanuel sent the allies an army of fifteen thousand Sardinians; General Pelissier assumed the chief command of the French, and announced that he was going to take Sevastopol. Sixty men-of-war cruised around in the Sea of Azof, where they ruined forts, arsenals, and granaries, bombarded many towns, destroyed hundreds of ships, and cut off the Russians from every base of supplies except Perekop. Sevastopol was doomed. There was not a building in the town left uninjured by the cannon-balls and bursting bombs. The garrison began to suffer from lack of provisions. General Pelissier carried the "White Works "on Mount Sapun and the redoubts on the Green Hill. The key of Sevastopol was the citadel of Malakof, which was protected by a palisade of sharpened stakes, a parapet of earthworks six meters in height, and three tiers of batteries separated from the parapet by a ditch seven meters deep and eight meters wide. On the anniversary of the battle of Waterloo the French attacked the Malakof, and the English hurled themselves upon the Great Redan. It was a bloody battle. The allied armies were driven back, and for the first time during the siege were compelled to ask for a truce to bury their dead.
In spite of this success Prince Gortchakof saw little hope of saving the city. He wrote to the war minister: "I have done my best, but the task has been too hard ever since I came to the Krim." Against his better judgment he gave orders to attack the allies on the Black River. He sent seventy thousand men to the Tavern bridge with the intention of capturing Mount Hasford, where nine thousand Sardinians were intrenched. General Read, however, without waiting for orders, crossed the river and tried to storm the Fediukin heights where the French were posted with eighteen field-pieces. The struggle for possession of the battery was terrible. Again and again the Russians rallied to the attack, gained the bridge, crossed the aqueduct, and dashed up the fire-swept slope. Again and again the French came down upon them "like an avalanche." The river and the canal were choked with the dead. The battle was lost.
CAPTURE OF THE MALAKOF
Meanwhile the French engineers brought the "parallels," or trenches, to within twenty-five meters of the Malakof. The final struggle was near at hand. The French batteries mounted six hundred cannon, the English two hundred; the Russians could reply with thirteen hundred and eighty. The bombardment began on the 5th of September and lasted three days. At night the lurid scene was made more weird by the beacon-light of a burning frigate loaded with alcohol which took fire from a red-hot shell. At noon of the third day the guns suddenly ceased their "infernal noise," the bugles sounded, the drums beat, the French Zouaves leaped from their trenches, mounted the slope, crossed the ditch, which was now choked with debris, and the French flag floated from the parapet! At the same time the English again assaulted the Great Redan, took it by storm, were driven out, twice again came to the charge, twice were repulsed with terrible loss.