Calamita Bay to the Battle of Alma

The Danube was the first theater of war in this conflict. The Turkish and Russian forces spent October maneuvering for tactical advantage along the lower Danube, and the approach of winter limited the engagements to indecisive clashes, and the Turkish commander, Omar Pasha, achieved a considerable triumph by crossing the Danube from the south along a wide front. The Russians were determined to launch a counter-offensive in the spring of 1854, but before this could be enacted, Britain and France entered the war.

In April 1854, British forces of five infantry and one cavalry division were dispatched to the Crimea. The infantryman were poorly paid, fed on monotonous rations consisting mostly of beef broth and potatoes, ferociously disciplined and packed into a uniform expected to be effective and fancy in all conditions. They were however equipped, as with the French and some Russians, with the extremely effective Minie rifle. The chief tactic was to maneuver into range of the enemy, unleash a volley or two and then close to hand-to-hand fighting. This meant the quality of leadership was as important as the general endurance and obedience of the troops. The Duke of Wellington, one of the greatest British military commanders, had just died in 1852 and the new Commander-in-Chief was Lord Raglan. He had seen no active service since the Napoleonic wars. He was a well known and even-tempered commander, but the support and supply system his army had to work from was a mess, and most of officers were inexperienced only two of the five infantry divisional commanders had experience commanding large formations against properly trained opponents. The Wagon Train and Staff Corps had been scrapped after the Napoleonic Wars.

Few officers had any combat experience against European opponents and a good many had seen no active experience at all, not even in India or the colonies. As well as the French and Turkish armies, Sardinia sent 15,000 troops, and mercenaries were used wholesale as sickness and battle casualties decimated the Allied armies. The French, despite being rundown after the end of the Napoleonic Wars were still the best equipped and organized army in Europe, with experienced officers and a functioning supply train.

The first British unit to arrive in the area landed at Gallipoli on April 5^th and the Allied strategy had been decided upon. Sebastopol, the vital Russian naval base in the Crimea, was chosen and sixty thousand French and British troops would take the base, with the fleets cooperating, within six weeks after landing.

As more British forces arrived, they moved onto Constantinople and then to nearby Scutari Conditions were awful, both in Constantinople and Scutari, dead dogs and rats had to be avoided in the streets, and badly paved streets were dangerous. But compensations were also there, cheap wine and women, so syphilis was common among the soldiery. Scutari suffered from being the dumping ground of Constantinople, the wind and tide drove all the cities waste there. The troops were encamped either around Lord Raglan's house or in and around the great Turkish army barracks soon to become the hospital for the reception of British sick and wounded. While Lord Raglan commanded the British, the Turkish commander was Omar Pasha and the French commander Marshal St. Arnaud.

After resisting French moves to withdraw from the combined Anglo-French landing at Varna, and on May 28^th they were committed to the landing, this landing coincided with and lent great moral support to a determined Turkish attempt to raise the Siege of Silistria.

Map: The Danube Theater of War: 1854

On June 22^nd, the Russian commander Prince Gorchakov ordered a final desperate assault and was repelled, the Prince himself being wounded in the assault. The next day the Russian forces began retreating to the north and Silistria was saved. Ten days later, the Danubian provinces were saved and the Turks continued to defeat their enemies in the field and by July 11^th the Russians were in full retreat towards Bucharest, they then abandoned Moldavia and Wallachia. The Russians had been repelled, despite this the Allies still seemed bent on neutralizing the Russian fleet at Sebastopol and popular public opinion in Britain forced the Prime Minister to continue despite there being real need to. Queen Victoria told her uncle Leopold, King of the Belgians, that the war was 'popular beyond belief', and Punch showed the Prime Minister blacking the Tsar's boots due to his reluctance to see a substantial extension of the war, the Chancellor raised income taxes in anticipation of protracted hostilities and on June 28^th, the Cabinet authorized Lord Raglan to invade the Crimea, Napoleon III similarly instructed St. Arnaud to prepare to embark at Varna, and it was left to Lord Raglan to confirm the decision to invade Crimea as the rest of the French telegram was indecipherable.

Two months lapsed between the decision to strike at Sebastopol and the embarkation at Varna, which seemed to the soldiers a demi-paradie after Scutari. Relations between the three Allied armies continued to be extremely cordial. But already the men were bored and restless, and heat enervated the troops with flies, gnats and leeches invading the camp. Already signs of the shortcoming of British organization were apparent: No one knew where the English post office was, where the general lives or the hospital was. There were also no field hospitals.

On July 19^th, a serious outbreak of cholera occurred in the French camp, on the 22^nd it struck the British encampments and though the tents were moved, the disease could not be shaken off. To add to the discomfort of the army, a fire at Varna on August 10^th consumed a considerable amount of stores, including 16,000 pairs of boots and 150 tons of biscuits.

The Allies had no idea how many Russian troops were in the Crimea, estimates varied between 45,000 and 140,000. The original sailing date was fixed for September 2, 1854, and the troops began to embark on August 24^th. The British had 27,000 men fit for action, the French had 30,000 and the Turks 7,000. Not all of those who had landed at Varna left, apart from the sick and wounded the French had launched an ill judged invasion of the flat Dobrudja region in what today is Romania. The three French divisions had achieved little, apart from sighting a few Cossack patrols, and the French turned back towards Varna, stricken by Cholera, the retreat saw thousands perish on the way, it is estimated that the 1^st French Division lost 6,000 men.

The Russians were not deceived by this feint and were expecting an Allied attack at Sebastopol, a fact confirmed by a premature announcement had by The London Times. The troops continued embarking, On September 7^th, after the troops had been aboard ship for two days, Admiral Dundas weighed anchor and the ships left Varna. St. Arnaud was ill and had set out on the 5^th, Lord Raglan following in the main body. St. Arnaud couldn't move between the ships due to his illness, and Raglans' lone arm would not allow him to scale the ship of the French ship in rough weather. The problem was solved by passing messages and the Caradoc, Raglans flagship, set off on a reconnaissance flying Russian flags, and chose a landing spot, thirty five miles north of Sebastopol, south of Eupatoria, Calamita Bay.

The Allied armada arrived at Eupatoria on September 12^th, where the Mayor was handed a summons to surrender, he told the Allies they could land but must consider themselves in quarantine due to local health regulations. The disembarkation began at dawn on September 14^th. It was unopposed and almost ignored, save for a group of Cossacks. The French were the first to land, and at 8:30 am they planted the tricolor on the beach, within an hour nine thousands troops were ashore and their advanced positions were three or four miles inland.

The British landing went less smoothly, guided by a buoy which mysteriously moved during the night, the British eventually landed on a beach separated from their allies by a low bluff. The landing went well enough after this hitch. Each man was staggering under the weight of full dress and equipment which included his greatcoat and blanket, a spare pair of boots, spare socks, shirt and forage cap, water canteen, a rifle and bayonet, plus fifty or sixty rounds of ammunition, as well as four and a half pounds of salt beef and a similar weight of biscuit. By noon rain began to fall, some men were already sick and taken back to the boats. By Nightfall on September 16^th, after a rough start the day before, the British cavalry was ashore, along with some of the artillery and the infantry. The British spent the 15^th through the 19^th rounding up local wagons, baggage animals, supplies and drivers under the newly appointed Quartermaster General, General Airey, and although the amount scavenged was barely adequate and at last on September 19^th, the British forces were ready to move.

On the morning of September 19^th, at 9 am the Allies set off, but soon men were falling ill of Cholera once again. They made their first contact with the Russians on the River Bulganek. The British Cavalry was eager to engage, but Lord Raglan withheld them as he saw the trap, six thousand men of the Russian 17^th Division beyond the Russian cavalry. An artillery duel ensued and the British won, the Russians withdrew to their main position across the Alma, where they hoped to thwart the allied advance on Sebastopol. The Allied armies rested for the night, the British again, without tents and therefore chilled when they rose, the French warm and dry.

Map: The Battle of the Alma 1854

Order of Battle: British Army at the Alma

On the morning of September 20^th the British army roused from its sleep, less another three hundred or so cholera victims. At 11:30 am the British forces were level with their allies and the advance towards the Alma began. The main route across the Alma was the Causeway, the ground on the far back of the Alma was a sharp rise into a plateau and steep rocky sloops. To the right of the Causeway was a track winding up a slope towards the heights where the Russians had constructed a telegraph station, this was known as Telegraph Height. To the left of the Causeway was a great shoulder of hillside, known as Kourgane Hill, which thrust obliquely towards the village of Bourliuk, and the Russians had thrown up two earthworks on the lower slopes, known as the Great and Lesser redoubts. Both Prince Menshikov and Lord Raglan saw Kourgane Hill as the key position, and Menshikov considered the West Cliff inaccessible to infantry and cavalry and had only a small detachment in the village of Uluklul Akles to defend West Cliff.

Prince Menshikov had placed only one battalion of the Minsk Regiment between the Causeway and West Cliff. Instead he concentrated his forces astride the Causeway, making his headquarters on Kourgane Hill, to the left were the troops of the Russian center commanded by General Kvetincki, while to their left forces led by General Kirakov guarded the Telegraph Height. Menshikov believed that the allied forces would be repelled with terrible losses when they assaulted the stony ridges across the Alma, which were shallow and easily forded. The Allies settled on the French plan, of a French advance through Almatamak, up West Cliff and ito the Russian left flank while the British advanced against the Russian center and right flank, a pincer movement.

Soon after Midday on September 21^st, the allied fleet opened fire from the seaward flank and the two commanders conferred. At nto, the advance resumed after the pause to confer, but soon the leading detachment of the Rifle brigade came under rifle fire from the Russians on the river banks. The British Army halted and deployed into line to make a less concentrated target for Russian marksman and artillery, while the French kept to their column formation, followed by the Turkish battalions. Prince Napoleons' 3^rd Division was coming under fire, but General Canrobert's 1^st Division was nearer the sea and General Forey's 4^th was in reserve.

The Russians regarded the French as an impressive foe, but the British less impressive as they were strung out across the front. The Russians however, could not see the extreme right flank becoming entangled, and amazingly the British lay down under artillery fire to wait for the French attack to begin before committing themselves. On the right flank Bosquet's division had scaled West Cliff taking 12 guns with them and stunning Prince Menshikov, who withdrew from West Cliff. Bosquet was unable to move further because he needed reinforcements and General Canroberts 1^st Division an the Princes' 3^rd were struggling into position. The 1^st struggled towards the Telegraph height without his guns which had taken an easier route, the 3^rd came under intense fire and made little progress. The 4^th Division was sent off, by St. Arnaud, to support Bosquet and Canrobert. Prince Menshikov was frantically galloping along the front in panic, and the Russians could probably have driven Bosquet off West Cliff while the British and French were in difficulty along the Causeway.

Raglan had now lost patience and ordered the British divisions to advance. The British moved two deep along a two mile front into the Alma and the 2^nd Division struggled through orchards and vineyards. The Russians guns hit the Division as it moved around Bourliuk and 2^nd Brigade suffered heavily, losing a quarter of its men. The Light Division to the 2^nd's left was making better progress and General Codrington, finding the men crushed under the high bank ordered his men, the 1^st Brigade, to fix bayonets and advance.

As the British advanced towards Great Redoubt they saw on either side two densely packed columns of the Kazan regiment, and on the Great Redoubt Russian guns waiting for the skirmishers to withdraw to safety before opening fire. The British spread out into extended line, but the right hand column of the Kazan Regiment started to move down the slope toward the British line before the Russians guns opened fire. The British troops were undismayed and began shooting accurately and calmly into the Russian ranks. The Column stopped, and lumbered back to its original position.

The 1^st Brigade surged forward, then the Russian guns opened fire, plowing holes in the British ranks as they advanced. As the 7^th Fusiliers began to exchange rifle fire with the troops of the Kazan Regiment, other units of the Light Division heard the unmistakable sounds of the Russian guns being pulled out of the Great Redoubt. They charged with renewed energy and captured the Redoubt. However, the position was tenuous without immediate reinforcement. The 1^st Division, hadn't supported the Light Division as ordered, and had stopped advancing before they reached the Alma. The Duke of Cambridge, commanding the 1^st was inexperienced and careful of what he should do, but General Airey rode up and informed the Duke that he should continue his advance. In magnificent order, the Guards and Highland Brigades matched down to the river, crossed and led by General Bentinck moved towards the Great Redoubt. The Scots Fusilier Guards went in followed by the Grenadiers an Coldstreams.

But they were too late, the Redoubt was under artillery bombardment and three thousand men of the Vladmir Regiment were advancing on it from the right. An unknown voice ordered the men not to fire, claiming the column was French, while other officers desperately tried to remedy the erroneous order which most of the troops obeyed. A bugler sounded Cease Fire and a little later others sounded the retreat. The Troops began to fall back into the advancing lines of the Guards Brigade as the massed columns of the Vladimir Regiment tramped into the Great Redoubt. The Allied center was pinned by artillery fire from the Causeway, and the French had made no further progress on the right. The Russian commander, unfortunately was still galloping along the front and the strong Russian positions was not exploited.

Lord Raglan, however, had found himself a remarkable vantage point atop an unoccupied knoll, half way between the Causeway and Telegraph Height from where he looked down upon the battlefield with a magnificent view. On his left, he had the causeway batteries, above them the Russian reserves, the whole of Kourgane Hill, the Great Redoubt, and further Russian reserves beyond the Redoubt. He was eight hundred yards inside the Russian lines, but there were no enemy troops near enough to threaten his position.

Raglan immediately sent Airey to summon General Adam's brigade from the 2^nd Division. he also remarked wistfully, 'Now, if only we had a couple of guns!' Hearing this, Colonel Dickson, Royal Artillery, rode off to do something about it and returned with a couple of nine pounders, while the Light Division had been driven from the Redoubt. The two guns were positioned and with a series of glorious targets in range, opened fire. Four shots saw the Causeway batteries limber up and retreat, the guns then turned on the Russian reserves and blasted great gaps in their ranks until they too retreated out of sight. The guns couldn't reach the Vladimir battalions at the redoubt but their shots were close enough to hold back the Russian troops from descending on the Light Division and punishing it severely. Finally the two British guns were turned on the battalions of the Kazan Regiment and cut furrows into the closely packed Russian ranks.

On the right, Prince Menshikov's spontaneous advance with eight battalions to head off the French menace on the seaboard flank of the battle had thrown the French into some confusion. The French requested British assistance and Raglan agreed to one battalion, which in the end was not needed as Canrobert's guns arrived and this held the Russian battalions off.

With the accurate shooting of the two nine pounders, the way was clear for a general advance along the British sector of the front. De Lacy Evans' 2^nd Division and Sir Richard England's 3^rd Division advanced to the relief of the Light Division. the Guards Brigade pressed forward against the Vladimir Regiment, while further to the left the Highland brigade began climbing the eastern slopes of the Kourgane Hill which were held by the Susdal battalions.

The Guards marched towards their objectives opening their ranks to let through the stragglers from the Light Division, while Codrington tried to form up the remains of the Division. When the Guards approached the Great Redoubt large numbers of Russian troops swarmed onto the parapet walls and fired into the approaching units with deadly effect. Then a great mass of Russian infantry charged the Scots, the Scots Guards obeyed orders to fall back, despite being disinclined to do so, to the river line. The Guards had lost 171 officers and men wounded, and a great hole had been torn in the middle of their formation.

Prince Gorchakev, seeing the Guards' temporary confusion, led two battalions from the Russian 14^th Division in a menacing bayonet charge between the gap in the brigade's lines. Just at that crucial moment an unidentified officer rode up ordered the Grenadiers and Coldstreams to retire. Colonel Percy took offense at the suggestion, and instead took it to mean to dress back. The Grenadiers took up a defensive formation and began to fire into the charging Russian mass with great accuracy, and the Minie rifle did sterling work. Prince Gorchakov's horse was shot from under him, the Russians hesitated and began to retreat, the Guards coming up hard on their heels and recaptured the now deserted Great Redoubt.

As the Guards broke the Russians at the redoubt, the Highland Brigade faced eleven fresh enemy battalions on the Guards left. The Cameron Highlander, 93^rd Highlanders and the Black Watch comprised the Highland Brigade, led by Sir Colin Campbell. The Highland Brigade swept around the back of the Great Redoubt and advanced on the Russian columns, firing accurately as they came, until the Russians columns broke and fled.

The Russians now began a general withdrawal as Prince Menshikov fulminated, and the British artillery fired repeatedly into their disheartened ranks. Lord Lucan and the cavalry were desperate to pursue the Russians and turn the Russian retreat into a rout, but Raglan thought better of it. Regarding the cavalry as too hot-headed and reckless to unleash with dusk falling and tree thousands fresh Russian cavalry lurking somewhere to their left. St. Arnaud also informed Raglan that the French couldn't join the pursuit due to having left their knapsacks on the other side of the Alma and their artillery being exhausted of ammunition.

The British bivouacked for the night, while the army surgeons went about saving what lives they could and evacuated the wounded to Scutari. The battle had been won at the cost of 2,000 British killed and wounded, 1,300 estimated French losses for the Russians loss of over five thousand men.