an excellent opportunity to seize Sevastopol from the course. Losses of the parties: allies (excluding Turkish troops) – 3,300 people, the Russian army – 5,700 people.
Admiral Nakhimov wants to go to sea, fight and die with honor. The commander-in-chief declines this proposal and orders the Russian fleet (the oldest ships) to be flooded along the fairway of the bay.
The base of the British expeditionary force is located 15 kilometers south-east of Sevastopol, Balaklava. October 25, 1854, a 16-thousand Russian detachment of Cossacks and the hussar, having fled Turks, attacks a number of structures that scouts erroneously mistaken for a fleet of artillery pieces. However, this is the camp of English dragoons and Scottish infantrymen. The dragoons retreat. To counter the broad front for the Cossacks’ attacks, the Scotsmen dressed in red uniforms line up with two rows instead of four, thus forming a «thin red line» bristling with steel. Quoted phrase, after the appearance on the pages of the newspaper «Times» becomes a widespread speech turnover, meaning defense by all means and the latest forces.
The troops occupy the starting positions, but then a new memorable event follows. The commander of the British forces, General Reglan (later named in his honor jacket), from the hill notices how the Russian cavalry evacuate the nine Turkish guns fired on the redoubts, orders them to intercept them. The order arrives in the elite elite Guards squadron located on the plain. From the words of the messenger and a short note, the commander can not in any way understand which guns he is talking about, and decides that he should attack a battery of heavy guns located at the very end of the valley, which is covered up practically by the whole Russian army. Six hundred people rush along the plain, under the frontal and flanking (roughly speaking – lateral) fire, get to the guns and retreat, losing half the composition during the battle, killed, wounded and captured, and almost all horses.
Attack becomes «legendary», is reflected in Anglo-Saxon literature and cinema. It is unlikely that she, however, would receive so much attention if the offspring of the most aristocratic families of England were not serving in her, and British officers, accustomed to think, as a rule, with their heads, did not show this time helplessness. By the way, in the British army, at this time, the custom of selling military ranks for money is common. Such an order can embarrass, but only at first glance. Presumably, people who have issued a large amount for the rank, hold on to it, take the initiative, constantly improve their competence. The same officers who get to senior positions already in old age, perhaps in peacetime, through complex intrigues or the usual linear advance, already do not want anything, except as a secured quiet old age.
In mid-May 1854, 67 Allied ships appeared on the roadstead in front of Krondstadt, luring mainly the sailing fleet of Russian (26 linear, 7 frigates, 7 steam-fouling) for the battle. Not having waited for this, and having convinced that in many places sea mines are exposed (only 600 pieces), squadrons leave. Later, in the spring of 1855, two British frigates would explode on the pyrotechnical explosive devices of E. Nobel. Ships will get rid of small damages – the charge of black powder is only 4, 5 kilograms, however, the psychological effect of using new weapons exceeds all expectations.
In July 1854, two British steamshopfregat, shelled out of 120 guns Solovetsky monastery – the proposed base for an attack on Arkhangelsk. They are answered by 10 old, caught in a monastery on storage, guns (invalid team of Gunners, 50 people). Attempt to land the naval landing is broken.
…August 29, 1854 in Petropavlovsk (now – «Kamchatkii») Anglo-French fleet landed 926 paratroopers. About 400 of them die or are taken prisoner, the losses of the Russian garrison are 40 people. In anticipation of a second visit, the whole city is dismantled by a log, civilians, ships, garrison, evacuated. Therefore, on May 20, reinforced to fourteen pennants squadron finds on the site of the administrative center of Kamchatka, only a deserted place, not at all suitable for long-term basing. The allied fleet is sent to pursue four transports with residents of Petropavlovsk and the military, as well as two linear warships, and locks them in the De-Kastri (now Chikhachev) bay from the south. At night, the convoy is anchored and leaves to the north, at the mouth of the Amur River. There, on the site of the border post, Nikolayevsky settlers founded a new Russian city – Petropavlovsk-on-Amur. The Allied fleet, whose captains do not know that Sakhalin is an island, still awaits the appearance of ships «from the Gulf» for a long time.
Then follow – November 5 – Inkerman battle, a futile assault on the heights near Sevastopol, 3,300 killed against 880 British and French soldiers. A small respite – on November 14, as a result of a severe storm, 53 ships of the Allies sink (including steam), 25 of them transports. On February 17, 1855, an attempt was made to unblock the captured Evpatoria. The besieged fight off the assault with artillery fire, inflicting damage on the Russian army of 750 people, losing their 300; Ottomans regain their former reputation, their fighting spirit is growing stronger. May 24, the Anglo-French fleet occupies Kerch, burns all ships and even fishing boats in the bay. August 16 – a battle against the Chernaya River, a senseless attack by Russian troops on little significant heights, 1,760 people killed and wounded by the Allies, 8,300 – soldiers and officers of the Russian army. Simultaneously, the Black Sea is traversed by the enemy’s steamfregas, sometimes firing the shore or engaging in skirmishes with each other.
In the Sea of Azov, the Anglo-French fleet bombards or burns, landing troops, coastal towns and villages, including Taganrog and Mariupol.
Sevastopol and its strategically important heights are subjected to massive artillery shelling. Further, on September 8, the French troops take Malakhov Kurgan. Russian units leave the southern, urban part of Sevastopol and pass to the fortified bay. Allies are sent to Nikolaev, the second strategically important base of the Russian fleet. At the mouth of the Dnieper, they are firing from the armored platforms of the coastal fortress of Kinburn, seizing it, leaving the garrison and descending for the wintering to Sevastopol.
All parties to the conflict are exhausted, criticized by civil society, and are fully prepared to negotiate peace. On March 18, 1856, the Paris Peace Treaty was signed. Russia agrees on the freedom of navigation on the Danube, renounces the protectorate over Serbia, the Moldavian principality and Wallachia. Returns the Turkish city of Kars along with the surrounding territories, in exchange for «all other places occupied in the Crimea by the Allied forces.» The Black Sea is declared neutral; and Porte, and Russia, and any other state in peacetime is forbidden to have a navy here. The fortifications of Sevastopol are being destroyed.
Well, and, yes; The key to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem remains with the representative of France. Nicholas could have guessed himself that the moral right to patronize Christians from a man who rules the country where Christians are sold – even with the land, at least without, can not be.
Russia suffers a minimal loss of territory, but the Triple Alliance of Emperors-winners remains in the past, the primacy in Europe from Petersburg moves to Paris.
Losses of the parties: Russia – 140 thousand people, France – 97 thousand, the Ottoman Empire – 45 thousand, Great Britain – 22 thousand, Sardinia (a large island off the coast of Italy, the strongest then Italian state) – 2 thousand people. All losses of the allies – 166 thousand people.
The failure of Russia ruinously affects the health of the emperor. Raise his tone can send a message about the capture of Evpatoria, the initiator of the assault is the very Nikolay the First. But, on the evening of February 29, the courier brings news of the siege and heavy losses of the Russian army. The Emperor, as if intentionally accepting a review of marching battalions in a light uniform, already infected with the flu; the disease gives complications and, on March 2, 1855, the monarch dies.
On the same day,
