Chapter VII: THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (continued) (2)

The British had told off about 3,200 men of the Light and 2nd Divisions to carry the Quarries. Two small columns, each 200 strong, were to turn the flanks of the work, and then advancing towards the Redan, lie down, and cover by their fire a working party, 800 strong, whose duty it was to turn the face of the work towards the Redan. About 1,000 men were held in support in the trenches, and two battalions were posted in the Woronzoff Road to cover the flank of both our attacks. The French, having a more serious operation, and being more accustomed to act in masses, detailed about 28,000 men for the two assaults. General Mayran had the direction of the operations against the White Works--redoubts on the Careening Ridge, one more advanced than the other, and standing between the Great Harbour and the Careening Ravine. Two of his brigades--the right under De Lavarande, the left under De Failly--were to storm the redoubts, while General Dulac held an entire division in reserve to support both; and besides these, there were two battalions in the Careening Ravine, intended to push down it, and cut off the retreat of the enemy. General Camou was entrusted with the attack on the Mamelon. One brigade, under Wimpfen, was to carry that work; while another brigade and an entire division were drawn up in the middle ravine between the French left and our right. Behind them were two battalions of the Imperial Guard, and in rear of all, near the Inkermann battle-field, was a complete division of Turks. The whole operation was under the control of Bosquet, who proved himself quite equal to the occasion. The fire of the allied batteries was at its height when three rockets fired from the Victoria Redoubt, at 6.45 p.m., let loose the excited soldiers, who dashed at once upon the enemy.

The brigades on the extreme right went up to the White Works at a run, Lavarande's men first storming the redoubt on the right at the point of the bayonet, and De Failly rushing past this work, and being equally successful in carrying its counterpart; while the battalions in the ravine marched down it, and swept up a number of the flying garrison. Led away by a furious impulse, the troops even entered a third work, just above the Careening Bay, but this they could not hold. The other two redoubts, however, were firmly grasped and held in spite of the fire of the batteries on the north.

At the same time Wimpfen's brigade issued from the trenches in three columns, and went impetuously up the slope of the Mamelon, led by Colonel Brancion, of the 50th Regiment of the line. On his left were the 3rd Zouaves, on his right Algerian Native Light Infantry. Soon they were at the ditch, firing into the embrasures, and receiving from the parapets a telling fire. Then the 50th dashed into the ditch, and began to scramble up the slope of the work, and Zouave and Algerine closed bodily with it. In a few moments the redoubt was full of Frenchmen. They had won the victory with such comparative ease that their passions got the better of their judgment. Disobeying all orders, the Zouaves and Algerines pursued the Russians towards the Malakoff, into which our batteries were now pouring a terrible fire. It was an unhappy move; for the enemy immediately lined his parapets and brought his guns to bear, and the Zouaves, although they stood well and fought well, and although they were aided by shells pitched into the Malakoff from our batteries, yet they only stood to be slain. In the meantime, alarmed by some appearances indicating a mine, the troops holding the Mamelon all ran out, and the Zouaves and Algerines, returning from their mad rush on the Malakoff, pursued by a heavy and angry column of Russians, found the Mamelon empty. Shattered as they were, they could not hold it, and thus the enemy burst in triumph into his stronghold once more. It was an anxious moment, but General Bosquet was prompt in supplying a remedy. Throwing forward a fresh brigade, and giving it ample support, these new troops, rallying hundreds who had fled in terror at the idea of a mine, went steadily up to the work. There was a brief combat, and rattling volleys; but, overpowered, the enemy sullenly yielded possession and retired back into the town, this time unpursued. Thus the French stormed, and lost, and regained the famous Mamelon.

Soon after the first advance on the Mamelon, Colonel Shirley, obeying a signal from Lord Raglan, launched his little band against the Quarries. The men of the Light and 2nd Divisions carried the work and its outlying trenches without firing a shot, and then advancing, began to ply their rifles against the gunners of the Redan. Anticipating an assault, the enemy had filled this work with troops, and a horrible carnage was the consequence. Either to escape this fire or to succour the Malakoff, for a time the garrison of the Redan ran out of that work, and some British soldiers actually went up and peered into it, and saw it was empty. But when night came, the Russians returned to the Redan, and six times during the night they strove to expel the little band of Britishers who occupied the Quarries, and at one time, by turning the left flank, they succeeded for a brief space; then, with a rolling cheer, our soldiers went at them with the bayonet, and regained and held the lines, which were at once turned into a new parallel, and the site of a new and most formidable battery.

After the success of the 7th of June the question immediately arose--should that success be pushed, and should the whole place be at once assailed on all sides? To answer this question there was a council of war. It should always be remembered that the British played a very subordinate part in the siege of Sebastopol. They had reaped their glory at the Alma and at Inkermann. They had soon lost that equality in point of numbers with which they began the war, and the views of Lord Raglan could now only prevail by dint of their comparative sagacity. He had, of course, a certain authority as the representative of Britain; but it was one of the penalties we paid for making war side by side with France, that he should often have to succumb, and that in place of one plan or another a medium course should be struck out and acted on. Whatever we did in the siege was purely secondary after Inkermann. Our batteries, indeed, were very formidable, and paved the way for the French successes against the Mamelon and finally against the Malakoff; but our troops were so placed by the stress of circumstances, that it was impossible for them to perform any striking action. It would appear that Lord Raglan's plan of taking Sebastopol would have been to follow up a heavy fire by, if need be, repeated assaults at all points--some by way of diversion, to keep a large force of the enemy occupied, others driven home with the view of carrying the place. So that it is not surprising he should have wished to continue the bombardment on the 8th, and then assault at the moment when the enemy's batteries were at the lowest ebb of their power. But to this the French would not agree. They wanted more time to build more batteries, to push approaches nearer; and as they furnished the large assaulting columns on the vital point, Lord Raglan had no choice but to acquiesce. He knew that he could not take the place. He knew, and all knew, that if the Redan were captured, it could not be held so long as the Malakoff was in the hands of the Russians. Therefore he was obviously bound to assent when General Pélissier proposed to defer the assault until the Mamelon and White Works were armed, and a battery established in the Quarries.

The French and British at once began to strengthen and arm their acquisitions, and to sap onward towards the enemy's lines. But this caused great losses day by day. Mortars from behind the Malakoff threw shells into the Mamelon, mortars from the Redan threw shells into the Quarries; guns and mortars from the north side threw their missiles into the White Works. On the left the French did little more to aid the siege. There was mining and counter-mining in plenty in front of the Flagstaff, and some new batteries were constructed and armed on the extreme left; but they did not now push the attack as they had done before. They had come at last to recognise the Malakoff as the true point of attack, and against this they turned all their energies. They worked out above a hundred and fifty yards from the Mamelon, formed a large sheltered place in which to assemble troops, and covered the front with a curving line of parapet. The British built up and armed a six-gun battery in the Quarries, which looked into the enemy's communications behind the Malakoff, and was destined to play an important part; and they also increased the armament in the two attacks until the 13-inch mortars alone amounted to thirty.

The Russians were not a whit less active. Their energies also were bent upon making more complete the formidable defences of the Malakoff. They were especially careful to close the gaps on its proper left towards the Careening Bay, to open new batteries sweeping the ground at the head of that bay, and to construct interior retrenchments and flanking batteries. Their line of works, beginning from the South Harbour and extending to the Great Harbour, was broken only at one point. About a quarter of a mile to the proper left of the Redan, the Karabelnaia, or Middle Ravine--that which ran between the British right attack and the French Malakoff attack--broke the line of the Russian works. On the opposite bank of the ravine, the outer defences of the Malakoff Redoubt began with a work called the Gervais Battery, connected by a curtain with the Malakoff. But in rear of this, as well as in rear of the Little Redan on the proper left of the Malakoff, and in rear of the connecting curtains, the enemy had thrown up retrenchments. In short, General Todleben developed his plan of defence to meet the plan of attack, and as he had plenty of men, and a boundless supply of guns and material, he could execute all his admirable designs. He was a worthy foe.

As usual, the plan of attack was debated at headquarters when it had been decided by superior generals that the guns should open on the 17th, and that the assault should take place the next day. How should this be carried out? It was arranged that the French on the west face of the town should attack its salient defences, the Flagstaff, Central, and Quarantine Bastions, in three columns, under General de Salles; and it was anticipated that if these attacks did not succeed, they would keep many thousands of the enemy employed, and might, if occasion offered, be converted into real attacks, pushed home. The British were to send a brigade down the South Ravine, to seize the cemetery lying at the bottom of its basin, and, in conjunction with a French force, threaten the enemy in that quarter. The main British assaults were to be made on the Redan. If the Redan was carried, then the column in the South Ravine was to climb up to the Barrack Battery, and join the Redan column in the rear. The French were to attack in three columns on the extreme right. One was to follow the Careening Ravine, and storm the Little Redan; a second was to rush upon the proper left of the Malakoff; while a third, issuing from the Middle Ravine, carried the Gervais Battery, and worked round thence to the rear of the Malakoff. The fleet was to send in steamers on the nights preceding the assault, to keep the enemy on the alert in his sea batteries. Immense reserves were to be provided along the whole line. Such was the original plan. It was settled on the 16th, but in the afternoon General Pélissier desired to make an important modification. General de Salles urged that, as the attacks on the left could not succeed, they had better not take place; and General Pélissier, much to the discontent of Lord Raglan, notified that this change had been made. Lord Raglan did not press his objections, and thus the French were merely to "demonstrate" on the left front. No other change was made, except that Lord Raglan decided to send a third column against the Redan, having for its object the salient angle of that work. Finally it was decided that the British should not attack until the French were in possession of the Malakoff. The reason for this was that the guns on the right face of the Malakoff commanded the Redan and the road to the Redan. The whole of the 1st British Division was brought up from Balaclava. The Imperial Guard was marched up to the open ground at the head of the Malakoff Ridge; and 10,000 Turks were posted on the field of Inkermann. There were in the British batteries 166 pieces of ordnance, and nearly 300 in the French.

The bombardment opened at daylight on the 17th with great effect. The Malakoff and the Redan were the objects of our gunners, and the torrent of shot and shell poured into these works had, by nine o'clock, reduced the fire of the Malakoff to an occasional gun. Throughout the day it was the same. The Redan, although it soon ceased to fire with any vigour, flung shells from small mortars with low charges into the Quarries. The Barrack and Garden Batteries were, as usual, conspicuous for their vivacity. But the fire of the Allies completely overpowered that of the eastern front. Its severity may be estimated by the fact that the ammunition consumed in the British batteries alone on the 17th and 18th was 22,684 projectiles, including 2,286 13-inch shells. It must have been nearly impossible for the Russians to work their guns, and quite impossible to work them without awful loss. When the sun went down on the 17th the mortars continued to hurl forth their monstrous missiles; and three or four of the steamers standing in opened a fire of shot, shell, and rockets on the town. It was on one of these occasions that Captain Lyons, fresh from his triumphs in the Sea of Azoff, was struck in the leg by a fragment of shell. The wound proved mortal, and death deprived the British navy of one of its most promising officers.

From the comparative silence of the Russian batteries, Lord Raglan and General Pélissier inferred that the enemy was at the end of his resources. They hoped that at length he had exhausted his stores of artillery. It was a vain delusion. In spite of the bombardment, which went on all night, the enemy managed to replace the pieces in his batteries, and at dawn, as will be seen, he was ready to begin anew. This advantage, indeed, might have been counteracted had the Allies remained faithful to their original plan. There was, in the French camp, a sort of passion for an assault at the very first flush of the dawn. Their officers, Pélissier excepted, had urged that the attack on the Mamelon should be given at daybreak. They were overruled. Now they came to the charge afresh. The whole scheme of the assault rested on the basis that the fire of the enemy had been crushed. To make sure, however, it was originally planned that the assault should be preceded by a three hours' violent cannonade. This would have searched every part of the enemy's works, and prevented him from massing his troops in them in large numbers. On this basis all the orders were given.

Literally at the eleventh hour, the French changed the whole plan. On the evening of the 17th, when all orders had been issued, General Pélissier informed Lord Raglan that his officers declared they could not place their infantry in the trenches without their being seen by the enemy, and that consequently he desired the time of the assault to be altered and fixed for daybreak. Lord Raglan was justly much annoyed, but he yielded. It was a fatal concession. But how could he oppose a colleague who commanded a force nearly double that under Lord Raglan's orders? Therefore, a few hours before the assault was to take place, the old orders were revoked, and fresh orders were issued. This occupied the British commander nearly all night, and left him but one hour for repose.

Throughout the night the troops appointed to storm and support the stormers and the reserves were moving to their appointed places. Down into the British trenches went the men of the Light 2nd and 4th Divisions, under Sir John Campbell, Colonel Lacy Yea, and Colonel Shadforth; while Eyre's Brigade of the 3rd Division moved deep into the South Ravine, and Barnard's Brigade of the same division was placed higher up in support. The right column was to attack the left face of the Redan, the left column the right face. If these succeeded, then the centre column was to charge in at the salient. Eyre was to move towards the works at the end of the South Ravine. The French, in addition to the ordinary guards, marched three entire divisions, about 16,000 men, into their trenches, and placed in reserve a part of the division of the Imperial Guard, bringing the force up to about 24,000 men. The right division, under the orders of General Mayran, marched into the Careening Ravine; the centre, under General Brunet, had one brigade in front of the right of the Mamelon, the other in the trenches behind; the left, under General d'Autemarre, placed one brigade on the left front of the Mamelon, the other in the trenches in the rear. The trenches and the ravines were choked up with troops, all silent and crouching in the dark. Some were sitting under the parapets, others lying flat in the ravines. But there was also a good deal of movement, for the troops had to be placed so that they could most easily and with slightest disorder move swiftly out of the trenches. Seen from the higher ground in the rear, the soldiers are said to have looked, in the deep obscurity, like the people of a world of shadows.

The allied generals had intended to surprise the place; to break into it when its defenders were the least prepared. Some suppose that the enemy was forewarned by spies and deserters of the coming assault, for, far from being taken unawares, the Russians were as much on the alert as the Allies. Behind those dark and silent entrenchments there were thousands of soldiers under arms, and waiting in silence to do their duty at the first tap of the drum or bray of the trumpet. It needed not spies or deserters to forewarn them. The custom of armies when near each other is to parade before break of day, and this is not less the custom of garrisons when besieged, or of an army, like that in Sebastopol, defending a mighty entrenched camp. So it was on the 18th. Behind the huge Malakoff and the Great Redan, in rear of the connecting parapets, and in the houses of the suburb, lay 16,000 men ready to clutch their arms and fall on. In front of the works were watchful sentries, and in the works the gunners stood by their pieces, prompt to fire. The steamers in the harbour, sheltered under the cliffs, had their fires lighted and their steam up, and were prepared to throw shell, and grape, and canister on the assaulting columns. But had Lord Raglan's plan of a three hours' bombardment been carried out, the fire could not have failed to disarrange the plan of defence, the chances of surprising the defenders would have been great, and the assailants, moving upon what they could see, would have stormed with greater unity and greater confidence.

It was still dark. General Regnault de Saint Jean d'Angely, with the Imperial Guard, was in the Lancaster Battery. Lord Raglan was at his post, watching for the signal. The unemployed spectators, officers and amateurs, were on the hills in groups here and there. General Pélissier was still on his way, and upwards of half a mile from his post. Hope, nay, confidence reigned in every breast. The British were cool, ready, and quiet. The French, to use their own expression, were quivering with eagerness, but their centre columns were not yet placed.

Suddenly, none knew why, flashes of fire, followed by a sullen uproar, were seen and heard on the extreme right. The flashes grew brighter and more frequent, the noise of exploding gunpowder grew louder. The roar of big guns rose above the crash of musketry, and the roll of drums and shrill notes of trumpets were heard in the transitory lulls of the larger tumult. What had happened? No signal rockets had climbed upwards from the Lancaster Battery to break into a bouquet of coloured fires. General Pélissier, hurrying through the dark over the plateau, was perplexed and furious. Still the combat raged about the head of the Careening Bay, and the fire of the place grew fiercer and more sustained. Ten minutes elapsed--minutes that seemed weeks to the wondering spectators. The French general entered the battery in a fury; demanding sharply who had given the signal, his wrath changed into astonishment when he was told no signal had been given, and his astonishment into vexation when he learned that General Mayran had mistaken a military rocket, fired from the Mamelon, for the signal to assault! The unity and suddenness of the assault were thus destroyed; but General Pélissier, without hesitation, ordered the rockets to be fired, and, at seven minutes past three, the clustering stars of fire hung for a moment up in the black sky, and then paled and vanished. The French troops dashed out in the gloom to the assault.

A fatal accident had precipitated the conflict. General Mayran had been up all night engaged in disposing himself the division he commanded. He had them all in hand in the Careening Ravine, and he was eager, he was impatient for the fray. In this frame of mind he was disposed to take every rocket fired from the Mamelon for the signal agreed on; and when, a little before three, one of these blazing missiles writhed and bounded through the air towards the Russian lines, he called out, "That is the signal." The rash step was taken; his division was ordered to move. With the first brigade Mayran went himself; the second was commanded by De Failly. But the troops no sooner rushed out than they were smitten by a heavy fire. The leading soldiers, after the fashion of their countrymen, began to fire on the retreating Russian outposts, and the flash and the sound guided the Russian artillery in training their guns. Then it was still dark, and the troops were unable to see the nature of the ground. Instead of following the left bank of the Careening Bay, and striving to turn the line of entrenchments, they went full in the teeth of a battery. The steamers came up to the mouth of the bay, and, at short range, poured in showers of grape and shell. So that this unhappy column, struggling in the obscurity over rough ground, was torn through and through by the iron sleet hurled at it in front and flank. Mayran was soon among the wounded, but he would neither retire nor give up the command. Another grapeshot striking him in the body, he was carried off mortally wounded; and part of his troops, after a vain but gallant stand, hurried back into the Careening Ravine, shattered and disorganised. But De Failly, bringing up the reserve, rallied them in a hollow, and held his ground.

In the meantime, at the signal from the Lancaster Battery, D'Autemarre and Brunet gave the word to advance. Brunet's men were not in order; and in disorder, and as they could, they scrambled into the open. The disorder was increased when a shot struck and killed the general as he quitted the trenches. General Lafont de Villiers took command. Part of the division went towards the Malakoff, under Colonel Lorencez, while the rest were held in hand to meet the exigencies of the moment. The men engaged, like those on the right, were exposed to a crushing fire, and could make no way, but they would not retreat. The attack on the right had, by this time, utterly failed. The attack on the centre made no progress. The left attack was more fortunate. D'Autemarre, on spying the signal, sent forward two battalions, one of rifles, the other of the line. Day had dawned, and the twilight revealed the column to the enemy, but it also allowed the troops to see where they were going. With steady tread in the face of a searching fire, D'Autemarre's men pressed along the ridge, on the right of the Middle Ravine; Garnier, the commander of the rifles, kept his men together and prevented them from firing; and thus they arrived at the ditch of the Gervais Battery, on the proper right of the Malakoff, all together. In a moment they were seen scrambling over the parapet, and then firing their rifles, point blank, they went in with the bayonet. The strife was close, but the French prevailed; and the 19th Line regiment coming up, the two battalions were actually established within the enemy's lines, among the ruins of houses, and under the mighty Malakoff. The column on the right had by this time been reinforced by part of the Guard, chiefly for the purpose of securing it from attack, but also to have a body of men ready to take advantage of any opportunity. The head of Brunet's column was under the Malakoff, exchanging volleys with the enemy's troops, who fired exultingly from their parapets. D'Autemarre's two battalions, as we have said, were inside the Russian lines, and their gallant leaders, Garnier and Manèque, both wounded, had sent officer after officer to the rear begging for reinforcements. Ten minutes had slipped away since Pélissier gave the signal, and such was the condition of the combat.

Lord Raglan had been a spectator of this engagement in the grey dawn. He had seen and heard the false movement of Mayran; he had watched the confused march of Brunet's troops; he had seen dimly the soldiers of D'Autemarre storm the Gervais Battery. The French had not succeeded; but the British commander, admiring their showy bravery, and feeling that he ought to risk something to aid them, directed Sir George Brown to order the assault on the Redan. Alas! here, too, the enemy were prepared. They had a mass of infantry in the Redan; its guns, loaded with grape, were ready to belch it forth; and between the stormers and their object there was the abattis with its strong woodwork and deep ditch. The British columns were small--400 men in each. They were covered by a scattering of riflemen, and with them were to march a party of sailors under William Peel, carrying ladders, a party of soldiers with sacks of wool, and a party of artillerymen to spike the guns of the Redan. When the signal was given, all these gallant men climbed over the parapets and alighted in the open. Then the guns of the Redan opened with energy and effect. The rifles, in open order, gained the abattis, and began to fire on the enemy's gunners. Parts of the two columns of attack struggled in utter disorder up to the same place. But the sailors under Peel were so cut up that only one ladder was borne to the abattis, and Peel was wounded. It was in striving to make the men in the right column form, and in leading them on by voice and gesture, that the brave Lacy Yea met his death. He was struck by grape, and almost instantly died. On the left, Colonel Shadforth was slain as soon as he had left the trenches; and Sir John Campbell, leaping over the parapet, went at once to head the column, and carried them up to the abattis. But there, cheering his soldiers, Campbell was also shot dead. Indeed, the storm of grapeshot strewed the ground with red coats and bluejackets. Lord West and Colonel Lysons found it a vain sacrifice to keep the men under that awful fire, to which musketry was now added from the parapets of the Redan; and accordingly, the remains of the devoted stormers were hurried back into the trenches.

The French attack had failed also. Seeing Brunet's men exposed to a fire of small arms from the parapets of the Malakoff, Colonel Dickson endeavoured to drive the Russians down by shells. But they did not appear to feel these missiles, and Dickson changing to round shot, soon cleared the parapet. D'Autemarre's two battalions held the Gervais Battery for more than half an hour. Their brave commanders, grim and blood-stained, looked eagerly, but in vain, for the reinforcements they had demanded. And as these did not arrive, these two heroic soldiers were forced to withdraw. When the French quitted the Russian entrenchments, the Russian infantry followed. The French halted in a depression of the ground, and as part of their reinforcements had now come up, they turned with the bayonet upon their pursuers and forced them back into the work. Other battalions coming up, these men held fast, and General Pélissier, unwilling to throw a chance away, ordered up the Zouaves of the Guard, and had a momentary thought of making a fresh attack; but receiving unfavourable reports, he halted the Guard, and recalled all the troops. The attack was at an end, and once more the dogged tenacity of the Russian peasant had won the day.

But while Pélissier was thinking of renewing the assault, he sent General Rose with a message to Lord Raglan, saying that he hoped Raglan would agree to a fresh onslaught. At the same time Lord Raglan, seeing how completely our fire had mastered that of the place, ordered Sir George Brown to bring up the supports, and prepare for another assault. He then sent Commander Vico, the French officer at the British headquarters, to inform General Pélissier of the steps he had taken, and to propose that another attempt should be made after the bombardment had continued a few hours longer. Lord Raglan thought that in this way the enemy might be surprised, and the place be won. The two messengers met each other in the trenches, and thus the messages crossed each other. Lord Raglan, therefore, determined to see Pélissier himself. Reaching the Lancaster Battery shortly after seven o'clock, Lord Raglan found the French general ready to fall in with his views. But while they were discussing the details, General D'Autemarre, now senior officer in the French trenches, sent word that the French troops had lost so many men and were so discouraged, that he feared it would be impossible to assault again. It was, therefore, decided that no fresh assault should be made; the troops were withdrawn; and the batteries slackened fire.

We have now to narrate a remarkable episode in the incidents of the morning. It will be remembered that General Eyre was to make a demonstration in the South Ravine. A French force was to aid him by covering his left flank. Their first object was to capture two rifle-pits. The French took one, and our volunteers the other, with ease. Then the French halted, the officer in command having no warrant to go farther. General Eyre, however, exceeding, or rather straining, his instructions, did go farther, and a handful of French breaking from restraint kept pace with him. In the ravine, just before it is joined by the Woronzoff Ravine on the right, there was a cemetery where the Russians had a post. This was carried by our troops, after a very slight resistance; and, not content with this success, they pushed still farther. There were clusters of houses under the cliffs on both sides of the broad basin formed by the juncture of the two ravines. Into these the enemy retired, and General Eyre deeming it desirable to occupy as forward a position as possible, drove the Russians out of the houses, and held them as well as the Cemetery. The troops were now under the Garden Batteries on the one side, and the Barrack Batteries on the other; and before them was the battery at the head of the South Ravine, called the Creek Battery. They were thus exposed to fire on three sides. Nevertheless they still made progress, driving the enemy out of the houses and up the sides of the ravine. Some of them ascended the steep, a few looked into the works in rear of the Flagstaff Bastion, others climbed the opposite side and got shelter at a point commanding the Creek Battery. Thus they were ready, if fortune favoured the assaults on the Redan and Malakoff, to sweep either into the town or make way through the Barrack Battery to the Redan. But the Russians had no sooner fled from the ravine into the place, than the batteries opened on our daring soldiers. Nevertheless here they remained all day, offering to the French in the right of their left attack a splendid spectacle of hardihood. General Eyre was wounded early in the day; but he did not give up the command of his men until five in the afternoon. About nine in the morning he had heard of the failure of the grand assault. Requesting instructions from Lord Raglan, he was told that the French would send a force to relieve him, and hold part of the ground he had won; but that if at nightfall the French had not arrived, then he was to evacuate the ravine. The French did not come; and this noble brigade, bringing with them nearly all their wounded, and these were many, regained the trenches at nightfall. The Cemetery, however, remained in our possession.

The losses of both sides were very great. Of the British there were 22 officers killed and 78 wounded; 244 men killed and 1,209 wounded. The French lost 33 officers killed, 257 were wounded, and 21 were missing. They also lost 1,340 men killed, 1,520 wounded, and 390 missing. The wounded men thus exceeded the dead by 180 only--an unusual proportion. The totals stand--for the British, 1,553; for the French, 3,561 killed, wounded, and missing. The Russian loss, as usual, it is difficult to ascertain. Prince Gortschakoff's published despatch fixes the losses during the 17th and 18th at 16 officers killed and 153 wounded; 781 men killed and 4,826 wounded; giving a total of 5,776 as the amount of the Russian loss from the bombardment and the combat. The Allied losses on the 18th were 5,106. On the 17th, 37 men were killed or wounded in the British trenches. As the French placed more men in their batteries and parallels than we did, they may have lost 100. Adding 137 to the total of the Allied loss in the two days, it still falls short of the loss of the enemy by 533 men. The errors of the day were the fatal change which dispensed with the bombardment; the refusal of the French to assault on the left; the mistake of Mayran, and the consequent failure in the unity of the assault. To these it may be added, that the British assaulting columns, except that led by Eyre, were all too weak, and would probably have failed against the Redan, even had the French succeeded against the Malakoff. And, reviewing the whole operation carefully, there is some ground for the inference, that, although a preliminary bombardment would have given a chance of success, yet, at this stage, it is probable that failure would have been equally the result, because the distance which the stormers and supporters had to traverse to reach the enemy was so great, and also because the spirit of that enemy was still too high, and his losses, immense though they were, not enough to warrant that profound discouragement which precedes the final efforts of a desperate cause.

And now a severe misfortune was impending over the British army. It was about to lose its beloved Commander-in-Chief. On the 23rd, Colonel Calthorpe from headquarters wrote to his friends in England that every one was more or less out of spirits. "Lord Raglan is, perhaps, the most cheerful of any one, considering how much he has had lately to worry and annoy him. But at the same time, I fear that it [the failure of the 18th] has affected his health. He looks far from well, and has grown very much aged latterly." He fell ill seriously on the 26th, but no one, not even the doctors, thought that he was sick unto death. He grew no better, but he slept well, watched over by his staff and Dr. Prendergast. On the 28th he seemed so much better to some of the medical men that they were about to quiet the anxiety in England by sending a message to that effect by telegraph; but Dr. Prendergast was doubtful, and a dubious message was sent. In the afternoon the Field Marshal became visibly worse, but it was not supposed that death was so near him. At four o'clock the truth burst upon all--he was dying. His staff, his nephew, Colonel Somerset, General Simpson, General Airey, and Colonel Lord George Paget gathered round his bed, and the principal chaplain came, and read and prayed. Gradually, quietly, in a holy calm, that noble spirit ebbed away, so peacefully that it was scarcely possible to tell the moment when he ceased to be. At five-and-twenty minutes to nine in the evening of the 28th of June, an end had come to the earthly career of the British Commander-in-Chief. He died in his bed, but he died, like a knight of old, with his harness on. His remains were conveyed to England in the _Caradoc_. She arrived at Bristol on the 24th of July, and landed her sad burden, which was conveyed through a town in mourning to Badminton; and there, on the 26th, in a quiet village church, surrounded by a group of living comrades, who had fought beside him under the Great Duke more than half a century before, the remains of Lord Raglan, a fine man but second-rate soldier, found their last resting-place.