But the fighting was not yet over. Seven guns taken in the redoubts yet remained in the possession of the enemy; and Lord Raglan sent an order to Lord Lucan to prevent the enemy from carrying off the guns, if possible. The order was wrongly interpreted as a peremptory order to charge, and in that sense it was repeated by Lord Lucan to Lord Cardigan, who obeyed it and charged into the very centre of the enemy's position, with a desperate sacrifice of men, but not without inflicting severe blows upon the enemy. Nor was the loss of life entirely a waste. To the Russians the incident proved the unmeasured daring of the foe they had to face; to the British troops it showed the lengths to which discipline and fidelity can be carried. The light cavalry brigade mustered 607 sabres that morning; in the twenty minutes occupied by the charge and the return, they lost 335 horses, and had nearly as many officers and men killed or wounded. The heavy dragoons and the Chasseurs d'Afrique covered the retreat of the bleeding remnant of this daring band. It was now nearly noon: the fourth division, under Sir George Cath- cart, and the first division, under the Duke of Cambridge, had come up; and the Russians abandoned all the redoubts, except the furthest one to the right. Nothing more was done that day. Looking to the extent of the position previously occupied. Lord Raglan determined to contract his line of defence to the immediate vicinity of Balaklava and the steeps in the right rear of the British army.
Next day the enemy sallied forth from Sebastopol, 7000 or 8000 strong, and attacked the right flank of the British army; but, steadily met by the second division under Sir De Lacy Evans, supported by the brigade of Guards, a regiment of Rifles, two guns from the light division, and two French battalions, the Russians were gallantly repelled, and then chased down to the slope, with a loss of some 600 killed and wounded, and 80 prisoners.
THE BATTLE OF INKERMAN (NOVEMBER 5TH, 1854)
Another fierce engagement, the most important of all in which the belligerents have yet been engaged, took place on the 5th of November. For some days previously, the Russians, who already possessed a large force in the prolonged fortifications, and others to the rear of the allies in the neighbourhood of Balaklava, had been observed to receive large reinforcements, which, added to Liprandi's corps on the Russian left, of 30,000 or more, and the garrison, would probably justify Lord Raglan's estimate of 60,000 men arrayed against the allies on the memorable 5th of November. To augment the weight of the force brought down to crush the besiegers, the now useless army of the Danube had been withdrawn from Moldavia, leaving Bessarabia still defended by its special army, but not, it is supposed, entirely exhausting the reinforcements to be brought from the interior. The effort of Menshikov to throw his strength into a succession of powerful and, if possible, decisive blows, is shown by the advance of Dannenberg's army in the very lightest order, augmenting the numbers about Sebastopol without much regard either to their equipment or provision. The aim was to bear down by accumulated pressure; and it was with such a view that the batteries resumed the bombardment of the allies in their besieged camp, a strong force from the garrison moved out to act with Dannenberg's army, and Liprandi made a feint, that might have been, had it succeeded, a penetrating attack towards the rear; and as it was, it did busy a portion of the British and French forces. Thus the allies were to be occupied all round, while the weak, unintrenched, and unfortified point in their position towards the valley of the Inkerman was to be penetrated by a force of great weight and momentum.**
The English encampments were established between Karabelnaia and the valley of the Tchernaia, on a plateau called Inkerman, which two ravines narrowed at the south in a way which made it a kind of isthmus. Two strong Russian columns, consisting together of thirty-six thousand men, converged in this direction. The first came out from Karabelnaia; the second descended from the heights on the opposite bank of the Tchernaia and crossed that river near its mouth in the bay.
They had to join in order to turn the English camp and take it from the back. Their movements were badly planned; each acted on its own initiative instead of joining. However, the English were in extreme danger. The Karabelnaia column surprised one of their divisions and nearly overwhelmed it by force of numbers. With a small reinforcement the English disputed every inch of ground with desperation and the struggle was prolonged through rain and fog, till the Russian general Soimonov was mortally wounded; fear struck his battalions: they ceased to advance, then retreated, not receiving any orders, and did not return to the combat.
The column which came from the opposite side of the Tchernaia, and which General Pavlov commanded, had in the meantime commenced its attack on the other part of the English camp. Here were furious shocks and long alternations of success and defeat. Although the English right had been joined by their left, having got rid of the Karabelnaia column, the inequality of numbers was still great. The English had driven back the advance guard of Pavlov's column to the valley of the Tchernaia; but the greater part of this column, supported by an immense artillery (nearly one hundred guns) pushed forward its closely serried battalions with such violence that in the end they were masters of an earthwork, which protected the right side of the English camp (a battery of sand bags).
Had the Russians remained in this position, the allies would have lost the day. Till then the English had made it their pride to keep up the struggle without the help of the French. There was not a moment to lose; two of their generals were killed, several no longer able to fight; the soldiers were exhausted. Lord Raglan called the French, who were awaiting the signal.
General Bosquet, who commanded the corps nearest the English, sent out the first two battalions he had at hand. It would have been too late if the enemy had passed the fortification they had seized and had extended beyond the isthmus. The Russians had been less active than brave. The French foot soldiers renewed the marvellous charge of the English cavalry at Balaklava. In their vehemence, they drove the greater number of the Russians far behind the battery of sand bags; they were repulsed in their turn by the mass of the enemy; but the movement of the latter had nevertheless been checked. The Russian leaders were not able to manoeuvre promptly enough to place themselves, as they might have done, between the English and the new reinforcements of French.