On 30 November Nakhimov gave the order of attack. The heavy guns and explosive shells of his squadron obliterated the Turkish fleet. It was the first time explosive shells were used in a sea battle. The Russians had designed an advanced type of shell that penetrated into the wooden planking of the Turkish ships before releasing its explosive charge, ripping them apart from the inside. Slade was on the single Turkish ship that got away, a paddle steamer called Taif. He left this account:
In one hour or one hour and a half, the action had virtually ceased, save dropping shot here and there from the want of means on one side to continue it, half the crews of the Turkish Ships were slain, their guns were mostly dismounted and their sides literally beaten in by the number and weight of the enemy’s shot. Some of the ships were on fire … . The Russians cheered, they had obtained the object for which they had come into the bay, the destruction of the Turkish Squadron, and on every consideration they should then have ceased firing, and had they done so, they would have avoided merited censure, but they reopened their fire on the stranded hulks, and in addition to the ships already engaged, their frigates came into the Bay to range close to them and complete their demolition. Many men thus lost their lives either by the shot or by drowning in their attempts to reach the shore … Together with the ships the Russians destroyed the Turkish quarter of Sinope with shells and carcasses, the ruin is complete, not a house is standing, the inhabitants having followed the Governor in their flights from the town at the first shot.
According to Slade, the Russian attack killed 2,700 Turkish sailors, out of a total of 4,200 at Sinope. In the town there was chaos and destruction everywhere. Cafés became makeshift hospitals. There were hundreds of wounded civilians but just three doctors in the town. Six days passed before the Russians ceased their bombardment and the wounded could be taken off in ships to Constantinople.24
A few days later Slade related the details of the battle to the Porte. He found the ministers strangely unaffected by the news – reinforcing the suspicion that the Turks had provoked the attack by the Russians to bring the Western powers into the war:
Their cheerful cushioned apartment and sleek fur-robed persons deepened in imagination, by the force of contrast, the gloom of the dingy cafés of Sinope with their writhing occupants. They listened, apparently unconcerned, to the woeful tale; they regarded composedly a panoramic view of the Bay of Sinope, taken a few days after the action by Lieutenant O’Reilly of the Retribution. A stranger, ignorant of the nil admirari of Ottomans, would have fancied them listening to an account and looking at a picture of a disaster in Chinese waters.25
In fact, the defeat gave new life to diplomatic efforts from the Porte. It was a sign of Reshid’s influence and his determination to prevent an escalation of the war. In his view, one last effort to involve the Western powers in a settlement was needed if they were to be won over to the Turkish side in the event of a general war.
On 5 December, Count Buol, the Austrian Foreign Minister, presented to the Russians a set of peace terms from the Porte which had been agreed by the four powers (Austria, Prussia, Britain and France) at the Vienna Conference. If the Tsar agreed to the immediate evacuation of the Danubian principalities, the Turks would send representatives to negotiate a peace directly with the Russians under international supervision. They promised to renew their treaties with Russia and accept her proposals regarding the Holy Lands. On 18 December the Grand Council resolved to accept peace on these conditions.
In Constantinople, there were angry demonstrations by religious students against the decision of the Grand Council. ‘For the last three days the Turkish capital has been in a state of insurrection,’ reported Stratford Canning on the 23rd. The students gathered in illegal assemblies and threatened Reshid Pasha and the other ministers. There were rumours of a massacre of Christians in the European quarters of the city. Stratford invited diplomats and their families to take shelter in the British embassy. He wrote to Reshid Pasha urging him to stand firm against the students, but Reshid, who was not known for his personal courage, had resigned and was hiding from the mob in his son’s house at Besiktas. Stratford was unable to reach him. Fearing a religious revolution, he brought up several steamers from the British fleet at Beykoz to the centre of the capital, and went to the Sultan to demand firm measures against the potential insurrectionaries. The next day, 160 religious students were arrested by the police and brought before the Grand Council. Asked to account for their insurrection, their leaders replied ‘that the conditions prescribed by the Koran for peace after war had been disregarded’ by the Grand Council. After it was explained that the Porte had not made peace, only set the conditions for negotiations, the students were asked whether they would like to go to the battlefront, if they wanted war so much, but they replied that their duty was to preach and not to fight. They were sent into exile in Crete instead.26
News of Sinope reached London on 11 December. The destruction of the Turkish fleet was a justified action by the Russians, who were after all at war with Turkey, but the British press immediately declared it a ‘violent outrage’ and a ‘massacre’, and made wildly exaggerated claims of 4,000 civilians killed by the Russians. ‘Sinope’, declared The Times, ‘dispels the hopes we have been led to entertain of pacification … We have thought it our duty to uphold and defend the cause of peace as long as peace was compatible with the honour and dignity of our country … but the Emperor of Russia has thrown down the gauntlet to the maritime Powers … and now war has begun in earnest.’ The Chronicle declared: ‘We shall draw the sword, if draw it we must, not only to preserve the independence of an ally, but to humble the ambitions and thwart the machinations of a despot whose intolerable pretensions have made him the enemy of all civilized nations.’ The provincial press followed the bellicose and Russophobic line of Fleet Street. ‘Mere talking to the Tsar will do nothing,’ argued an editorial in the Sheffield and Rotherham Independent. ‘The time appears to be at hand when we must act so as to dissipate the evil designs and efforts of Russia.’ In London, Manchester, Rochdale, Sheffield, Newcastle and many other towns, there were public meetings in defence of Turkey. In Paisley, the anti-Russian propagandist David Urquhart addressed a crowd for two hours, ending with a plea to ‘the people of England … to call on their Sovereign to require that either war shall be proclaimed against Russia, or the British squadron withdrawn from the Turkish waters’. Newspapers published petitions to the Queen demanding a more active stand against Russia.27