John Wimburn Laurie’s reminiscences of the Crimea
Edited from his handwritten account – apparently a script for a presentation, perhaps about 1885.
This describes his experiences through the winter of 1854/5, before his two brothers, Peter and Julius, arrived in the Crimea
Introduction
My original intention was to take incidents of my twenty months stay in the Crimea from the letters I, at that time, wrote home & which my Mother gave me a year or two ago, but altho’ exceedingly interesting to me to read, I doubt whether you would care to listen to long extracts from the correspondence & I will rather run over some of the principal matters of public & general interest connected with that campaign for I can hardly claim your attention to the letters that a lad of eighteen years of age wrote to his mother.
The news of the victory of the Alma had just reached England, which was all excitement after the 40 years European peace when I got my orders to embark * for Turkey. Two companies of my regiment had been left to garrison a place called Gallipoli at the upper end of the Dardanelles, near the Sea of Marmara & I was kept in a state of worry for fear I should be landed there & some other senior officer be allowed to go on to join the regiment before Sevastopol. However, the military authorities at the seat of war were occupied with more important matters than the movements of single subalterns, & I passed unmoved & probably unthought of, & so got at once on active service which is every true soldier’s ambition.
* orders to embark – he embarked from Edinburgh to join his Regiment in the Crimea, where it had already fought in the Battles of Alma and Inkerman. The ship then called at London to load additional stores
The voyage
HMS Prince was a Royal Navy stores ship, launched that April
I was given a passage on board the ‘Prince’, an auxiliary screw steamer of the then enormous size of 2,700 tons. We had on board six Companies (about six hundred men) of the 46th Regt – some detachments from other corps, also 50,000 blankets, 50,000 jerseys & pairs of drawers, 25,000 heavy watch coats (a sort of outside great coat worn as winter clothing for the British force in the Crimea). In addition, there were £300,000 for the Sultan of Turkey, the same amount for our own Commissariat pay chest, a large quantity of medicines for the Constantinople or Scutari hospitals, & 300 tons of gunpowder for the siege work.
The cargo came alongside in lighters as we lay in the River Thames to load & as it came it was put below, so that when we reached Constantinople & the Medical Department came for their medicines which were urgently required, it was found that they were stowed below the powder which had to go forward to Sevastopol. We arrived at Constantinople on Sunday morning & as it was known that reinforcements were urgently required at the front, our commissariat at once sent off & received their consignment of gold, but the Turk was too indolent & would not be hurried & we had to stay till Monday morning before he would stir himself. Do not imagine that it was his respect for the Sabbath that prompted this – his Sabbath is kept on our Friday.
Many of our Regiments have received badges of distinction in recognition of their services in former wars & my old regiment keeps the Lion of England on its appointments; the embroidered badge being worn on the caps of the officers instead of the number 4.
As we steamed through the Mediterranean, we met a number of French men of war bound West, as we afterwards learned, for reinforcements, & we anxiously hailed each ship to know if Sevastopol had fallen. When troops were on board, (sick or wounded men) our men exchanged cheers & prevented us obtaining very satisfactory answers but we sadly feared we would be too late for the capture – a very needless fear as it turned out, for many of our number were to fill graves before Sevastopol was taken. Reaching the Bosphorus we met a number of hospital vessels with men in the varied light cavalry regiments & we then learned the story of the brilliant but disastrous charge of Balaclava & this reassured us, giving us hope that we should be in time to take part in the final attack.
On 7th Nov. we steamed up towards the seaward front of the besieged city, & I think all our hearts beat a little quicker as we saw for the first time the puffs of smoke rising from the guns fired with hostile intent. We steamed through the allied fleet of English, French & Turkish vessels, the bands of the latter struck up our National Anthem & we played Rule Britannia & Partant pour la Syrie * or the Turkish air, which did duty as their National air. We did not know at the moment how welcome was this arrival of even a few hundred men, but the flag lieutenant came off from the Admiral’s ship to receive reports; also to meet his brother who was a Major of the 46th & from him we heard the news of the gallant fight at Inkerman.
* Partant pour la Syrie – French patriotic song, written in 1817, inspired by Napoleon’s campaigns in Egypt and Syria
Battle of Inkerman
We learnt how 8,000 half-starved & overworked men had stood for five hours against 45,000 magnificent troops enspirited by the pressure of their Royal Princes, blessed by their friends & well primed with vodka, the Russian rye whisky. It was a fight in which all did their duty. Not merely that duty in which consorts doing as little as the conscience will permit, but the duty that is best expressed by the words ‘doing the utmost’.
It was grand in the abnegation of self, in the utter disregard of death or danger shown by all. They were there to hold the position: they stayed there dead or alive. An officer of the Grenadier Guards who was with the Battalion that day in their gallant effort to hold the dismounted two gun battery told me how, time after time, the force of Russians crowded them away from the parapet & as they fell back looking right & left for comrades who had gone down from Russian bullets or steel, they steadily closed in under their surviving Officers’ instructions & as soon as ranks were formed on the hill side, probably yielding about 50 yards as they fell back to reform. They would rush again with almost resistless force on the Russians crowding outside the battery & with bayonet or clubbed musket clear it out & again take possession. For five hours this went on, but the men had been on guard in the trenches all the previous night of course without sleep; a chilling Scotch mist had soaked them to the skin.
Practically, they had had no food since the previous day’s dinner – could it last much longer? The fierceness of the attack began to slacken! The whole fight took place on a projecting spur, all around which the Russian troops swarmed thus working on a diminishing front. It was hard for their Commanders to rally & reform troops that had got into confusion & could not retire but were still crowded on by new arrivals. Sir Geo. Cathcart with part of the 4th Division saw this & tried to deliver a flank attack but his force was too small & he only enabled the Russians to face outwards & inflict considerable damage on the troops he brought up. It was there that he fell, but he undoubtedly added to their confusion.
General Bosquet of the French army, having found out that an attack was being made on the position he occupied, brought up 6,000 men from the force charged to protect our communication with Balaclava & threw himself on the Russian flank, his larger force enabling him to do with success what Sir Geo. Cathcart with a few hundred men had attempted.
Another cause of the Russian repulse was the stupid blunder of one of their Generals commanding a Division, which was ordered to ascend the ravine on our left flank & come in on the plateau behind us. But he mistook his instructions & attempted to ascend the side of the valley which brought him in front of us & amongst the attacking force. He thus only increased the overcrowding & confusion, becoming a hinderance instead of a help to those he had come to assist.
The attack utterly failed & Russians withdrew about 3 pm – their reputation for pluck & determined courage in no wise lowered by their repulse. The fighting was so close that men grappled, wrestled & hurled stones when there was not room for the bayonet. Lieut. Crosse * of the 88th, a friend of mine, was surrounded & shot five Russians with his revolver, threw it at the sixth man’s face & tried to make play with his sword but was bayonetted in three or four places when a huge grenadier of the 88th named Houlihan rushed in, whirling his musket around his head, cleared a path to Mr Crosse & carried him out of the melee. The camp was full of stories of these daring feats. I only mention these two as coming from friends who were very matter of fact men in their descriptions of what they saw or did.
* Lieut. Crosse – Joshua Crosse, who wrote to the makers of his revolver, Messrs. Deane Adams & Deane, commending their weapon: 'I then found the advantages of your pistol over that of Colonel Colt's, for had I to cock before each shot I should have lost my life; but with yours, having only to pull the trigger, I was able to shoot four Russians, and therefore save my life. I should not have had time to cock, for they were too close to me, being only a few yards from me, so close that I was bayoneted through the thigh immediately after shooting the fourth man'.
Balaclava Harbour
On the night of our arrival we steamed round to Balaclava Bay & at daylight transferred our soldiers & freight to small steamers to be taken in to the harbour, there to be landed. We let go our principal anchor. It went, & with it went with 300 fathoms of chain. The end of the chain had never been clinched to the bitts * & was gone past redemption. We were drifting towards the Retribution * a paddle wheel war steamer on which was the Duke of Cambridge * who had been wounded three days before at Inkerman. There was no time to be lost. The other large anchor was let go & away it went with 300 fathoms. Like its companion its end had never been made fast. The ‘Prince’ had thus lost her most powerful anchors.
She was temporarily held by smaller ones, but in the gale of 14th Nov which blew directly onshore, the anchors would not hold. Steam was got up & she steamed up to her anchors to lessen the strain. The power of the wind & the sea was too strong. The Captain ordered the rigging to be cut away & this, going over the side, fouled the screw which ceased to work & the poor ‘Prince’ dragged her anchors & was dashed against the cliffs, some 500 feet high & now lies in very deep water * at their foot.
Of 175 crew aboard, one midshipman & five sailors were dashed on to a ledge of rock nearly half way up the cliff & there remained twenty-four hours when they were released by ropes let down from the tops of the cliff. The remainder were drowned. My gold watch was a present from my Mother. I did not wish to lose it in camp, so I left it with the Surgeon of the ship to take back to England. It lies too at the bottom of the Black Sea. On clear, calm days during the two following years, people who had more leisure than I possessed & cruised about in ships’ boats, commonly maintained that the hull of the ‘Prince’ was plainly visible & I have lately noticed a proposition to organise a company to raise the contents of this vessel & of many other that were lost in that hurricane.
We took on board at Constantinople a fast-talking good-natured First Asst Surgeon who had just come down with wounded men & was returning with all despatch to the front. I had been unable to hold up my head for days on account of severe rheumatism in neck & shoulder & he put me on the sick list & ordered me to stay on board ship, declaring that if I landed in that condition, I would be dead in a week. I declined to be bound by his orders, preferring to join my Regiment before the evening, which was what I had come out for & it was well I did so, for had I followed his instructions & stayed on the ‘Prince’ I positively should have died within the week. That is, I should have gone down with her.
We steamed apparently straight at the cliffs but, when quite close in, made a sharp turn to the left & almost immediately another to the right & passing between high cliffs through a passage not more than 70 yards wide we were in Balaclava Harbour. A sort of wharf had been made just where the harbour widened out, & again made a sharp turn to the left & here we were tumbled ashore – mud & dirt abounded – the wharf had the appearance presented at many seaport towns in this Province.
Balaclava Harbour in the snow
A few ships were in the harbour, moored pretty much as fashion dictated. I believe that the captains of the transports which were anchored outside protested vehemently against their unsafe positions as the holding grounds for anchors was so bad, & water so deep, & bay so open, but they were assured by the Admiral in charge that there was no more room in the harbour & outside they had to wait until the hurricane on the fatal 14th Novr forced the obstructive Admiral to find room & in the summer of 1855 I often saw over one hundred & fifty vessels lying in the harbour at once, moored head & stern.
On the hills between the town (so called by courtesy) & the sea were the ruins of an old fort which is credited to the Genoese. A show of defence was made here when our people first marched across country from the Alma, but no real fighting was attempted. Between the water & the hills, which came down close, was a single street of poor, low cottages, which were at present occupied as shops by men of all nations – Maltese, Greeks, & indeed all Eastern nations seemed to be represented & a few men from every regiment in the force were also stationed here. Men who had been selected as sickly & unfit for hard work & these formed the garrison & did police duty – no easy matter amongst this crowd of all nations. These men too were formed up alongside the 93rd when the two-deep line repulsed the attack of the Russian cavalry on the day of the cavalry action at Balaclava. The repulse that was made classic by Mr Russell’s description * of a British regiment in line as “a thin red streak tipped with a line of steel”. But these were respectable in appearance compared with the men who were attached to the transport service or had come down on duty from the head quarters of their regiments.
William Russell, the first war correspondent, whose reports to The Times alerted the British public to the chaos and
hardship suffered by British forces in the Russian War, largely due to official incompetence and maladministration
These men had lived & worked in their clothes, without any possible change, for seven weeks & had been campaigning in Bulgaria for seven months before; an exposure which is always hard upon clothing, especially such rubbish as soldiers’ clothing was at that time made of. A sort of baize. It was very warm when our troops left the coast of Turkey for the Crimea & the whole idea of the men themselves & those who provided for their wants, was to furnish them with something light for the heat. This idea had prevailed to such an extent that Colonel Garrett * of the 46th, an officer who had fought under Wellington in Spain, had provided his men with scarlet flannel shirts, so that his men might, in warm weather, throw off their coats & fight in their shirts which would still be uniform. These flannel shirts were of great value to his men worn with their coats for the cold instead of the heat.
As soon as the 46th were landed, they of course fell in &, headed by their band, started at once to join their division which was encamped close to Sevastopol. Most of the regiments had, at that time, broken up their bands & had employed the bandsmen as stretcher men to carry sick & wounded, so the sound was unusual & drew all stragglers to see & hear. In the crowd, towering over most, I saw a red banded cap bearing a lion, for which I at once made, claiming the wearer a brother officer. The arrival of fresh Subalterns is always gratifying to those already on the spot as it eases the duty which, be the number few or many, has to be daily performed. So Lieut. Eccles * at once welcomed me & undertook to be my guide to the camp of our regiment.
He & our paymaster had obtained leave for the day & had also obtained the loan of two bat (or baggage) animals which they had undertaken to load with whatever they could purchase in the way of food supplied for their brother officers. They good-naturedly relieved us of our knapsacks & hung them on the ponies’ pack saddles whilst we, acting on advice, bought a ham, some candles etc. from some of the adventurers who had come up to trade. Such a motley crowd filled the small narrow shed. Small Maltese, Greek & Turkish vessels had followed the Army, first to Varna & then to Balaclava & the owners were making a harvest in supplying the many little wants that civilization has created.
We started, towards afternoon, for the camp, the direct road to which would have been across the valley – the scene of the Light Cavalry charge – but this was now a sort of no-man’s land, patrolled by our cavalry & by their Cossacks, hence considered unsafe for small or unarmed parties. We were at once turned back by our cavalry sentries & required to keep within the line of entrenchments which had been recently thrown up.
* bitts – a pair of posts on the deck of a ship for fastening mooring lines or cables
* Retribution – HMS Retribution. Wooden hulled paddle frigate, launched 1844
* Duke of Cambridge – Prince George, a Lieutenant General, present at the Battles of Alma, Balaclava and Inkerman, later became Field Marshal and served as Commander in Chief of the army for 39 years, during which time the British Army stagnated under his conservative administration and was unprepared for the Second Boer War
* now lies in very deep water – The wreck was discovered off Balaklava in 2010 by a Ukrainian maritime archaeological team
* Colonel Garrett – later Lieutenant General Sir Robert Garrett KCB KH (1794-1869)
* Lieut. Eccles – Cuthbert Eccles (1832-1903) Born in Dublin, commissioned 1852, carried the regimental colours at the Battle of Alma, fought at Inkerman, later Major General.
Arrival at his regimental camp
We got to camp about dark & after an encouraging welcome from our Colonel, * I was posted to a Company & settled down to mess with the other two officers of the Company. So far, the issue of rations had been regular, & I was made to share in the dinner of beef & pork boiled together with potatoes & onions, a very savoury mess which encouraged me to hope that we should have no trouble as regarded food.
Our men had been away for the two last days, burying the Russian dead at Inkerman & picking up their wounded who, poor fellows, had been lying all this time unattended to. Their officers had led them to believe that our men were devils in red & gave no quarter & this led them to try & hide themselves in bushes & old quarry pits. It was hard work finding them to tend their wounds.
I omitted to mention that, on our way from Balaclava to the front – as the part nearest to the enemy which we occupied was always styled – we met a number of creaking country carts, called arabas, drawn by shaggy ponies & driven by Tartars in long woollen coats & woollen caps. These men were peasant farmers, the inhabitants of that portion of the Crimea. They had always looked upon the Russians who conquered their country as aliens & foreigners & as they still remained Mahomedans, they were inclined to welcome us, coming as we did with the Turks as deliverers. So they came in to us bringing their vehicles & transport animals & were hired by our Commissariat at good prices – treatment they were unaccustomed to as they were called upon to do transport duty for the Russian troops without remuneration. Some of the arabas were drawn by dromedaries, increasing the novel effect of the procession. Our own men & the French were looking curiously & even sympathetically into the arabas & some were carrying water to them so we followed the crowd & then saw they were occupied by wounded Russian officers & men who were being sent to Balaclava for treatment.
My brother Subaltern hunted through the camp & found a tent, of which the occupants had gone on duty to the trenches & here I was installed for the night. The furniture was not extensive – a Scotch plaid & an air pillow of which I took advantage. I slipped off my heavy epaulettes, put on my guard coat, rolled up in the plaid & lay down to try how Russian ground felt.
One of my brother officers kindly gave me some hot coffee in the morning. The men were a sight. Their dress coatee was in rags, their great coats faded & of every colour & full of holes, their trousers were worn out, patched with pieces of old shirt or whatever they could get hold of, their belts stained & dirty. Nothing but their rifles clean & only the barrel & lock of these. Their boots were worn out & in many cases they were wearing Russian boots taken off the dead in some of the many fights where it had fallen to us to bury the dead.
The method adopted by our men to test size was very simple, but worked well. When they came across a dead man with his boots still on, they sat down opposite the feet of the corpse & put their feet against his & if the length suited, the boots were pulled off & at once transferred to their feet. The trousers worn by the Russians were of the same pattern as our men’s, so the exchange which took place whenever possible was not easily recognised.
Uniforms of the officers and men of the 4th Regiment of Foot at the time of the Crimean War
Lord Raglan & the French Commander had felt so certain that Sevastopol would at once fall when the siege guns got to work, that they evidently looked on our stay outside the town as merely temporary & must have trusted to getting possession before winter & then bringing the transports & supplies to the dockyard & landing them there with all the conveniences to be found for handling & storing. But our force was too small & we waited too long & the Russians picked up heart, brought down large reinforcements from the interior, & became themselves the attacking party, practically besieging us in a little corner of the Crimea. Yet all this time we stuck to our task, which was to capture the place & destroy the fleet & the arsenal which was a standing menace against Turkey.
Every man in the field carried a small wooden barrel of water & each man also had a mess tin for his tea & meat etc. These were all the appliances we possessed & our water supply was a small spring on the extreme left of our division camp & we were placed on the extreme right. The men were not allowed at that time to fetch water independently, but at uncertain hours throughout the day. The fatigue bugle-call sounded & all men who wished to go for water fell in, each gathering up as many water bottles as he could borrow. The party was then marched off, under the command of the Orderly officer, to the spring, more than half a mile away, where each man in succession filled his water bottles. It was a tedious business & not improved by the fact that all the Artillery horses as well as the transport animals & field officers’ horses of our whole division were also brought to the spring.
Whenever snow fell, we melted it by keeping it in our tents & using it for drinking & cooking & we generally used it un-melted for washing. I had taken out the old tin case for my shako & an india rubber water bucket & these did duty with every watering party.
* Colonel – Colonel Henry Clermont Cobbe CB. who was mortally wounded in an attack on the Redan, on 18th June 1855
Absence of sanitary arrangements
The spring gave us clean fresh water & was highly valued. It was close to the bottom of a valley & our divisional hospital was established on the top of the hill above it. The bank was steep & every kind of refuse was thrown over the bank by the sick attendants who were, like everyone else, far too overworked & as men died, they were also buried on the side of the hill below the hospital.
The rainy season set in; the spring of course continued to give an abundant supply of water but it gradually began to taste most offensively & smell very bad. This went on for a long time. Cholera outbreaks were again & again upon us. The patients were carried to hospital; died there; were buried on the hillside, & we went on drinking the water which was all the time getting worse. All grumbled. No one knew the reason. Sanitary science, at any rate as applied to armies in the field, was so little understood that no one seemed to grasp what I now feel sure was an undoubted fact: that we were actually drinking the soakage from our men’s graves.
But cholera was very bad throughout the whole army, quite probably largely caused by equally bad sanitary arrangements. The 46th Regiment, fellow passengers with me in the ‘Prince’ lost over 50 men by cholera within a week.
The views my letters expressed at that time I still hold to. That it was very largely due to the men becoming discouraged & losing their spirits. In that same week, one of continuous rain & storm, we only lost one man – & he due to apoplexy. * We always tried to keep our men cheerful & as much as possible amused, & entered into all their wants, which unfortunately we could do very little to supply, but in drains around their tents & making paths of broken stone which was lying about & other ways we turned their thoughts as much as possible to working for themselves & making the best of the appliances around them.
* apoplexy - unconsciousness or incapacity resulting from a cerebral haemorrhage or stroke
Rations and cooking
Rations already began to get irregular. The commissariat not unwisely kept us on fresh meat whenever they could get it. The animals carried themselves to the distributing point & the sooner they were killed, the less need for importing forage to supply them.
Fuel was our greatest difficulty. The country was originally covered with scrub alder which our people cut down & burnt, & when these were exhausted, we dug up the roots & used them. We used to give half-a-crown to any of our men who, when off duty, would go out & dig a tent peg bag full of alder roots. My wonder was how the servants could get these to burn sufficiently to cook any meat or even boil water. We rarely attempted any more elaborate cooking than an Irish stew. As time went on, all the alder roots around the camp were exhausted & then our men used actually to go out & dig them in front of our trenches, in full view of the Russians. Still, when the frost set in & the ground was covered with snow, it was practically impossible to find alder roots & the men then experienced great privations & for days together, no fires were lighted in the camp & the men ate their salt meat raw, without any pretence of cooking it.
The craving for cooked food was great, especially for warm tea or coffee & to obtain alder roots the men used to carry off the pick axes & then another & worse practice commenced; of carrying off the pick axe handles for fuel. It was most difficult to stop, as all the entrenching work was done at night so that the men could not be seen & interrupted by the Russian fire. The working parties were all withdrawn & sent under cover before daybreak & the men then hid the tools under their great coats. It became necessary to make this a court-martial offence, as it was a serious hindrance to the siege work, but it was hard for the regimental officers to view it so seriously when they saw their men daily dying before their eyes for wants which this troublesome practice temporarily met.
As regards rations all shared alike, officers & men & not badly so far. One & a half pound of meat (fresh or salt), one pound of biscuit, & a quartern * of rum every day & every three days, a little tea & sugar & some times a little rice. We, from time to time, got one of our number to go down to Balaclava & obtain a few potatoes, onions, or even bully, & when we could coerce the purser of one of the transports, we sometimes got a bottle of beer, but all these were costly luxuries.
Our lot was varied in the matter of fare. One day, a visit to Balaclava just as some speculators’ ships had come in, would allow us to indulge in such luxuries such as fresh spinach or tinned green peas in mid-winter & then next morning we would be hours before it was possible to get any warm coffee or tea, as the wet roots were hard to light when our cooking place was only a hole in the ground which filled with water when it rained, which it did from the middle of Nov. nearly till Christmas. So that even when we had secured this fuel, our men were nearly driven to desperation.
* quartern – quarter of a pint
Hurricane 14th November
Hurricane hits the Camp before Sevastopol, 14th November 1854
I have already alluded to the bad consequences of the hurricane on 14th Nov. It had been raining very hard & the soil is peculiar, consisting of a soft stone which made digging very troublesome so that it was difficult to throw up our trenches, whilst with water & much friction such as walking, it worked up into a sort of thick clayey mud, so the ground was like a sponge & made my first night in the trenches not the most pleasant in my life. However, I managed to get some sleep when it was not my turn to watch & my waterproof sheet was invaluable. The sentries had to be visited & such little amusements passed the night. However, during the day we had to lie very close & as it rained with only occasional pauses, we could neither eat our biscuit & salt pork or drink our rum with the pleasure we otherwise might have.
At last night came & we were relieved at 6.30, it being impossible to move down during the daylight as we should suffer from the Russian batteries. Being regularly done up, I turned in as soon as I had had a cup of hot coffee. It rained too hard for us to turn out the next morning at 5. (Since the battle of Inkerman, it had become the practice to turn out the whole army half an hour before daylight & remain under arms until the Generals were satisfied no attack was threatened.) So the men remained in their tents with their arms in their hands until we received order to dismiss.
I thought it sounded rather gusty, but imagine my surprise when the tent pole suddenly gave way & down went the tent, dragging the wet canvas over me & then rolling up round Eccles, my tent-mate. It left me exposed just as I was sitting in bed. I got thoroughly soaked before I could get dressed, altho’ being turned out when the alarm sounds, 4 or 5 times every day or night teaches one to dress in a wonderfully short time. We then released Eccles from his position & with 4 men holding on to the tent, we managed to keep it up whilst I packed up all my traps & rolled up my bed, & then we struck the tent leaving the canvas bottom fastened, but doing away with the pole, having first folded my waterproof sheet over my saddle bags to keep them dry. It still continued blowing & a perfect hurricane came on.
Not a tent was left standing in our camp & all the regiments were in the same predicament, the General’s having been blown out too, & there we all were. Biscuit, which was the only thing to eat, was our breakfast. But fortunately, after about five hours it blew rather less & we managed to raise our tent, & taking it in turn to hold on by the pole, we got some protection from the rain.
It afterwards came on to snow & we felt how thankful we ought to be that our pole was not broken as were a great many, for there was no replacing them. (We had no stores from which to draw & no woods where we could cut). But such a time of misery I do not think was ever passed by such a large body of men as by the allied army during that hurricane. It was piercingly cold & the rain quite cut us in the face & hands.
To many of the army departments, the hurricane was a perfect godsend. During the confusion consequent on landing, accurate returns of issues of stores could not well be kept. But the civilian clerks at the English War Office expected as many forms & returns filled up & sent in as if the work was done in an ordinary barrack. The gale settled all this. The invariable reply to all complaints as to deficient accounts was that ‘the papers were blown away in the hurricane of 14th Nov.’
Friendly fire
We had to go to the most advanced trenches near, or rather in front of the place that had been taken from the enemy a few nights before by a party of the Rifles. We, that is a Lieutenant, * with me as his subaltern & 45 men were in the trench nearest the enemy. About 150 yards behind us was a Captain with 50 men & again, about 300 yards further back were two captains & 50 men. Of course, as we were not 300 yards from Sevastopol & the enemy were moving about close in our front, we were obliged to be very cautious & we had sentries out who had orders to fire on anything moving in front. At the same time, we in our party had to remain awake the whole time.
After we had been there about 3 hours, we heard shots fired in the direction of our sentries. Of course ‘Be ready with your arms, men’ was the caution passed down, when it turned out that one of our sentries had moved to the front, wishing to make certain there was no one behind a bush. As he was returning, a shell from the Russians burst near him, so that the other sentries, by the light given, saw a man creeping up. They at once challenged, & receiving no answer, fired immediately & retired, thinking that the enemy were upon us. However we found out their mistake & went out, but found that they had aimed too well, for the unfortunate man was shot through the heart. We brought his body in however & sent it up to the camp.
However the Russians, having got their direction from the flashes of our sentries’ muskets, gave us some pretty strong doses of grape & shell, fortunately without doing us any harm. This was from a battery of theirs which was very much to our right, so that they almost enfiladed us. At the same time a body of infantry came up in front & began by a volley, fortunately over our heads. Our men returned it & as it was too dark to see the enemy, firing at the flashes of their muskets.
By the number of bullets that passed over us & by the fire they kept up, they must have been about 4 to 1 of us, & from the whistle of the bullets, about one third of the Russians must have had rifles, while all our men have them. But of course, in chance shooting like that, it does not make the difference it otherwise would. However a working party of the 57th – 50 men – came up & when the enemy found our fire increasing, he began to turn tail, so that after half an hour’s work we got rid of them & enabled the 57th to go on with their work again.
Russian attack on his position
We were left alone then for the greater part of the night & the working party, having done whatever they had to do, went back to camp, when about 5 o’clock a.m. just when we were expecting to be relieved, a body, & seemingly a large body, of the enemy came up the hill & opened fire on us. We returned it as well as our small body of men could. They, the enemy, behaved very pluckily, coming up to within 30 yards of our trench. So close indeed that the other officer fired at one man with his revolver, but two barrels missing fire, he was put off his aim & I am afraid did not knock the man over with the third, which went off.
While we thus firing away & expecting that our men who were in the trenches behind would be coming up to support us, we were rather disagreeably surprised to be told by a serjeant who came up that a body of Rifles who had relieved our men in the trenches behind, had withdrawn: that twenty of the Rifles had been detached to relieve us in the advance trench & that as soon as the fire slackened they would come up. This was not pleasing intelligence as our men had fired away nearly all their ammunition & were even then reserving their fire in case of the enemy coming nearer. I did not fire my pistol as we thought they might make a bold dash for the trench & in that case I could probably answer for 5 Russians, when otherwise I should be wasting my fire. However, when daylight broke they probably found our men too good marksmen, for they retired down hill & took shelter in a house on the opposite side of the ravine, from which they came out & fired on our men.
Rather to their astonishment & to our delight, a shell thrown from a battery of ours called the ‘New Battery’ & which we had lately given up to the French, flew right into the middle of the house & immediately burst. After that we were not annoyed by its occupants but by Russian riflemen lining a wall on the opposite rise. As we had only small arms fire to bring against them, they were pretty safe, while they galled our zig-zag approaches by an enfilade fire at rather a long range; 600 yards about. Soon afterwards two men came up to me wounded; one with his jaw broken. We told him to make the best of his way home. The other was shot through the shoulder. We tied up the top of his arm as he said it was there. I gave him a glass of rum & off he started on his way home.
Soon afterwards a few of the Rifles came up & we had to run the gauntlet over about a quarter of a mile of ground exposed to the aim of the Russian rifles & to their grape etc. which was flying about pretty thick. Our men wanted to give the enemy cold steel before they left but we were too weak to try that. But I must say I would rather go towards the enemy in a shower of bullets etc. than run away for a quarter. For running away it appeared to be when they were firing at me from behind. However, I had my blanket thrown over one shoulder & fastened under the other arm, the usual way we carry them on service & as it had been raining all night the blanket was very wet, so I pulled it well up behind my head determined that any lead that wanted to try the thickness of my skull should try that of the blanket first.
After about half an hour, our men having run across the open one by one, only one man having been shot (through the body – he died the same evening), we fell in & marched home, utterly done & arrived two hours & a half after the parties that had been behind us in the trenches. Of course the senior officer reported our action to the colonel, & a court of enquiry was held to find out how the first man was shot. They found out that it was an accident, but brought about by over-zeal on his part.
The proceedings were sent to General Eyre, our brigadier, who returned them with a letter which was read to the men engaged, complimenting us for the way in which we had driven back a very superior force of the enemy, & that he would certainly send in a special report of it to Lord Raglan & the same night the Colonel put in regimental orders the names of all the men engaged, praising them very much for their conduct in this ‘very smart & creditable little skirmish’, so that I smelt powder for the first time & got favourable mention made of my name to Lord Raglan. Very lucky, was I not?
Looking now over my letters I notice that, while we were all in earnest & determined to go through with our work, we bitterly resented the public utterances of the authorities in England that they had provided for all our wants & had furnished us with all sorts of comforts as warm clothing shelter in the shape of huts etc. On 29th Decr I wrote giving a description of a night in the trenches when it froze so hard we suffered very much altho’ we never remained still for more than half an hour at a time. I mention that some of our men had received a second blanket (the first being nearly worn out), 25 over great coats were issued to the whole regiment (that is, 3 to each company of 80 or 90 men) & at last each man got a woollen jersey, pair of drawers, & pair of socks – for up to this time, they had only their cotton shirts, summer serge trousers & their baize coats (now worn to rags). It was while we were enduring all this that officials in their places in Parliament complacently assured the British public that we were well fed, clothed, and hutted.
* Lieutenant – Lieutenant Robertson
Debate over red coats v khaki
There is great talk just now of putting the British soldier into a less conspicuous dress than a red coat, but our views in the Crimean days were different. The men coming from the trenches & the men suddenly turned out in the wet November morning had worn their great coats at the battle of Inkerman & it was a not uncommon belief that we had not been able to distinguish our own men & had fired into parties of them.
So strongly was this believed that it was understood if we went into action again in a deliberate stand up fight we should wear red without overcoats & our parades were therefore held in red coats that we might always be in readiness to repel any attack.
Buried in the trench
On one occasion we had been in the advance trenches & constantly on the alert all night & were placed in the area trenches where we were more quiet during the following day. I had a quiet nap & had eaten my ration dinner & stowed myself in a snug place out of the wind between the battery parapet & a traverse which is a mound placed at right angles to the parapet to prevent the enemy firing at the sides of the guns. A passage about a yard wide is left between the two.
I had a book with me. My back was to the traverse in which I was engrossed, when a shot ‘whirred’ over & some dirt fell on my book. But as we were pretty well accustomed to shot knocking the dirt off the parapet over us, I knocked the dirt off & went on quietly reading, when a loud explosion close to me occurred & I was knocked down & buried under earth & filled sandbags. My cap was blown some distance & the next I knew I was surrounded by a few of our men & blue jackets (we were in a Jack battery).
I was not very clear at the time as to what happened next. I must have been knocked stupid but my men afterwards told me that they & the blue jackets ran together to where I was & only my legs were visible which the blue jackets at once took hold of to haul me out.
My men insisted on moving the earth although the Jacks asserted the poor beggar was dead & it was no use taking the trouble. However our men insisted & they cleared me away & not a bone was broken. Whereas if the sailors had had their way my neck must have been broken as there was an enormous quantity of earth over me.
On examination it turned out that a shell had come in through the next embrasure & lodged in the traverse within a foot of my head. Its very nearness in exploding had saved me rather surrounding me with earth than throwing it on me with any force. It was a close shave. I declined to make the trip home on a stretcher & stayed with my party till we were relieved at night but had too heavy a shaking to be of much use for a day or two.
Transport difficulties between Balaclava and the camps
A good many of our siege guns became stuck in the mud between our camp & Balaclava & our artillery horses were so miserably weak that I almost doubted their getting them up, unless we had a total change in the weather.
Forage in the shape of barley & chopped straw was allowed to each officer who was expected, & indeed required, to provide a baggage animal, usually a pony or a mule, but where were the animals to be obtained. The force originally formed in Turkey had supplied themselves there & the animals were temporarily left behind at Varna & then sent on to join their owners. But we newcomers also wanted animals & I at once began my enquiries. I was immediately referred to the camp of the Naval Brigade.
The blue jacket in those days had an idea that he came on shore for a lark & the necessary severe discipline of ‘board ship’ was decidedly relaxed when on land. The men came ashore to work their guns & indeed, in many cases, to bring them from the ships to the Batteries & the energy & pluck they displayed in hauling the guns across country or fighting them under heavy fire were just what one expects from British sailors. Their ways were not exactly our ways in many particulars but their reckless daring was beyond question.
One day, two blue jackets arrived with a very likely looking pony with a slight wound on its leg of which, after a good deal of chaffing, I became the owner in exchange for two sovereigns & a bottle of rum which, in readiness for such an eventuality I had saved from my rations. Of course, the question was put as to where they had got the pony & I was assured it had just come in from the Russian lines. All I can say is that I never found any owner of the animal which, with a little nursing & care, turned out a serviceable beast & carried many a load for me from Balaclava to the front.
The explanation really was that forage was very scarce at the front & that when an animal became disabled – that is to say required attention & was unable to earn its keep – it was at once turned adrift & a large number of our commissariat transport animals let go, as the transport Officers were glad to be relieved of the trouble of providing food for them. It was scandalously bad management but it was probably the cheapest thing they could do in the circumstances.
Our regimental transport arrangements had now utterly broken down. Our sick were accumulating & we had no means of moving them over the seven miles of mud which intervened between our camp & our ships. The seriously sick men were unable to sit on the horses during the exposed journey. Some were tied on. Others were held on by the cavalry soldiers, but it was soon found that this plan would not work. As the cavalry horses had got so weakened, that allowing for sick horses & those on duty, the cavalry were little more than able to carry up their own forage. Our ambulance wagons were only fit for paved roads. They were, so to speak, hospitals on wheels but quite unsuitable to swamps.
So the French lent us their mule litters which Algerian experience had taught them were the most suitable for rough roadless transport of sick & wounded. These were iron frames slung on each side of a stout mule, made either as chairs or as stretchers much such as are now used on many American railroads & known as reclining chairs which can be set at any angle, & in this way we were able to send a great many men to the ships & from the ships to Scutari near Constantinople where we had established our principal hospitals.
The hospital ships that carried these men were scandalously managed & really without any excuse. The less seriously sick were expected to attend on the more serious cases but as a matter of fact our doctors sent no-one away who could help himself. Consequently the worst cases received no attention except such as the overworked doctor could personally give.
The men sent down sick had no change of clothing, were unable even to look after their blankets or feeding appliances & lay on the deck just where they were placed when carried on board until they were carried ashore at Constantinople or thrown overboard if they died. In their passage across the Black Sea the following summer when we tried to clear up all the matters that had got into confusion, a long list of names of men appeared in our regimental order book as struck off the strength of the Regiment ‘supposed to have died on passage to Scutari’ but we never knew positively what had happened to them.
Auctioning casualties’ kit
The Officers’ & men’s kits which had been left behind at Varna were sent to Balaclava & so on to the Head Quarters of their regiments in the Crimea & where men or Officers had died, the kits were at once auctioned & any articles of clothing brought fancy prices – the more so as our men were receiving little or no pay – so that their credits were accumulating in the paymaster’s hands. Hence any auction bills they incurred were paid by the Captains & charged against them. I have known private soldiers pay as much as 18/- per pair of cotton or thin men’s socks at a deceased Officer’s sale.
I bought a pair of long boots from Balaclava, paying £2.10 for them. They were enormously large for me, but that was all the better as I put on 4 or 5 prs of socks to go down to the trenches.
Rations now began to turn very short & all the drafts from home were kept on board ship & employed every day in carrying up food to a central depot about five miles from Balaclava & our men had to go over there every day & carry their food to each regimental camp. This was not the work for which the reinforcements came out but without food, they would have been no use at the front & we also should have given out. It was the only thing to be done in the circumstances but it was a poor makeshift as any number of Turkish porters could have been got at Constantinople & brought up in a couple of days & our costly British soldiers could have been kept for the work for which they had been instructed.
The frost was severe with a bitter, fierce wind & the snow was several feet deep in the valleys. The transport horses dropped & died on the roads by dozens, & we lost the services of hundreds of men every 24 hours & these poor creatures stowed away in worn out tents had to be attended on by comrades hardly able to provide for their own wants. Mr Russell reported the 3,500 sick were nearly all from preventable causes.
Maintaining discipline
Our men were so broken down by constant work & the scant food they now received that they often gave way to fatigue & went to sleep on their posts, even on sentry if front of our trenches immediately before the enemy. This is recognised as a most heinous offence & is punishable by death on conviction & no doubt the risks to the whole Army from a neglectful sentry more than justified this extreme severity. But knowing how the men were suffering, we too often condoned the offence, giving the culprit all the fright we could, but trying otherwise to save an otherwise good soldier from the very serious consequences.
This however necessitated our increasing our supervision over the advanced posts & culminated in officers being detached to keep constantly moving about along the line of sentries so as to keep them alert & ensure a good look-out being kept. The men were placed in pairs with a few yards interval between files & they lay close under cover so as to be protected from the enemy’s view & from the pretty constant fire that was kept up on our position. The patrolling officer was, of course, much more exposed as he would be observed & fired at, so we made it our practice not to be accustomed by any patrol party, but to move about alone, crawling over the exposed places. Stopping & chatting here & there with the sentries, for a very cheery good fellowship feeling prevailed in my Regiment between officers & men, especially those men who had been steadily on duty through the trying times.
I commenced this paper with the intention of describing 20 months’ service in the Crimea. In reading over my letters of 1854, old memories have crowded on me & I now fear I have been too diffuse of my description of my first impressions of being brought face to face with a human enemy as well as with disease and privation which claimed hundreds of victories for each one who fell before Russian bullet or bayonet. The time I proposed to allow myself is more than exhausted so, I fear, is your patience. I will now conclude this rather depressing recital by a description of how we made merry on the holiday of holidays – Christmas Day. To many of you this is not new. It was published last year, but I venture repeat it as a fitting conclusion.
Christmas in the Crimea
Memory takes me back to a Christmas which hardly came up to the ideal, and the contrast of then and now, of trials and miseries endured then, as compared with present comforts, may make us more satisfied with, and thankful for what we now enjoy. Twenty-nine years ago England had contributed as her share of the Crimean invading force over 35,000 men, of whom a scanty 8,000 were, on Christmas Day, 1854, available for duty. Many of the remainder had helped to fill the huge trenches hastily dug for graves on the fields of Alma and Inkerman, or slept below the innumerable little mounds which surrounded our camp hospitals, and inside the canvas walls of these the number of sick exceeded the total of those who still stood in the ranks, although none was received into hospital as long as they were able to carry themselves and their rifles.
During the greater part of December we had been reduced to half rations, and sometimes to no meat at all; half a pound of biscuit; one blanket, and threadbare suit of uniform contributed but small support and protection to meet a climate not unlike that of Nova Scotia. And we were entirely without fuel, other than the roots of small alder bushes, which were grubbed up with pickaxes carried off from the trenches, and sometimes the pickaxe handles were used to warm a canteen of water for tea. But soon these became so scarce that we were without a single fire in the camp of my regiment for three days. In spite of all, however, Christmas was at hand, and we all set ourselves to be jolly. The authorities also considered it incumbent on them to make an extra effort, and it was announced with great pride that the commissariat had secured some live cattle in honour of the season, and we were to receive an issue of fresh meat. But this was the extent of their ambition, and their pride met with a fall, for, after waiting till after three o'clock, our pioneers, who drew the rations, returned with the melancholy intelligence that there was nothing for us that day.
'The Zouaves,' * so said the commissariat officers, 'had stolen the bullocks.' It is often mentioned as one of the advantages of live cattle as food for an army that they require no transport, but carry themselves. But we learnt that there is another side to this quality—they sometimes carry themselves away, as they did on this occasion. Whether our gallant allies really ate our dinner as well as their own that Christmas Day I know not, but African warfare had taught them to take care of No. 1, and they formed a convenient and not unlikely peg on which to hang the deficiency; and deficiency there was, for our supply department, relying upon their fresh meat, had not brought up any salt meat from Balaclava, and we were left with only our ration biscuit for our Christmas dinner.
Just as we received this pleasant intelligence the orderly sergeant handed me the order book warning me I was for guard duty in the trenches that night. Our regiment, which had gone out from Edinburgh in the spring over 1,000 strong, and had received a reinforcement of nearly 100 men, was at this time reduced to 68 men available for duty. So but one captain and one lieutenant (myself) were detailed to take charge of this poor remnant of what had been, three months before, a magnificent battalion.
A new colonel had just been sent to us from a West Indian regiment, who took as much interest in his new command as if he had served all his life with us, and employed his chargers and his grooms to transport any possible comforts for his men. Six months afterwards he was struck down when directing the fire of his men on the Russian gunners to keep down their fire and cover our attack on the Redan. By chance he heard us warned for guard, and at once went to his tent and returned with a ham knuckle. 'It is all I have,' he said, 'but those going on duty must have the first chance of some food on Christmas Day. Sit down on your rug and make the best of it.' He was in earnest, so we ate up his dinner and polished the ham bone; but I had determined to keep Christmas as an Englishman should with a real plum pudding.
I had collected the ingredients in the course of a couple of trips among the Maltese and Greek settlers at Balaclava and from the stewards of some of the transports; a few raisins, a little sugar, some butter (so called by courtesy); and of course my ration rum came into play. I could not get any flour, so purchased some biscuit at Balaclava. It was mouldy and full of weevils, and had been condemned as ship's stores and sold to some camp followers, but to us at half a crown a pound it was a treasure. I pounded a quantity of this as fine as possible, and mixed the material in my tin shako case, which did duty as bucket, etc., and tied them up in one of my two towels, and, having secured a tent bag full of freshly dug alder roots, the pudding was put on to boil. As we were going on guard, dinner was early, perhaps too early for the pudding. We had no holly, and could not spare spirits enough to make a blaze, but my servant brought in the pudding quite as triumphantly as if we had been in baronial mansion in old England.
It was reserved for me to open the towel, which I did with no little pride at having the only plum pudding in camp. I had buttered the towel so that it should not stick to it; it did not, but it did not stick together either. It would not stand up, but fell apart like very stiff porridge. I believe it wasn't bad to eat, but it wasn't exactly what we understand to be plum pudding. My vanity was cruelly mortified after all my efforts to excel. I have never attempted to make another plum pudding.
The Russians were considerate that night. They gave us very little annoyance, and Robertson and I walked up and down in rear of the trenches where our weary and worn-out men were lying quiet, getting a welcome rest in a half-wet, half-frozen ditch. We talked of home and how we had spent other Christmases, but I do not think we either expressed or held any other thought for the future than when we should bring our discomforts to an end and wind up the siege by a determined attack on Sevastopol.
Memory conjures up the past at this season. Friends who have left us are present in spirit. We associate the past with the present more at Christmas than at any other time of year. It colours our thoughts and influences our acts unknown to us, and brings out kindly feelings and hope, as much in 1883 as my reminiscences show it did in 1854.’
* Zouaves – a class of light infantry regiments of the French Army serving between 1830 and 1962 and linked to French North Africa
May England’s soldiers in all her wars, render their country as faithful service as were so devotedly & unstintingly given by the men of 1854-1855.