1854 battle of the Crimean War
The Battle of Balaclava, fought on 25 October 1854 during the Crimean War, was part of the Siege of Sevastopol (1854–55), an Allied attempt to capture the port and fortress of Sevastopol, Russia's principal naval base on the Black Sea. The engagement followed the earlier Allied victory in September at the Battle of the Alma, where the Russian General Menshikov had positioned his army in an attempt to stop the Allies progressing south towards their strategic goal. Alma was the first major encounter fought in the Crimean Peninsula since the Allied landings at Kalamita Bay on 14 September, and was a clear battlefield success; but a tardy pursuit by the Allies failed to gain a decisive victory, allowing the Russians to regroup, recover and prepare their defence.
The Russians split their forces. Defending within the allied siege lines was primarily the Navy manning the considerable static defenses of the city and threatening the allies from without was the mobile Army under General Menshikov.
The Allies decided against a fast assault on Sevastopol and instead prepared for a protracted siege. The British, under the command of Lord Raglan, and the French, under Canrobert, positioned their troops to the south of the port on the Chersonese Peninsula: the French Army occupied the bay of Kamiesch on the west coast whilst the British moved to the southern port of Balaclava. However, this position committed the British to the defence of the right flank of the Allied siege operations, for which Raglan had insufficient troops. Taking advantage of this exposure, the Russian General Liprandi, with some 25,000 men, prepared to attack the defences around Balaclava, hoping to disrupt the supply chain between the British base and their siege lines.
The battle began with a Russian artillery and infantry attack on the Ottoman redoubts that formed Balaclava's first line of defence on the Vorontsov Heights. The Ottoman forces initially resisted the Russian assaults, but lacking support they were eventually forced to retreat. When the redoubts fell, the Russian cavalry moved to engage the second defensive line in the South Valley, held by the Ottoman and the British 93rd Highland Regiment in what came to be known as the "Thin Red Line". This line held and repelled the attack; as did General James Scarlett's British Heavy Brigade which charged and defeated the greater proportion of the cavalry advance, forcing the Russians onto the defensive. However, a final Allied cavalry charge, stemming from a misinterpreted order from Raglan, led to one of the most famous and ill-fated events in British military history – the Charge of the Light Brigade. French troops who came to the aid of the allies tried to recapture the redoubts, however, unsuccessfully, but this showed the Russians that they would not be able to achieve at least some further success other than holding the already captured positions.
Prelude.
On to Sevastopol.
The British and French fleets departed from the Bulgarian port of Varna on 5 September 1854, heading towards Kalamita Bay in the Crimea. By the 14th, the troops began to land; within four days the Allied force of 61,400 infantry, 1,200 cavalry and 137 guns, was ashore. Thirty-three miles (~53 km) to the south of the landing zone, beyond the Bulganak, lma, Katcha and Belbek rivers, lay the Russian naval base and fortress of Sevastopol, the key Allied objective in the Crimea. General Menshikov, aware of the Allied presence, prepared his troops on the banks of the River Alma in an effort to halt the Franco-British advance, but on 20 September he was soundly defeated in what was the first major battle in the Crimea. News of Menshikov's defeat was met with disbelief by Tsar Nicholas I in St. Petersburg – it seemed it would only be a matter of time before Sevastopol fell.
But Allied hesitation, first from the French commander-in-chief, Saint-Arnaud, then by Lord Raglan, allowed the dispirited Russians to escape the battlefield in relative order, allowing Menshikov and his army to reach Sevastopol, reorganise and rebuild their morale. "It is frightful to think what might have happened", wrote Vice-Admiral Kornilov, "had it not been for this cardinal error of the enemy's."
The Allied march south finally recommenced on the morning of 23 September 1854, but there was as yet no definite plan of action; it was not until they had passed the River Katcha in sight of Sevastopol itself, that the Allied commanders discussed their options. The original plan had envisaged a move across the River Belbek before attacking the north side (the Severnaya) of Sevastopol harbour, defended by the Star Fort; but recent naval intelligence had revealed that the position was much stronger than had first been realised. John Burgoyne, the British Army's most experienced engineer, advocated an attack on Sevastopol from the south which, from all reports, was still an imperfectly entrenched position. This was a view shared by Saint-Arnaud who, having received his own intelligence of Russian reinforcements, had refused to agree to an attack from the north. Burgoyne's proposed 'flank march' required the Allies to go round the city to the east in order to attack the harbour from the south where the defences were weakest. Raglan was inclined to agree, arguing that he had always been disposed to such an operation; he knew, too, that the problem of re-supply would be eased with the seizing of the southern ports on the Chersonese Peninsula.
On 24 September, Menshikov began to move his army out of Sevastopol towards Bakchi Serai and Simferopol, leaving Admirals Kornilov and Nakhimov to organise the 18,000-strong garrison (mainly sailors and marines) and prepare the port's defences.
By venturing into the interior of the Crimea, Menshikov would not only keep open his communications with Russia, but would also be in touch with reinforcements from Odessa or Kertch; moreover, he would be free to operate in the field and threaten the Allied flank. Whilst Menshikov moved east, the Anglo-French-Turkish army, with the British in the vanguard, continued its march towards the southern coast of the peninsula. The heat was oppressive, the water sparse, and cholera rife, taking a heavy toll on the men including Saint-Arnaud who was already ill with cancer. The march had been a real trial and was not without incident. At one point, on 25 September near MacKenzie's Farm, Raglan and his staff in front of the British column stumbled across the rear of the retreating Russians; with the rest of his army strung out behind in hopeless disorder, Menshikov missed a chance to inflict a major reverse on the British. By the 26th, however, Raglan had reached the village of Kadikoi, and was able to look down on the narrow inlet of Balaclava. That same day Saint-Arnaud, now critically ill, surrendered his command to General Canrobert.
Allied deployment.
The harbor at Balaclava was too small for both Allied armies to use. By rights, the French, who had claimed the honor of holding the right of the line, should have occupied Balaclava whilst the British should have moved west to the ports of Kazatch and Kamiesch. Canrobert offered the British the choice, but badly advised by Admiral Lyons, Raglan chose Balaclava for his base, not realizing that the two western bays offered far better facilities as supply ports. Moreover, Raglan committed the British Army to the defense of the right flank of the Allied operation and would have to ensure the security of both Anglo-French armies against the threat posed by Menshikov's forces to the east. The decision by Raglan was a bad mistake and one for which the British Army was to pay a terrible price.
For many, the only justification for the 'flank march' was an immediate assault upon Sevastopol. George Cathcart, commander of the British 4th Division, pleaded with Raglan for instant action. "I am sure I could walk into it, with scarcely the loss of a man," wrote Cathcart to Raglan on 28 September from the heights above the eastern approach to the city. "We could leave our packs, and run into it even in open day … We see people walking about the streets in great consternation ..." But caution prevailed, and plans by Burgoyne for a formal siege, backed by Canrobert, were prepared. When Raglan told Cathcart that nothing would happen until the Allied siege trains had been landed, Cathcart could not hide his irritation, "Land the siege trains! But my dear Lord Raglan, what the devil is there to knock down?"
Having decided upon which port they would occupy the Allies set about deploying their forces on the Chersonese Peninsula. The peninsula is bounded to the north by Sevastopol Harbour, at the head of which the River Chernaya flows from the south-east. The eastern boundary is formed by a long escarpment, the Sapouné Heights, averaging 600 feet high, and pierced by two passes only: the metalled Worontsov road, and, at the southern end of the heights, the Col, through which ran a steeper and more difficult road leading from the west end of Sevastopol to Balaclava. Sevastopol itself was divided in two by the Dockyard Creek. Two of Canrobert's four divisions, supervised by General Forey, were allotted the western siege operations around the city, from the Black Sea to the Dockyard Creek; the other two divisions, under General Bosquet, would act as a covering force along the Sapouné Heights. To Bosquet's north lay the camp of the British 1st Division, and beyond this De Lacy Evans' 2nd Division guarding the extreme right of the Allied line with the Inkerman Heights to its front and the Chernaya Valley to its right.
The port of Balaclava lay outside the main Allied perimeter and had to be provided with a defensive system of its own. The Vorontsov Road ran down from the Sapouné Heights along a ridge, running east–west, known as the Causeway Heights, dividing the plain into two sections – the North Valley and the South Valley. Redoubts upon the Causeway Heights offered Balaclava its first line of defense: five were built upon the heights – approximately 500 yards (~450 m) apart – and one upon what came to be known as Canrobert's Hill, slightly to the south and covering the extreme right of the British defenses (see map below). The redoubts housed a total of nine naval guns, all 12-pounders from HMS "Diamond": three in No.1 redoubt on Canrobert's Hill; two each in redoubts 2, 3, and 4. Redoubts 5 and 6 (the two at the western end of the Causeway Heights), were still unfinished and without any guns. These defenses were hastily constructed, but they were not small works: No.1 redoubt held a garrison of 600 Turks, whilst redoubts 2, 3, and 4 each held 300; all were accompanied by one British artillery NCO. The inner line of defense of the British base was supplied by the 93rd Highlanders and a Royal Artillery field battery stationed at the village of Kadikoi to the north of Balaclava. These were supported by Royal Marines and artillery positioned along the heights above the port, as well as additional Ottoman troops. In addition to these defenses, Raglan could call upon the 1,500 men of Lord Lucan's Cavalry Division camped on the western end of the South Valley, along with a troop of Royal Horse Artillery. The total force available for the immediate defense of the British base at Balaclava numbered around 4,500 men, supported by 26 guns.
Russian plan.
As the Allied siege guns bombarded Sevastopol the Russian reserves were moving to the Crimea. The Russians sought to relieve Sevastopol from bombardment by marching newly arrived reinforcements from the Danubian front. This force of Russian reinforcements would strike at the allies' main port of supply—Balaclava. At the forefront of these reinforcements was the 12th Infantry Division – part of the Russian 4th Corps – under General Pavel Liprandi. This division, consisting of the Azovsky, Dnieper, Ukraine and Odessa regiments, along with four batteries of artillery, had arrived from Bessarabia; by the time the division had reached the Crimea, Menshikov had decided on the plan to use them to attack the Allied rear from Chorgun, and march on Balaclava.
The vulnerability of Balaclava was well known to both sides. Undertaking the siege operations around Sevastopol whilst securing the Allies' eastern flank was stretching the resources of Raglan's dwindling forces – British casualties at the Alma had been high, and many