Читать книгу The Battles of the World or, cyclopedia of battles, sieges, and important military events онлайн

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At half-past seven o’clock this morning, an orderly came galloping in to the head-quarters camp from Balaklava, with the news, that at dawn a strong corps of Russian horse, supported by guns and battalions of infantry had marched into the valley, and had already nearly dispossessed the Turks of the redoubt No 1, (that on Canrobert’ Hill, which is farthest from our lines), and that they were opening fire on the redoubts Nos. 2, 3, and 4, which would speedily be in their hands unless the Turks offered a stouter resistance than they had done already.

Orders were despatched to Sir George Cathcart, and to H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge, to put their respective divisions, the Fourth and the First, in motion for the scene of action; and intelligence of the advance of the Russians was also furnished to General Canrobert. Immediately on receipt of the news, the General commanded General Bosquet to get the Third Division under arms, and sent a strong body of artillery and some 200 Chasseurs d’Afrique to assist us in holding the valley. Sir Colin Campbell, who was in command of Balaklava, had drawn up the 93rd Highlanders a little in front of the road to the town, at the first news of the advance of the enemy. The Marines on the heights got under arms; the seamen’s batteries and Marines’ batteries, on the heights close to the town, were manned, and the French artillerymen and the Zouaves prepared for action along their lines. Lord Lucan’s little camp was the scene of great excitement. The men had not had time to water their horses; they had not broken their fast from the evening of the day before, and had barely saddled at the first blast of the trumpet, when they were drawn up on the slope behind the redoubts in front of their camp to operate on the enemy’s squadrons. It was soon evident that no reliance was to be placed on the Turkish infantry or artillerymen. All the stories we had heard about their bravery behind stone walls and earthworks proved how differently the same or similar people fight under different circumstances. When the Russians advanced, the Turks fired a few rounds at them, got frightened at the distance of their supports in the rear, looked round, received a few shots and shell, and then “bolted,” and fled with an agility quite at variance with common-place notions of Oriental deportment on the battle-field. But Turks on the Danube are very different beings from Turks in the Crimea, as it appears that the Russians of Sebastopol are not at all like the Russians of Silistria.