THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (continued.)

Effects of Balaclava—Attack on Mount Inkermann—Evans defeats the Russians—Menschikoff is Reinforced—His Plan of Attack—The Advance in the Fog—Soimonoff and Pauloff—Pennefather's Mistake—Repulse of Soimonoff—The Guards to the Rescue—Arrival of Lord Raglan—Bosquet's Help refused—The Guns ordered up—The Fight at the Sandbag Battery—The Coldstreams—The Guards' Charge—Defeat of Cathcart—Ammunition falls short—Arrival of the French—Charges of the Zouaves—The Russians slowly retreat—Canrobert hesitates to pursue—Loss of the Allies—Their Plight—The Baltic Fleet—Its real Objects—Capture of Merchant Vessels and Destruction of Stores—Sveaborg and Cronstadt reconnoitred—Bomarsund—Capture of the Fortress—End of the Naval Campaign—Changed Position of the Allies—Determination of the British Nation—Storm of November 14th—Destruction of the Transports—Sufferings of the Troops—Conduct of the War—Unpreparedness of the Army—The Duke of Newcastle—Timidity of the Government—Enlistment of Boys—Autumn Session—The Paper Warfare—Hostile Motions in Parliament—Lord John Russell's Resignation—His factious Conduct—Palmerston forms a Ministry—Resignation of the Peelites.

THE lower range of heights in front of Balaclava, and the seven British guns taken from the Turks, were the only material advantages gained by the enemy on the 25th of October. Moral advantages, beyond those implied in the capture of guns, he gained none. In order to strike a severe blow, Liprandi should have carried Balaclava as well as the Turkish redoubts; and had the British cavalry or the 93rd Regiment shown the least hesitation, the slightest symptom of wavering, it is most probable that the Russians would have instantly overrun the valley, and have swept like a torrent through the gorge into the little port. The charges of the cavalry and the steadfastness of the 93rd balked the Russian general. The Russian horse and Russian infantry fell again under that moral ascendency established at the Alma, and never lost. Therefore the moral advantages of the combat of Balaclava were with the Allies.

Prince Menschikoff, who still commanded the Russian army, seems to have had no clear, decisive views of the course he ought to adopt; for, having alarmed the Allies at Balaclava, he now determined to rouse their suspicions on the side of Inkermann. On the 26th, accordingly, the very day after the capture of the Turkish redoubts, he directed a force of 5,000 or 6,000 men, and abundance of guns, to attack the 2nd Division. These troops quitted the fortress by the Russian left of the Malakoff, and ascended the right bank of the Careening ravine. Their skirmishers were soon heard exchanging shots with the pickets of the 49th and 30th. These, falling back to a good defensible post, kept the Russians at bay for some time; so that the whole of the 2nd Division, under Sir De Lacy Evans, had time to form. But numbers prevailed, and the pickets were driven in; and the Russians soon showed a mass of columns on and about Shell Hill, and presently eighteen or twenty guns were brought to the front on that height. By this time the regiments of the 2nd Division were lying down in line on the crest in front of their camp; and their twelve guns were in action, while the skirmishers were busy on the slope between the two hills. At first the Russians threw some spirit into their advance. Under cover of their artillery on the hill they sent a heavy column down the slope which, by its steadiness and weight, looked as if it intended to sweep all before it. But a great calamity befell these brave men. The fire of our artillery, concentrated on the Russian guns, was so quick, precise, and severe, that the whole of the Russian batteries disappeared over the brow. Then the British artillerymen, with ready energy, turned their eighteen pieces full on the column of infantry which had so manfully come forward towards our line. The effect of the fire was immediate. The Russian infantry, thus deserted by their artillery, and exposed to the shot from our guns and to the bullets of our skirmishers, turned to the left and hurriedly sought the shelter of one of the many deep hollows. While they were thus concealed, the second column was seen to rise above the brow, and on them the guns poured their shot and shell. The officer commanding, observing what had befallen the first column, immediately withdrew his second over the ridge. All this time the Russian skirmishers in the scrub which roughened the hill side kept up the conflict. Presently the column which had fled into the ravine on the left emerged in broken order, and was seen climbing the slopes to rejoin the main body in rear of Shell Hill, and our artillery once more visited them with shot and shell and quickened their pace; while our right skirmishers, under Colonel Herbert, plied them with musketry. The 2nd Division, led by Major Mauleverer and Major Champion, Major Eman, and Major Hume, were now let loose upon the skirmishers in the space between the ridges; and they fell on with so much vigour and effect, and with such eagerness, that General Pennefather had great difficulty in arresting their fiery march. In an hour the action was over, and the enemy in full retreat.

Signs of the presence of the enemy in great strength were now visible almost daily. The two remaining infantry divisions of Dannenberg's corps arrived at Batchiserai on the 28th of October. The 10th Division, under General Soimonoff, entered Sebastopol on the 3rd of November, and on the same day, the 11th, under General Pauloff, took up its quarters among the hills about the ruins of Inkermann. The arrival of these troops had been seen by the Allies, and the generals became convinced that, it might be in a few hours, the enemy would make an attack upon some point or points. Yet not a single change was made in the arrangements, except that the British cavalry—the wreck of two splendid brigades—were marched up to the plateau, and posted in the rear of the French lines upon Mount Sapoune. The Allies, had, for all purposes, little more than 60,000 men. Prince Menschikoff had under his orders, exclusive of the sailors, 70,000 infantry, 9,000 horse, 3,000 artillery, and 282 guns. What use should he make of a force which exceeded that of the Allies by one-fourth?

According to the Russian accounts, Prince Menschikoff had been informed that the Allies intended to open fire once more upon the place from all their batteries, and, after a short and sharp bombardment, storm. His information was correct. In order to anticipate the Allies, he determined to assume the offensive himself, and, if possible, force them to raise the siege. Two Grand-Dukes, sons of the Czar, were on their way to the army, hoping to arrive in time to witness the total defeat of the arrogant Western Powers. It was decided that there should be one real and two false attacks—the real attack from Inkermann, the false attacks from the Tchernaya valley upon Mount Sapoune, and from the Quarantine Bay upon the left of the French siege works. Thus, to begin with, Prince Menschikoff divided his disposable force into three parts, separated from each other by such wide intervals that neither could aid the other. Thus, it will be seen, Prince Menschikoff devised a very wide plan for the destruction of the Allies. He hoped that the attacks from the town and from the Tchernaya would entirely occupy the French; and that General Dannenberg would be able to catch the British alone and unaware, and deliver the fortress by passing over their bodies. Had Prince Gortschakoff attacked the French with energy, this might have happened, for there were, counting everything, only 22,343 British troops effective, and of these 16,308 were infantry, rank and file—that is, in technical language, bayonets. The consequence was that the immense lines they had to guard were thinly manned, and so scarce were labourers that there were none to repair the trenches in the night attack.

In November the sun rises earlier in the Crimea than it does in England. The rays of the dawn shoot up behind the snows of the Caucasus about five o'clock; hence this hour was selected for the movement of the Russian troops on the 5th of the month. But although the upper air was growing brighter, a thick white fog overspread the hills around Sebastopol, and settled down in heavier masses in the valleys. Hidden within its folds the Russian columns stole unobserved out of Sebastopol, and Pauloff began to throw a bridge over the Tchernaya, close to its mouth. As soon as it was completed, the infantry poured over and the guns followed. The fog deadened the sound of the hundreds of wheels emerging from the east and west, and the grey-coated infantry, in silence and obscurity, tramped along. The pickets of the 2nd Division were in the hollow between their camp and Shell Hill and on the old post road, and those of the Light Division were in the Careening ravine and on both its banks. There was not more than usual watchfulness, for the Russian secrets had been kept, and no attack was expected that morning more than any other. General Codrington had ridden out at dawn to visit the outposts, and was riding back to camp when the report of a rifle struck on his ear, and he halted and listened. A sputter of musketry followed, and seemed to come from the Careening ravine; and soon after the same ominous sound, its natural, sharp, angry note being muffled by the fog, was heard on the right. The skirmishers of the two Russian columns had touched the line of British pickets. Codrington galloped off to turn out the Light Division. The battle of Inkermann had begun.

Soimonoff, moving out of the Russian lines, had quitted the plateau on which stood the Malakoff, and instead of resting his left on the Careening ravine, by some mistake, crossed; and thus carried his twenty-nine battalions along the proper right bank of the ravine towards the heights, where Pauloff's troops had begun to assemble. It was his advanced parties who came in contact with the outposts of the Light Division, whom they drove into and over the Careening ravine, and whom they followed. Pauloff had not got all his force up the heights; but as soon as the British pickets were thrust back, he had hastened to put his heavy guns in battery on the highest ground, and his lighter guns on the slopes beneath them, within twelve hundred yards of the camp of the 2nd Division. He at once opened fire to cover an assault of infantry and thus it happened that Evans's British regiments had no sooner formed than they were exposed to an iron shower of shot, shell, and grape. Evans, who had been disabled by an accident, was on board a ship at Balaclava, and Sir John Pennefather commanded the division. Protected by the fire of fifty guns, Soimonoff directed a strong column to cross the Careening ravine; while Pauloff threw forward by the old post road the two rifle regiments of Borodino and Taroutino; so that both flanks of the English position were about to be assailed at once.

The British troops at this moment in the front line were those of the 2nd and Light Divisions. General Pennefather, instead of relying on his artillery, rashly rushed to the support of the pickets, sending Adams's Brigade to the right of the post road with three guns, and keeping his own on the left of the road. Sir George Brown brought up the Light Division. Codrington's gallant soldiers were arrayed on the left bank of the Careening ravine, not far from the 68-pounder battery, and Buller moved up into the space between the left of Pennefather and the right of Codrington. The front was contracted; but narrow as it was, the troops were so few that there were gaps between the four brigades. At the first onset of the enemy, the other brigades were not present. Soon after six an orderly rode into headquarters with the news that the right flank was assailed in force; and, indeed, the sound of cannon, not only at Inkermann, but from the fortress and from the Balaclava front, told the Allies with emphasis that the enemy was upon them. Lord Raglan soon convinced himself that the real attack was at Inkermann, and he determined to ride thither after issuing such orders as seemed expedient. The Guards had not even reached the front when the Russian columns began to surge up against our thin, straggling line.

The British guns had come into action on the crest as fast as they arrived, and were at once exposed to an unequal combat with the heavier guns of the enemy. And now the dense fog was made more dense by the volumes of smoke which, breaking out from the guns in clouds, unfolded itself, and lay almost motionless close to the surface of the miry ground. Through this thick atmosphere the opposing troops made their dubious way, and thus it happened that our men, hastening up to the front, came suddenly upon enemies, who seemed to spring out of the hill side. Soimonoff, on reaching the scene of action, found himself trenching upon the ground apportioned to the columns of Pauloff. The huge masses had converged upon a comparatively narrow front, and the Russians complain that they had not room to range their men for a powerful and simultaneous onset. Soimonoff had taken the wrong road, and instead of effecting a junction with Pauloff at the head of the Careening ravine on the site of the 2nd Division camp, he had joined Pauloff on the east of the ravine, and found that hollow way between him and the troops he had been directed to overwhelm—the Light Division. An ambiguous order had caused this mistake. To retrieve his error, while the Taroutino and Borodino regiments were climbing the hills to attack the Sandbag Battery, Soimonoff plunged into the ravine, and led his men to the charge. Thus he came full on the front of Codrington's Brigade, deployed on the left bank. The heroes of the 7th, 19th, and 23rd were not dismayed by the masses which loomed large and portentous in the fog, but opened upon them such a heavy fire that the Russians heaped together in the deep hollows, and descending the steep sides, never reached the opposite bank, but fell into disorder, recoiled, and receded from view. These early combats rudely disarranged the Russian plans.

In the centre the regiments of the 2nd Division had come upon enemies as soon as they had formed. These were the leading companies of the Borodino battalions, and they were at once set upon by Pennefather's brigade, and pushed back. On the extreme right, half-way down the spur, whose crags drop on one side into the Tchernaya valley, and on the other into the Quarry ravine, Pennefather had posted the 41st and 49th, with three guns, under Captain Hamley. They had no sooner arrived than heavy Russian columns were seen indistinctly moving down the opposite slope. The guns opened on them, but the Russians turned their artillery to that side, and our guns, though steadfastly served, were too weak to contend with the heavy metal opposed to them. The columns went down into the hollow, and soon reappeared, flocking up the British side of the hill. The Taroutino regiment turned upon the Sandbag Battery, and part of the Borodino went with them up the road to break against Pennefather's brigade. The Russians came on without faltering. Our troops were outnumbered and outflanked; our guns were in danger of being taken. The 41st and 49th, quitting the Sandbag Battery, fell back, and the hill seemed in danger of being lost; but at this moment the bearskins of the Guards were becoming visible. The Duke of Cambridge, when he had turned out his brigade, moved it to the right of Pennefather, and went to succour the hardly-pressed 41st and 49th. The Guards came steadily down the slope of the spur, and, passing to the right and left of the guns, cheered and charged, checked the advance of the enemy, and recovered the battery. Hitherto they had only used the bayonet; they now brought their rifles into play, and smote the retreating Russians with deadly precision. The regiment Taroutino was so broken that it retired even into the Inkermann valley to re-form. The brigade was not complete when the Guards charged into the battery; but the Coldstreams came up at once, and the three regiments took ground, the Grenadiers on the right, the Coldstreams in the centre, and the Fusiliers on the left of the recovered work.

It was at this time—about seven o'clock—that Lord Raglan arrived. The fog had cleared somewhat, but the smoke of battle had taken its place. He rode down the spur towards the Sandbag Battery just as the Guards had recovered it; and he sought to penetrate the thick mist, and discern the numbers and intentions of the foe. He could see but little through the rifts in the smoke. He saw enough to make him feel the peril of his position, and that of the whole army. Upon his tenacity hung the fate of every soul on the plateau. Lord Raglan was a calm and steadfast man. If danger rose high, his resolution rose higher; and knowing that his soldiers were like himself, children of a proud and obstinate race, he felt that he could do his duty, and hold fast to that narrow strip of rugged ground, which formed, as it were, the gate into the lines drawn about the southern defences of Sebastopol. He therefore resolved to stand on the defensive, and dispute for the gate with the enemy until he won or his troops were destroyed. The British soldiers actually before the enemy at the end of this first heavy onset of Soimonoff and Pauloff did not number more than 6,000 men. The 4th Division on the march would bring the number up to 8,000, and beyond this he could not array a bayonet, for the 3rd Division had to guard the trenches, and the Highland Brigade was at Balaclava. Lord Raglan knew he could rely on aid from General Bosquet. That officer at the first had offered several battalions to the Duke of Cambridge and Sir George Brown, but these two, though ignorant of the serious character of the attack, took upon themselves to refuse. Had it not been for this proud unwillingness to accept French aid, or this fear of responsibility, Bosquet would have been earlier in the field; for Gortschakoff had so feebly acted on the side of Balaclava that the quick Frenchman soon saw through his weak devices. As soon as he received a request for troops from Lord Raglan he at once put three battalions in motion. But he had two miles to march; the earth was soaked with a night's rain, and part of the way lay through thick scrub. Some time, therefore, was required to force the troops along. Two battalions were directed upon the right rear of the 2nd Division, and the third was ordered to take post near the Canrobert Redoubt at the extremity of the entrenchments on the Sapoune ridge.

During the pause of the fight, while the artillery maintained the combat and the infantry were merely keeping up a brisk skirmish in the bush, Lord Raglan became sensible that his 9-pounders were over-matched by the Russian guns, which, besides being many of them of heavier metal, were nearly twice as numerous. Moreover, as fast as guns were disabled the Russians supplied their places with fresh pieces from their immense train of artillery. Lord Raglan soon remembered that there were in the artillery park two 18-pounders, the same guns which had been used in the Sandbag Battery to crush the Russian guns, mounted among the Inkermann ruins. These he ordered to be brought up. Before they came into action the infantry battle had been renewed. As Codrington's brigade of the Light Division, fighting on the left bank of the Careening ravine, often within it, and sometimes over it, protected effectually the left of Buller, and as the occupation of the spur, on which was the Sandbag Battery, covered the right flank of Pennefather, General Dannenberg saw that he could not force the centre and break through on to the plateau until he had cleared the Sandbag Battery spur. Between eight and nine he had rallied two of Soimonoff's regiments, Tomsk and Kolyvan, and he counted on these, supported by the Boutirsk regiment in reserve, to maintain the fight with the left of Buller and the whole of Codrington. Then he sent forward the infantry of the 11th Division—three regiments, each of four battalions, Yakutsk, Okhotsk, and Selenginsk—with two rifle companies, to act as skirmishers. They were ordered to carry the Sandbag Battery, clear the whole of the slope, and sweep up the post road into the camp. Gallant soldiers, and opposed to the British for the first time, they made their way up to the battery with great spirit and unusual speed. It may be remembered that the Guards occupied the battery, and the ground to the right and left of it, and that Cathcart, with Torrens's brigade, was in support on the right rear.

Now began a contest about the battery which has been truly called sublime. The Russians were nearly 6,000 strong, quite fresh, full of fight, and very resolute. They came on in successive columns of regiments, making loud and rude noises which our men called yells. The first to rush at the battery were the Okhotsk men. As they came up the rifles of the Guards told severely upon them, but did not arrest their course. A fierce combat ensued, first heavy firing, then hand to hand fights, then a fearful pressure of men on both flanks of the battery which it was hard to resist. The heavy guns on Shell Hill took the British defenders almost in reverse, yet they still clung to the ground. The regiment in the battery was the Coldstreams. And now the enemy had swept round the flanks. For a moment the Coldstreams fronted their foes on all sides, and kept them at bay on the open rear of the battery. Then, with a cheer and a rush, they dashed through, scattering their enemies right and left, and, bleeding, broken, but unconquered, made their way up the slope to rejoin the British line. But they had fourteen officers killed or wounded in that bloody Sandbag Battery, and one or two, simply wounded, were murdered by the enraged enemy. They had, however, slain many of the barbarous Okhotsk, and wounded their colonel; and better than this, they had maintained their good name.

The fight at this time seemed going dead against the handful of British. The other two regiments were coming on, Yakutsk up the post road, and Selenginsk in reserve. On their right the rallied battalions of Soimonoff were fighting with the British centre; while the fifty or sixty Russian cannon on the heights never ceased hurling their iron shower into the British lines. Unless the new attack were repelled at once, the Russians would emerge from the ravines, and gaining the more open ground, deploy their masses and sweep over the plateau. To prevent this, the Guards were led once more to regain the Sandbag Battery. The three regiments formed a line of no great length, but they went into the fight with their usual decision. With a steady rush they came down upon their foes. The Russians met them bayonet to bayonet. There was a brief conflict at close quarters. Steel glistened in the air and muskets were brandished as clubs, and men loaded and fired on the flanks, but still the Guards bored their way into and through the mass, and passing over the slain, cheered as they stood once more in the battery—now a charnel-house—and resumed their deadly fire.

During this charge part of the Yakutsk regiment had halted on the post road, and had turned to its left to aid its comrades. The Selenginsk men had moved also to their left and had passed down the slope to outflank the battery on the Inkermann side. The Russians were resolute to win. The fierce charge of the Guards had made them angry, and they desired revenge. While these two bodies were moving upon the little redan, the Okhotsk rallied, so that the Russians renewed the contest for the battery with a larger force than ever. It so chanced that Sir George Cathcart, thinking he could take the enemy in flank, of his own accord carried Torrens's brigade down the slope to the right. Thus the hostile forces were converging on the same point, Selenginsk intent on the same object as Cathcart. But Selenginsk mustered 3,000 men and Cathcart 400, for part of Torrens's brigade was on the flank of Pennefather. And now, while the Guards once more withstood the shock of the Russian infantry in front, the Selenginsk men suddenly discovered the little band that Cathcart had led below them. They at once opened a crushing fire on our men. Instead of flanking the Russians, Sir George found himself in danger of being cut off and destroyed. His men, too, were short of ammunition. To extricate himself from this position, Cathcart ordered the men to charge, but the ground did not admit of that, and the men fell back. Torrens then rallied the 68th, and prepared to try once more a charge up hill. Sir George called out to him, "Nobly done, Torrens; nobly done!" But it availed nothing. Torrens was shot down, and the men halted. Indeed, the movement was hopeless. The fire of the Russians was so close that Sir George Cathcart was shot dead, and Colonel Seymour, who rushed up to him, was shot also. The men were led back through the greatest perils.

Simultaneously with the defeat of Cathcart, the Russians had rolled in heavy masses on the Guards. It was only the fringe of the left of the Selenginsk battalions which had slain and driven the men of the 4th Division. The right of that regiment, the Okhotsk, and the left of the Yakutsk, were pressing upon the Guards in numbers that were irresistible. Our men fell sullenly back. At this crisis the Duke of Cambridge rode along in front of the line of the Guards, and between them and the foe, and urged his soldiers to stand firm and fire. "We have no ammunition," was the unanswerable reply; and without ammunition, but with a firm countenance, and slowly, the Guards gave ground until they reached the line of the 2nd Division. Had the enemy then come resolutely on, he might have won the day, for the spur at length was his. He had now room to deploy. He might ascend the post road, and the slope he had conquered, and burst out upon the plain. We were in great straits, but the soldiers were as stubborn as ever, and the officers as cheerful and daring. But the loss had been terrible. The only cheering feature in the battle at this time, apart from the pluck of the men, was the execution done by the two 18-pounders which had been brought into action and were hammering effectually the Russian guns on Shell Hill. Bosquet, too, was approaching, and General Canrobert was at Lord Raglan's side. Fresh ammunition had been served out to the men; and although they were in disorder, men of different regiments being mixed together, yet fight they did, and in the crisis of the engagement held fast.

The two French battalions, the 6th and 7th Light Infantry, which had been sent forward by Bosquet at the request of Lord Raglan, were now brought over the crest to support the right. It is said that when they came first into the storm of shot and shell which fell upon the ridge they blenched, as if amazed, halted, wavered and gave ground. But the hesitation of the Frenchmen did not last long. Recovering their presence of mind, they went over the ridge and into the battle, and, side by side with our men, and sometimes mixed with them, stood as stoutly and charged as bravely as the best. Behind them came other French battalions. Dannenberg was preparing for a thundering attack along the whole line; but before he could assume the offensive with decision he found himself assailed. The French were about to win back the Sandbag Battery spur, which innumerable foes had torn from the grasp of our exhausted men. The clarion of the Zouaves and the drums of the Light Infantry were heard; 3,000 Frenchmen were about to prolong the line to the right, and contend with the enemy for possession of the ground, now strewn thickly with British and Russian dead.

Three French batteries had come up, and had taken their places in line with ours; but still the worst enemies of the Russian gunners were our two 18-pounders, fired with steadiness and deadly precision. The Russians were forming for an assault in force, when Bourbaki took them in flank by an impetuous charge. The gallant Russians were surprised, and thrust right and left. The British centre, still in front of their camp, had quite enough to do to keep back the foes who were pressing up the road; and, as the Russians had been smitten but not subdued, driven over the brow but not defeated, they turned, extended, and enveloped the flanks of the French in turn, so that those had to give ground. At this time D'Autemarre came up with his brigade, a regiment of Zouaves, one of Algerians, and one of the Line. These fresh troops brought the enemy to a stand, and as Bosquet pushed them into the thick of the combat, they fought their way down the spur beyond the Sandbag Battery. The charge of the Zouaves was a magnificent spectacle; they swept the Russians from the hill. But on their left the enemy held his ground. The French light infantry regiments of Bourbaki, and the little groups of British soldiers, could scarcely keep their place, under the fire of artillery and musketry from Shell Hill and the post road. For a moment the Russians wrested a gun from the 6th French Regiment, and its colours; but Colonel Camas roused his men, and by a desperate charge, in which he fell, Camas recovered both colours and gun. Bosquet was nearly captured; and the resistance of the Russians was so fierce that the French had to fall back a pace, and re-form. The Chasseurs d'Afrique had been brought up, and our light cavalry approached within fire, but both were sent back and held in reserve.

But practically the battle was won. The Russian infantry only resisted in order to cover the retreat of the heavy guns, which could no longer bear up against the 18-pounders. According to the French accounts, the Russian regiments made one more charge, in which they were repelled, but it was only the effort of men determined to prevent a close pursuit. General Dannenberg had still several untouched battalions, and these he formed up to protect the retreat of the brave men who had so nobly borne the brunt of this bloody battle. Two war-steamers at the head of the harbour also began to throw huge shells into the allied position. As the French followed the retreating enemy, he turned repeatedly and fired with both cannon and musketry. The slowness and order of the Russian retreat had, at its commencement, an air of majesty in its movement which drew expressions of admiration from those who witnessed it. But as the fire of their artillery slackened, the Russian masses nearest the Allies fell into confusion and hurried away; followed at a distance by a crowd of skirmishers in similar confusion, Guards and Zouaves, French Linesmen and English Linesmen, all mingled together. The battle was at an end.

The Russians fell back as fast as they could. Part of their infantry and artillery took the road to Sebastopol; the remainder crossed the Tchernaya bridge. Lord Raglan, it is said, was anxious that the enemy should be pursued as soon as the artillery left Shell Hill. He had not a man to spare for this purpose himself, for our troops were worn out with their tough, enduring struggle, and all the more so as officers and men alike had gone into action fasting. But General Canrobert had Monet's brigade of Prince Napoleon's division, which had been sent up from the Siege Corps, and kept up to this time in reserve. Not a man had seen or felt the enemy. But Canrobert hesitated to use them. He is said to have asked that the Guards should go with them, if they went, for his troops had great confidence in "les Black Caps." But to this Lord Raglan, of course, could not consent, for the Guards were a mere handful. At length Canrobert agreed to push forward two battalions of Zouaves and a battery of 12-pounders, and these, with the two Commanders-in-chief, ascended the heights abandoned by the Russians, and arrived in time to see that the enemy had escaped beyond range. The guns opened fire and did some mischief to the stragglers; but the main force had made good its retreat. The Russian Grand Dukes and Prince Menschikoff had the mortification to witness the ruin of those splendid dreams in which they had indulged with such confidence when their great army moved out at dawn. The battle of Inkermann won for Lord Raglan the bÂton of a British Field Marshal, which he deserved for his valour, though hardly for his strategy. The losses of the Allies were very great. The British lost 2,816 men of all ranks. Of these three generals and 43 officers were killed, and six generals and 100 officers were wounded; 586 men were killed, and 2,078 were wounded. The French lost 1,800 men killed and wounded at Inkermann and in front of their trenches. Their exact loss at Inkermann is not stated, but is roughly put at 900 men. Among the wounded was Canrobert. The Russian loss was some 12,000. Prince Menschikoff was slightly hurt. The field of battle presented a more than usually horrible spectacle, for the dead and wounded lay within a space about a mile and a half long and half a mile deep, while about the Sandbag Battery the corpses were piled in heaps.

No one alive on that bloody field, except Lord Raglan, had ever seen so sad a spectacle. The Duke of Cambridge was so deeply affected by the loss of the Guards alone that he fell sick, and shortly afterwards went home. Sir De Lacy Evans, ill though he was, had come up from Balaclava in time to see the crisis and the close of the fight; and he is said to have taken the gloomiest views of the prospects of the Allies, and even to have advised the abandonment of the whole enterprise. And, indeed, the Allies were in a dreadful plight. They had won a victory, but at a cost which forbade all further progress with the siege for some time.

But now we must quit the Black Sea and its shores for a space, and narrate the proceedings of the fleet in the Baltic; and then proceed to blend together the winter incidents in the Crimea and the astonishing proceedings of the British Parliament and the British people.

The British nation is naturally and justly proud of its navy; but, considering that they are a maritime people, they are—or were in 1854—singularly ignorant of the true functions of a fleet. When Queen Victoria led the squadron under Sir Charles Napier out of Spithead, on the 11th of March, the popular impression was that the admiral, with eight screw line-of-battle ships, four screw frigates, and three paddle-wheel steamers, would be able, not only to keep the Russian fleet in harbour, but demolish Cronstadt and Sweaborg, and this impression Ministers and admiral did their best to strengthen by vainglorious speeches at a public banquet.

The real fact is, that the Government prescribed to themselves very limited and reasonable but highly useful objects. The Russian fleet in the Gulf of Finland consisted of no less than twenty-seven sail of the line, seventeen lesser men-of-war, frigates, and corvettes, and an unknown number of gunboats—perhaps one hundred and fifty. These ships and boats were well manned, and mounted upwards of 3,000 guns; but their situation was peculiar. They were all in the Gulf of Finland, except a few gunboats; and the Gulf of Finland was frozen. Supposing they could get out of the Gulf of Finland, they would have been able to cruise in the Baltic, menace both Copenhagen and Stockholm (if that were deemed expedient policy), and send their lighter ships, and some of the heavier, through the Great Belt or the Sound into the North Sea, to prey on the commerce of the Allies. It was therefore of the last importance that this Russian fleet should be prevented from leaving the Gulf of Finland. That was the primary object of the occupation of the Baltic to be effected by Sir Charles Napier. If he did this, and could do no more, much would be done.

It would be tedious and profitless to follow the British men-of-war in their wanderings to and fro in these northern seas. As the Russians would not come out and fight, all that could be done, even after the French arrived, was to maintain a blockade of the ports, and inflict such damage on the coasts of the enemy as the means at the disposal of the admirals would permit. Before the French arrived Admiral Plumridge had reconnoitred the Åland Islands, and had swept the Finnish coast of the Gulf of Bothnia, taking within a month forty-six merchant ships, and destroying immense quantities of pitch and tar and naval stores. He had visited the important ports, and, by the aid of his boats, had done this damage between Abo and Brahestad. The stores destroyed were public property, for private property he respected.

In the meantime Sir Charles Napier went up the Gulf of Finland to look at Sweaborg. On the 13th of June Admiral Parseval-Deschenes joined him at Bomarsund, bringing twenty-eight ships, of which six were sailing line-of-battle ships and only one a screw line-of-battle ship. The allied fleet, exclusive of the ships doing duty as blockaders, now amounted to forty-seven sail. The Russian fleet lay in two divisions, one at Cronstadt, the other at Sweaborg; and although Sir Charles gave them plenty of opportunities, neither of them would come out and fight him together or singly. As there was so great a clamour in England for an attack upon the fortresses, it is supposed that the Russians hoped the admirals would attack one or the other, so that while they were suffering from the fire of the forts, the Russian fleets might sail out, fall upon and destroy them. The two admirals, however, were not to be so caught. They went together, in the middle of June, to reconnoitre Cronstadt, and, as was anticipated, found it out of their reach. The water was so shallow and so commanded by forts that a direct attack would have been a criminal folly, while the enemy had blocked up with sunken obstructions the passage on the northern side by which, it was just possible, the lighter ships might have got into the rear of the place. The fact is, that without gunboats and light ships, and, above all, without an army, neither Cronstadt nor Sweaborg could be attacked with success.

THE HOSPITAL AND CEMETERY AT SCUTARI, WITH CONSTANTINOPLE IN THE DISTANCE.