The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1855-10-16 00:00:00

THE DEFENCE OF SEBASTOPOL.

THE following summary of Prince Gortschakoff's report of
the defence of Sebastopol, from the 17th of August to the 9th
of September, is taken from the Journal de Petersbourg :
On the 17th of August the enemy opened against the fau-
bourg of Karabelnaia a double fire of artillery, horizontal and
vertical, which was continued through twenty days. Our loss
during this period amounted on the first day to 1,500 men, on
those following to 1,000; and from the 22nd of August to the
sth of September to 500 or 600 men every twenty-four hours.
This cannonade, kept up from the distant batteries, as well as
from those at a very short distance from the line of defence,
produced the most disastrous effect on our works; the ram-
parts and batteries, repaired every night under a heavy fire,
crumbled down at last after a few shots; the parapets fell in
large masses into the ditches, and works which had cost in-
credible sacrifices and toil were again destroyed. To the left
of the Karabelnaia, which was more particularly injured by
the enemy, the Bastion No. 2 was reduced every evening to a
heap of ruins, and none of its guns could be fired freely; we
were compelled to transfer to the second line of defence, which
was still entire, the battery of twelve guns established on the
left slope of the Malakhoff Hill; and even this second line
suffered no less than the left face of the Kornileff Bastion,
against which the enemy directed the heaviest fire.
The proximity of the approaches of the enemy, which al-
most touched the outward ditches of our works ; the irrepa-
rable damage done to the line of defences, and, above all, the
loss sustained by the garrison from the fire of the enemy,
which was rendered still heavier by the necessity of employing
a constantly increasing number of men as labourers; all these
circumstances united convinced the Commander-in-Chief of
the indispensable necessity of putting an end to a now useless
effusion of blood, by abandoning to the enemy the city of Se-
bastopol, reduced to heaps of stones and ashes. But this
evacuation, in face of a hostile force of a hundred thousand
men, whose approaches already touched our line of fortifica-
tions, presented the greatest difficulties, and imposed the ne-
cessity of selecting for the operation a particularly favourable
opportunity.
The report here repeats more in detail the effect of the feu
infernal of the allies on the Russian works ; the falling ram-
parts filled up the ditches; and it was impossible to do more
than secure the powder magazines by covering them with
earth. From the sth to the Bth of September, the report states
that the loss of the garrison was 4 superior officers, 47 subal-
terns, and 3,917 men. After describing the arrangements
made on receiving notice that the troops of the allies were as-
eembling in the trenches in front of the Malakhoff, Prince
Gortschakoff adds :
On the Bth of September, at 11 30 a.m., the enemy rushed
precipitately from their saps against the angles of the Kornileff
Bastion and Bastion No. 2.
The ditches, filled up with the earth of the crumbled
parapets, did not present any great obstacle to the assailants.
They rushed into the Bastion No. 2, drove from it the
battalions of the Regiment Olonet, and, after having spiked
some of the guns, had gained the Ouschakoff Ravine, and the
second line of defence ; but there Major Ynroschevitch, with a
battalion of the Regiment Belozersk, repulsed them with the
bayonet, and drove them beyond the parapet.
The report states that the French were also repulsed from
the 12-gun battery, into which they penetrated by the
chevaux de frise, and then proceeds to the French grand
attack of the Malakhoff Tower :
The angle of the Kornileff Bastion (the Malakhoff) was
attacked by an enormous mass of troops, by five French
divisions, amounting to about 30,000 men. The advanced
column entered the bastion by the left angle, and drove back
from it the Regiment of Praga. The commander of this
regiment, Colonel Freund, charged the French with several
companies with the bayonet, and checked them ; but he was
wounded, and the assaulting columns which continued to
come up repulsed by a vigorous charge the regiments on the
hill at the time, and the enemy held possession of the whole
of its summit. Most of the commanders of regiments and
battalions, as well as the officers, had been killed or wounded ;
our troops kept their ground obstinately by the powder-
magazines nearest the tower and the battery that commanded
Bastion No. 3 ; but about 2 p.m. they were compelled to
yield to the superiority in number of the masses of the enemy,
which continued to advance and occupy the hill ; our troops
retired behind the gorge of the Malakhoff. The conflict on
this point, where the adversaries were separated by the deep
ditch and the rampart of the gorge, was maintained for a
long time with obstinacy and fury ; the numerous columns of
the enemy made several attempts to throw our troops back,
but were each time repulsed with the bayonet.
In the attack made at the same time on the Gervais Battery
,he French drove out of it the regiment of Chasseurs of his

Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Michael. The report
then describes the English attack on the Redan :

At noon the English, advancing in skirmishing order, sus-
tained by strong reserves, rushed on the angle of Bastion No.
3. The Vladimir Regiment, thrown back at the first moment
of the attack, but supported in time by companies of the
Regiments Kamtschatka and Yakoutsk, charged the enemy
with the bayonet, and repulsed those of the English who had
already gained the parapet, and were setting fire to the
fascines of. the sides of the embrasures. Lieutenant-General
Pavloff, who expected a second attack of the bastion by the
enemy, reinforced the troops of the defence by the Seleng-
hinsk Regiment, which formed the reserve. The enemy did
renew the attack at the angle of the bastion, but was re-
pulsed by this regiment, under the command of Colonel
Mezentsoff, who fell during the assault. A third attack by
the enemy was repulsed with the same success as the two
first. A portion of the assailants established themselves in
the fosse, and directed from thence a sharp fire of musketry ;
48 volunteers of the Vladimir Regiment, under the command
of Ensign Doubihvine, descended into the ditch, and drove
the English out of it.
The report details the incidents of the conflict on the city
side of the Malakhoff. It appears only that the French did
not advance beyond the works they had taken at noon, and
several attempts to do so are described as having been foiled.
At last, however,—

The Commander-in-Chief proceeded himself to the second
line of our intrenchments before the Malakoff-hill, and, finding
the height occupied by large masses of French troops, in the
rear of which there were strong reserves, he was convinced
that the re-occupation of the Kornileff Bastion (the Malakhoff)
would again necessitate immense sacrifices, As he had already
decided on abandoning the city, he resolved to take advantage
of the fact that the assault had been repulsed on every other
point to execute this most difficult operation while the enemy
was still exhausted by fatigue. Accordingly, he ordered Lieut.-
General Schepeleff not to attack the Kornileff Bastion, but, at
all hazards, to prevent the enemy from debouchiug from it in
the direction of the city. These orders were punctually ex-
ecuted, notwithstanding all the efforts of the French to advance
in front of the gorge of the bastion.
Prince Gortschakoff then mentions the names of the officers
who had distinguished themselves during the latter operations,
and gives the number of killed and wounded during the day of
the Bth of Sept.: it was 4 superior officers, 55 subalterns, and
2,625 men killed; wounded, 26 superior officers, 206 subal-
terns, and 5,826 men ; contused, 9 superior officers, 38 subal-
terns, and 1,138 men ; 24 officers and 1,739 men were missing.
He thinks the loss of the allies in killed and wounded must
have been enormous. The report then proceeds to the evacu-
ation : - -

At four p.m. the Commander-in-Chief gave the order to
commence the evacuation of the south side of Sebastopol at the
fall of night, and for the transportation of the troops to the
north side, partly by boats, partly by the bridges constructed
in the bay. The operation was conducted in the following man-
ner :—The volunteers and part of the artillery were left on the
line of defence, and kept up a slack fire from the guns and small
arms. The lines of barricades previously constructed in the
interior of the city were occupied on the right by the regi-
ments Tobolsk, Volhynia, and Minsk; on the left, by those of
Azoff and Odessa. Covered by these troops in advance, the
different corps formed behind them were marched in succession
to the Nicholas-place, and thence crossed the creek by the
bridge ; those from the Karabelnaia Faubourg were carried
over in boats and steamers prepared by Vice-Admiral Nova-
silsky. When the troops had 11l quitted the Nicholas-
place and the Paulovsky point, and the wounded in the
batteries of Nicholas and Paul had been transported to the
north side, a signal was given, and the rest of the artil-
lery, the volunteers, and the troops occupying the bar-
ricades began to move towards the points of passage of
the bay. As the last troops retired from the different points
of the line of defence the heavy pieces of artillery on the works