Fremont journal. [volume] (Fremont, Sandusky County [Ohio]) 1853-1866, 1854-12-22

I .
wbers the two bravest armies Of their time
combated each other for six years From
half-past six TO half past nine about 5000
British stood the shock Of Russian army,
which, according to the Russians own state
mcnt, had at least 81 600 men engaged
The firmness with which they again aud
again repu!sed the Russian attacks. m de
often with fresh troopa, is above all praise,
and it is doubtful whether any other troops
in Europe, except the best battal.ions Of
| Radeizki's army, could have done the same.
This bravery. it must be said, Tns aided by
the nature Of the position. The front, to-
ward the east, was established ON heights
so abrupt that they could not be forced -
The knoll 10 the north, oacupicd by The Rus.
SLAMS. was also separated from these heights
/ by couple Of ravines, forming so many de-.
Giles leading 20 the English position. Eve
ry advancing column Of the Russians was,
therefore, exuosed TO the full blowing fire
of the British artillery, AMI had to advance
in close order up to the top Of the heights
before it could depioy. Weakened by the
fire Of the artillery, and, when nearer, Of the
musketry, the Russian columns arrived on
;he crest, and, before they conil deploy in
to line. discharge and a rush with the
bayonet threw them down again 1t was
found, in this fight, that, at close distances,
the Mimic bullet has an immense supcriori-
tv over the common musket bullet, whose
force of penetration is barely sufficient 10
kill one man, while MIME bullet often Kill
led four or five and had telling effect up.
on the deep Russian columns.
As TIE British divisions came up the
| iigh, became general, and extended upon a
longer front The Russians, unable to
make much Roadway, attacked the original
front Of the British position with their left,
while their right tiled to penetrate toward
Sevastopol. They succeeded. partly, in es-
tablisEing themselves on the British heights
without, however, being able to form a reg
uar line of battle. They tried to surround,
and cut up, one by one, the separate small
bodies of British troops. Though the strug
gle was hard, and the British fought won.
derfully, yet they would have been crush
ed in this unequal contest, had not the
French division of Bosquet come up. TIC
Zouaves and the Foreign Legion charged
the Russian left flank, and completely roll
ed it up, while the Chasseurs d'Afrique
found an occasion to charge, and the Rus
sian infantry had to retire. Thus, four
teen thousand allies. with loss ofone.third
Of their number, defeated thirty thousand
Russians, and yet it is acknowledged that
the Russians, individually, fought very well
while We have seen that their gencralship.
as far as the plan of attack was concerned,
was far superior to that Of the Allies
How, then, we're they beaten? 1t must
be said that most of the troops engaged
were the broken and dispirited remnants
OF the bcseigers of Sistra. and it is certain
that Dannenberg's corps. next to Osten
Sacken's late corps. is at present the worst
in the Russian army. But this was not the
decisive circumstance. The battle was lost
next to the bravery ofthe English, through
the essentially Russian way in which it was
conducted Ii is Russian warfare which has
succumbcd to European warfare. And this
is the characteristics feature Of the battle.
The Russian commander begins by draw,
ing up very good plan of attack, borrow
ed from one of Napuleon's most celebrated
battles, (for no Russian general ever had
an original thought, not even Suvaro0, whose
only originality was that Of direct advance).
He follows this up by setting about its exc
cution in the very best manner possible
He establishes himselfo on the enemy's flank
The sirategical movemen; is completed; the
tactical performance begins And here, all
at once, the scientific and learned mode of
warfare, the work Of western civilization, is
thrown away, and the pure barbarism breaks
forth This splendid army, with its old
troops many Of whom had been twenty Eve
years under arms, this model ofparade drill.
is so clumsy. so incapable OF skirmishing
and fighting in small bodies, that its officers
can do nothing with it but throw its heavy
bulk in single mass upon the enemy
All idea of tactical maneuvering is aban-
doned; advance, advance, advance, is the
only thing that can be done This dense
mass Of living flesh was. Of course by its We
ry compactness, the best mark an artillery
man could wish for; and while the thin
British lines. lying down behind the cres,
of the hill; were protected from fire, they
plowed up the deep columns with round
shot, killing them by thirtes and forties at
discharge. and rained storm of MIME
bullets npon them hardly one of which
could miss target Of such extent. The
mere brute pressure, the weight Of this mass
was to break the allied lines. But here
they found an opponent accustomed to that
style of warfare. The British, in their In
dian wars, have learned to withstand the
shock Of dense masses. even If Of superior
numbers And, il the Russians are far
above the Sikhs or Beloodshis, yet the
troops which were accustomed to beat six
or eight times their number of Sikhs or
BeloodshiS. might well stand the attack of
three times their number Of Russians. as
soon as the Russians adopted the tactics of
the Sikhs The Russians column, when
they arrived on the top of the hill. were al
ready broken and disordered by the fire,
and another volley at fifty yards and a
ch rye with the boyonet was sufficient to
break them. Afterward as the Russians
came up more numerously, the British, like
Napoeon's squares among the Mamelukes
at the Pyramids, stood among the flood of
Russians surrounding them. The steadi-
r y l. r.