Victoria’s Scottish Lion

by Greenwood, Adrian; Haythornthwaite, Philip;

  It was a surprise then, on 1 July, when Panmure telegraphed to confirm Simpson, the chief of staff, as Raglan’s successor (see Plate 20). Simpson had all along held a secret dormant commission to take over in the event of Raglan’s death. A Guardsman, Scotsman and Peninsular War veteran, and reputedly the tallest man in the British army, his only battle since 1815 had been fought in Scinde under Napier. ‘They say he is a most gentlemanly person, but I do not think that he has much war experience’, declared Sterling:

  He commanded a Brigade in India, which was never engaged. They say however, he is very amiable, as if that was any use for this job. The disciplinarian of the army’s distinguishing quality – very amiable! He ought to be the Devil, as they called old Cameron of the 9th in the Peninsular War.134

  Simpson’s appointment was greeted with incredulity. Russell labelled him ‘as unfit to command a British army in such a crisis as any sergeant in the trenches’.135 Deputy Judge-Advocate Romaine wrote, ‘I have never looked so despondently on our prospects’, condemning Simpson as ‘the most unfit man for his position that could be found’.136 Colonel George Bell insisted that Campbell instead ‘should be commanding an army, not a brigade’, but having ‘not been considered high enough in the dress circle … was passed over’.137 In the Lords, Ellenborough declared:

  It does appear to me to be contrary to all reason that, when we have at our disposal officers who have acquired distinction in command where war has been carried on a great scale, we should decline to avail ourselves of their services, and should employ in preference the services of officers who, whatever the claim to distinction they may hereafter acquire, have had no opportunity of showing their talents for war.138**

  From the very start, Simpson was uncomfortable in command, and so the search began for a successor. The queen demanded ‘the appointment of a Commander of weight, both as a soldier and a gentleman of accepted position. Neither of which, the queen is grieved to admit, we have available’. Palmerston and Panmure, having rejected Lord Seaton (too old), Lord Hardinge (too unfit), the Duke of Cambridge (mentally inadequate) and Sir Harry Smith (too excitable), pared their shortlist down to Lieutenant-General Sir James Fergusson and Major-General Sir William Codrington. Fergusson, still tormented by Peninsular War wounds, had seen no active service since Waterloo, and had spent the last two years as commandant of Malta. His speed in relaying troops and medical equipment to the Crimea had won him a knighthood, but he had no other experience of command above regimental level. Codrington had not fought before 1854, but had been hailed as one of the heroes of Inkerman, earning him the thanks of parliament and a special award of £100 a year. However, at the outbreak of war Codrington had been a captain, and Campbell a brigadier-general. To promote Codrington over Campbell now would be problematic. Victoria, though happy for Codrington to leapfrog his seniors, conceded that ‘his elevation over their heads will be grievously felt, as his personal superiority is not so marked as to be generally admitted. But this is a difficulty which must give way to the necessities of the case.’ Having initially favoured Sir Richard England, Simpson now backed Codrington as well. Admiral Stewart concurred.

  ‘It is not without much reflection and well weighing of every circumstance that I have made up my mind to put him [Codrington] over the heads of England, Bentinck, Campbell and Rokeby’, Panmure told Simpson on 31 July. ‘The only man among them whom I have any hesitation in superseding is Campbell; but I have been told that, though an excellent Brigadier, he is unfit for undivided responsibility.’ Like Simpson’s before him, Codrington’s status as anointed successor was kept under wraps. ‘Codrington’s commission is safe in my desk’, Simpson assured Panmure on 14 August. ‘No human being shall ever see it, so long as I am alive and well.’

  The choice of Codrington meant the Crimean top brass would continue to be dominated by one corps. By 13 August, three of the six infantry divisions in the Crimea were commanded by Guardsmen (Bentinck, Rokeby and Codrington) with another in overall charge (Simpson), and a fifth as his chief of staff (Barnard). Even Palmerston realised, ‘We cannot have all our Generals Guardsmen’,139 though he himself was not prepared to take measures to remedy it. ‘Is it any wonder we cry out?’ protested Major Sterling:

  They have all risen to rank younger men than their neighbours, from the advantage of being in the Guards … Some people hint at the possibility of C. [Campbell] being appointed to command. I cannot believe it; the position is so high, and the aristocracy so strong. He is the only man here competent. Public opinion may have, by mistake, found this out, and may compel his appointment.140

  Palmerston and Panmure now set to sweeping aside the last obstacles in Codrington’s way: the two generals senior to him in the Crimea. Palmerston wanted Sir Richard England moved to Malta. ‘If that was done’, he explained, ‘and if Colin Campbell were told that he would have a high command in India, matters would be prepared for the event of Simpson being forced by ill health to retire.’141 ‘I do not think that will be enough for so distinguished a man as Sir Colin’, warned the queen.142 Fortunately for Panmure, fate removed one of the obstacles that August when England fell ill and his doctor ordered him to return home. Now only Campbell remained in the way.

  To occupy him, he was granted a special Highland Division of Scottish regiments. In celebration, Campbell raised the flag of St Andrew at his headquarters. This new division ‘is not done for his sake though’, claimed Sterling, ‘but to give a separate command to Lord Rokeby’. After some juggling of battalions, Rokeby ended up with the 1st Division, now bereft of Highlanders. Sterling was at least pleased to be rid of ‘the Guards, with whom we wish to have nothing to do: their privileges and pretensions are very inconvenient’.143

  The Russians were preparing another offensive. Eager for a dignified exit from the war, the new tsar, Alexander II, demanded his troops wallop the allies one last time before suing for peace. Prince Gorchakoff, by now Russian commander-in-chief in the Crimea, thought it a vain hope but the tsar was insistent, so on 16 August he made an attempt on the Fedioukine Heights. Twenty-seven thousand Frenchmen and Sardinians easily foiled him. Of the 9,902 casualties, only 1,761 were allied. General Paskevich condemned it as a battle ‘without aim, without calculation, without necessity’ which ‘eliminated the possibility of attacking anything thereafter’.144

  The next day the allies began their fifth great bombardment. Campbell’s men had been doing their share of duty in the trenches before Sebastopol since 16 July, their ranks chipped away by Russian shells and musket fire: the 93rd alone lost six men killed, fifty-seven men and one officer wounded. ‘I can imagine no duty more trying and harassing than that performed every day and night by our army in the trenches’, wrote one officer:

  If a man gets a medal for going through a battle which lasts only a few hours, without turning away, what do they deserve who, night after night, and day after day, are exposed to be killed or wounded, lying in a ditch, and have to perform their duties without the stimulus and excitement of action?145

  As the allied guns resumed firing on 17 August, the Highland Division was despatched to Kamara to strengthen the Sardinians. Campbell had expected his men to form the vanguard in the attempt on Sebastopol and had been finalising plans with Colonel Cameron. Campbell considered the move to Kamara an overreaction: ‘The position held by the French and Sardinians is naturally strong but the defences which have been constructed … have made it quite unassailable.’146 For the men, however, a change was as a good as a rest. ‘The Highlanders are camped in a delightful situation, on the slope of the hill, as if the object was to show themselves to the enemy’, reported Sir Edward Colebrooke:

  They are not a little pleased to be out of the trenches, and are preparing for a stay of a few days. This favour to a division which was encamped at Balaklava the whole of the most trying season, and has scarcely had six weeks of trench work, is a subject of much, and I think just, animadversion.147

  Like its predecessors, the August barra
ge failed to subdue Sebastopol. No encroachment on the Russian lines by infantry was even attempted. The allies’ position was dire. ‘We all felt it could not go on much longer’, lamented Wolseley:

  for our losses in killed and wounded per week were then great, and our little army could not bear that strain much longer. No more battalions were to be had from home or the colonies, and the untrained boys sent out to us as drafts were only soldiers by courtesy.148

  The failure only made Simpson more determined to storm Sebastopol, and on 7 September the Highlanders marched the 12 miles from Kamara, ready for yet another great assault the following morning. On the way they passed freshly dug pits and sacks of lime, ready for the corpses. ‘Many a one saw his own grave that morning’, recalled Colour-Sergeant Angus Cameron of the 79th.149

  When Raglan first encamped outside Sebastopol, a siege train of ninety-four guns had been thought quite sufficient to overcome the town. By September 1855 the allies had 803 guns in 115 batteries (see Plate 18). In those final four days an estimated 33,000 bombs, shells and shot were fired into Sebastopol. By the morning of the 8th, the allied barrage had resulted in 4,000 Russian casualties. ‘It was no longer possible to repair our fortifications,’ complained Gorchakoff, ‘and we restricted ourselves, consequently, to embanking the powder-magazines and stockades. The falling parapets filled up the ditches, the merlons* crumbled to pieces; it was, every moment, necessary to repair the embrasures; the gunners perished in great numbers and it became exceedingly difficult to replace them.’150

  Simpson had not sought Campbell’s advice and the allied plan of attack was broadly unchanged from that used in previous failures. It was to be a predominantly French affair, using 25,300 of their men. They would take the Malakoff bastion and the Little Redan, while the British stormed the Great Redan, an arrowhead-shaped salient jutting out from the Russian lines. The assault would be at noon, when the enemy changed the guard and left their defences unmanned for a few vital minutes. Usual French practice was to attack at dawn or dusk, so the timing would catch the Russians unawares.

  Simpson believed that those corps that had borne the brunt of the fighting were due the honour of the final assault, so leading the charge would be the Light Division and the 2nd Division.** They had been ensconced on the plateau for months, half-starved and decimated by disease, their losses made up with raw recruits from England. Morale was at rock bottom. ‘I have seen men hold their hands above the parapet, hoping to have a shot through them so as to be invalided home rather than endure such wretchedness’, recalled one sergeant.151 A war that had started in Wellingtonian style now resembled the trenches of Flanders.

  To reach the Great Redan, these exhausted British troops had 200 yards to cross, ground scoured by Russian artillery, making victory, in Campbell’s mind, ‘a most impossible event’.152 Spearheading the assault would be 320 men with 40 ladders, under the command of Lieutenant Ranken, RE. In Campbell’s opinion:

  To suppose that such a work defended by Russian soldiers was to be carried out by forty men presenting themselves on the ramparts from forty ladders, supposing we had succeeded in bringing the whole forty to the scarp of the Work and placing them against it, [was] a most improbable event under the fire of artillery and musquetry.

  Following Ranken’s forlorn hope would be a further 1,000 men, with a second wave of 1,500 behind. Another 3,000 troops huddled in the third parallel as additional support. Campbell’s division formed the second reserve, the 79th on the right with the 42nd behind them, and on the left the 72nd supported by the 93rd. A narrow trench led to the front, making it hard for the men to disgorge quickly, or to congregate in ‘one big honest lump’ – the critical omission Campbell had identified at San Sebastian.

  ‘The day was fine and bright, though somewhat chilly, for a keen north wind blew with considerable force’, recalled one officer. ‘We had had no rain for some time, and the heavy breeze raised the dust in clouds, and fairly blinded us at times.’153 As noon approached, the allies all but ceased firing, with just a few guns left battering the suburbs. The French had only 20 yards between their forward trenches and the Russians. ‘They had constructed a bridge which they had placed on wheels or slides by which it could be moved forward and be placed across the ditch, capable of admitting three men in front’, explained Campbell:

  The signal of advance was made at Noon. In a moment the salient of the Work was covered with men. The French flew across the short space intervening between their Works and the ditch and got into the Malakoff in strength without a shot being fired. The bridge being placed across the ditch, they hurried over by that passage, as well as through the two galleries and in crowds over the glacis into the ditch, and there having been no resistance in getting in, though plenty afterwards in the attempt of the enemy to drive them out, they rapidly ascended the Malakoff at this salient.

  Once inside, the French cut the wires of the mines rigged to explode the bastion. The Russians were taken by surprise. The Zouaves found the Malakoff’s commander in the middle of lunch. The attack had lasted no more than a few minutes.

  At the Little Redan the French met a more resolute defence. ‘The attack on the Malakoff was a complete surprise; and as all the other attacks were to be contingent on the success of the one on that Work, the enemy in every other point of their defences were fully prepared and in readiness for resistance’, explained Campbell. ‘The obstacles prepared were many and difficult to be overcome, the ditch was deep and the scarp hardly injured, and the front of fire was extensive which the enemy could offer to the advance of the French.’154 Nevertheless, ‘Vinoy’s strength of character kept his men to their work’, reported Sterling. ‘He planted his sword in the ground, near the flag which was hoisted at the gorge of Malakoff, and, with revolver in hand, threatened to shoot anyone who retired beyond the sword.’

  Now it was the turn of the British. First out of the trenches were the Rifles, followed by the ladder party. Against them were ranged 7,500 Russian troops. Unlike the French, the British were expected and found themselves raked by grapeshot. Enough of them made it to the Great Redan’s outer defences for the Vladimir troops inside to fall back, but their momentum was squandered. ‘They had got a habit of skulking behind gabions; “gabion dodging” is their own word’, complained Sterling. ‘Those that did go out, for the most part clung like a swarm of bees on the exterior slope of the parapet of the Redan.’155 Many of the men were convinced the bastion was mined, ready to blow once enough British troops were inside. The Russians, surprised by their enemy’s timidity, now launched a counter-attack, taking 150 British troops prisoner, and buying themselves enough time to reinforce the Redan with two more Russian battalions.

  ‘There was little of that dash and enthusiasm which might have been looked for from British soldiers in an assault’, declared Ranken. ‘In fact, it required all the efforts and example of their officers to get the men on, and these were rendered almost ineffective from the manner in which the various regiments soon got confused and jumbled together.’156 ‘Some forty men and officers actually got in and were killed inside,’ reported Campbell:

  but these bolder men were not closely supported, and gave way. Those who followed … came forward well, filled the ditch and face of the work close on either side of the salient; but there they remained without moving forward over the crest of the work, from whence they were shot down unresistingly, giving way at last in confusion, and retiring in precipitation to the trenches.157

  ‘Each fresh arrival of troops upon the salient increased the terrible confusion which prevailed there, instead of coming as an effective reinforcement’, complained one soldier.158

  Brigadier-Generals Shirley and Van Straubenzee, Colonels Unett and Handcock, and Major Welsford had been all killed or wounded, leaving Colonel Charles Windham as the senior officer. Windham had already sent three officers back to Codrington requesting reinforcements (one of them twice), but none of his requests had had any effect. Codrington had remained ‘in
the advanced trench, with all his Staff, about 250 yards from the angle of the Redan, with his men clustered in its rampart, neither advancing nor retiring for three quarters of an hour’, according to Sterling.159 Windham decided to turn back and ask Codrington in person. It would prove a grave mistake. As another colonel observed, ‘If the majority of the men fighting, see their leader, unhurt, turn his back to the enemy, it is very certain the men will quickly follow his example.’160 Windham found Codrington vacillating. He questioned the prospects for another assault, and whether Windham could even reach the Redan again. Still trying to convince Codrington, Windham saw his troops fall back.

  ‘I heard, directly after I regained our trenches, that three officers of the 41st, after vainly striving to induce the men to advance, rushed forward together, and were all three shot down like one man by the cross-fire of the Russians behind their parados’, recalled Ranken. ‘That was the turning point, according to this account, of the men’s indecision; they wavered and fled.’161 ‘It was a most galling sight to see our men running like scattered sheep from that slaughterhouse across the ground between the Redan and our trenches, and the Russians blazing away at them’, wrote Colour-Sergeant Cameron. ‘I may say, that all ranks, from the Colonel down to the Pioneer, were disgusted.’162