Persian Empire 1845

Chapter 147 Rout
The next day was an Orthodox holiday, and in Russia, it was the day to celebrate the birth of the Virgin Mary. The Russian troops held a service at their camp, praying for her blessings. Groups of soldiers sat around the campfire, chatting until late into the night. Veterans recounted their past battles to their younger comrades; they drank, smoked, told jokes, and tried to appear calm and composed.

By morning, the Allied forces had assembled on the plain, with the British on the left side of Sevastopol Road and the French and Turkish troops on the right, spreading out towards the coastal cliffs. It was a clear, windless day, and a well-dressed crowd had gathered on Telegraph Hill, all invited by Menshikov to watch the battle. From there, the details of the British and French uniforms could be clearly distinguished, and the sounds of drums, bugles, bagpipes, even the clanging of metal and the neighing of horses could be heard.

According to the battle plan agreed upon the previous day, both British and French forces advanced simultaneously, maintaining a broad forward line, and then launched an attack from the left flank, the inland side, to outflank the enemy. However, at the last minute, Lagren decided to postpone the British attack, waiting for the French to achieve a breakthrough on the right flank. He ordered the British troops, already within range of Russian artillery, to lie down and await the opportune moment to charge towards the Alma River. This resulted in the British being subjected to an hour and a half of Russian artillery bombardment.

While the British troops awaiting orders were being attacked on the ground, the French army reached the banks of the Alma River. Before the French, the cliffs on the opposite bank were extremely steep, almost fifty meters above the river, so Menshikov assumed there was no need for artillery protection.

The majority of the French vanguard soldiers came from North Africa and had accumulated extensive experience in mountain warfare on the Algerian front. They left their backpacks on the bank, swam across the Alma River, and quickly climbed the cliff under the cover of the bushes. The Russian troops were stunned by the French soldiers' agility, watching helplessly as they scaled the cliff with the agility of monkeys. Once at the top, they immediately hid among the rocks and bushes, eliminating the defending Russian soldiers one by one while awaiting reinforcements.

More French soldiers climbed the cliff, and they also carried twelve cannons up. If the horses were unwilling to climb the steep mountain path, the soldiers whipped them with their swords. The French artillery arrived just in time to counter the artillery and soldiers that Menshikov had just brought in from the center of the front. He realized that he was in danger of the front being breached and tried to hold onto his left flank.

Menshikov's emergency plan failed. By the time Russian reinforcements reached the left flank, the entire French vanguard, along with many Turkish soldiers, had already reached the cliff top. The Russians had twenty-eight cannons, more than the French twelve, but the French artillery had larger calibers and longer ranges. The power of the French rifles kept the Russian artillery at bay, and the French artillery's range advantage immediately became apparent.

Meanwhile, the Allied fleet's cannons on the nearby sea began bombarding the Russian positions on the cliff tops, demoralizing the Russian officers and soldiers. The commander of the Russian left flank, Kiriakov, was one of the most incompetent generals in the Tsarist army and a frequent drinker, rarely sober. Holding a bottle of champagne, he ordered the Minsk Regiment to open fire on the French, but misdirected his fire, aiming at the Kiev Hussars. Encountering friendly fire, the Kiev Hussars were forced to retreat. The Minsk Regiment, having completely lost faith in its drunken commander and terrified by the deadly accuracy of the French muskets, also began to retreat.

To maximize the effectiveness of their rifles, the British soldiers advanced in narrow lines, a formation that required strict command to maintain in rugged terrain. The Russians were stunned to see a thin red line emerge from the smoke. They had never seen soldiers fighting in two lines, nor had they imagined such discipline, enabling them to launch an attack on the massive Russian army with such a seemingly weak formation.

The Scottish Flint Rifle Regiment was the first to cross the river. Upon receiving orders, they immediately charged up the slope, only to collide head-on with the retreating Allied forces. The Scottish Flint Rifle Regiment suffered the greatest losses, with soldiers being knocked to the ground and bearskin hats flying everywhere. When they finally managed to avoid the oncoming friendly forces and continue their charge towards the hill, they were only half their original size, and their formation was in disarray.

Approximately two thousand Scottish soldiers, arranged in a horizontal line, launched fourteen volleys at the Russian infantry. The firepower was incredibly concentrated, equivalent to several machine guns, and the Russian infantry were completely routed, falling in droves and forced to retreat to higher ground on the slope. When the British soldiers had to act as snipers, they showed no fear in the hail of bullets, nor did they need orders from their superiors. Their weapons were high-tech creations.

The Minié rifle was a new type of weapon at the time, using bullets invented by French officer Minié in 1848. It maintained deadly accuracy even beyond the range of Russian smoothbore muskets and cannons.

Most British troops were issued their weapons en route to Crimea and received only hasty training. However, once they discovered the high accuracy and long range of their weapons, they immediately gained confidence. When the Russians were 300 paces away from the British, our smoothbore muskets couldn't hit them, while the Russians could fire at the Russians from 1200 paces away.

Faced with deadly rifle fire, the Russian infantry and artillery, holding high ground without the protection of trenches, were unable to hold their positions. The Russian infantry and artillery retreated, and the British slowly advanced up the slope, their path strewn with the corpses and wounded of the enemy.

Seeing the heavily armed enemy closing in, panic began to creep into the Russian ranks. Priests went to the ranks to pray for the soldiers, whose prayers grew increasingly urgent. Officers on horseback cracked their whips to urge their men forward, but apart from that, no Russian commanders were in control of the battle. Then a drunken Russian general gave the order to retreat from the left flank of the hill, and then disappeared in a panic. Several hours later, he was found hiding in a hole in the ground.

Unable to find a way to retreat, the Russian troops began to scatter in all directions, fleeing down the hills and getting as far away from the enemy as possible. Officers rode their horses, cracking whips to drive the fleeing soldiers around like cowboys herding cattle, but to no avail; the soldiers had lost all patience with their officers.

The vast majority of the Russian troops retreated in disarray towards the Kacha River, without commanders or any idea of ​​what to do or where to go. Many soldiers did not rejoin their units for several days. On Telegraph Hill, a group of Cossacks attempted to take Menshikov's wagon but were captured by the French. They discovered a field kitchen inside the wagon, along with letters from the Tsar, 50,000 francs in cash, French erotic novels, Menshikov's boots, and several pairs of women's underwear. On the hilltop were also discarded picnic blankets, parasols, and field binoculars, left behind by spectators from Sevastopol.

On the battlefield, dead and wounded soldiers lay everywhere. Among them were two thousand British soldiers, sixteen hundred French soldiers, and perhaps five thousand Russian soldiers; the exact number was impossible to determine due to the sheer number. It took the British two whole days to evacuate their wounded. The Russians, however, didn't even have time to evacuate them, watching them groan and die on the battlefield.

(End of this chapter)