Persian Empire 1845

Chapter 152 Siege of Sevastopol
In the new year, whether it's Russia, Britain, France, or Iran, their eyes are all fixed on two places on the map: Georgia and Sevastopol.

Sevastopol was on high alert, but the level of alert didn't seem very high. Privates had just crawled out of their trenches, washed their bronze faces with cold water, turned east, quickly made the sign of the cross, and began to pray. Several camels pulled a heavy cart, creaking and groaning, towards the cemetery, its cart laden with bloodied corpses to be buried there. The stench of coal, beef, manure, and dampness permeated the dock. Thousands upon thousands of odds and ends were piled haphazardly together—firewood, scraps of meat, gabion netting, flour sacks, iron bars, and so on—all heaped upon the dockside.

On civilian sailboats, all sorts of people huddled together. Soldiers, sailors, merchants, and women frequently came ashore and sailed away along the shore. A little further away, a large open space was crammed with large quantities of square timber beams, gun carriages, and soldiers sleeping haphazardly, surrounded by horses, wagons, green field guns loaded with ammunition boxes, and infantry muskets mounted together. Soldiers, sailors, officers, merchants, women, and children came and went; carts loaded with hay, sacks, or barrels moved in and out; every now and then, a Cossack officer on horseback or a general sitting on a scooter would appear.

Sevastopol is a military city with a naval base that houses 18,000 troops. Among its approximately 40,000 inhabitants, everyone's life is connected to the operation of the naval base in various ways, and it is this close connection that makes this naval port so resilient.

Some sailors and their families have lived here since the port was built. Social life in the city is monotonous; on the main avenues of the city center, one rarely sees anyone in a formal overcoat except for those in naval uniforms. There are no outstanding museums, galleries, concert halls, or other treasures of knowledge and culture. The imposing neoclassical buildings in the city center all bear a military imprint: the Admiralty, naval academy, armory, barracks, shipyard, military shops and warehouses, military hospital, and an officers' library—one of the richest in Europe.

Before the Allied invasion of Crimea, people indulged in endless revelry, drinking, and gambling, as if there were no tomorrow, and prostitutes were constantly patronized. The news of the Allied landing dampened people's spirits, but junior officers remained brimming with confidence, believing that the Russian army would surely defeat the Anglo-French forces, and were still toasting to the victory of 1812.

However, the Russian army's successive defeats panicked the civilians of Sevastopol. Everyone thought that the Allied forces might attack from the north at any moment, so when they saw the Allied fleet appearing in the south, they were puzzled and mistakenly thought that the city had been besieged. Many residents of the city began to flee spontaneously, but were stopped by the Russian army.

The city's water supply had dropped to a dangerous level; the fountains had stopped flowing, and residents were forced to draw water from wells, where the water level was already low for the season. The Allied forces learned from deserters that the city's water supply came from the high ground where the Russians were stationed, so they cut off the water source. Only the irrigation canals supplying the naval docks remained in Sevastopol.

As the Anglo-French forces set up camp on the southern highlands, preparing for an artillery bombardment, the Russian troops inside the city began reinforcing the southern defenses day and night. At this time, Menshkov was nowhere to be seen, and the task of commanding the defense of Sevastopol fell primarily on three men: Vice Admiral Kornilov, Chief of Staff of the Black Sea Fleet; engineer Totodelben; and Nakhimov, the commander of the naval port, a hero of the Battle of Sinop and very popular with the sailors.

The work to strengthen the fortifications was carried out hastily and haphazardly. As soon as construction began, the defenders discovered that Sevastopol lacked shovels, so they sent men to Odessa to urgently procure them. Three weeks later, the men returned with four hundred shovels. Meanwhile, the soldiers and civilians in the city began working on wooden shovels made from planks.

Nicholas I wrote to General Gorchakov, reminding him that it was the "special spirit of the Russians" that saved the country when facing Napoleon, and urging him to once again rouse this spirit to fight against Britain and France.

"Tell our young sailors that all my hopes are on them. Tell them not to bow down to anyone, to place their hopes in God's mercy, to remember that they are Russians, that they are guarding our homeland and our faith, and to entrust themselves to God. May God bless you! All my prayers are for you, all my prayers are for our sacred mission."

Meanwhile, the Allied forces embarked on a lengthy preparation for the siege. The British faced numerous problems transporting artillery, having to dismantle many cannons to unload them from ships and onto land. Meanwhile, the French had begun digging trenches. Braving Russian artillery fire, they slowly constructed serrated trenches towards the Sevastopol fortifications. Three thousand French soldiers dug under intense Russian fire, excavating new trenches every night and repairing damaged sections during the day, with explosive shells and mortar shells flying overhead.

Two weeks later, the French army had completed five fortifications, constructing fences, breastworks, and crenellations from sandbags and wood, and more than fifty cannons were mounted on platforms raised above the ground. At this point, the Allied forces decided to bombard Sevastopol.

Early in the morning, as the fog had just lifted, Russian observation posts spotted that the enemy's gun ports were already open. Before the enemy could fire, the Russians preemptively opened fire, followed by the Allied artillery, including seventy-three British cannons and fifty-three French cannons, all roaring into action. Sevastopol was engulfed in a massive cloud of black smoke, which hung in the air above the battlefield, darkening the sky and making it impossible for the Allied artillery to aim.

Around noon, the Allied fleet joined the bombardment, forming an arc outside the harbor entrance and firing towards Sevastopol. During the six-hour bombardment, the Allies deployed 1,240 cannons, while the defending coastal batteries had only 150. The shelling created enormous smoke, obscuring the location of the Allied warships from view. Some gunners were terrified, but others were incredibly brave, firing even as Allied shells exploded near their heads, aiming at the flashes of light emerging from the smoke-shrouded Allied fleet.

The Allied fleet fired approximately 50,000 shells but caused little actual damage, forcing them to weigh anchor and depart. A headcount revealed five severely damaged ships, thirty sailors killed, and over 500 wounded. The Allied fleet was destined to play only a supporting role in the siege of Sevastopol.

(End of this chapter)