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The English took possession of the harbor of Balaklava and the French of Kamiesch: these were the points to which subsequent reinforcements and supplies for the army in the Crimea were sent. November 5, at the battle of Inkermann, the allied army numbered seventy-one thousand men. At the end of January, 1855, the French force was seventy-five thousand men and ten thousand horses.
It was called upon, moreover, to occupy an immense front a front which extended from the sea at Kamiesch to the Tchernaya, and from the Tchernaya, by a long and circuitous route, back to the sea at Balaclava. This line, offensive as regards the siege-works, but defensive along the unduly extended and exposed right flank at Balaclava, was close on twenty miles.
Horses stood ready saddled in the stables, and officers came and went at all hours. Men needed to possess iron constitution and indomitable energy to meet the demands upon their strength. "Lord Raglan wants somebody to go at once to Kamiesch," said General Airey, coming out one morning to the room in which his staff-assistants worked and waited for special instructions.
To the left it fell away gradually towards the sea. This formed the third side of the triangle. But between Balaklava and Sebastopol the land made a wide bulge outwards, and in this bulge lay the French harbor of Kamiesch. From the Marine Heights to the crest looking down upon Sebastopol was a distance of some seven miles.
From the right of our position above Inkerman Valley to Kamiesch was about five miles. A glance at the map will enable this explanation to be understood. At the commencement of the siege the British were posted on the right of the Allies. This, no doubt, was the post of honor, but it threw upon them an enormous increase of work.
It was the gossip round the camp-fire, where men beguiled the weary hours of trench-duty. It was tossed from mouth to mouth by thoughtless subalterns as they galloped on their Tartar ponies for a day's outing to Kamiesch, when released from sterner toil. The attack! To-morrow next day some day never! So it went on, with a wearisome, monotonous sameness that was perfectly exasperating.
The march from the Katcha to the south side was performed without interruption, and on the 26th, six days after the battle of Alma, the Allied Army reached their new position. According to arrangements, the British occupied the harbor of Balaklava, while the French took possession of Kamiesch and Kaznatch, as bases for the supply of their armies.
Is it meant for the Sea of Azof and Kertch, like the last, which alarmed us so, and never got so far? "What a business that was! We heard of it long beforehand; preparations for transport, and the embarkation of the troops. The fleet left Kamiesch, steering northward, past Sebastopol, and we thought the latter would be attacked.
He argued that, as the engineers had been mistaken once, they might be wrong again; and he clinched his argument by saying that, whatever might be the value of his opinion in such a case, he was at all events entitled to pronounce an opinion as to the insufficiency of Kamiesch as a harbour for the allied armies; that this harbour was utterly inadequate; and that the abandonment of Balaclava meant the evacuation of the Crimea in a week.
No less than 250,000 pounds of gunpowder exploded, together with mounds of shells, carcasses and small ammunition. Hundreds of rockets rushed through the air, shells burst in all directions over the camp, and boxes of small ammunition exploded in every direction. The ships in the harbors of Balaklava and Kamiesch rocked under the explosion.
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