Chapter VII (2)

“All this time the men were coming back from the front, hopping
or crouching according to the nature of the wound, amongst them
my friend Captain Hayman, supported by two men, shot through
the knee, but with a cheerful smile on his face. Seeing that
the advance was much weakened I supported them with two other
companies, sending Major Kennedy to the front; he was shortly
after slightly hit on the side of the head, but not compelled
to return. The enemy knew well the position of the houses they
were in, and threw the shell amongst them. Fancy one of these
visitors falling within ten feet of you--down you must lie, and
close too, and wait for its bursting, when you are fortunate if
you have nothing worse than dust to complain of! They not only
gave shells, but rifle-balls and grape, and many a poor fellow
who went out to help a wounded comrade was obliged in his turn to
be carried in desperately wounded.

“Again the front calls out for ammunition and more men. ‘Up, my
boys, catch hold of that barrel of ammunition, and rush through
the whizzing balls, the tearing grape!’ Away they go with a
cheer! About 12 o’clock the last company but one went out and
other companies, returning, dreadfully thinned, formed the
support. Shortly after one, more men were wanted; I sent out the
last company and went myself. Away we hop from stone to stone
or bush: ‘ping-ping’ passes the rifle-bullet crashing around
you; you feel the grape; never mind, on you must go! I found the
advanced parties in a row of houses under the battery, regularly
enclosed by a screen of projectiles; you could only creep about.
In the morning these houses had been occupied by the Russians;
by the time I got there, everything was broken:--pier glasses in
shivers; the piano (or as a man called it, the music-box) torn
open; beds, tables and wardrobes in jumbles of masses. The enemy
did not like our being there, nor did they like that the houses
gave us cover; they therefore set fire to them with shells. About
3 o’clock I received an order to retire, which I could not comply
with as there were eighteen wounded men to bring away, which
could not be done till dark.”

According to Colonel Edwards, the three companies of the XVIIIth in the ruined houses on the Woronzoff road and the other battalions of the brigade also received this order, and gradually drew back, leaving the greater part of the Royal Irish in a most dangerous situation.

“Every moment our small party was decreasing. What weary hours
they seemed from three till eight, and just before it was time to
move, the enemy brought field-pieces to bear upon the houses,
and they commenced knocking them down about our heads. At last I
heard with joy ‘The last wounded man has been carried off, Sir.’
‘Well, then, go away by twos and threes: keep up a warm fire.
When across the open, bugler, sound the Regimental Call and the
Retire.’

“The work is done, but out of 669 men who left the camp, 250 of
the Royal Irish had suffered more or less. We did not get home
till ten o’clock, wearied and exhausted. The remainder of the
brigade acted on our right, and the 44th lost nearly as many in
proportion as we did. Our brigade was more than successful, and
have received great praise, especially the Royal Irish regiment.”

In so broken and disjointed a combat it is always difficult for the General to select officers and men for special commendation. Eyre appears to have found it impossible to do so, and after stating in his report that every one in his brigade “most nobly performed his duty,” and that “the conduct of all was so exemplary that he could scarcely with justice particularize individuals,” he contented himself with mentioning the names of his staff and the officers commanding the advance-guard and the five regiments of the brigade. Colonel Edwards’ report on the part played by the XVIIIth doubtless recorded some of the deeds of valour performed by the Royal Irish; but unhappily no copy of this document has been preserved in the archives of the regiment. His letter, vivid and deeply interesting as it is, was written, it is believed, for the information of Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, and aims obviously at giving a general account of the engagement, without any unnecessary detail. The “Digest of Service” should have contained every particular of the doings of the regiment, but unfortunately it was compiled by an officer who recorded the adventures of the XVIIIth in the Crimea in two or three loosely-written pages of foolscap, from which everything of historical value was omitted. Thus the only accounts of the exploits of the Royal Irish on the 18th of June are to be found in a few statements, contributed by officers many years after the war was over, and in the dry official words announcing the bestowal of decorations. Every soldier knows that for one specially brave deed reported after an engagement, scores pass unnoticed or are forgotten, and therefore the instances now given can be regarded only as specimens of the conduct of the regiment as a whole.

Captain Thomas Esmonde was awarded the Victoria Cross[173] for two acts of bravery, the first of which was performed on the 18th of June. The Gazette runs as follows: “for having, after being engaged in the attack on the Redan,[174] repeatedly assisted at great personal risk under a heavy fire of shell and grape, in rescuing wounded men from exposed situations; and also, while in command of a covering party two days after, for having rushed with the most prompt and daring gallantry to a spot where a fire-ball from the enemy had just been lodged, which he effectually extinguished before it had betrayed the position of the working party under his protection, thus saving it from a murderous fire of shell and grape, which was immediately opened upon the spot where the fire-ball had fallen.”

Captain Dillon volunteered to rescue from under a heavy fire of grape and musketry seven wounded men, who were lying in the houses nearest to the Russian works, and succeeded in doing so.

Sergeant John Grant belonged to one of the companies in the houses nearest to the Russian battery, and brought a message from his captain to Colonel Edwards. When Colonel Edwards saw that Sergeant Grant was bleeding from two severe wounds he desired him to fall back out of harm’s way, but Grant so earnestly begged to be allowed to return to his officer that Colonel Edwards permitted him once more to risk his life in crossing the fire-swept belt of ground between the supports and his own company. Grant lived for many years to enjoy an annuity of £20, which accompanied the medal for meritorious service in the field, awarded to him for this act of bravery.

Lieutenant T. D. Baker displayed great gallantry throughout the day, as did Sergeant John Gleeson, Corporal Niel O’Donnell, and privates J. Weir, E. Loughton, and J. Byrne.

As an instance of the spirit shown by the wounded who were left upon the field, this story is quoted from Russell’s account of the battle. During the armistice of the 19th for the collection of the wounded and the burial of the dead, Major-General Eyre came to the part of the cemetery where a sergeant of the Royal Irish lay, with both his legs broken by a round-shot. “General,” exclaimed the non-commissioned officer, “thank God, _we_ did _our_ work, anyway. Had I another pair of legs, the country and you would be welcome to them!”

The operations of the 17th and 18th cost the French 3500 men, the British 1500, the Russians 5400, and of the six generals and commanders, French and English, who led the attacks on the 18th, four were killed and one disabled. When Eyre’s casualty returns were made up, it was found that his brigade had lost 562 killed and wounded. To this total the Royal Irish contributed no less than 259, almost 39 per cent of the regiment as it went into action. Among the officers, Lieutenant J. W. Meurant was killed, and ten were wounded, several being dangerously or severely injured. They were--Major J. C. Kennedy; Captains J. Cormick, A. W. S. F. Armstong, M. Hayman, H. F. Stephenson, and J. G. Wilkinson; Lieutenants W. O’B. Taylor, W. Kemp, F. Fearnley, and C. Hotham. Of the other ranks 57 were killed or mortally wounded, 16 were dangerously and 87 severely wounded, and 88 more slightly injured.[175] The wounded were gradually carried back to the camp of the IIIrd brigade, which they soon filled to overflowing. To our modern ideas the preparations for their reception were singularly rough. “So many of us had been hit,” writes Captain Kemp, who himself had been struck by a bullet in the knee, “that the orderly room and mess huts and every other available place was appropriated for our use. At first my leg was doomed to come off, and I was laid on the amputation table for the purpose, but as I was too weak then it was left on till the morrow. Next day I was allowed to retain it by the decision of one of the staff surgeons, who said, most luckily for me, ‘Let us give the poor lad a chance,’ but I became very ill from fever and the intense heat of the tent,[176] and shortly afterwards was ordered home. I was moved to Balaclava in one of the ‘carrying chairs’ slung on the side of a mule, and fainted nearly all the way from sun and weakness.”

After their double repulse at the Malakoff and the Redan the Allies lost no time in resuming the ordinary operations of the siege: their approaches were steadily pushed forward, and their guns kept up a heavy fire upon the fortress. In July the average daily loss in Sebastopol was two hundred and fifty, while each day in August saw the strength of the garrison diminished by eight or nine hundred officers and men. The Russians, magnificently stubborn fighters as they were, began to realise that the place was becoming untenable. The parapets were crumbling under the projectiles of the Anglo-French artillery; many guns were disabled or worn out, and though there was still a large reserve of cannon in the arsenal, the fire of our mortars made it impossible to mount them on the shattered batteries. Round the disabled guns the dead lay in great heaps, while the wounded could not be moved till darkness brought some respite to the harassed garrison. Barracks, arsenals, and store-houses were all more or less in ruins; and the hospitals, overflowing into the streets and squares of the town, were rapidly emptied into a cemetery, grimly termed “the grave of the Hundred Thousand.” Towards the end of August the Russians determined to abandon Sebastopol; they began to build a bridge across the outer harbour, strong enough to carry guns and waggons upon its sixteen feet of roadway; threw up barricades across the streets of the town, and laid great mines under the forts and magazines. On the 5th of September, the Allies once more brought all their guns into action, and bombarded the fortress, almost without intermission, for three days and nights, and on the 8th, the French once more assaulted the Malakoff, and the British the Redan. As the third division was in the reserve and did not come into action, the XVIIIth regiment was not engaged, and therefore all that need be said about the result is that we failed to take the Redan, while the French carried the Malakoff, and succeeded in holding it against the strenuous efforts of the enemy to recapture it. These attacks were made by the Russian rear-guard to gain time for the retreat of the main body from the southern shores of the harbour, and were so far successful that when the French General heard that the head of the enemy’s column was marching over the bridge, he was still too uncertain of ultimate success to attempt any interference with the retirement. During the night the Russians successfully exploded many of their mines; destroyed their few remaining warships; set fire to the town in many places, and called in the troops from the forts; and by daybreak on the 9th the whole of the garrison, carrying with them most of the wounded, had crossed the bridge, broken it behind them, and found safety on the heights to the north of the harbour of Sebastopol. The losses on both sides in this, the last important episode in the Crimean War, were very heavy. Our defeat at the Redan cost us 2271 officers and men, among whom were three generals, wounded: the French casualties amounted to 7567 of all ranks, including five generals killed and four wounded: the Russians lost nine generals and 12,906 other officers and men.

With the fall of the fortress the war in the Crimea came virtually to an end. The Allies had accomplished their self-imposed task of destroying Sebastopol and the Black Sea fleet; there was no immediate object to be gained by a pitched battle with the Russian Field army; disagreements on questions of future policy caused a considerable amount of friction between the Ministers of Queen Victoria and the Emperor Napoleon III., and fettered the movements of the Generals, who engaged in no further operations except two comparatively unimportant raids against the towns of Eupatoria and Kilburn, in neither of which the XVIIIth regiment took part. The French, indeed, were not anxious, if indeed they were able, to continue the war; but the English had atoned, though very tardily, for their previous neglect of their army, by preparing so energetically for another campaign, that in November there were in the Crimea 51,000 British troops, a contingent of 20,000 Turks, raised, trained, and officered by Englishmen, and a German legion of ten thousand men.[177] The good health of this large body of soldiery showed how excellent our system of administration had become at the seat of war; at home recruits were forthcoming in great numbers; the militia had relieved the troops in the United Kingdom and the Mediterranean of much garrison duty; Malta was full of trained soldiers, eager to be employed on active service; in short, the Army, purified by the ordeal it had passed through, had become once more a first-rate fighting machine. But the troops arriving after the fall of the fortress had no opportunity of distinguishing themselves, for though the enemy annoyed us by cannonading Sebastopol from the northern shore of the harbour, he made no offensive movement against the camps on the Upland. Thus the second winter in the Crimea was a time of comparative rest for the greater part of the army, though not for the regiments placed at the disposal of the Royal Engineers to complete the destruction of the forts, arsenals, and dockyards of the fortress. To the Royal Irish fell a very heavy task, the demolition of the docks in the inner harbour. As Colonel Edwards was senior to the engineer officer in charge of the work, the headquarters of the XVIIIth remained outside the town, and Major Call was placed in command of the working parties, which practically consisted of the whole of the Royal Irish. The labour of preparing the docks for destruction was very great, and the hardships of the men extreme: to quote the words of the general order of February 7, 1856, praising the zeal and perseverance of all ranks, and thanking Major Call, among other officers, for his valuable services, “the work was carried out in the depth of winter; the docks occasionally flooded, the shafts filled with water, the pumps choked with frost; but all ranks united to overcome difficulties, and the mass of ruins is a proof of the success attending the cheerful performance of a laborious duty.”

This official record is not the only testimony to the good behaviour of the Royal Irish while they worked like navvies in the docks. General C. G. Gordon, who as a young officer of Royal Engineers had served in the Crimea, replied to a request for information about the doings of the XVIIIth at the siege of Sebastopol in a characteristic letter:--

“PORT LOUIS, 3/3/82.

“MY DEAR MAJOR SAVILE,--Thanks for your note received to-day. I
am afraid I cannot write anything which would be of value about
the 18th Royal Irish, as it is now 28 years ago or nearly so,
since the Crimea. I know that they were a favourite regiment with
the R.E. for work, both in the trenches and in the destruction
of the docks, from the energy and pluck of the officers and men,
and it was then that I formed my opinion of Irishmen being of a
different nature than other Britishers inasmuch as they required
a certain management and consideration, which, if given them,
would enable you, so to speak, to hold their lives in your hand.
The officers liked the men and the men liked the officers; they
were a jovial lot altogether, but they would do anything if you
spoke and treated them as if you liked them, which I certainly
did. You know what great hardships they went through in the Docks
in working at the shafts which, 30 feet deep, were often full
of water, if left, unpumped out, for 12 hours. Poor devils! wet,
draggled, in their low ammunition boots, I used to feel much for
them, for the Generals used to be down on them because they were
troublesome, which they were when people did not know how to
manage them.

“Kindest regards to General Edwards, a fine, clever old officer
who had all our respect.

“I am sorry I can write you no details.--Believe me, yours
sincerely,

“C. G. GORDON.”

It will be noticed that neither in the official expression of thanks nor in Gordon’s letter is there any reference to the fact that the Russians frequently shelled the working parties at the docks. The troops were so used to being under fire that they looked upon it as an everyday occurrence, and a few casualties were considered unworthy of notice. Thanks, however, to Colonel Elliot’s diary, we know that rheumatic fever and frost-bite were not the only dangers to which the Royal Irish were exposed. On December 3, 1855, the Russians fired two hundred and fifty shells, wounding four men of the regiment; on the 21st they dropped three shells into a barrack-room, luckily without hitting any one, but smashing beds, knapsacks, and rifles in every direction; on the last day of the year a shell carried away the arm of a private, ---- Fitzgerald.

While with immense difficulty the English and French engineers were levelling the naval and military buildings to the ground, and shattering the docks beyond all hope of restoration, the diplomatists of Europe were doing their utmost to bring hostilities to an end; late in February an armistice was arranged, and on the 30th of March, 1856, the world was gladdened by the news that peace had been proclaimed. The effort to save Constantinople from the Russians, though successful, had cost England dear, as these grim figures show--

----------------------+--------+--------+---------+---------+-------
| | | | |
| Killed.| Died of| Died of | Wounded.| Total.
| | Wounds.| Disease.| |
----------------------+--------+--------+---------+---------+-------
Officers | 157 | 86 | 147 | 515 | 905
| | | | |
Non-Commissioned | | | | |
Officers | 161 | 85 | 574 | 579 | 1,399
| | | | |
Privates | 2,437 | 1,848 | 15,320 | 10,782 | 30,387
----------------------+--------+--------+---------+---------+-------
| 2,755 | 2,019 | 16,041 | 11,876 | 32,691
----------------------+--------+--------+---------+---------+-------

Though our Allies also suffered severely, the losses of the Western Powers and of the Ottoman Empire pale into insignificance before those of the Russians. During the last six months of the siege 81,000 soldiers were killed or wounded in or around Sebastopol; the whole campaign in the Crimea cost the Czar 153,000 troops; while the reinforcements from the interior of Russia endured such terrible hardships on the march to the Black Sea that hundreds of thousands of men broke down on the way. It is believed that Russia’s total loss during the war was not less than half a million of men.

The casualties in the XVIIIth Royal Irish regiment were--

_Officers_--

Killed Lieutenant J. W. Meurant.
Died of disease Lieutenant E. D. Ricard.
Wounded Major J. C. Kennedy.
Captains J. Cormick, A. W. S. F. Armstrong,
M. Hayman, H. F. Stephenson,
J. Wilkinson.
Lieutenants W. O’B. Taylor, W. Kemp, F.
Fearnley, C. Hotham.

In the other ranks, 41 were killed, 44 died of wounds, 70 died from accident or disease, and 275 were wounded. Their names will be found in Appendix 2 (I).[178]

During the first nine months of its service in the Crimea, the regiment was reinforced by 289 non-commissioned officers and men, who arrived in drafts from home, and later from Malta where the four reserve companies were stationed; and on September 9, although between 140 and 150 men had been killed or died in hospital, and 219 had been invalided or become ineffective from various causes, there remained, exclusive of officers, no less than 724 effectives present with the Colours.[179] The XVIIIth regiment was among the last to leave the Crimea; it was not until June 20, that it embarked on H.M.S. _Majestic_, an eighty-gun ship, fitted with an auxiliary screw. Though the crew received their soldier passengers most hospitably, the voyage was not an agreeable one. The subalterns were berthed in the cockpit, where, as one of them recorded in his diary, “there was no room to wash, or dress, or put our baggage; sentries and reliefs passed through our sleeping-place all night long, shaking us out of our hammocks; then at a certain hour ruthless sailors came and packed away the hammocks, whether you wanted to get up or not; and finally, there was no place to be sick, for the bulwarks were so high that you could not see over them!” On the 18th of July the Royal Irish landed at Portsmouth, entrained for Farnborough, and were marching thence to Aldershot when they were ordered to quicken their pace as Queen Victoria was waiting to welcome the regiment. Colonel Edwards thus describes Her Majesty’s inspection of the soldiers who had fought her battles in China, Burma, and the Crimea: “When formed in line the appearance of the regiment showed signs of service, the old clothing, long beards, and the dust of the march giving the men but a sorry aspect. Her Majesty, passing down the line on foot, requested me to point out men most deserving of her notice. My answer was, ‘Were I to do so, the whole regiment would step to the front.’ However, several of the wounded officers and men were presented. When the Queen arrived in front of the Colours, I respectfuly submitted to Her Majesty that the regimental badge of the Harp and Crown had been removed from the uniforms of the men, and the Queen most graciously gave orders that they should be restored.”

For their services in the Crimea many officers, non-commissioned officers, and men received promotion or reward. Lieutenant-Colonels C. A. Edwards and J. C. Kennedy were appointed to be Companions of the Order of the Bath; Edwards also was made a Brevet-Colonel; Major G. F. S. Call, Captains J. Cormick, A. W. S. F. Armstrong, J. Laurie, and M. J. Hayman each received a step in brevet rank. Captain T. Esmonde was one of the first to receive the Victoria Cross, and the newly instituted medal for distinguished conduct in the field was awarded to Sergeant H. Morton, Corporals M. Egan and T. Murphy, and the following private soldiers, viz., R. Baglin, E. Erwin, T. Flannery, H. Forrestall, R. Marshall, W. Major, J. M. Guinness, N. O’Neill, J. Sessman, 2830 P. Whelan, 3521 P. Whelan.[180] In the matter of foreign decorations the XVIIIth fared well, as each of our Allies presented orders or medals to specially deserving officers and men. Brevet-Colonel Edwards, Brevet-Majors Armstrong and Hayman, Sergeant-Major T. Watt, and Sergeant J. Grant were created members of the French Legion of Honour by Napoleon III., who also bestowed war medals on Colour-Sergeant E. Dunne, Sergeant J. Harvey, Sergeant J. Gleeson, Corporal N. O’Donnell, and Privates J. Cox, E. Laughton, and J. Byrne. Victor Emmanuel gave the Sardinian war medal to Lieutenant-Colonel J. C. Kennedy, Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel Call, Lieutenant T. D. Baker, and Private J. Weir. The Turkish Order of the Medjidie was awarded to Colonel Edwards, Lieutenant-Colonel J. C. Kennedy, Brevet-Major Cormick, and Lieutenants C. Hotham, O’B. Taylor, W. Kemp, and C. J. Coote. The British medal for the Crimea and clasp for Sebastopol and the Turkish medal were awarded to all who had taken part in the siege, and the word “Sebastopol” added to the battle honours of the regiment.

Sketch Map
of the
CRIMEA
1855-56

W. & A.K. Johnston Limited, Edinburgh & London.]

A stained-glass window has been placed in the north transept of St Patrick’s Cathedral in honour of those who fell in the war with Russia.