A History of the Coldstream Guards, Robert Ross-of-Bladensburg.

“The Zouave battalion was advancing ... when the bearskin all at once reappeared. It was from the wooded steeps of the hillsides that the spectre uprose. Since the time when last we observed it, the small band of Coldstream men collected by Wilson had remained in the brushwood below, watching always for some such occasion as the one that now offered. Amid a roar of joy and welcome—for the Zouaves and the Guards were close friends—these Coldstream men joined the advance, aligning on the right of the French.... What followed was slaughter.”^[282]

Meanwhile we had already gained an immense superiority over the enemy’s artillery. As early as about 9.30, two 18-pounder guns of position had been brought on Home Ridge, and after a short space of time the power of the hostile batteries began to wane. The French guns, coming up, posted themselves on our right, and the bombardment continued with increasing advantage on our side, though the number of our pieces was not half that of our opponents. Some of our men on the left and centre of our line also advanced, and added to the misfortune of the gunners on Shell Hill. The battle was really decided at eleven, though the artillery continued to fire till much later. As soon as the bulk of the Household Brigade returned to Home Ridge, and after ammunition had been served out, the men were reformed, and were moved up to protect the guns against any sudden assault. This duty was “worse than fighting the infantry, for we got no revenge for the men we lost,” and we incurred casualties not a few.^[283]

The retreat of the Russians commenced about one o’clock, and was covered by a column of their reserve; which, attempting to advance, was quickly dispersed by a few rounds of the 18-pounders. There was no pursuit. The enemy slipped away, and “seemed to melt from the lost field; the English were too few and too exhausted, and the French too little confident in the advantage gained, to convert the repulse into a rout.” Our allies, deducting losses, numbered at the end of the engagement some 7000 infantry, for, besides the troops already mentioned, three battalions (2400) arrived on the ground at eleven; they also had 700 cavalry and 24 guns present. Lord Raglan was anxious to complete the victory by falling on the rear of the flying Russians, but his cautious colleague would not consent; for he still feared an attack from Gortchakoff’s untouched forces, and was unwilling to expose his men to the fire of the ships that were moored in the roadstead.^[284]

While the battle was going on, the garrison of Sevastopol kept up so poor a demonstration, that we were able to denude our camps of men, and push them to Inkerman. Besides the men on duty in the trenches, the greater part of the Third Division watched the fortress, and they were subjected to no further inconvenience than that which the fire from the place, intensified on this day, entailed. About 9.30, however, the enemy made a sortie against Forey’s siege corps, under General Timofeyeff, with 5000 men and 12 guns. The blow, though it met with some success at first, failed, and the Russians were pursued by our gallant allies back under the shelter of the fortress. Thus little was done by the garrison to assist Dannenberg, and that little was of trifling value. Gortchakoff’s operations during the day were still less effective. He made a few feints, fired upon the Sapuné Ridge, and, it is said, did lose 15 men. He thereby gave the companies on piquet (among them, Nos. 6 and 7 companies of the Coldstream) the opportunity of engaging him with distant volleys, without apparently causing much, if any, loss to our side. In short, he did nothing, when by attacking Bosquet, he would have prevented that General from advancing to our assistance at Inkerman. His orders were “to support the general attack, to draw the Allied forces upon himself, and to try and seize one of the ascents to the Sapuné Ridge.” Mr. Kinglake, however, tells us that these written orders were explained away by “oral communications” into something different,^[285] and makes us believe that there is a mystery which has never been explained, hanging over the operations of this Russian Commander, who held so much power in his hands on that day. What we do know is that Dannenberg, in spite of his overwhelming numbers, was unable to secure a footing on the Kitspur, that this was due to the manner in which it was defended by our scanty forces, and that in this defence the Household Brigade played a glorious part, and suffered much in consequence.

The losses were very great on both sides: those of the enemy, who moved in heavy columns, being more than those of the Allies, though relatively, in proportion to numbers at the seat of war, he suffered less than we did. The Russians had 10,729 killed, wounded, and prisoners, including 256 Officers. The English 2357 of all ranks, of whom 130 were Officers (or 39 Officers, and 558 men killed, and 91 Officers and 1669 men wounded). The French 929, among them 49 Officers (or 13 Officers and 130 men killed, and 36 Officers and 750 men wounded).^[286] The Brigade lost nearly half its effective strength, viz., out of a total of 1334:—

The Coldstream suffered in like proportion, but the casualties among the Officers far exceeded those that occurred in the other Regiments. In fact, almost all the Officers were swept away. Out of seventeen present, four only escaped uninjured, viz. Captains Strong, Wilson, Crawley, and Tower. Of the rest, eight were killed or died soon after of their wounds, viz. Lieut.-Colonels Dawson, and Cowell, Captains MacKinnon, Bouverie, Eliot, and Ramsden, and Lieutenants Greville, and Disbrowe. The remainder were wounded; viz. Colonel Upton (slightly), Lieut.-Colonels Halkett, and Lord C. FitzRoy, Captain P. Feilding, and Lieutenant Amherst (all severely). The losses of the Battalion amounted to—

The principal casualties were in the flank companies. No. 1 entered the action with 50 to 60 men, and No. 8 was slightly stronger. The former lost one sergeant and 43 rank and file, and the latter two sergeants and 41 men. No. 2 came next, losing 37 men. Where a Battalion has so freely shed its life-blood in the stubborn defence of the position assigned to it, it may seem strange that no official notice should be taken of the death of the Officer who led it into action, and who directed its movements until he fell, and more especially when in the Brigade to which the Battalion belonged, no other Commanding Officer lost his life. Yet this is what occurred with respect to the memory of the gallant Colonel Dawson, and the feelings of his brothers in arms were not inadequately expressed in the following lines, written by Colonel Wilson:—

“The despatch which informed England of this dearly bought victory, commended the services of many of the living and blazoned the merits of many of the dead; but from that encomiastic scroll there was at least one remarkable omission. To the memory of Colonel Vesey Dawson, shot through the heart while in command of the Coldstream Guards, was conceded not a passing word of eulogy or of regret. It is melancholy to reflect that on this humble page should stand the only record of how as brave a soldier as ever drew a sword, as noble a gentleman as ever earned the respect of his fellow-men, fought and died.”^[288]

We are told that this great victory caused no outward elation among our troops. A reaction succeeded the excitement of the struggle; the danger now past began to be realized for the first time; and the men, though hardened to the miserable scenes which war creates, were almost awed by the terrible carnage and devastation that met their eyes on the hard-fought field. The Second Division camp was laid flat, the tents uprooted and scattered, canvas saturated with blood carpeted the ground. Our own camp swarmed with the wounded and the dying, and the sight sent a chill of depression through the few survivors as they returned to their bivouacs. Everywhere on the narrow space of the battleground the victims lay thick, some killed, others groaning in agony, and nowhere thicker than in and around the Sandbag battery, where the contest raged the fiercest. Here the dead were literally piled up on one another as they fell.

“The whole battle-field, which could all be seen at a glance, except where concealed by brushwood, looked perfectly covered with bodies; between the Second Division hills and the crest of the Inkerman hill is a very short distance, and the entire action having been fought on that limited space, there was an awful scene of carnage upon it.... Before evening we got all our wounded off the field; the dead, of course, remained there, and the poor wounded Ruskis who were a great deal too numerous to take off.... From the heights I could see the Russian army winding up the road; the whole country was covered with troops straggling over the causeway over the Tchernaya marsh; they were a long time crossing. Arabas full of wounded, guns, etc., lumbering up the way, but they had quite enough of it.... Our hospital was a most piteous sight.... Our poor fellows were all dying or dead.... The camp was miserable, and I could only thank God I was not lying in the hospital tent with half my limbs smashed to pieces, or lying on a stretcher ready to be buried.”^[289]

Saddest of all, was the cruel thought surging in every mind that many of our brave wounded had been basely bayoneted as they lay helpless on the ground, by an uncivilized enemy, who, unable to drive off the few that held the plateau against him, wreaked his vengeance on the defenceless, as soon as they fell into his hands. We had ample evidence of this savagery—established, moreover, by a special inquiry—that cast so black a stain on the Russian army, for, when our men hurled the foe from a corner from which he had driven us, we found our wounded stabbed to death.

Thus was the battle of Inkerman fought and won by small bodies of the British and French armies, over an overpowering hostile force of more than 35,000 infantry, amply supported by artillery; who, having stolen in during the night up to our outposts, endeavoured to break through the Allied line round Sevastopol, at a point where we were weakest, and where we had absolutely no defences.^[290] The result proved the immense superiority of our arms over those of Russia; so also does it give us some indication of what would have happened if we had boldly attacked Sevastopol at the end of September, before, or immediately after, the flank march, or even during the bombardment in October. The British fought with a valour and constancy that surpassed even the glorious traditions of the past. Led by Officers who hurled themselves like the old Knight Errants into the thick of every danger, they nobly followed on with that unflinching steadiness produced by constitutional bravery, by devotion to their leaders, and by the splendid discipline that was the predominant characteristic of our Crimean troops. Their bold extension and their courage in maintaining it, even without supports and when opposed to heavy columns, made the Russians think that the line of red-coats was but a fringe of our strength, and they hesitated when they ought to have acted boldly. We were, moreover, provided with a superior rifle, and so when the enemy, emerging from the ravines, found himself met by a heavy and shattering fire, his columns were brought to a standstill, and he lost the advantage which his solid formation might have given him. He was far from being imbued with the spirit that animated our men, and he lacked the determination to close with them.

“Had he, at the commencement of the battle, pushed these columns resolutely forward, it follows nearly as a matter of course that, by sheer momentum of his heavy masses, the British lines would have been broken through and trampled down utterly. It would have been a question of weight alone. As it was, no devotion, no exertions on the part of the Russian Officers, could at the outset spur their battalions to one grand combined rush. Time was frittered away in a series of persevering but desultory attacks, which were invariably repulsed, thanks to English valour and English firearms.”^[291]

264. Sir E. Hamley, in his War in the Crimea , p. 129, estimates these forces at 110,000 to 115,000, including the enemy’s sailors. He has, however, apparently omitted to include men whom he previously counted as part of the garrison at the end of September (see ante, p. 185).

265. See Map, No. 7, p. 216. Properly speaking, Inkerman was on the other side of the Tchernaya, called by us Old City Heights.

266. Hamley, War in the Crimea , 128; Kinglake , v. 33, 34 note, 41 note. Sir Evelyn Wood says, in his recent publication, that he has “never understood why these Moslems, who came out so grandly at Silistria, were considered unfit to fight alongside the English and French troops” (Wood, Crimea in 1854 and 1894 , p. 199).

267. Brigade Order , Nov. 1, 1854.

268. Tower, Diary , Nov. 5th.

269. He came up later, but refused to take the command out of Pennefather’s hands.

270. Hamley, War in the Crimea , p. 141.

271. Apparently this advanced column was composed of sailors or marines, not reckoned in Soimonoff’s corps; they were, therefore, additional to it (Kinglake, v. 117).

272. See Kinglake, v. 70.

273. The names of these Officers are: Colonel Hon. G. Upton, commanding Battalion; Captain Hon. G. Eliot, Acting Adjutant; Lieut.-Colonels Hon. V. Dawson (commanding the four companies that first left camp, viz. Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 8), Lord C. FitzRoy, J. Cowell, and J. Halkett; Captains L. MacKinnon, C. Strong, C. Wilson, H. Bouverie, P. Crawley, F. Ramsden, and H. Tower; Lieutenants E. Disbrowe, Hon. W. Amherst, and C. Greville; lastly, Captain Hon. P. Feilding (Acting D.A.A.G. First Division) is here reckoned as a Regimental Officer, since early in the day his horse was shot, and he then joined and fought with the Battalion.

Belonging to the Regiment, and also actively engaged with the enemy, were Lieut.-Colonels T. Steele and P. Somerset on the head-quarter Staff; and Captain Hon. A. Hardinge, D.A.A.G. First Division.

On piquet, and holding the heights over the valley against Gortchakoff’s demonstrations, were Lieut.-Colonels Newton in command, Wood, and Carleton; Captains H. Armytage, and Sir J. Dunlop; and Lieutenant Heneage; with Nos. 6 and 7 companies.

Of the Medical Officers, the Battalion Surgeon, J. Skelton, had been invalided home, November 1st; Assistant-Surgeon Wyatt was present, also Quartermaster Falconer.

274. According to the theory of Mr. Kinglake (whose excellent work on the Crimean War has been largely drawn upon, in preparing this part of the present volume), the 15,000 men who attacked in the early morning in two columns, one 9000 strong on our left and the other 6000 on our right, were so completely shattered by their first encounter with the detachments of the Second Division, that they all fled away, and not a man of them took any further part in the battle. Also that, of the 20,000 infantry remaining to the Russians, practically only 10,000 were engaged, the reserve of 10,000 being most of it kept back. Thus, while 15,000 were dispersed into space with the utmost ease, in an hour, by very few opponents, almost as if by magic, the 10,000 made so good a resistance that they were with difficulty vanquished, in three hours and a half, by the 4700 Englishmen who were on the scene at this moment, aided by 1600 French, who appeared soon after, and by the Algerines, Zouaves, and other troops of the same nation, 4000 strong, who reached the ground between ten and eleven o’clock. Nor is it alleged that the early attacks of the enemy were delivered by worse troops than those who came into action at 7.30 a.m. This theory was evidently not believed by some who fought at Inkerman, and Colonel Tower is of opinion that when the Guards first entered into the struggle, they met the Tarutin and Borodino regiments; that is, the eight Russian battalions which formed the main portion of the first attack made by the enemy with 6000 men on the Kitspur, and which, by Kinglake’s account, were not only repulsed, but clean driven from the field never to appear there again, by the bold onset of 700 to 800 Englishmen.

The losses during the day of the two Russian columns, that took part in the first attack, before 7.30, amounted to some 5000 men; and this fact seems to show conclusively that the 15,000 men continued the fight, as stated in the text, long after the hour when Mr. Kinglake says they disappeared from the battle-field. The casualties of the 10,000 men under Pavloff, who came into action at 7.30, were somewhat greater, proportionately, than those of the first two columns. The losses of the reserve (10,000 men), which to a great extent was kept back out of the struggle, were proportionately much less. (P. Alabine, Notes of the Expedition in 1853-5 , published in the Russian language, at Viatka, 1861, gives the losses by Russian regiments.)

275. Our Veterans, etc., p. 287.

276. Some of the nipples had even to be unscrewed (Tower, Diary).

277. For their gallantry upon this occasion, Colonels Lord Henry Percy and Sir Charles Russell, Grenadier Guards, got the Victoria Cross.

278. Tower, Diary , Nov. 5, 1854.

279. Our Veterans, etc. , p. 290, etc.

280. The following extract, from an account furnished by a Coldstreamer present at the battle, will be read with interest: Sergeant W. Wilden, No. 1 Company , writes:—“Suddenly the alarm came, 'fall in,' every man rushed for his rifle and ammunition; the order was so sudden many had not turned out, and several took their places in the ranks only partly dressed; poor Captain Ramsden was killed in his brown shooting-suit.... During the early part of the day, I should think about 8 or 8.30, the atmosphere became so thick with fog, rain, or mist, and the smoke from firing on both sides, I was not able to see more than eight or ten of my comrades, and scarcely able to distinguish the enemy, although within a few yards of him. At this juncture an alarm ran through our shattered ranks that the enemy was surrounding us. This turned out to be true, for he was working round our right flank to obtain possession of the small Sandbag battery.... A terrible struggle took place for possession of this battery; the enemy pushed his columns to the front in great numbers, and at the same time his left flank was gradually working round and attacking our right. At this time I should think about two companies of our Battalion held the battery. Here our losses were very heavy. We held it apparently for some time, and kept the Russian massive columns in check, until an unfortunate crisis happened; our ammunition was exhausted, and, as our ranks were so terribly shattered, we were compelled by superior numbers to retire from the battery, or, in other words, we were driven out, and left it in the hands of the enemy; but only for a short time, for we rallied and charged the enemy at the point of the bayonet and recaptured the battery. Here a dreadful struggle ensued, a hand-to-hand fight took place, in which bayonets were freely used on both sides, and at one period stones were resorted to to beat the enemy back from the north-western embrasure.... Although several bayonet charges were made upon the enemy, we were unable any longer to hold our ground against overwhelming numbers, and greatly exhausted, we were compelled gradually to retire, at the same time disputing every inch of ground. Here the enemy gradually advanced, and many of our wounded comrades were bayoneted or killed by the enemy. At this moment, the welcome sound of the bugles of the gallant Bosquet’s division of Zouaves reached our ears; their numbers enabled them to force the enemy back and regain the position we were gradually losing. We then retired.... Two long 18-pounder guns were about this time drawn by hand to replace those dismantled, and were used until the close of the battle.”

281. It appears that No. 4 company moved forward separately, and joined the main body of the Battalion.

282. Kinglake, v. 402.

283. Letter of Mr. Taylor, late Quartermaster Somersetshire Militia, then in the Coldstream; one shell killed and wounded eight men. Colonel Upton was wounded at this period. See, also, Our Veterans, etc. , p. 299.

The action of the Guards at Inkerman seems to be imperfectly described in Kinglake. According to that writer, the bulk of the Brigade came out of action at 8.30; though he notes that the force under Wilson joined the last attack undertaken by the French about 11 o’clock, and allows that the companies which followed Upton were in the field as late as 10. Giving Bosquet’s impressions of the scene presented to his observation at that hour, he says, “High above on the right, where there sauntered a red-coated Officer with the bonnet de poil and a singularly unconcerned air (Colonel Upton), some men of the Guards could be seen lying down among the brushwood” (Kinglake, v. 382). Yet Tower and Wilden, whose accounts have been given, state that they were relieved on the Kitspur by the Algerines and Zouaves—that is, after 10 o’clock; and Wilson who, according to Mr. Kinglake, was on that portion of the battle-field later than any other Guardsman, tells us himself that he got back to Home Ridge before the bulk of the Brigade reached it. Some isolated groups, separated during the fierce struggle in the fog and brushwood from the main body, possibly found themselves on Home Ridge before; Taylor says he helped to pull up the two 18-pounders, which, as we know, took place about 9.30.

284. Hamley, War in the Crimea , p. 157.

285. Kinglake, v. 59 (note), 69.

286. The above were the losses on the field of Inkerman. The total casualties on the 5th of November amounted to: Russians, 11,959; English, 2573; and French 1800 of all ranks (Kinglake, v. 443, 457).

287. Counting Major-General Bentinck, who was severely wounded. Of the Coldstream Officers serving on the Staff on that day, none were wounded; Colonel Somerset, however, had a horse shot under him.

288. Our Veterans, etc. , p. 306.

290. It cannot be insisted too often that the Sandbag battery was a battery only in name; and that its importance consisted in the fact that it served as a rallying-point, on account of its being a conspicuous object, round which the main struggle on the Kitspur raged. Russian exaggerations have given it a wholly fictitious value; even Todleben, describing the fight a little after eight o’clock, says that the Okhotsk regiment (3000 strong) attacked the Sandbag battery held by their “worthy rivals—the intrepid Coldstream,” that they expelled the latter, and that nine guns were the reward of this brilliant feat of arms! (see Hamley, War in the Crimea , p. 160).


Killed	12	Officers,	9	Sergts.,	1	Drumrs.,	177	Rank & file,	Total	199
Wounded	20 ^[287]	”	20	”	4	”	357	”	”	401
Missing	—	”	—	”	—	”	4	”	”	4
Total	32	”	29	”	5	”	538	”	”	604

Killed	8	Officers,	3	Sergeants,	73	Rank & File,	Total	84
Wounded	5	”	11	”	107	”	”	123
Total	13	”	14	”	180	”	”	207