Struggle in Russia

The Russian army lost about 12,000 people in this battle, the British army announced the casualty figure was 2,610 people, and the French army was 1,726 people.

So many people were killed in just four hours of battle, it was a bit terrifying!

This rate of loss of personnel was almost as fast as the Battle of the Somme in World War I.

The dead and wounded soldiers were piled together, and their bodies scattered by the shells were everywhere. British war correspondent Nicholas Woods wrote in his War Newsletter:

Some of the corpses had their heads gone, as if they had been chopped off with an axe. Some thighs were blown away by the roots, others were missing arms, and some were shot in the chest or abdomen, as if crushed by a machine.

The one that shocked me the most was a row of five Russian soldiers lying on the road, face down, shoulder to shoulder in the same position, muskets in both hands, stern faces The expressions were exactly the same, both frowning in pain.

However, most of the Russian soldiers who died were stabbed to death by bayonets. The Frenchman Louis Noir recalled: "Some Russian soldiers were dying, but most of them were already dead, lying on top of each other. In the yellow flesh and blood, sometimes outstretched arms can be seen, as if begging for mercy. The corpses lying on their backs on the ground generally have arms outstretched, looking either to resist danger or to beg for forgiveness. Individuals have medals around their necks, or small copper boxes with images of saints in them."

Sometimes you can find living people under the pile of dead people, because they fell to the ground because of their injuries, and then the fallen soldiers were on them, and sometimes you can hear people breathing or moaning under the pile of corpses, because they are too weak and there is no With strength, the body of the companion who was pressing on him was removed.

It's just that these poor soldiers will not be rescued immediately even if they hear these faint voices, because the British and French troops have to take care of their wounded soldiers first, and they are busy looting the property on the corpse, and they have no time to care about Russia. The life and death of the wounded.

Major General Codrington, of the British Light Infantry Division, was stunned by the actions of his own soldiers, saying: "The most disgusting thing is that you find that those people who are walking around the battlefield and stealing things have come before you. After that, the pockets on the body were opened and the package was cut open. The purpose of these guys was to find money, and everything of value was looted - the officers were stripped of their clothes because they were more dressed it is good."

Coalition forces spent days burying the dead of their own troops while sending wounded soldiers to field hospitals. The dead and wounded of the Russian army will have to wait longer, because Menshkov rejected the coalition's proposal to truce and clear the battlefield, because he is worried that the Russian soldiers will see that the number of dead and wounded on their own side is far more than the enemy will affect morale and even cause Mutiny.

As a result, the dead and wounded Russian troops were left on the battlefield for many days or even weeks. For example, on the twelfth day after the battle, French Colonel Claire found four Russian soldiers who were still alive at the bottom of the quarry ravine. .

These poor fellows lay under a protruding rock, and when we asked them how they got through these days, they gestured first to the sky, where water was sent to them, and then to a few more pieces Moldy brown bread crumbs, recovered from the rucksacks of the many corpses lying around.

Some of the bodies weren't even found until three months later, which, in Claire's words, looked like dry mummies.

For the stalemate between the two armies, this battle was very cruel, and even for the coalition forces, this victory was very empty. Yes, although they repelled the Russian army's attack and eliminated the threat of the Russian army on the flank to the supply line, but because of the heavy casualties, even their domestic public opinion could not accept this fact, especially when the public learned about it. After the poor treatment of the wounded in the military hospital, the wisdom of starting the Crimean war has been seriously questioned.

On November 7, the coalition forces held a joint meeting at Raglan's headquarters, and the French army began to take over part of the British army's positions, which meant that the French army began to replace the British army as the leading coalition force.

At the meeting, Conrobel insisted that any attack on Sevastopol be suspended until next spring, when more active forces should join the coalition.

He pointed out that the Russian army's fortifications are very strong, and it is simply beyond the reach of the coalition forces now. And with the arrival of Russian reinforcements from Ukraine and the original garrison in Sevastopol, the total strength may be around 100,000.

He worried that "as long as Austria's attitude towards the Eastern issue is unclear, the Russian army is likely to send troops from Bessarabia to continue to reinforce Crimea."

Canrobert concluded that there was no need for the coalition to risk a storm until Britain and France formed an alliance of divisions with Austria and sent massive reinforcements to Crimea.

Raglan and his staff agreed with Conrobel's analysis, but there was a thorny problem the coalition had to contend with: their lack of sufficient winter supplies. You must know that the Russian army has always had only two generals who can fight the most - General January and General February.

Back then, Napoleon's troops were so powerful that they couldn't handle these two generals, let alone their group of rotten birds!

You must know that the situation of the coalition forces is not as good as that of Napoleon in those days. The tents used are light and thin summer tents~www.readwn.com~ The military uniforms are also autumn and summer clothes, and there is no winter clothes at all.

However, Conrobel said: "As long as a layer of stones is placed under the existing tent, it can resist the cold. He also believes that the climate along the Black Sea coast is healthy. Except for the colder north wind, the cold in winter is not serious."

It's just that not everyone is as hard-headed as the French and always doesn't learn their lesson. Dressy Evans, for example, asked Raglan to consider abandoning the siege of Sevastopol and withdrawing the British. The Duke of Cambridge also said that the troops should be withdrawn to Balaclava, where at least supplies are easy to obtain and there are at least some residential buildings around to protect against the cold wind.

However, Raglan categorically rejected the suggestion of the two and insisted that the troops be stationed near Sevastopol to spend the winter. As a result, Evans and the Duke of Cambridge thought it was a crime to do so, and Raglan resigned in both directions and returned to England with disgust and disappointment for Raglan before winter arrived.

The resignations of these two sensible men sparked a wave of departures among British officers, who in the two months after the war ended 222 of the 1,540 British officers in Crimea. Ten people left, of which only sixty returned.

As for the soldiers, when they realized they had to spend the winter in Sevastopol, morale became extremely low.