Struggle in Russia

When the cold winter arrived, the number of coalition soldiers besieging Sevastopol deserted sharply, and hundreds of British and French soldiers voluntarily surrendered to the Russians.

However, the failure of Menshkov's reckless offensive was a heavy blow to the Russian army. The old **** went from one extreme to the other in an instant. Before, he was confident that the coalition could be wiped out, but now he believes that the fall of Sevastopol is inevitable.

In a November 9 letter to the war minister, Prince Dolgorukov, he suggested abandoning Sevastopol so that the Russian army could concentrate on defending the rest of Crimea.

And this directly angered Nicholas I, who roared at the imperial meeting: "Where is the heroism of our troops? He has made me accept defeat at such a heavy price!"

He then wrote to Menshkov: "Our enemies must have been hit hard too? I disagree with you, don't bow your head, and don't encourage others to think so... God is on our side!" "

However, despite his rhetoric, Nicholas I fell into a deep depression because of Menshkov's failure, and everyone in the court could see his annoyance. In the past, this was simply a impossible. Because he is the best at hiding his emotions.

“The Gatchina Palace is gloomy and silent,” Tyutcheva wrote in her diary. “There is a gloomy mood everywhere, people hardly dare to speak, and the sight of the monarch is heartbreaking enough. More and more melancholy, and his face is haggard and lifeless."

Compared with the gloomy Gatchina, Tolstoy's life was not bad, because of his noble status, he served in the Russian army command, where he lived comfortably by dancing and playing cards every day, but soon he just tired of it.

In a letter to his family he was angry at Menshkov's defeat: "The 10th and 11th divisions attacked the enemy's left flank... The enemy numbered about 6,000, while we had 30,000 - and the result was We were routed and lost more than 10,000 brave soldiers... We had to retreat because half of our troops were not covered by artillery fire - because the road was not easy to travel, the artillery couldn't come up, and - God knows why - we Not equipped with the new rifles like the Marine Infantry."

"A terrible massacre, this mistake will weigh heavily on the souls of many people! God, forgive them, the news of the defeat is so emotionally out of control, I see the old man crying and the young man swearing to kill Dannen Berg..."

With the idea of ​​doing something for the soldiers in the army, Tolstoy and a group of officers planned to publish a journal, which he called the "Army Bulletin," to educate the soldiers to boost morale and show the patriotism and humanity of the soldiers. Russian circles.

To provide the funds, Tolstoy embezzled money from the family's sale of a house in Yasnaya Polya, which he was supposed to use to pay off gambling debts.

And some of Tolstoy's earliest novels were written for this publication, including his exposure of officers brutally beating soldiers not because the soldiers did anything wrong, but because he was just a big boss, and the big boss deserved to be beaten.

However, Tolstoy is not a novice. He knew that writing like this would definitely not pass the censorship, so when he submitted the plan to publish the publication for censorship, similar articles were taken away, but this plan was eventually rejected by Nicholas I. It was rejected because he was unwilling to have an unofficial soldier's newspaper to challenge his government-led "Russian Wounded Soldier".

In desperation, the great writer could only ask to leave the headquarters to serve in the front line, but the superiors only promoted him to second lieutenant and assigned him to the 3rd Light Artillery Company of the 14th Artillery Brigade.

That's when winter arrives in the second week of November!

For three days and three nights, the icy wind and rain swept through the surrounding area of ​​Sevastopol, blowing to the tents of the British and French forces. In the freezing and heavy rain, the soldiers sitting in the mud could only hug each other to keep warm.

They were drenched and shivering, with only thin army blankets and soaked coats for shelter.

Immediately after the storm hit the coast of Crimea, tents began to fly like scraps of paper into the sky, and boxes, barrels, boxes and caravans were blown away.

Tent poles, blankets, hats and coats, tables and chairs swirled in the air, and frightened horses broke free from their reins and stomped around the camp.

Trees were uprooted, windows were smashed, and soldiers were running around after their clothing and belongings, or anxiously looking for any place to hide.

Roofless barns and stables, behind mounds or in caves above ground are their hiding places.

The strong wind blew all morning and stopped at 2:00 in the afternoon, when the soldiers could finally get out of their hiding places to search for what they had been blown to pieces.

The mud floor was full of soaked, dirty clothes and blankets. Broken pieces of furniture, as well as pots and pans all kinds of debris.

In the evening, the temperature began to drop and the rain turned into heavy snow. The soldiers tried to pitch their tents again, but their fingers were all frozen, and few tents were good. So some people simply continued to hide in barns and stables for the night, all huddled together in vain seeking a little warmth.

In fact, the blows suffered by the coalition's ground troops were nothing, and the storm had dealt a heavy blow to the coalition ships in the port.

The water in the Balaclava port is covered with foam, like the sea is boiling, and the ship is shaking violently~www.readwn.com~ The waves splashed over the cliff and fell to the port from a height of hundreds of feet, like heavy rain Same.

A large number of coalition supply ships were anchored together for fear that the Russian army would continue to attack the port of Balaclava. More than two dozen British ships were destroyed when they hit the rocks on the shore, killing hundreds of people.

Among them, the steamship Prince was the most damaged. The whole ship was torn to pieces. Only six of the 150 crew members survived. Incidentally, the 40,000 sets of winter clothes that had just arrived were lost.

In addition, the Kokang was destroyed, losing 10 million rounds of the Minet rifle.

The French fleet lost the battleship Henry IV and the steamship Pluto.

This caused even more trouble for the coalition forces, which were already struggling to supply, so that the British army had not been relieved, and had been worried about the shortage of food, accommodation and medicine all winter.

On the contrary, the French army performed slightly better, but it could only be regarded as passing.

However, this storm brought unexpected benefits to the Russians. The canned food that floated from the sunken British and French ships was sent to the port of Sevastopol by the waves, and the Russian army paid a lot of British corned beef in vain. Soldiers are delighted...