Struggle in Russia

As the new British Minister of War, Lord Panmore is more supportive of Palmerston's plan, and is ready to have a big vote in Crimea. It was he who had sent Raglan the memorandum for the capture of Simferopol.

However, Raglan refused to carry it out. This time he turned to attack Kerch and still got his active support. At the end of February, Lord Panmur ordered Raglan to organize a sea and land battle to destroy Kerch's defenses.

Raglan had no objection this time, as the Royal Navy was quite interested in the plan.

After all, the Royal Navy has been doing nothing since the war began, and at this time, the British army's contribution to the war has aroused strong doubts from the French army, so the British army must do something for the French to see.

So Raglan nodded and agreed to the plan to attack Kerch, while Conrobel actually had doubts about this plan, but he could not resist the soft and hard bubbles of the British, and finally agreed to Admiral Bruard. Joined the expeditionary fleet with a squadron of the French navy and 8,500 soldiers.

Commanding the expeditionary fleet was Lieutenant General Brown, commander of the British Light Infantry Division, and their fleet was planned to first move northwest to Odessa to conceal its true purpose, and then turn around at sea towards Kerch.

What's just funny is that just when the fleet was about to arrive in Kerch and was about to make a big show, a fast ship caught up with the fleet and sent Canrobel's order to let the French fleet turn back.

It turned out that shortly after the operation of the fleet, Napoleon III issued an order to Canrobert through the newly erected submarine cable, asking him to transfer all the French reserves in Constantinople to Crimea.

The French army naturally needed the naval fleet of Admiral Bruard to carry out this task. Canrobert had doubts about attacking Kerch. This was not just because he was drowsy and sent a pillow, so he immediately let the French fleet from the moment. Red retreat.

The French suddenly withdrew, and the British naturally couldn't continue to play. After all, their troops were small, and without the 8,500 French troops, the 3,000 of them couldn't help Kerch at all. So the British could only retreat.

As a result, this high-profile landing operation was aborted halfway, and the British almost jumped in popularity.

This incident made the relationship between the British and French armed forces worse, and it was also one of the reasons why Conrobel chose to resign. In his words, he felt that his authority was being questioned, that he had let the British down and that he was no longer able to force Raglan to carry out his plans for the capture of Simferopol.

After Canrobert resigned, the new commander-in-chief of the French army was General Perlisier. This short and stout man was extremely rude and cool, but he was far more decisive than Canrobert, and he did what he said.

The character of Conrobert was a little hesitant, so that the British nicknamed him "robertcan\'t".

It's just that this is another story. For the time being, Canrobert is still the commander-in-chief of the French army. He and Raglan are both hesitant and capricious characters, which also determines that the coalition will not be able to accomplish anything in the short term.

This gave Nakhimov time to personally oversee the overtime work in Kerch to reorganize the army that had been building fortifications. After nearly a month and a half of hard work, Kerch's defense has completely changed. No more officers with a hangover and no more soldiers without food. The morale of the Kerch defenders was lifted.

It was at this time that Conrobel chose to resign, and Perissier officially took office. The new commander-in-chief had a similar view to Raglan, believing that the focus of the coalition was on Sevastopol, and that as long as Sevastopol was taken, the war would be won.

It's just that this fellow believed that in order to achieve this goal, the gap between the British and French armies must be repaired, so he immediately agreed to the plan to attack Kerch without saying a word.

At the end of April, under Brown's command, sixty coalition warships set off with seven thousand French, five thousand Turkish soldiers and three thousand British troops. This time they didn't continue to make any feints, and went straight to Kerchi without saying a word.

It's just that this time the Anglo-French coalition forces are about to be attacked head-on. Their own dawdling has lost the best opportunity to capture Kerch, and now they will be waiting for an unprecedented tragic battle.

The coalition fleet soon arrived in Kerch, and the British and French battleships lined up and began pouring bullets on Kerch. In just an hour, the coalition fired more than 10,000 shells. The momentum was really a bit scary.

It's just that Nakhimov was in command of the battle. He had seen the power of coalition artillery fire for a long time. He deliberately improved Kerch's defense facilities. The trenches were reinforced with logs, and they were no longer built into a straight line and twists and turns. Greatly limited the lethality of the coalition grenade, watching the mighty shelling actually did not hurt the hair of the Kerch defenders.

And Nakhimov specially ordered his artillery not to fire back, deliberately creating an illusion that Kerch's defenses were lax and vulnerable, and lured the coalition forces to land as soon as possible.

Lieutenant General Brown was really fooled. After the shelling was over, he ordered the landing with a wave of his hand, so dozens of fleets began to approach the coast of Kerch, constantly sending coalition soldiers to the coast.

At this moment, the long-hidden Russian fort suddenly opened fire, pouring all the bullet rain on the coalition forces that had just landed and were preparing to land.

In an instant, the coalition forces were beaten up, and the soldiers who were trapped on the beachhead with no cover were knocked down by grape bombs.

In just half an hour, the landing troops of the coalition army were horribly bloodbathed. The booth was full of corpses, and a layer of floating corpses floated on the sea. It was a miserable!

Seeing that it was not good, Brown quickly ordered his battleships to line up again to bombard the Russian artillery battery, hoping to suppress the Russian artillery fire with ferocious firepower and cover the beachhead and the halfway troops advancing.

It's just that the navy of the Allied Forces can't take advantage of it. The Russian artillery batteries have been carefully reinforced. Even the cannons of the battleships do not hurt much. On the contrary, the coalition fleet lined up in a row was ruthlessly attacked by the Russian artillery batteries. Di Fatty was beaten, and a second-level battleship was sunk on the spot, causing two heavy damage.

As for the landing troops of the coalition forces, they could not take advantage of the Kerch defenders equipped with new-style rifles, and the hastily organized attack was easily repelled.

The fierce battle lasted until 4 o'clock in the afternoon. In the end, the allied landing troops were killed and injured more than 5,000 people, and they had to flee back to sea in a hurry.

And this also indicates that the coalition's first attack on Kerch failed, and they could only retreat to Varna to rest in embarrassment... 4255/10567262