Struggle in Russia

Not to mention the navy side, as spring gradually arrived, the British and French allied forces decided to continue to return to the previous road to besiege Sevastopol. To be honest, this winter has left many British and French soldiers unforgettable.

Throughout the winter, both sides were frantically reinforcing the fortifications. The work of digging trenches on the coalition side was mainly undertaken by the French army. The reason was that there were too many rocks on the British positions, and the temperature was too low to dig.

In a few months, the French army dug a total of 66 kilometers of trenches, while the British army only had 15 kilometers.

It's a dangerous, slow, tiring job that involves digging hard-to-freeze soil or blasting rocks with dynamite, all the while constantly harassing each other's earthwork with artillery fire. .

It can almost be said that for every meter of trenches dug a human life, sometimes even two!

Relatively speaking, the engineering progress of the Russian army was relatively smooth and easy. Under the personal command of the engineering genius Totrebian and the supervision of Kornilov, the Russian army developed a system that has never been seen in the history of siege warfare. The sophisticated complex fortifications and trench systems that have been used in the past.

Initially, the fortifications of the Russian army on the positions outside the city were only civil works hurriedly reinforced with wicker, wood bundles and gabion nets. However, during the winter truce, the Russian army built more solid fortifications and added gun emplacements in the bastions. and bunkers for enhanced defense.

The bunkers were several meters underground, topped with thick wooden slats removed from ships and paved with earthwork, to withstand the heaviest shelling.

A labyrinth of bunkers and rooms was built in Nikolai and Prism (the third Bastion. Nicholas Bastion is located on the top of the east side of the Dock Ridge), the most defended. There is even a pool table and sofa chairs in one room of the bastions, and there are prayer halls and field hospitals in the bunkers of each bastion.

In order to protect these important facilities, the Russian army also built new fortifications outside the city walls, the mamelon head fort in front of the Nicholas bastion and the quarry pit in front of the ribbed bastion.

The former was built by the Russian Kamchatka Regiment. During the construction process from February to March, it faced artillery fire from the French army almost every moment.

The number of dead soldiers of the Kamchatka regiment was so large that it was impossible to drag the bodies back one by one even under the cover of night, so the bodies of many soldiers who died in action were left in the civil works forever.

The mamelon head is itself a very complex fortress system, protected by a pair of earthen mounds called "white works" to protect its left flank, you can see the bunkers covered with thick wood everywhere on the ground, and soldiers can hide in it. attack. There is also a huge basement which can accommodate several hundred people. And some of the beds in this fort have eiderdown quilts and complete supplies. The morale of the soldiers guarding it was relatively high.

Because the main focus was on digging and building fortifications, Kornilov did not launch a large-scale counterattack against the coalition forces outside the city, only occasional sporadic attacks. The most daring of these attacks were directed by a man named Peter Koschka, who later became a household hero.

It's just that in general, the scale of these attacks is not very large, and the results are very average, and even the meat buns and dogs often have no return, and it is difficult to cause much impact on the coalition forces.

Of course, the coalition forces would also choose to attack the Russian army in the same way. The most famous one was the attack by Zhuav Division on the White Project. They briefly occupied the fortress, but were quickly repelled by the Russian army.

The only thing worth mentioning is that even though more than 300 people were killed or injured in this operation, they did not abandon their wounded comrades when they had to retreat, and even dragged back the bodies of their dead comrades.

During this period, the Russian army also launched a large-scale attack because of the insistence of Archduke Constantine, Nikolai and Archduke Mikhail. For example, in the middle of the night of March 22, about 5,000 Russian troops attacked the French positions in front of the mamelon head.

The 3rd Regiment of the French Zhuavs Division suffered the most. They fought head-to-head with the Russians and held their positions firmly.

The entire battle was fought in darkness, the only light being the fire of rifles and muskets. Then there's bayonet to bayonet fist to fist face to face.

After a night of fierce fighting, the two sides agreed to a six-hour truce to allow the return of the dead and wounded during this time.

Then the most stunned scene happened. The warring officers and soldiers who were still fighting each other a few minutes ago began to communicate in a friendly manner.

You can see a group of French officers and soldiers mingling with some Russian officers and soldiers holding armistice flags, the officers on both sides are chatting lightly and cheerfully as if they were the closest friends, and the same goes for the soldiers, who were still talking to each other a few minutes ago People who shot against each other now smoke and share tobacco, and share rum and vodka.

It was not until the officers on both sides looked at their watches and realized that "the time is almost up", they waved goodbye and returned to their fortifications.

Apart from these pointless harassment operations, the warring parties can be said to have nothing to do. British army staff officer Henry Clifford recalled: "The siege is now in walking form. We do nothing but fire and fire during the day. Everything is in a state of stagnation."

For the soldiers on both sides of the war, some of them hated the boring civil work, while the other part of them stayed in the trenches, either sleeping or playing cards, and shells fell from time to time around them.

The only good thing is that it taught the belligerent soldiers to recognize the various shells based on the sound and then take evasive actions, such as the high-pitched screeching sound of a solid bullet passing through the air, a cannonball buzzing by and a flock of birds flapping their wings rapidly. no difference...

Slowly, when both sides were unable to make progress in the siege, the exchange of fire really became a symbolic act. Soldiers doing nothing would turn the exchange of fire into a sporting activity. One side would tie a piece of cloth to the rifle bayonet and stick out a trench to let the enemy on the opposite side shoot it as a target. If the other side hits, everyone will cheer and cheer.

Because it was really boring to get home, and it became more and more familiar, the soldiers at the frontier began to touch the no-man's land between the two armies to play or keep warm. UU reading www.uukanshu. com

Raglan's nephew and lieutenant, Calthorpe, recall seeing a group of sterile, unarmed soldiers approaching the British post, the Russians gesturing that they wanted to smoke a pipe, and the two chatted hilariously. .

Russian soldier a: Hello British!

British soldier a: Hello Russians!

Russian soldier b: Ottoman is not good!

British soldier b: Aha! Turks are not good!

Russian soldier a: Ottoman!

He made a face and spat fiercely on the ground in contempt.

British soldier a: Turks!

He pretended to be afraid and ran away.

At this time, the two sides laughed wildly together, then shook hands amicably and went back to their posts... 4255/10680088