Struggle in Russia

The warring two armies are not only the soldiers in the frontline posts laughing and laughing as a family, but the lives of the soldiers in the rear trenches and fortresses are also becoming more and more colorful.

In order to kill time, soldiers generally play poker, while officers play chess or read. There is even a grand piano in the bunker of the sixth bastion of the Russian army. Soldiers who can play more aggressively in other bastions will be invited here. Hold a concert.

Kornilov's adjutant later recalled: "In the beginning, the concert was solemn, and there was a sense of ritual to follow the etiquette that should be observed when listening to a classical concert. But gradually with the change of our mood, the performance became more and more There were more national music and folk songs and dances, and once again a masquerade was arranged, with a cadet disguised as a woman singing a folk song."

In the French camps, drama was very popular. Zhu Avshi has his own cross-dressing juggling troupe, and he often sees a large group of chaotic soldiers in front of a wooden house enjoying juggling.

French army cleric Andre Damas also said: "Imagine a soldier of the Zhuav division dressed as a shepherdess and flirting with the soldiers! There will be another soldier of the Zhuav division dressed as a high-society woman, performing a performance that is not easy to be pursued. Madam. I've never seen such a funny scene and a gentleman with such great acting skills, they are so much fun!"

The British are more high-end entertainment, they love horse racing, who let their cavalry have nothing to do?

Of course, if you don't like these activities, then drinking is definitely something that all officers and soldiers like. Almost all units in both armies suffered from alcohol abuse, such as breach of discipline, swearing, arrogance and drunken fights.

During the entire Crimean War, there were 5,546 British soldiers, about one-eighth of the total number of soldiers who had been brought to court-martial for drunken behavior.

Many soldiers wake up with a big glass of wine in the morning, rum for the British, vodka for the Russians, wine for the French, and then another big glass for dinner. Even many soldiers were so drunk that they were not sober during the entire siege.

Even the Turks, whose precepts do not allow drinking, are not exempt from the custom, and they prefer sweet Crimean wines.

Almost every regiment has a canteen, and at the entrance of the canteen you can always see piles of British and French soldiers scrambling or lying or rolling. Some of them laughed wildly, some wept, and some danced, made faces, or even fought and made out to be affectionate or dumbfounded. It was just as bad for the British as it was for the French to be drunk that many high-ranking officers thought that overpaying their soldiers was a great mistake.

Because as soon as these soldiers get the money, they will immediately switch to alcohol and immediately become a puddle of mud!

Even some high-ranking officers began to miss the state when supplies were scarce, when there was hardly any problem of drunkenness, and the only thing all soldiers expected was to have a full stomach, and then to be able to dress warmly.

On the contrary, as the coalition continued to improve the infrastructure construction in Crimea, they found that the soldiers were getting more and more demanding and getting more and more drunk, especially the British built the Balaclava to Inkerman. After the railway down the mountain, this bad situation became more and more common.

To tell the truth, sometimes you have to admire the wealthy wealthy British dog owners. Just look at Li Xiao and the others in Wallachia that they almost emptied their pockets before they reluctantly built a railway. And the British managed to get a dedicated supply railway in just two or three months.

The person responsible for the construction of the railway was British railway construction expert Samuel Peetow, who raised 100,000 pounds from the Prime Minister Lord Aberdeen, purchased the materials needed to build the railway, and raised a batch of non-standard funds. How a well-behaved Irish-dominated construction team.

The construction team arrived in Balaclava at the end of January, and immediately started rapid construction. When it was fast, almost half a kilometer of railway could be laid in a day. By the end of March, the ten-kilometer railway from Balaclava to the foot of Mount Inkerman was announced. Done.

This railway is of special significance to the coalition forces. It has greatly improved the efficiency of the coalition's material transfer. As long as the coalition's supply ships can only reach Balaklava, they can quickly deliver materials to the front line.

It was because of the greatly improved supply efficiency that Raglan was determined to launch a large-scale offensive in early April.

According to Raglan's plan, the coalition forces would bombard Sevastopol for ten consecutive days, when five hundred coalition artillery pieces would continuously bombard the Russian positions. This will be the largest shelling launched by the coalition forces after landing in Crimea, and also the largest shelling in the world at that time.

The senior generals of the coalition had great expectations for this large-scale artillery bombardment, and they all counted on this shelling to destroy the defense system of Sevastopol in one fell swoop and shake the Russian army's will to resist, thus ending the war quickly.

It's just that Kornilov has already prepared for the action of the coalition forces. On the one hand, the deserters of the coalition forces leaked information, and on the other hand, the Russian observation post can clearly see that the coalition forces are very busy, almost every day. Discover coalition deployment of new artillery positions.

April 9, Easter. Just a few hours before the coalition forces were about to launch the shelling, prayers were held in churches in Sevastopol~www.readwn.com~ Every bastion prayed, and the priest walked in front of the troops with a statue of a god. Among them was the icon of St. Sergius sent from the Troitsky monastery in Sergiyevo town on the order of Nicholas I.

The icon was accompanied by the Russian army in the early Romanov dynasty, and joined the Moscow militia against Napoleon's invasion in 1812.

At the midnight mass held in the main church of Sevastopol, countless candles illuminated the church and the street, even the coalition troops could see clearly from the trenches, and the huge crowd spread all the way to the street, all standing there praying silently .

Each had a candle in his hand, and occasionally bowed his head and drew a cross on his chest, others knelt on the ground, and the priests walked through the crowd holding icons, and the choir continued to chant after them.

At the climax of the ceremony, a storm suddenly came, and the rain poured down, but no one left. The soldiers and civilians in Sevastopol regarded the storm as a manifestation of the sky, so the praying crowd stayed in the rain until the first rays of the morning. The sun shines.

At this time, the artillery bombardment of the coalition forces also began. The praying crowd did not panic but evacuated in an orderly manner.