To make bad matters worse, a gale of unprecedented fury struck the British fleet lying outside the little harbour of Balaklava and wrecked twenty-one vessels, including the Resolute^ a frigate, several loaded transports, and^a magazine ship laden with 10,000,000 rounds of rifle and gun ammunition. General Wood says:
"She had been sent outside the harbour after the battle of Balaklava, when we were apprehensive for the safety of the place. The Prince^ one of our largest transports, went down laden with warm clothing and stores of all descriptions. It was, however, as unreasonable as it was unjust to attempt to fasten the blame for the helpless muddle which ensued on those in the Crimea. It was caused mainly by the neglect to maintain the departments of the army during forty years of peace. It was easy to criticise the conduct of our generals, but it should be remembered that the government by very decided instructions had urged them on to the undertaking of a great task with inadequate means.'*
During the winter following the evacuation, Nicholas, the iron czar, whose ambition to emulate Peter the Great and Catherine II, the most famous of his ancestors, was the cause of the war, died. His brother, Alexander II, a man of less determination and greater humanity, sought the intervention of Austria, and peace was arranged Feb. 26, 1856. A treaty was signed at Paris a few weeks later by all the powers of Europe, in which the integrity and territory of the Ottoman Empire were guaranteed. Russia was compelled to agree to abandon Sevastopol as a military and naval station, not to fortify her coast, nor keep more than six gunboats of a maximum of 800 tons each on the Black Sea. These pledges, made under pressure, were repudiated by Russia as soon as she was strong enough to do so. Sevastopol was not only strengthened in its fortifications, but reinforced hy a large fleet of battleships and cruisers, and finally in 1876-77 the efforts of Alexander II to drive the Turk out of Europe and emancipate Bulgaria, Rumelia, Bosnia, Servia, Hertzegovia and Montenegro caused another war which was more successful than that of the Crimea, and added much territory to the Russian Empire and won much prestige for the Russian armies.
Sevastopol is to-day stronger than ever, the headquarters of a large army and a large fleet of battle ships, cruisers, torpedo boats, submarines and destroyers. New barracks are being erected, the machine-ships and arsenals have been refitted with modem machinery, and Russia is preparing for any opportunity that may offer to recover the prestige she lost in the late war with Japan. The little city of Sevastopol, which has about forty thousand inhabitants, occupies a very picturesque situation upon a low promontory or hog's back, as such formations are usually called, about one hundred and fifty feet high in the centre, and sloping gradually to the water on both sides. Viewed from the sea the city looks much larger than it is, and the white walls of the buildings glisten in the sun. On one shore is an estuary given up to commerce. On the other side of the ridge is the naval harbour, or inner bay, with a narrow entrance, defended by two old-fashioned forts with square portholes, like those in the harbour of New York. The outer bay is also strongly fortified, but the batteries are modem and are masked, and it is difficult for a stranger to identify them.
At the beginning of the War of 1855 the entrance to the harbour was blockaded in the same way that Hobson tried to bottle up Santiago de Cuba. The Russians had a large fleet of rotten old wooden ships. They were quite as good as any the Turks had, and Russia did not anticipate the intervention of England and France, whose men-of-war were very powerful in comparison. The Russian Admiral Kazarsky, in command of the Russian ships, proposed to attack the British ships whether or no, grapple them, blow them up and go down with them, but the Russian authorities would not permit such a sacrifice of human life as the scheme involved. So it was decided to use the hulls for defensive rather than offensive purposes, and the entire fleet of the czar was scuttled and sunk at the entrance of the harbor of Sevastopol. Providence took care of the British fleet and sent a storm which wrecked twenty-one of the vessels off the entrance to the Httle harbour of Balaklava.