A period of comparative inaction was at hand for both Armies; a forced truce, unacknowledged indeed and incomplete, maintaining at all times a. semblance of war, and frequently broken by its reality, but still a truce.
It has been often confidently stated, and there is reason to believe with truth, that but for the battle of Inkermann, the assault was to have been delivered within a few days of the date of that event; but the Allies, though victorious, had purchased their triumph so dearly, that the intention, if it was
THE EAST.
ever entertained, was unavoidably, for the time at least, abandoned. Nothing further of consequence could be attempted until the arrival of reinforcements; the sadly diminished numbers of our Army already barely sufficed for the laborious and harassing duties of the trenches; and ere long demands more urgent, and necessities more imperative even than those which had already so severely taxed their patience and their energies, were to try them, up to and beyond the utmost limits of human endurance. On the 14th of November, only nine days after Inkermann, a hurricane of the most terrific violence, and which lasted with unabated fury for several hours, visited the coasts of the Crimea, and inflicted the most irremediable damage on the Allies, both at sea and on shore. Sweeping with unchecked and ever-increasing force over the bare and elevated plateau on which the armies were encamped, its resistless impetus speedily levelled with the ground everything in the shape of a tent, whilst the drenching showers of rain with which it was accompanied chilled to the bone the wretched troops, who had lost their only shelter, and converted the camps into one vast muddy swamp. Articles of clothing, scraps of uniform, camp furniture of every description, were caught up and whirled far beyond the ken of their despairing owners, who in many instances found it impossible to keep their own footing, and were fain to throw themselves to the earth, and bend to the storm which they could not brave. Snow and sleet now began to mingle with the rain, and the hills gradually assumed a white and wintry aspect, peculiarly discouraging to men who had, perhaps, just returned from the trenches wet and hungry, and who found themselves without tents or means of cooking, and with a prospect of passing the night in the open air. Nor were these severe discomforts the worst results of the gale, even on land; many of the men, both French and English, worn out with fatigue and exposure, succumbed beneath this new and overwhelming trial, and were found lying dead about the camps. But at sea the consequences were more serious still, and here the hurricane, overstepping its former narrow limits of discomfort and disaster, assumed all the terrible proportions of a gigantic calamity. During this awful gale the English lost thirty-two transports. The fine screw steamer Prince, filled with an enormous supply of winter clothing, foundered with all on board — a fate shared by the Sea Nymph. Of the vessels of war, the Sanspareil was driven on shore, though she had her steam up. The Britannia had five feet of water in her hold. The Agamemnon was driven on shore, but managed to get off; and the engines of the Samjjson were seriously damaged. The lietrihution was also stranded, but got off by throwing her guns overboard. The French line-of-battle ship Henri Qttatre, and the steamer Pluton, were lost off Eupatoria, and another French steamer was dismasted.
Dashed by the merciless waves against the cruel and iron-bound coast.
full on which the terrible blast drove them, the English transports, for which there was no room in the crowded harbour of Balaklava, i^erished miserably under the eyes of friends who could render them no assistance. The loss of life was terrible; that of articles, now scarcely less precious than life itself, enormous; and the Russians had reason to rejoice at a calamity which, independent of its immediate and palpable effects, reduced the British Army to a state bordering on destitution, thinned its numbers, and all but compelled it to raise the siege.
Winter now set in in the Crimea in its most gloomy aspect, and with those peculiar alternations of cold and mild weather, rain, snow, and frost, which render this climate one of the most trying and treacherous in the world.