gunners, and on the battalions drawn up in support. At half-past eleven Admiral Korniloft was mortally wounded in the Malakoff. The batteries in the earthworks around the tower gradually ceased to fire. By three o'clock a third of the guns in the Redan were silenced, and very soon afterwards we blew up a large magazine there, reducing great part of the parapet and embrasures to a shapeless ruin, killing more than 100 men, and silencing the rest of its guns. Todleben says the defence in that part of the lines was completely paralysed, and that an immediate assault was expected, while the troops drawn up to meet it in rear of the work had become so demoralised that they fell back and sought the shelter of the scarped edge above the inner harbour.
It will be seen, then, that the purpose of establishing the siege batteries had on our side been accomplished. All that was expected from them had come to pass ; the way was cleared, so far as it lay in them to clear it, by opening a passage for our troops into the Redan, and silencing its supporting work the Malakoff. But the disaster to the French had put an end to all thoughts of an assault by them on the Flagstaff Bastion, and the two attacks being interdependent, the design could not be executed. Our fire continued till dusk, and then the cannonade ceased everywhere.
The event had thoroughly justified the prevision of Sir John Burgoyne. The Russian heavy batteries opposed to us had been extinguished by our fire, and the assault would probably have been delivered in the
106 Losses on both Sides.
hour before dawn next day, or possibly just before nightfall on the I7th, when it seems more than probable that the first step in the capture of the place would have been accomplished, namely, a secure lodgment on the enemy's main works. Had the French been equally successful in clearing the way to the Flagstaff Bastion, the success of the enterprise would have been assured so far as undertakings can be which are so largely imbued with the element of chance.
Our losses were slight, that of the French in killed and wounded about 100 men, the English forty-seven. The Russians lost more than iioo; not only were whole detachments repeatedly swept from the guns by our shot, and 100 men destroyed by the explosion, but their casualities were vastly increased by the necessity of keeping ready behind the works the troops which were to meet the expected assault, who could not be sheltered from the storm of missiles which swept over the fortified line.
As the ships effected nothing which could influence the fortunes of the day, it has not been essential to describe earlier the part they took. At one o'clock they had taken up their positions. The British ships prolonged the line across the outside of the harbour until met by a shoal between them and the coast of the north side. Inside that shoal a channel was found, and was entered by Lyons in the Agamemnon (brought out of Balaklava for the action), followed by the Sanspareil and London. These ships approached Fort Constantine
Action of the Fleets. 107
to from 800 to 1000 yards, and their broadsides speedily destroyed the batteries on its roof. But they made small impression on its casemates, and found themselves under a fire from the batteries on the cliff which they were powerless to return. Many other ships entered the channel to help them, but all experienced the power of these small, high-placed batteries, which they were unable to reach with their fire. Nearly all were set on fire, some in many places. All suffered great damage, and considerable loss of men, and all were compelled to withdraw from the action. It was with these facts before him that Todleben ventured, in enumerating the advantages with which, according to him, the Allies would have attacked the north side, to assert that the ships could have silenced the very works which inflicted this damage with impunity, and could also have brought their fire to bear on the Star Fort, 1000 yards farther inland.