Thus a very formidable element entered into the problem of the siege. It has been already pointed out how embarrassing to the Allies were the outposts the enemy had placed, in October, in advance of their works. Here was a tremendous aggravation of the infliction, for not only did the Mamelon cover what had hitherto been the objects of attack in that quarter, but it looked into trenches of our Right Attack hitherto secure from fire, and forbade, under heavy penalties, its further approach towards the Redan.
The French had pushed their approaches so close to the small works covering the Mamelon that they might be expected presently to seize them, when, in the night of the 22d March, the enemy cast large bodies of troops on the opposing lines. Between 5000 and 6000 men attacked the French trenches before the Mamelon, and at first penetrated into them, driving in the guards and working parties. But their success ended there ; the French showed so firm a front that the attack collapsed, and the enemy fell back and re-entered the fortress, after inflicting on their opponents a loss of 600 men.
Simultaneously with the entry of the French works, 800 Russians moved out for an advance upon our Right Attack, but were easily repulsed for the time. This attack had been made on the part of the trenches next the Docks ravine. An hour later another assault (which apparently ought to have been in concert with the first) was made on the left portion of the same trenches by Greek and other volunteers. Led by an Albanian, in the dress of his country, they broke into the parallel, where the leader, first shooting one of our officers, discharged a pistol ineffectually at the magazine, and was then killed himself. The assailants moved along the trench from left to right till the guards and working parties, having been got together, met and drove them back upon the Redan.
At the same time with this last, another assault had been directed, with 500 men, on the advanced trench of our Left Attack, close to where the ridge was cut short by the ravine, and penetrated to the third parallel, where they were attacked by the nearest bodies of those guarding the trenches, and driven back like the rest. In these fights the officer commanding the guards oi the Right Attack was wounded and captured, as was the engineer of the Left Attack, with about fifteen men, and a quantity of intrenching tools, dropped by the working parties when they took up their arms. In all, we lost seventy men. The enemy left about forty dead in front of our Right Attack, ten killed and two wounded in the trenches of the Left ; and his losses, in all, that night were 1300 men.
If the Russians aimed, in this sortie, at establishing themselves in the French lines, it was so far a failure. But the object of such an enterprise is mostly to inflict hasty damage and discouragement on the enemy, and to gain a temporary facility for executing some of the defensive operations ; and on this ground the Russians might claim a certain success, for in the following night they connected the pits in front of the Mamelon by a trench, which their engineer extended to the verge of the ravine. Thus he had succeeded in forming and occupying, within eighty yards of the French, an intrenched line, supported by, while it covered, the Mamelon.
A truce was agreed on for burying the slain, to begin half-an-hour after noon on the 24th. White flags were then raised over the Mamelon and the French and English works, and many spectators streamed down the hillsides to the scene of contest. The French burial parties advanced from their trenches, and hundreds of Russians, some of them bearing stretchers, came out ifrom behind the Mamelon. The soldiers of both armies intermingled on friendly terms. The Russians looked dirty and shabby, but healthy and well fed. Between these groups moved the burial parties, collecting the bodies and conveying them within the lines on both sides. At 450 yards from the scene rose the Mamelon,
202 Charles Gordon's Experiences.