In January two French officers arrived in the Crimea, both destined, though in entirely opposite ways, to exercise an important influence on the course of the war. The Emperor Napoleon, regarding the appointments already made to the command of Corps and Divisions by Canrobert, under the pressure of circumstances, as provisional merely, had summoned General Pelissier from his Government of Oran, and placed him in charge of the ist Corps, that besieging the lines before the town ; and it will be seen how powerful was the impelling element introduced with the presence of this masterful spirit into the attack on the fortress. And, on the 2/th of January, General Niel, the engineer who had just conducted operations against Bomarsund, and who was regarded as the military counsellor of the Emperor, arrived in the Crimea on a special mission. The nature of this, kept secret at the time, will appear in the next chapter ; but he at once expressed his ideas of the military situation. Regarding it, from the engineer's point of view, as a siege, and what should consequently follow the rules of a siege, one of which was that a necessary step towards the capture of a fortress is its investment, so he believed that all the efforts of the Allies must be vain until they should have intercepted all communication between Sebastopol and MenschikofPs army. " Believe, Monsieur le Marechal," he wrote to the
The Russians attack Eupatoria. 205
Minister for War, " that nothing can be done without investing," and with this opinion his language at the conference was in unison. And, no doubt, to have severed all communication with the city must have been effectual in the end, if practicable ; but the event showed that the measure was not indispensable. That the Russians feared such a step was shown about this time. Omar Pasha had been for some time assembling, at Eupatoria, bodies of his Turks from the Danube. The town had been surrounded with works of earth and loose stones by the French officer at first left in charge of the place. These, thrown forward to a salient in the centre, bent round on both flanks to the sea. About 23,000 Turks and thirty-four heavy guns were within these works, when the Russians, alarmed for their communications with Perekop, delivered an attack upon the place with a large force drawn from MenschikofFs army, and said by Todleben to number 19,000 infantry, with a strong cavalry and numerous artillery. Both flanks of the works of the place were defended by a French steamer,' a Turkish, and four English steamers lying in the bay.
On the 1 6th February the Russians appeared before the place. They spent the night in throwing up cover for their batteries, and by morning had seventy-six guns, twenty-four of them of heavy calibre, ready to open at from 600 to 800 yards from the works. At daybreak the cannonade began, and when the fire of the place seemed to be overcome, three columns of attack, supported by field batteries, advanced on the centre and
206 The Attack repulsed.
flanks of the defensive line. Two of these were stopped by the fire of the steamers and of the place ; the third, on the right front of the Turkish line, finding cover in the walls of the cemeteries there, assembled under their shelter, and advanced more than once almost to the ditch, but were easily repulsed ; and with the last attempt in this quarter the enterprise came to an end, and the Russians drew off at once towards the interior. They lost 769 killed and wounded ; the garrison, 387.
Even had they carried the works, it is difficult to perceive how they could have proposed to maintain themselves in the place, under the fire of the ships. It was probably his experience of what this fire could effect, and against which no return could be made, that so convinced the Russian commander of the hopelessness of the enterprise, as to render the assault weak and futile in comparison with his forces. No further attempt was made on Eupatoria during the war. This failure, following on the others, was visited on Menschikoff by withdrawing him from the command of the Forces in the Crimea, in which he was succeeded by Gortschakoff.