| Wojna krymska oczyma kapitana Chodasiewicza. 20 września 1854 r.Rosjanie przegrywają bitwę nad rzeką Alma.Przed bitwą 37 tysięcy Rosjan zajęło stanowiska na dwóch wzgórach Telegrah Hill oraz Kourgane Hill blokując aliantom drogę do Sewastopola.Siły aliantów wynosiły 60 tysięcy żołnierzy.W trakcie bitwy śmierć poniosło 5700 Rosjan i 3300 żołnierzy alianckich. Alianci siali wielkie spustoszenie za pomocą nowego gatunku bomby wirującej "spinning Minie ball". Chodasiewicz opisuje, w jakim popłochu i chaosie Rosjanie wycofywali się z pobojowiska.
The whole Russian force at the Alma was 44 battalions of infantry, 16 squadrons of cavalry, 16 sotnias of Cossacks, and 96 guns (...) After the passage of the ford, the confusion became, if possible, still greater, and all attempts to obtain some degree of order were useless; to increase all this, the evening now began to close upon us. Everybody seemed to have lost the faculties of thinking and acting; nobody mentioned the enemy or the defeat we had suffered; from the surprise which that occasioned our commanders could not recover; so we all hurried on, but no one knew whither!
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Our battalion, after crossing the Katcha, kept a southerly direction till it became quite dark; the men were so tired that they could hardly drag one leg before the other, when a Cossack galloped past us and said we were to go to the Katcha.
“Which is the way?” asked the Major.
"Straight forward,” cried the Cossack, as he galloped on to repeat the order to others. Straight forward ! before us were hills, cliffs, and woods, with only a small path that led Heaven knows whither. Before proceeding farther, I begged the commander of our battalion to allow the men to rest a little. We got our battalion together, and discovered that two companies were missing. A sergeant, Ojogin, is sent back to shout, and try to make them hear or find them ; but the poor fellow, tired and hungry, after running to and fro, could find no one. We discovered that we were alone in the hills, and knew not in what direction the rest of the army had retreated.
A short distance in front of us I heard a groan as of some one in pain. I went to see what it was, and found a soldier who had been wounded by a ball in the leg above the knee ; he told me he had been taken to the field-hospital and had his leg bandaged, when the surgeon told him to go to Sevastopol, a distance of about thirty versts, or twenty miles! At first, he said, he trudged along pretty well, but from the exertion of walking the blood flowed freely from his wound, and saturated the bandage, which began to slip down, while the ball caused him great pain in walking.
At last he was obliged to sit down to rest, and, wishing to rebandage his leg, he had taken off the ligature, when the blood, heated by his walk, flowed from the wound faster than ever, so that he could not stop it or help himself. There he lay, poor fellow! on the bare ground, alone in the field at night, without a creature to render him assistance, or by his society to lighten the difficulties of the road. The sight of this poor wounded man caused me to reflect that he had fought and done his duty, suffering in a cause the merits of which he knew nothing, and now wounded and helpless he could neither obtain assistance nor consolation. It is surprising how little care is taken of a Russian soldier!
A Voice from Within the Walls of Sebastopol, a Narrative of the Campaign in the Crimea, and the Events of the Siege , London John Murray June 1856
We were fairly alone in a country quite unknown to any of us ; the darkness was so great that at a very short distance we could distinguish no object. To add to this, we were all completely tired out. Some proposed to turn to the left in order to get to Sevastopol. Others again said we must go to the right and not to the left for that purpose. In fact, we were completely lost, and might, for aught we knew to the contrary, be standing on the edge of a precipice.
(...)Here a Cossack patrol came up with us, and gave us the order to go to the river Katcha as the general rendezvous of the army: he said he was sent to look for those who had lost their way... but he did not know which way led to the Katcha!
If I might venture to give my opinion on the battle of the Alma, I should say that the Russians were beaten from the following causes:
first, the troops were badly disposed upon the position;[] secondly, during the action nobody gave any directions what to do, and every one acted as he thought fit; the battalions of reserve began to retreat without any orders; our battalion also began to retire, following the example of the reserves.
During the five hours that the battle went on we neither saw nor heard of our general of division, or brigadier, or colonel: we did not during the whole time receive any orders from them either to advance or to retire; and when we retired, nobody knew whether we ought to go to the right or left.
A 2 hr British
TV documentary "Crimean War"
Ciąg dalszy nastąpi.
To be continued.
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