The Crimean War - The Battle of Balaclava

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• published: 12 Jun 2015
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The Battle of Balaclava, fought on 25 October 1854 during the Crimean War, was part of Siege of Sevastopol (1854–1855) to capture the port and fortress of Sevastopol, Russia's principal naval base on the Black Sea. The engagement followed the earlier Allied victory in September at the Battle of the Alma, where the Russian General Menshikov had positioned his army in an attempt to stop the Allies progressing south towards their strategic goal. Alma was the first major encounter fought in the Crimea since the Allied landings at Kalamita Bay on 14 September, and was a clear battlefield success; but a tardy pursuit by the Allies failed to gain a decisive victory, allowing the Russians to regroup, recover and prepare their defence. The Allies decided against an immediate assault on Sevastopol and instead prepared for a protracted siege. The British, under the command of Lord Raglan, and the French, under Canrobert, positioned their troops to the south of the port on the Chersonese Peninsula: the French Army occupied Kamiesh on the west coast whilst the British moved to the southern port of Balaclava. However, this position committed the British to the defence of the right flank of the Allied siege operations, for which Raglan had insufficient troops. Taking advantage of this exposure, the Russian General Liprandi, with some 25,000 men, prepared to attack the defences in and around Balaclava, hoping to disrupt the supply chain between the British base and their siege lines. The battle began with a Russian artillery and infantry attack on the Ottoman redoubts that formed Balaclava's first line of defence. The Ottoman forces initially resisted the Russian assaults, but lacking support they were eventually forced to retreat. When the redoubts fell, the Russian cavalry moved to engage the second defensive line held by the Ottoman and the Scottish 93rd Highland Regiment in what came to be known as the 'Thin Red Line'. This line held and repulsed the attack; as did General James Scarlett's British Heavy Brigade who charged and defeated the greater proportion of the cavalry advance, forcing the Russians onto the defensive. However, a final Allied cavalry charge, stemming from a misinterpreted order from Raglan, led to one of the most famous and ill-fated events in British military history – the Charge of the Light Brigade. The British and French fleets departed from the Bulgarian port of Varna on 5 September 1854, heading towards Kalamita Bay in the Crimea. By the 14th, the troops began to land; within four days the Allied force of 61,400 infantry, 1,200 cavalry and 137 guns, was ashore. Thirty-three miles (~53 km) to the south of the landing zone, beyond the Bulganak, Alma, Katcha and Belbek rivers, lay the Russian naval base and fortress of Sevastopol, the key Allied objective in the Crimea. General Menshikov, aware of the Allied presence, prepared his troops on the banks of the River Alma in an effort to halt the Franco-British advance, but on 20 September he was soundly defeated in what was the first major battle in the Crimea. News of Menshikov's defeat was met with disbelief by Tsar Nicholas I in St. Petersburg – it seemed it would only be a matter of time before Sevastopol fell. But Allied hesitation, first from the French commander-in-chief, Saint-Arnaud, then by Lord Raglan, allowed the dispirited Russians to escape the battlefield in relative order, allowing Menshikov and his army to reach Sevastopol, reorganise and rebuild their morale. "It is frightful to think what might have happened," wrote Vice-Admiral Kornilov, "had it not been for this cardinal error of the enemy's." The Allied march south finally recommenced on the morning of 23 September 1854, but there was as yet no definite plan of action; it was not until they had passed the River Katcha in sight of Sevastopol itself, that the Allied commanders discussed their options. The original plan had envisaged a move across the River Belbek before attacking the north side (the Severnaya) of Sevastopol harbour, defended by the Star Fort; but recent naval intelligence had revealed that the position was much stronger than had first been realised. John Burgoyne, the British Army's most experienced engineer, advocated an attack on Sevastopol from the south which, from all reports, was still an imperfectly entrenched position. This was a view shared by Saint-Arnaud who, having received his own intelligence of Russian reinforcements, had refused to agree to an attack from the north. Burgoyne's proposed 'flank march' required the Allies to go round the city to the east in order to attack the harbour from the south where the defences were weakest. Raglan was inclined to agree, arguing that he had always been disposed to such an operation; he knew, too, that the problem of re-supply would be eased with the seizing of the southern ports on the Chersonese Peninsula.