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The Naval Brigade - Part 4

© John Barham

After the roar of the First Bombardment had subsided, the Naval Brigade had a relatively quiet time. The sailors were not involved in the Battle of Balaklava, nor were they called into action when the Inkerman battle proper took place on 5th November. In the Great Storm of 14th November their tents were blown away with the best of the rest, but they recovered and a week later moved camp from the plain on the Heights one and a half miles to a less exposed position at the head of a ravine between Headquarters and 3rd Division, sheltered from the prevailing winds and closer to Balaklava. Here they rode out the infamous winter of 1854-55 in much better shape than the rest of the British forces.

Although intestinal diseases were common at first, principally the effect of an unvaried diet of salt pork often eaten raw or cold, the Sailors soon organised themselves for survival living. During that fatal winter, they only lost 3.5% of their strength to disease, half their losses to fatal wounds. This compared to the cavalry, losing an overall 15% to all causes, and 24% for the infantry battalions sited near Balaklava. On the Heights, the battalions lost 39% to sickness alone and this rose to an appalling 73% in those which were most called on for perpetual trench duties.

How did the Naval Brigade achieve such a startlingly better result? The Army suggested that they had the advantage of being supplied from their ships but this was not in fact the case. There was no central stores or supply system for the Navy in the Crimea; individual detachments could have drawn from their parent ships, but most of these were either refitting in Turkey or laying off the mouth of the Katcha, well out of reach.

As we know, the ongoing problem for the army was not so much that supplies were unavailable at Balaklava, but rather that there was no proper transport to get them up to the regiments. But even if there had been, the jobsworths employed by the Commissariat were hidebound by red tape and labyrinthine paperwork procedures and regulations totally inappropriate to an active service theatre, which they dared not ignore or shortcircuit. These procedures seemed to have been calculated to drag out beyond the average expectation of life for perishable foods, and mounds of rotted vegetables on the Balaklava wharves bore witness to the cynical indifference of officialdom towards these stinking monuments to waste and inefficiency. Evelyn Wood cites a classic example: "One ship indeed arrived from Varna with her decks piled high with cabbages, but the purchaser had omitted to consign them to anyone, and no one being willing to accept the financial responsibility for signing for them, the cabbages were eventually thrown overboard.'