The Battle of the Tchernaya Part 2
Gorchakov arrived on the scene at around 4 a.m expecting to hear the noise if not of general battle, at least of artillery fire, but all was silent. He somewhat irritably ordered the aide nearest to him, who happened to be the totally untrained Lieut Krasovsky, to take the message 'pora nachinat' - 'it is time to start' to both commanders. In the Russian this often conveys a sense of urgency - more 'It is high time you got going' rather than 'You may begin now'. But before Krasovsky reached either commander, Liprandi opened up with his artillery, apparently in accordance with his written orders. Hearing this, Read also gave the order to his artillery to commence firing, but his Chief of Artillery soon reported that the French positions were out of range, whereupon firing ceased. Shortly afterwards, Krasovsky galloped up "The C-in-C's compliments," he panted, "and it's high time you got going." Read replied with the natural question "Got going with what?" Krasovsky; "I don't know, that's what the C-in-C said." Read thought aloud. "He can't mean to open artillery fire because we've already done that. Does he mean to attack?" Krasovsky didn't know what he meant. "OK," decided Read "go back and tell the Prince that I will attack now and that I would like him to send me further formations."
Colonel Seaton quotes the above conversation in its entirety, as related by a witness, and borne out by Read's subsequent dialogue and actions up until the moment he was killed at the height of the battle - Gorchakov and Krasovsky not surprisingly came up with a different version for the 'misunderstanding'.
Meanwhile, after a spirited and extremely dogged resistance lasting almost an hour, the Piedmontese had been slowly driven back off Telegraph Hill, but reinforced by the 4th Bersaglieri (roughly equivalent to Foot Chasseurs), were hanging on tenaciously to a knoll just north of the river. Nonetheless, encouraged by the Russian progress in this sector, Gorchakov decided to put his main attack in on Gasfort Hill and committed 5th Div to come forward to support Liprandi in the assault. Shortly afterwards however he was alarmed to hear the sounds of a firefight from the Traktir Bridge direction, and an aide from Read arrived stating that he was across the river and urgently needed reinforcements. Gorchakov took a snap decision to switch his main thrust to the Fedioukine and redirected 5th Div to support Read. He said afterwards that at this point he realised that the battle was lost.
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