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The Final Big Push?

© John Barham

Although Prince Gorchakov had been handed a sound beating at the Battle of the Tchernaya and had promised a determined defence of Sevastopol he nevertheless incorporated two grenadier divisions newly arrived from Poland into his field army on the Belbeck and Mackenzie Heights. In fact throughout the remainder of August the Russians launched a series of aggressive fighting patrols in strength, principally in the Baidar Valley sector. These incursions were often in sufficient strength to qualify as raids. Typical was a Cossack attack on a French cavalry base area. Having scattered a few terrified base wallahs, they helped themselves to goodly quantities of arms, equipment, forage and stores of all kinds, even dismantling huts and taking them with them. General d'Allonville's reaction is sadly not on record.

The picture presented by deserters was that a major Russian attack along the whole front from Baidar to Inkerman could be expected at any moment. There are grounds for suspecting that these men were deliberate plants, as there were no immediate plans to attack and the Russians had plenty of evidence of the allies naivety in believing and reacting to deserters reports. This time was no exception. The French moved substantial bodies of troops down from the Sapoune, including the Imperial Guard which dug in on the Fediukine Heights. General Simpson, the new British Commander-in-Chief, was totally convinced and moved the Highland Division down to Kamara behind the Sardinians. The selection of the Highlanders was to have far reaching consequences, and seems to have been dictated by administrative convenience rather than any intelligent operational consideration. If so it would have been wholly typical of Simpson, who had been selected as a non-controversial successor to Raglan until the government, and in particular Secretary for War Lord 'Bison' Panmure, found somebody else. Remember that Simpson had originally been Panmure's man sent out to spy and report on Raglan's headquarters.

Often the trouble with non-controversial choices is the very fact that they've done nothing to upset anyone; since any initiative is bound to ruffle somebody's feathers the inference is that they have never taken one. Such a case was our Jim Simpson. A succession of gloomy negative reports to the Bison, never one to suffer fools gladly, had brought this response dated 28th July: "If you are so weighed down by a sense of your own inability to bear the burden of command, you must write to me officially and request to be relieved....it is neither fair to me, or yourself, to do otherwise....my friend, you must lead."

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