A Matter of Policy - Part 1

Lieut A M Earle 57th Foot - Letter to his father 10 Sept 55

Note: in navigating this article, readers may find useful a diagramatic sketch showing a typical layout of a Sevastopol Bastion and illustrating the most common siege terms. Also a map depicting the 8th September position of the trenches in front of the bastions.

Although French predominance in the allies coalition had dictated that the Britsh Infantry would play a relatively minor role in the 8th September overall scheme of things, there was nevertheless keen competition amongst regiments to take part in the attack on the Redan. The less than dynamic General Simpson had been subjected to intensive lobbying from all sides. From here it was a short step for him to believe that selection needed to be decided on the basis of which units deserved the honour the most. And so he chose the Light Division and 2nd Division - the chaps who had had such bad luck last time. Poor old 2nd Division had not even got into the fight, but they had put up a jolly good show in the trenches ever since, and by Jove they knew the ground like the backs of their grimy hands.

In actual fact the once fine line regiments in both divisions were by this stage little more than proud names. Sadly the cream of the soldiery who had fought at Alma and Inkerman had nearly all fallen by the wayside - most of them who had survived the great battles had succumbed during the intervening year to the effects of the winter, disease, the June 18th assault, repetitive trench warfare, or a combination of some or all of these. Such experienced officers and senior NCOs as remained were propping up a rank and file consisting largely of raw young under-trained replacements, many of whom had been civilians only a couple of months before arriving in the Crimea.

If Simpson had possessed a pea of a military brain, he would have realised that to such inexperienced soldiery, familiarity with the area could be a serious disadvantage. Men who had come ashore from the draft straight into a baptism of fire had only the instinct of self preservation to protect them. They quickly became conditioned to avoiding exposing themselves at any cost - never mind if they were supposed to be observing - and using every inch of cover that the trench system provided for them; it was such common practice in the Light Division that they had coined a term for it, "gabion-dodging". Colonel Sterling from Highland Divisional Headquarters relates that an officer from a line regiment which he omits to name for obvious reasons told him '"he had been sent out with a hundred men to form a line of sentries after dark outside the advanced trench, and that they all ran away and left him, with the exception of six men. The heart is out of them."

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