At the Little Redan it all looked promising when de Marolles' Brigade and the Foot Chasseur Battalion from the Garde got back into the bastion and the Garde's Grenadiers and Voltigeurs crossed the curtain to reinforce Bourbaki who was still desperately clinging on to the left of the Nikiforov (Poterne) Battery. But the Russians had consolidated on their second defence line and their artillery from both the town and the harbour had the French caught in accurate crossfire. As usual, commanders started going down. Generals de Marolles and de Poternes were both killed, along with the commander of the Garde Chasseurs, Colonel Cornulier de Lusiniere. The wounded included a 'quarteron' of Generals as De Gaulle would have said ; Bourbaki, Mellinet, Bisson and Le Motterouge himself, hit by a splinter when a powder magazine in the Nikiforov blew up spectacularly in late afternoon. As well as many French deaths, this mishap caused a mini- panic in the Malakov, reviving the old chestnut jitters that the Russians were poised to blow them all to smithereens.
Major General Sabashinsky had been concentrating on trying to clear the French off the curtain; the positions occupied by Bourbaki's men and the Garde reinforcements were protecting the left flank of the Malakoff; It was vital ground, because the Russians could have poured fire into the fortress from it which would have taken the French in their rear and would certainly have severely compromised their efforts to keep the Russians from storming back into the Bastion. The position provided the French with reasonable cover from direct fire, although they sustained such heavy casualties from indirect fire that the foot of the curtain for 100 yards was strewn 20ft wide with their dead. But nonetheless they held, and arguably were the true unsung heroes of the day.
Sabashinsky was forced to direct his full force composed of two regiments, the Shlissel'burgsky and the Sevsky, to the task of clearing the Little Redan. The combination of prolonged exposure to artillery fire and the loss of their leaders weakened French resistance to the spirited Russian infantry charge and they were driven out of the bastion and back to their trenches.
