Struggle in Russia

The battle for the fort became fierce.

The two sides fought together, and sometimes one side launched a charge to drive the opponent down the hillside, only to be met with a counterattack by another force from a farther hillside.

Soldiers on both sides completely lost military discipline and became a group of disorderly mobs, not controlled by officers and completely dominated by rage and fear.

The inability to see the opponent in the thick fog increased the sense of fear. Both sides continued to charge and countercharge, shouting and screaming, firing bullets, and dancing wildly with swords. After the bullets were fired, they picked up stones and threw them at each other, or smashed them with rifle butts. , even kicking and biting with teeth.

In such a battle, the coordination ability of small units is crucial. Everything depends on whether small groups of troops and their commanders can maintain fighting spirit and maintain unity - only if they do this, can they help each other and continue fighting, instead of being frightened and fleeing.

Obviously the Russian Tarutinsky Regiment is not qualified.

Hodasevich is the company commander of the 4th Battalion of the Tarutinsky Regiment. His task is to occupy the British position in the eastern part of Inkelman Mountain and cover other troops under Pavlov in transporting fortification materials to the hillside.

He became disoriented in the thick fog and turned to the left, mixing with the disgruntled soldiers of the Yekaterinburg regiment, who had already ascended to the high ground as Soimorov's men.

Two different troops were mixed together, making the command sequence even more confusing. Because there was no officer to command, some soldiers of the Tarutinsky Regiment began to climb the mountain again. They could identify some friendly troops in front of them standing in front of a small fort and shouting cheers. He shook his cap and motioned them forward.

Hodasiewicz recalled: "The bugle kept blowing the advance horn, and some of my soldiers broke away from the formation and ran straight forward. By the time we reached the front of the fort, we no longer had any formation to speak of... We picked up our bayonets. After repelling the British who were stubbornly resisting, the soldiers began to search the corpses for property and trophies in a chaotic mess..."

Because of the thick fog and the disruption of combat units, there were many incidents of friendly fire and accidental fire on the Russian side. Soimolov's troops, especially the soldiers of the Yekaterinburg Regiment, began to fire at the Russian troops in the fort.

Some thought they were shooting at the enemy, while others received orders from their commanders and asked soldiers who obeyed the order to shoot those who disobeyed to maintain military discipline.

"The situation was extremely chaotic," Hodasevitch recalled: "Some people were complaining about the Yekaterinburg regiment, others were shouting for the artillery, and the bugles continued to blow the advance horn and the military blast. The drums told us to attack, but no one moved forward, just like a flock of sheep standing there dumbly."

At this moment, the bugle suddenly changed and began to order the Tarutinsky regiment to turn left, which caused a new panic.

Because most of the soldiers felt that they were being asked to deal with the French on the left, because the French bugle could be vaguely heard in the thick fog.

"Where are the reserves?"

The Tarutinsky Regiment, which was worried about being attacked by the French and British troops, suddenly went into chaos. Someone shouted: "Where are the reserves?"

But no one could answer this question, and soon the soldiers became confused and began to run down the slope, trampling on each other and jumping backwards.

"The officers shouted to the soldiers to stop, but no one listened, no one wanted to stop," Hodasevich said.

The Tarutinsky regiment fled all the way to the bottom of the quarry ravine until it was blocked by the aqueduct leading to Sevastopol.

At that time, Lieutenant General Kiriakov, the commander of the 17th Infantry Division, the one who ran faster than a rabbit in the Battle of the Alma River, appeared at the aqueduct. He was riding on a tall horse and waving his hand. He whipped the soldiers with horsewhips and shouted to them to go back to the mountain, but no soldier listened to him, and some even contradicted him in person: "Go up yourself!"

When Hodasevich, who stayed in the fort, regrouped and reorganized his formation, he found that his company had reduced from the original one hundred and twenty men to only forty-five men.

The sound of war drums that caused chaos in Tarutinsky's regiment did come from the French army. At seven o'clock in the morning, when Raglan arrived at the front line to inspect the fighting situation, he asked Bosquet to come for reinforcements. He also ordered two eighteen-pound guns to be dragged over from the fort that was bombarding Sevastopol to fight against the Russian army. cannon.

It was just that Raglan's order was mistransmitted again. Fortunately, Bosquet's troops actually realized that the British position was in danger after hearing the earlier gunfire. The soldiers of the Zhuav Division even heard the Russian gunshots the night before. They heard the sound of troops marching - their experience fighting in Africa had taught them how to listen for sounds from the ground - so the French were ready to support and just waiting for orders.

Moreover, the best situation for the Zhuav Division is to fight in thick fog and in mountains covered with bushes, and they are best at ambushing the enemy with small groups of armed forces.

The soldiers of the Zouave Division and the French African Chasseurs were eager to join the battle, but Bokes did not move. He was more concerned about the movements of the Liplanj troops in the southern valley. The French army reconnaissance found that this Russian army had more than 20,000 people and Nearly a hundred cannons. At that time, this force had begun shelling them and might launch a general attack on them at any time.

In fact, Bosquet did not need to worry about Liprangi at all, because he did not have that many troops at hand. The reason was that Liprangi ordered half of the troops to stay behind the Chornaya River as a reserve, and dispersed the front-line troops. On the slopes at the bottom of the Sarpon Highlands.

When he heard the sound of gunfire in the thick fog becoming more and more intense, and after finding a few broken British soldiers to inquire about the situation, Bokes knew that he could not wait any longer.

Bokes came to Division Zhuav, drew his sword and pointed it at the thick fog and shouted: "Forward! Let us set off! It's time to destroy the Russians!"

The soldiers of Zhuav's division immediately attacked the Russian army in small units, using the bushes as cover. They deliberately made all kinds of noise to scare the Russian army. They ran forward while shouting, shooting in the air and blowing the whistle. The trumpet played the snare drum, making as loud a sound as possible.

Jean Clair, a colonel of the Zouave Division, even said to his men during mobilization before the war: "Open your pants as wide as possible, try to make you look bigger!"

Don't tell me that this trick is very effective. Wasn't the Tarutinsky regiment of the Russian army in front of them frightened by the French army?

So when Zhuav's division just reached the Russian army, the Russian army was beaten to a disgrace. Just after the fight, the French army killed hundreds of people with Migne rifles, causing the Russian army to become even more chaotic...