What Was the Siege of Sevastopol?
The Siege of Sevastopol was a military engagement of the Crimean War, fought from 17 September 1854 to 9 September 1855. The siege was the central event of the war: it involved the Russian defence of the city and naval base of Sevastopol against an allied force of British, French, Ottoman, and Sardinian forces, and it resulted in the Russian evacuation of the city. The siege lasted 349 days, was marked by the sinking of the Russian Black Sea Fleet to block the entrance to the harbour, and was the first siege of the industrial age: the first in which rifled firearms, telegraph communications, and railways played a significant role. The siege was, in essence, a Russian defeat: the Russian government was forced to negotiate the Treaty of Paris, and the conditions imposed on Russia in 1856 reshaped the European state system (see Figes, The Crimean War, 2010).
The Russian defence
The defence of Sevastopol was organised by Vice Admiral Vladimir Kornilov, the commander of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, and by the military engineer Eduard Totleben. The Russian decision to defend the city at all was a controversial one; the Russian command under Prince Alexander Menshikov had been considering evacuation. The Russian decision was based on the strategic importance of Sevastopol, the symbolic importance of the city, and the popular mood in Russia. Kornilov and Totleben developed a comprehensive system of defence: the Russian Black Sea Fleet was sunk to block the entrance to the harbour; the city was surrounded by a chain of forts and defensive positions; the Russian army was reorganised into a single force under the direct command of the city.
Kornilov was killed on 17 October 1854 by a French sniper at the Malakoff redoubt. His successor, Vice Admiral Pavel Nakhimov, continued the defence. Nakhimov was killed in June 1855 at the same Malakoff redoubt, in the closing days of the siege. The Russian defence was, in essence, a slow retreat, and the Russian forces were increasingly worn down by the constant bombardment and the high casualties. The Russian casualties during the siege were about 128,000 men; the allied casualties were about 95,000 (Figes, 2010).
The allied campaign
The allied campaign was a multinational effort. The British forces, commanded by Lord Raglan, the French forces by Marshal Saint-Arnaud, the Ottoman forces by Omar Pasha, and the Sardinian forces by General Alfonso La Marmora. The allied landing at Calamita Bay, 60 km north of Sevastopol, was the largest amphibious operation in European history up to that point. The British force numbered about 26,000 men, the French about 30,000, and the Ottoman about 7,000; the allied force was increased throughout the campaign, and by the end of the siege the allied forces numbered about 175,000 men.
The allied advance on Sevastopol was contested at the Battle of the Alma on 20 September 1854, the first engagement of the campaign, and at the Battle of Balaclava on 25 October 1854, which included the famous Charge of the Light Brigade. The allied forces did not assault Sevastopol directly, but settled into a siege. The allied forces were, however, hampered by poor coordination between the British and French commands, by the difficult terrain, and by the supply and disease problems of the Crimean winter of 1854-1855 (Figes, 2010).
The fall of Sevastopol
The fall of Sevastopol came on 9 September 1855, when the French forces under General Pélissier captured the Malakoff redoubt, the key Russian defensive position. The Russian forces, unable to hold the rest of the defensive line, evacuated the city under cover of darkness. The Russian evacuation was carried out in good order: the Russian forces managed to save most of their equipment, and they destroyed the Russian naval stores to prevent their capture. The Russian evacuation was the end of the siege, and it was the central military fact of the war.
The fall of Sevastopol was an important factor in the Russian decision to negotiate an end to the war. Tsar Nicholas I, who had been the principal architect of the Russian position, had died on 2 March 1855, shortly before the fall of the city, and his son Alexander II came to the throne. The new tsar, recognising the Russian military situation, agreed to negotiate. The Treaty of Paris, signed on 30 March 1856, imposed major restrictions on Russia: the Black Sea was neutralised and closed to all warships; the Russian protectorate over the Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire was renounced; the Russian fortifications in the Black Sea were demolished. The treaty was the harshest imposed on a European power since 1815 (Figes, 2010).
The legacy
The siege of Sevastopol shaped the development of war reporting, military medicine, and Russian literature. The reports of William Howard Russell of the London Times, sent by telegraph from the Crimea, were the first war reports in real time, and they made the Crimean War the first media war of the modern era. The work of Florence Nightingale, who arrived at the British hospital at Scutari in November 1854 with a staff of 38 nurses, established modern military nursing. The Russian writer Leo Tolstoy served in the defence of Sevastopol, and his Sevastopol Sketches (1855-1856) were the first Russian war literature of the industrial age.
The siege also marked a turning point in the history of military technology. The Russian defence made extensive use of rifled firearms, improvised mines, and the new long-range artillery. The British forces used the new Armstrong gun and the new Enfield rifled musket. The French forces used the Minié ball and the new muzzle-loading artillery. The war reporting, the military medicine, and the technology of the siege were, in this sense, the foundations of the modern military system (Figes, 2010).