Posts Tagged ‘Black Sea’

Sunny, before his winter coat

Today, I went to our stables, the wonderful Saw Horse Farm, run by Wendy Dutterer, in Hunterstown, Pennsylvania, to ride my horse, Sunny.  He is taken excellent care of there, and has grown his own lush winter coat.  It was a great ride, but a searing cold day.  When I ride and see the horses on brisk days like this, I am reminded of the plight of the horses in the Crimean War.

Numerous horses were required by a mid-19th century army.  Not merely for the cavalry and horse artillery, but for all the senior officers of infantry regiments, and the many staff officers.  Some wealthier officers brought several horses.  All of these animals had to be transported by water from England to the Crimea in sailing or steam-driven ships.  This could take anywhere from weeks to months, depending on the speed of the ships.

Over 150 horses of the Cavalry Division were lost during deployment to the Crimea.  In one bad storm, it was necessary to shoot injured horses, who became wild and uncontrollable below decks.

Many horses were rendered unserviceable by the rigors of the voyage.  These losses had a near crippling effect on the cavalry.  Those that made it intact, had to face severe climate changes, and one of the worst winters recorded in Crimean history.

It had been planned that remounts would be purchased from various local horse traders, but like so many plans for this badly mismanaged war, this one fell apart quickly and drastically.  Captain Louis Nolan, the famous staff officer who brought the order to Lord Lucan prompting the ill-fated “Charge of the Light Brigade,” was even tasked to travel across Syria and overland to the staging area at Varna on the Black Sea, with the mission of purchasing remounts and transport horses along the way.  He was only modestly successful.  There were insufficient horses for sale anywhere enroute, at the staging area, or in the Crimea.  Those horses that were available were smaller, often weak, and frequently unserviceable for cavalry, artillery, or even transport requirements.

Not long after landing on the Crimean coast, the savage winter set in and took its toll.  The horses brought from England were hardly used to the unbearable Crimean temperatures or conditions – colic and death were everywhere among these unfortunate animals.

By far the most disastrous loss of horses, however, was a direct result of that unhappy charge by the Light Brigade into a gauntlet of Russian guns.  The charge, in about 25 minutes, cost the British army over 100 men killed, but perhaps the most telling catastrophe was the loss of horses.  Around 400 were killed and many more put out of service.  It was the loss of horses which left the Light Brigade unfit for further action as a unit.

Two horses of particular note were in the Light Brigade’s charge: the mount of Captain Nolan, the first casualty of the affair, and, Ronald, Lord Cardigan’s horse.  I will tell their tale tomorrow.

Officers, 39th Regiment, with a horse not unlike Sunny

Captain Halford, 5th Dragoon Guards

Captain Heneage, Coldstream Guards

Captain Wilkinson, 9th Regiment

Lieutenant Yates, 11th Hussars

Officers, 39th Regiment

There were many dogs with the British in the Crimea, including this one with officers of the 57th Regiment of Foot.

[This is a fictional tale by Will Hutchison, based on a very real story]

The war had begun.  Britain and France, unlikely bedfellows, were joined, with the help of Sardinia, against Russia – ostensibly to protect “poor, invaded, Turkey.”  As the 1st Battalion, Scots Fusilier Guards marched to the ships, they were led by a proud, prancing Sticks, his black and brown coat shining in the sun.

The marching troops passed by the amazed butcher along the way.  Private Gorman, marching near the head of the column, noticed Sticks’ back stiffen, his head tilt slightly higher, and he could have sworn he heard Sticks sniff loudly as he marched past his former master.

The sea journey was uneventful, except in choppy waters – Sticks being one of the few who did not tear his insides out retching over the rail.  Varna, along the western coast of the Black Sea was the army’s staging area.  It was also where cholera hit the British and French forces – hard – sometimes killing a hundred men in a day.  Sticks watched over his brothers in arms, adding joy to the last few moments of their lives when the sickness consumed them.  He was saddened by the losses, which cut his new friends down within hours of showing the first signs of illness.

“I think I have it, Sticks, heaven help me,” Sean Gorman pronounced one morning, when a grey pallor appeared on his face.  Sticks whined, remained with his friend … but he seemed to know that Sean would not succumb … or perhaps he willed it.  By the third day, it was determined that Sean had serious diarrhea, but not the cholera.  In time he recovered and was back with the regiment.

The real Sticks, whose name was actually "Bob" - This wonderful sketch is courtesy of an unknown artist

The regiment finally moved across the Black Sea to the Crimea, and a confrontation with the Russians.  Sticks first saw action at the Alma River, where the Scots Fusilier Guards were in the thick of a frontal assault on a Russian position fortified with cannon.  While they waited to assault, solid shot and shell rained down upon them perilously.

“What the divil is he aboot, Private Gorman?” asked the Sergeant Major, looking behind his line of soldiers, who were hugging the ground as close as possible.  He was watching Sticks cavorting about the field to their rear like he was playing with toy balls on a London green.

“He’s…he’s chasin’ after them cannon balls, Sar’nt Major.  He’s been doin’ it fer the longest time.”  They had been under intense cannon fire for over an hour.  The men’s nerves were frayed, stretched to the limit.  Watching this tiny dog scampering about was giving them a calming hope of survival.

“Ach, he is a charmer, that one,” said the Sergeant Major, laughing.  “You lads take heed now,” he bellowed.  “If the wee Sticks can stand this hell, then I’m damned sure we kin stand it.”  There were shouts of “Aye, that’s the God’s truth!” and “Charge on, Sticks, lad!”

The attack soon began in earnest.  First they crossed the Alma … where Sticks found he could swim, and Private Gorman went flat on his face in the water.  As the regiment moved up a gradual slope toward the enemy, men began to fall from the ranks.

Sticks would run to each, sniffing, prodding.  If the man lay still, he’d go on to the next.  If the man moved, he’d bark loudly until other soldiers or one of the bandmen, who were used to carry wounded to the rear, came up to aid the fallen man.  Sticks was utterly fearless and relentless. There were times when he ran so fast he outstretched the moving line of guardsmen, and had to be called back – bullets kicking up ground around him.

An officer went down, hit once in the leg.  It was the young lieutenant who had been Officer of the Day when Sean found Sticks in the snow. The ground where he lay was exposed except for a pile of rocks nearby.  The officer was hit again in the arm while lying on the ground. Sticks ran to his side and began dancing around, barking.  Sean heard the bark and recognized the wounded officer.  He moved quickly, grabbing the officer by his shoulder belt and coatee collar, dragging him behind the rocks.

“Good work, Sticks, lad,” he said, “but ya better bide here behind these rocks.  It’s no a safe place out there.”

Two bandsmen with an improvised stretcher came up.  Sean ran on to catch the regimental line moving ever closer to the Russians.  He looked back over his shoulder. “Stay – boy!  Stay!”

There was, of course, little or no chance of Sticks “staying.”

[The Conclusion, Part VI, will be along tomorrow with more of the real story behind the fictional tale.]

{Photograph at top taken by Roger Fenton}

The first in the Ian Carlyle Series.

What on earth possessed me, a Yank, to write for my debut novel a book about the Crimean War, a very British war – not well known in the US.  Actually it didn’t start out that way. My original thought was to write about British observers in the American Civil War on General McClellan’s staff. There were about a dozen of them.

I began writing about these Civil War observers, but it soon dawned on me that they received their combat experience, and became the fine officers they were, in the Crimea, six years before our Civil War. I decided that the setting for the first novel must be the Crimea. I would bring my characters into the American Civil War in the sequel. The Crimean War then became my passion, my obsession, if you will.

Through the next three years of research I made numerous visits to the UK, and two trips to the Crimean battlefields.  After a ton of hours at the Scots Guards archives at Wellington Barracks, London; Eton College; and various amazingly beautiful places in Scotland; I finally felt I could put pen to paper … or more precisely finger to keyboard.

Actually, people know more about the Crimean War than they may realize. For instance, the Charge of the Light Brigade – Florence Nightingale, the lady with the lamp – the ‘Thin Red Line’. These all came out of the Crimean War. It took place at the height of the reign of Queen Victoria, and was primarily fought on the Western coast of the Crimean peninsula (present day the Ukraine), between 1854, and 1856.

The war’s origins are shrouded in political mystery and intrigue, ranging from somewhat bogus religious reasons to the expansionist doctrine of the Russian Czar, Nicholas I, in an effort to gain free access (A warm water port)  between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. The spark which caused the feces to hit the fan was when Russia invaded the then Ottoman (Turkish) Empire.

Britain and France, the most unlikely of bedfellows, came to Turkey’s aid, supported by Sardinia. Although a Turkish Army basically forced Russia back across her borders, the people and governments of Britain and France felt strongly that Russia needed to be taught a lesson. Thus in September 1854, a combined allied army landed on the Crimean peninsula. Their mission was to capture Sevastopol and sink the Russian Black Sea fleet harbored there.  Their long term strategic goal was to stop Russia from ever again entertaining ideas of expansion in the Mediterranean.

The Russians sunk a major part of their own fleet to block the harbor to British and French ships, and it took the allied army, at great cost, the next two years to ‘capture’ Sevastopol. In the end, the Russians merely evacuated the city in good order, and left it to the British and French.

I think a writer must follow his instincts and above all his passion. I guess my original intent was that “Follow Me to Glory” would be a prequel to the major American Civil War work, but as I researched and wrote, Ian Carlyle’s owing up adventures and his Crimean combat experiences took on their own character and importance.  Thus, it is a prequel in the sense that it is the first in the Ian Carlyle Series, where his character comes of age as a man, then as an officer in the caldron of war.  The sequel, “The Gettysburg Conspiracy,” brings Ian Carlyle, now a seasoned veteran, into the American Civil War. There will also be at least a third in the Ian Carlyle series. I am determined, however, that each book will be of equal importance, and each will stand alone as a story in itself.

I did ponder the idea of making the setting for the series in a different era, but there is such a strong connection and impact between the Crimean War and our Civil War (only a few years apart) that I doubt there is any other period or set of wars which would so readily lend themselves to my vision.

I have always been mesmerized by this simpler Victorian age. Where they were more gentle and genteel among themselves, yet still using terribly blunt linear tactics when throwing armies at one another head-on. The lines drawn in cultural values, and in war, seem to me clearer than more recent conflicts. Of course, there’s that passion of mine for the 19th century. I couldn’t very well ignore that, could I?