Struggle in Russia

The 95th Regiment immediately entered the battle according to Mailang's order. They charged forward along the route where their comrades from the 97th Regiment fell, and soon encountered the same fate.

A large number of French soldiers were knocked down by artillery fire. In front of the Nicolai Bastion, corpses were strewn with blood and oars. This was no longer a battle but a one-sided massacre.

Finally, the French couldn't stand it any longer and began to lie down and seek cover. After more than ten minutes, a signal rocket finally appeared in the sky - this was the signal for a serious charge!

It's just that the signal was a signal, but the real general attack did not come immediately. The generals of other French troops were not as active as Mailan. When Mailan launched a death charge alone, these people were not ready for battle.

So even if they saw the signal rocket, these people just spread their hands and continued to prepare slowly.

This directly stunned Pellissier, because he originally thought that as long as his side sent out a signal, there would be an earth-shaking charge immediately. However, he looked at it with a telescope for a long time. Except for a few areas, his side of the position was completely empty. There was dead silence, as if everyone ignored his signal!

When Pellissier learned what happened to the front-line troops, his nose was twisted with anger. But at this time, even if he was furious, he could not order the front-line generals to obey. If the French were lax, it would be very annoying!

In desperation, he could only order the deep reserves to charge first, but this order only caused greater chaos.

The reason is very simple. The reserve team feels that it is the second echelon and should go into battle after the first echelon launches the charge. But now the first echelon is clearly working hard, why should I let me die first?

According to Lieutenant Colonel Sander of the French Army's Political Department, many soldiers refused to leave the trenches, even when officers threatened them with the severest punishment, because soldiers had an innate instinct to detect the disaster that awaited them.

Raglan, who was watching the battle on the Vorontsov Ridge, quickly discovered that something was wrong with the French army. He believed that the attack was likely to turn into a disaster!

Sure enough, the few French troops who launched the attack were attacked by crossfire from the Nikolai Bastion and the Vorontsov Bastion as soon as they set off. The French offensive troops were soon defeated.

Raglan made a special decision at this time, because he could have bombarded the Vorontsov bastion as originally planned, and then launched an infantry charge. But he didn't do this, but directly ordered his infantry to start charging!

The reason was that the bombardment must be abandoned based on the duty and honor of the allies. Although he later admitted that doing so would be a disaster and would cost a lot of lives, he later wrote to the Secretary of War, Lord Panmure:

"I am always vigilant not to be forced to charge at the same time as the French. I hope that the French have won the victory before I charge, but when I see that they are encountering stubborn resistance, I think it is a duty to , I must immediately launch a charge to assist them... One thing I am sure of is that if our troops are urgently required to stay in the trenches, the French will blame their lack of success on our refusal to join the battle!"

The British troops quickly launched a charge in accordance with Raglan's order. They jumped from the trenches and launched an attack along the ridge towards the Vorontsov Fortress on the top of the mountain. Behind them were countless support troops carrying ladders.

However, as soon as the British troops emerged from the trenches, they were attacked by concentrated fire from the Russian fort on the top of the mountain. Countless shotguns hit their heads, instantly knocking the charge troops off their feet.

The first salvo of the Russian army killed one-third of the British charging troops. Major General Codrington would never forget that morning. He recalled that the Russian army's shotgun volley had disastrous consequences:

As soon as our soldiers climbed out of the trenches, shotgun shells flew over their heads. In addition to knocking down many soldiers, the shotgun shells also smashed the ground and stirred up dust, making it impossible for us to see anything clearly.

The British army was suppressed by the sky full of shotguns, and the troops' determination to attack began to waver. Even though the officers scolded and threatened and used various methods to try to reorganize the soldiers, it was still to no avail. Many frightened soldiers turned around and ran away.

After about half an hour, the first wave of attackers and a handful of support troops carrying ladders finally rushed to the Russian Luzhai. It was only thirty meters away from the Vorontsov bastion, but when they struggled to pass through the gap between the deer villages, the Russian troops fired at them continuously on the parapets of the bastion, beating the British to their knees.

The Russian army even raised a huge black flag and laughed loudly at the British army to hurry up. On the British side, people could be heard constantly shouting: "This is murder!" Because the British army found that even though most of them were lying in a pool of blood and dying, the Russian army continued to fire for several hours.

The British charging troops became fewer and fewer, and finally there were only more than a hundred people left. Finally, they could no longer resist the order and began to retreat. Even though the officers threatened to shoot those who escaped, no one paid any attention to them. According to the surviving British soldiers, we believe that if we take another step forward, we will be blown into the air. For us, we will not be afraid of fighting no matter how many enemies there are, but we are not willing to waste our lives in vain and die!

Finally, the cruel reality made Raglan and Pellissier give in. They ordered to give up the attack, and immediately the soldiers of both armies, whether they were British or French soldiers, who were unable to lift their heads under the pressure of Russian artillery fire, turned around and ran away. He disappeared on the battlefield in an instant.

At dawn, the coalition forces and the Russian army reached an agreement and declared another ceasefire, and began to count the number of casualties and rescue the wounded. In just a few hours, the British army paid a price of 3,000 casualties. As for the French army, the losses were three times that of the British army. The huge casualties of nearly 10,000 people made the French army's top brass stunned!

However, the exact number of casualties was suppressed. The reason was naturally that the numbers were so shocking that the senior officers were embarrassed.

The only thing worth mentioning is that when Pellissier reported the cause of the failure to Napoleon III, he put all the responsibility on General Mairan, on the grounds that Mailan changed his attack plan without authorization.

But the real reason is probably that Mylan has been killed in battle, and a dead man cannot defend himself. However, Raglan said it fairly. He believed that the main responsibility for the failure lay with Pellissier. If he had not changed the attack plan without authorization, and Limiting the offensive targets to Vorontsov Bastion and Nikolai Bastion, if a full-line attack can be launched, the results may be completely different.

It's just that not many people were willing to listen to Raglan's words, not to mention that he himself felt guilty for needlessly sacrificing a large number of British soldiers and soon fell ill and passed away...