The Siege of Sevastopol (1854–1855) (at the time called in English the Siege of Sebastopol) lasted from October 1854 until September 1855, during the Crimean War. The allies – French, Sardinian, Ottoman, and British – landed at Eupatoria on 14 September 1854, intending to make a triumphal march to Sevastopol, the capital of the Crimea, with 50,000 men. Major battles along the way were Alma (September 1854), Balaklava (October 1854), Inkerman (November 1854), Tchernaya (August 1855), Redan (September 1855), and, finally, Malakoff (September 1855). During the siege, the Allied navy undertook six bombardments of the capital – on 17 October 1854, and on 9 April, 6 June, 17 June, 17 August, and 5 September 1855.
Professor of history at Georgetown University David M. Goldfrank specializing in medieval and Muscovite Russia, medieval Russian diplomacy, and the social history of the Russian military in his The Origins of the Crimean War:
“The Great Power arms races also played a tangential, if interesting, role in the genesis of the Crimean War. Since the mid-1840s, war steamers had put teeth into the standing Russian threat to launch an attack on Varna, Sizopol or the Bosphorus from Sevastopol and Odesa in case of a crisis. On the other hand, Russian expertise had called for more such vessels before a surprise attack might be launched. Nicholas initiated armed diplomacy in 1853 before big forces were ready to do their assigned job, which is one reason why big plans failed…
An Anglo-French war council on 17 July then decided to invade the Crimea and invest Sevastopol even though they lacked any good maps or estimations of Russian forces. In early September 62,000 unopposed British and French with 130 artillery pieces disembarked at Evpatoria, about forty miles north of Sevastopol by land. Menshikov had 55,000-60,000 men at Sevastopol and about 4,000 guns, three-quarters of them naval and very few of them facing the land approaches. He also had six months’ supply of food for the garrison, but lacked staff, maps, construction tools, sufficient powder and the means of keeping his fleet functional. The French were reasonably well provisioned, but the English did not have transportation and siege equipment. All sides suffered from inadequate medical facilities. Menshikov deployed 35,000 of his troops along the Alma River, half way between Evpatoria and Sevastopol. His columns were savaged by French artillery and British line tactics, but the Allies also paid for a spirited drive against the Russian artillery batteries. Following the retreat from the Alma, the Russians concentrated on shoring up Sevastopol, sinking their heavy ships in the harbour, converting the sailors into soldiers, and constructing a set of earthworks with heavy guns on the northern side under the direction of engineer Adjutant E.I. Totleben. Menshikov himself departed from the stronghold and turned the command over to Admiral Kornilov. 5 On 17 October the Allies, who had redeployed to Balaklava about twelve miles southwest of Sevastopol, started to bombard the fortress.
On 15 August, as ordered by Nicholas’s son Alexander 11, the Sevastopol forces tried a final, hopeless counterattack with 60,000 troops near the River Chernaia. There was only a faint possibility of the Russians holding any heights they might have taken from the well-entrenched Allies. They did succeed momentarily against the Piedmontese, but misinterpreted a set of orders and sent infantry straight uphill into French artillery, before the defeatist General Gorchakov called off another one-sided battle. Now nothing could prevent the fall of Sevastopol, but the Russians did have the foresight to bring in timbers and construct a bridge across the bay for the retreat. As the Allies resumed their bombardment on 18 August, the Russian shell supply was fast dwindling, and the garrison was losing, 1,000-2,500 men per day. Then, on 8 September, the French finally captured the key Malakhov Kurgan. Thereupon Gorchakov, now Russia’s supreme commander, resolved to abandon the city, sink the remainder of the fleet, lay sea mines and take up new positions further to the north in the Crimea. Both sides continued to skirmish in the Crimea, but avoided pitched battles. The total casualties for a year’s fighting at Sevastopol were 102,000 Russians and 71,000 Allies, making it one ofthe bloodiest scenes of battle ever until the First World War.
Once Sevastopol fell, Russian political disarray and inertia prevented any immediate concessions, while Palmerston’s Cabinet wished to continue the war until Russia was driven from the Black and Baltic Seas. Napoleon now was ready to back the English, if the Russians would not agree to Allied terms.”
The Crimean War of 1854 and its parallels to the current Russia’s war on Ukraine >
Below: The Russians lost Sebastopol to the Allied Army on September 11, 1855. A frustrated Czar Alexander II looks over the Russian naval port, only to see it occupied by the French.
