The Crimean War
The Crimean war combined the British and French armies against the might of the Russian Empire. Unfortunately for the Russians however, their weapons and equipment were outdated, and their plans flawed. The Russian muskets were well outmatched by the new French and British rifles which could fire hundreds of metres further than theirs. The Russians decided not to engage the enemy forces in open combat and instead held up at Sevastopol, where they were laid siege to by the invading armies. Both sides dug in with deep trench systems and fortifications and the Russians became cut off from their supply lines.
The major tunnelling operations around Sevastopol come from the French sectors (specifically Bastion No. four) where they occupied positions either side of the British army, who held the centre. The two French sectors are described as being soil which can be dug, allowing the French to dig their trenches towards the enemy to as close as they pleased. The British centre was made up of largely solid rock however, which forced the British to dig their trenches at greater distances, making them cross large open terrain to attack the Russians and opening them up to greater chances of failure. At Bastion No. four however, the French came within 140 metres of the Russian counterscarp, a distance which the Russians could easily view the workings of the French in their trenches.
On November twentieth, 1854, the French having failed to destroy the Russian bastion walls, decided to dig two tunnels at ninety metres apart from each other, beginning behind their trench system. While the soil in the French sectors could be dug, it was still quite tough and rocky, slowing any tunnelling efforts down to an advancement of just over half a metre per day. It took around three weeks for the French to find a metre deep layer of yellow clay at a depth of six metres below ground that could be excavated at a reasonable speed of two metres per day. Without discovering the yellow clay, all tunnelling operations in this sector would not have taken place as the French were almost at the point of giving up. Two teams made up of sappers, infantrymen, one corporal, one sergeant and four tunnellers were initially created for the project. Two galleries were then dug, with the right gallery going towards the bastions salient angle and one towards its right face. The tunnels main corridor of the tunnels was about a metre in height in line with the layer of yellow clay and then about seventy centimetres in width. A wagonway was then constructed along the tunnel with a small trolley used to remove the dug clay. For ventilation “they connected a fan to iron water pipes that had fed the city fountain until it had been destroyed.”
Similar to the French tunnellers, the Russians began digging counter-tunnels, but they planned ahead and began digging them as soon as the second half of October. Colonel Eduard Ivanovich Totleben was placed in charge of the Russian engineers, and he decided that two trial tunnels should be dug in ditch No. thirteen and at the salient angle of the bastion with the intention of testing the ground. Due to logistical delays, the Russians were forced to dig using shovels and picks, slowing their progress due to missing the needed specialised equipment. The layer of clay which the French found at six metres below was risen to five metres below and a metre and a half deep. Once Totleben was content with the idea that the clay layer could be tunnelled through, he ordered that nineteen more tunnels should be dug in the ditch and then the tunnels were to be connected by a lateral main corridor. Each tunnel then initially extended outwards by thirty metres and had listening branches established. The tunnels were constructed a metre high and seventy centimetres wide and required a force of seventy-five tunnellers and two hundred workmen per eight-hour shift. Each hour consisted of forty-five minutes of work and then fifteen minutes of silence where they listened for enemy activity.
“If they heard nothing suspicious, they went back to work, but one gallery at a time. This was how they trained themselves to identify by ear how far away sounds were originating, which was an important factor in successful tunnel warfare.”
The Russian tunnels suffered greatly and had frequent rockslides, build ups of ground water and an inadequate ventilation system as the fans only moved around the stale air instead of creating a fresh air flow while also frequently breaking down. Lateral tunnels were dug further down into the branches as they were extended in order to create a better air flow, but the oxygens levels remained so low that candles could not be kept alight beyond twenty-five to thirty metres.
Having discovered the advancing French tunnels on January 30th of 1855, the Russians advanced their tunnels while under bombardment and laid one hundred and ninety-seven kilograms of black powder inside four open kegs in front of the position where they were heard. The advanced galleries were then blocked up using sandbags and reinforced with two-inch braced boards placed every two metres in order to minimise damage to the tunnels.
This extract has been taken from my Dissertation Subterranean Warfare: From Crimea to WW1, written in Carlow College St. Patricks in 2022 under the supervision of Dr. Ida Milne.
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