On the morning of April 9, the storm became so fierce that the sound of the first round of shelling by the coalition forces was almost drowned in the howling wind and the pounding rain.
Sevastopol was completely shrouded in the smoke of artillery fire and the morning rain and fog. The people in the city had no way of distinguishing which direction the shells were flying from. Some residents and officers even thought that the coalition fleet was firing.
At this time, the confused and frightened crowd came to their senses, and they were helpless and ran wildly on the streets looking for any place to hide. Many people flocked to the Nikolay Fortress, which was the only safe place in Sevastopol.
.
However, it soon turned into a busy shelter. Frightened people continued to pour into the fortress, and it was soon overcrowded.
In the center of Sevastopol, bombed-out houses are everywhere, the streets are filled with rubble and broken glass, and cannonballs are bouncing around like rubber balls.
Tolstoy, who was in the city, noticed: a sick old man was being carried across the street by his son and daughter. Cannonballs exploded next to them. An older woman followed them looking panicked... Some young girls
Wearing beautiful clothes, they leaned on the railing of the art gallery and exchanged glances with the soldiers stationed there. Next to them, three businessmen were talking - whenever a shell exploded, they made a cross on their chests and shouted: "God bless! God bless you!"
Bless you! This is worse than hell!"
In the General Hospital, the Noble House in Sevastopol, thousands of wounded were brought in, making the nurses overwhelmed. In the operating room, while Pirogov and other surgeons were performing amputation operations,
A wall was hit by a shell and collapsed, but Pirogov ignored it and continued to operate.
At that time, the coalition forces had no intention of avoiding hospitals and residential areas. Some of their shelling targets were military or civilian, so many of the injured in the first round of shelling were women and children.
The fourth bastion was a key target for shelling by the coalition because it was only a few hundred meters away from their fort. Therefore, when the first round of shelling began, the defenders had no time to react at all. The shells fell almost as soon as the cannon fired.
It's over their heads.
After finally waiting for the first round of artillery bombardment to come to an end, Tolstoy hurried to the Fourth Bastion. Previously, his 11th Artillery Brigade was transferred to the Fourth Bastion to garrison, allowing the future
The literary giant was very angry because he had originally applied to be transferred to Kornilov's headquarters to serve as a staff officer, so that he could have a lot of time to write.
But the superiors directly threw him to the front line, directly in the fiercest battle.
"I'm very angry!" He wrote in his diary, "Especially since I'm sick now (cold), no one seems to have thought that anything I can do would be better than being a cannon fodder, and being a cannon fodder is the most useless thing for me!"
Fortunately, after recovering from the cold, the writer immediately cheered up and began to like the fighting life in the Fourth Bastion. He had to work as a quartermaster in the Fourth Bastion for four days every eight days, and spent the rest of the time living in the Fourth Bastion.
In a simple and clean house on the main street of Sevastopol.
While on duty, he had to sleep in a small room inside the bunker, where there was a camp bed, a table, a clock and a statue of a god with a lamp embedded in it.
The literary giant was always accompanied by his personal serf Alexei while he was serving in Sevastopol. In fact, Alexei has been accompanying him since he went to college. The image of this serf will appear under the name "Alyosha"
among many of his works.
When Tolstoy was on duty, Alexei would carry his rations from the city, often taking great risks to deliver them.
The coalition bombardment of the Fourth Bastion continued, and at least two thousand grenades fell on the Fourth Bastion every day. Tolstoy was frightened at first, but the writer quickly overcame his fear. He had just been sent to the Fourth Bastion.
When he was in the fort, he complained that he was cannon fodder, but two days later he wrote in his diary:
"The charm of danger continues. I can observe the soldiers and sailors who live with me up close, as well as all the specific details of combat. All of this is so endearing that I don't want to leave here!"
For ten days, the coalition's shelling never stopped. After this large-scale shelling, the Russian army counted 160,000 artillery shells. Hundreds of houses were bombed in Sevastopol.
and killed and injured 4,712 soldiers and civilians.
Of course, the bombardment was not one-sided. The Russian army also invested 409 cannons and nearly a hundred mortars to fight back. In ten days, a total of 88,751 cannon shells and grenades were fired.
However, due to the gap in industrial capabilities, the Russian army soon discovered that there was insufficient ammunition and could not sustain high-intensity artillery fire back. So it ordered the enemy to fire back every two artillery shells.
Captain Edward Gage of the British Royal Artillery told his family: "The tenacity of the defense is equal to the ferocity of the attack. If things can be done only by intelligence and bravery, then the Russian army is no worse than others. But it has to be said.
Their firepower is relatively weak. Although they still made our gunners suffer a lot and caused us to suffer more casualties, it is obvious that our firepower is stronger... But even so, I don't think shelling is possible.
It has continued. Since the bombardment began, our soldiers have only taken shifts every twelve hours, which makes everyone exhausted..."
The weakening of the Russian army's firepower allowed the coalition forces to take the initiative. The density of shelling became higher and higher. The mamelon head fort and the fifth bastion were almost completely destroyed. Kornilov predicted that the coalition forces would launch an attack soon and eagerly
The ground replenished troops to the front line, allowing most of the soldiers to hide in underground bunkers and prepare to ambush the attacking coalition forces.
But what puzzled Kornilov was that the infantry of the coalition forces never showed up. It was probably because the Russian army's tenacious resistance made the coalition leaders discouraged, because the Russian army continued to repair and build even under intensive artillery fire.
With the new fortifications, it is obvious that they will not give up easily.
As a result, the top leaders of the coalition hesitated again. Canrobert publicly expressed his frustration. He supported reducing the artillery bombardment of Sevastopol and instead occupied other areas of Crimea because he really did not want to waste precious troops.
Wasted in brutal battles.
In addition, General Adolphe Niel, the commander-in-chief of the French Army Engineers, also believed that the artillery bombardment should be suspended, but the reason was that he received a secret instruction from Paris, asking him to deliberately delay the siege plan and wait for the arrival of Napoleon III.
At that time, the prodigal emperor was preparing to copy his uncle's great achievements and prepare to personally command the battle...