Battle of Kinburn (1855)
Battle of Kinburn | |||||||
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Part of the Crimean War | |||||||
Illustration of the ironclad batteries bombarding Kinburn | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
French Empire United Kingdom | Russian Empire | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Armand Joseph Bruat Edmund Lyons | Maxim Kokhanovitch | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
10 ships of the line 3 ironclad batteries 8,000 soldiers |
1,500 soldiers 80 guns | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
2 killed 25 wounded[1] | c. 400[2] |
The Battle of Kinburn, a combined land-naval engagement during the final stage of the Crimean War, took place on the tip of the Kinburn Peninsula (on the south shore of the Dnieper–Bug estuary in what is now Ukraine) on 17 October 1855. During the battle a combined fleet of vessels from the French Navy and the British Royal Navy bombarded Russian coastal fortifications after an Anglo-French ground force had besieged them. Three French ironclad batteries carried out the main attack, which saw the main Russian fortress destroyed in an action that lasted about three hours.
The battle, although strategically insignificant with little effect on the outcome of the war, is notable for the first use of modern
Background
In September 1854, the Anglo-French army that had been at
Forces involved
The fortress was located on the
To attack the forts, the British and French assembled a fleet centred on four French and six British
In addition to the contingent of conventional sailing warships, the French squadron brought three experimental ironclad warships that had recently arrived from France. These, the first three ironclad batteries of the Dévastation class—Lave, Dévastation, and Tonnante—had been sent to the Black Sea in late July, but they arrived too late to take part in the siege of Sevastopol.[5] These vessels, the first ironclad warships, carried eighteen 50-pounder guns and were protected with 4 inches (100 mm) of wrought iron armour. Observers speculated that these untested warships would be ineffective in combat, owing to their slow speed and poor handling.[8]
Battle
In an effort to confuse the Russians, the combined fleet made a feint westward toward
At around 9:00 on 17 October, the Anglo-French fleet moved into position to begin their bombardment.
The cannonade started fires in the main fortress and rapidly disabled Russian guns.[12] Once Russian fire started to decrease, the gunboats moved into position behind the fortresses and began to bombard them as well. In the course of the morning, the three French vessels fired some 3,000 shells into the fort, and by 12:00, it had been neutralized by the combined firepower of the Anglo-French fleet.[13][15] A single Russian hoisted a white flag above the fort to indicate their surrender, and Kokhanovitch walked out to speak with the French ground commander. According to historian James Grant, around 1,100 Russians of the 1,500-man garrison survived the battle and were allowed to leave without their weapons.[16] Herbert Wilson puts the Russian casualties much lower, at 45 dead and 130 wounded. For the French and British, the only men killed were the two aboard Dévastation, with a further 25 wounded, all of whom were aboard the floating batteries.[1] In the course of the battle, Dévastation was hit 75 times, while Lave received 66 hits and Tonnante was hit around the same number of times. None of the ships emerged from the battle with more than minor dents in their armour plate.[17]
Aftermath
On 20 October, Bazaine's infantry conducted reconnaissance toward Kherson and met no organized resistance before withdrawing. After they returned to Kinburn, the French and British commanders determined that the fort could be rebuilt and held through the upcoming winter. A force of 1,700 men was left behind to garrison the position, along with the three ironclad batteries. The rest of the force returned to the Crimea. Though the British had initially considered continuing up the Dnieper to capture Nikolaev, it became clear after the seizure of Kinburn that to do so would require much larger numbers of soldiers to clear the cliffs that dominated the river than had been originally estimated. The British planned to eventually launch an offensive to take Nikolaev in 1856, but the war ended before it could be begun.[18]
Since they lacked the forces to take Nikolaev in a single campaign, the seizure of Kinburn proved to have limited strategic effect. Nevertheless, the attack on Kinburn was significant in that it demonstrated that the French and British fleets had developed effective amphibious capabilities and had technological advantages that gave them a decisive edge over their Russian opponents.[19] The destruction of Kinburn's coastal fortifications completed the Anglo-French naval campaign in the Black Sea; the Russians no longer had any meaningful forces left to oppose them at sea. The British and French navies planned to transfer forces to the Baltic Sea the following year to strengthen operations there. Diplomatic pressure from still-neutral Austria convinced Czar Alexander II of Russia to sue for peace, which was concluded the following February with the Treaty of Paris.[20]
In his report, Bruat informed his superiors that "[e]verything may be expected from these formidable engines of war."[17] The effectiveness of the ironclad batteries in neutralizing the Russian guns, though still debated by naval historians, nevertheless convinced French Emperor Napoleon III to order more ironclad warships.[21] Their success at Kinburn, coupled with the devastating effect new shell-firing guns had had on wooden warships at the Battle of Sinop earlier in the war led most French naval officers to support the new armoured vessels.[22] Napoleon III's programme produced the first sea-going ironclad, Gloire, initiating a naval construction race between France and Britain that would last until the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. The British Royal Navy, which had five ironclad batteries under construction, laid down another four after the victory at Kinburn, and replied to Gloire with a pair of armoured frigates of their own, Warrior and Black Prince. France built a further eleven batteries built to three different designs, and the Russian Navy built fifteen armoured rafts for harbour defence.[23][24]
See also
Notes
- ^ a b c Wilson, p. XXXV
- ^ Grant, pp. 121–123
- ^ Sondhaus, pp. 59–61
- ^ Lambert, pp. 269–270
- ^ a b c d Greene & Massignani, p. 27
- ^ a b Wilson, p. XXXIV
- ^ Wilson, p. XXXIII
- ^ Wilson, p. XXXII
- ^ Wilson, pp. XXXIII–XXXIV
- ^ Grant, pp. 118–120
- ^ Lambert, p. 271
- ^ a b Grant, p. 120
- ^ a b Sondhaus, p. 61
- ^ Grant, p. 118
- ^ Greene & Massignani, p. 26
- ^ Grant, pp. 121–123
- ^ a b Wilson, p. XXXVI
- ^ Lambert, p. 275
- ^ Lambert, p. 276
- ^ Sondhaus, pp. 61–62
- ^ Sondhaus, p. 66
- ^ Wilson, p. XXXI
- ^ Sondhaus, pp. 61, 66
- ^ Greene & Massignani, pp. 31–35
References
- Grant, James (2013). The Crimean War. Barnsley: Pen & Sword. ISBN 978-1-4738-4698-2.
- Greene, Jack & Massignani, Alessandro (1998). Ironclads at War: The Origin and Development of the Armored Warship, 1854–1891. Pennsylvania: Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-938289-58-6.
- Lambert, Andrew (2011). The Crimean War: British Grand Strategy against Russia, 1853–56. Farnham: Ashgate. ISBN 978-1-4094-1012-6.
- Sondhaus, Lawrence (2001). Naval Warfare, 1815–1914. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-21478-5.
- Wilson, Herbert Wrigley (1896). Ironclads in Action: A Sketch of Naval Warfare from 1855 to 1895. London: S. Low, Marston and Company.
46°36′08″N 31°29′52″E / 46.6023°N 31.4978°E