Battle of Malakoff - Aftermath

Aftermath

At first sight Russia would seem to be almost invulnerable to a sea power, and no first success, however crushing, could have humbled Nicholas I. Indeed the mere capture of Sevastopol would not have been strategically decisive. However, as the Tsar had decided to defend it at all costs and with unlimited resources, it became an unpleasant defeat, especially as the Allies had reached victory with limited resources.

During the nearly one-year siege of Sevastopol in the Crimean War, the fortifications on the Malakhov were hotly contested as they overlooked the whole city and the inner harbour. After the success of the French troops under the command of Marshal Pelissier, later the Duke of Malakoff (French: Duc de Malakoff), and General Patrice de Mac-Mahon, the Russian defenders evacuated the entire city on 8 September 1855, bringing a climax to the war.

As the fortress enabled the control of the Black Sea port of Sevastopol, the Russian forces destroyed all of their equipment and withdrew, leaving Russia with no more military fortifications on the Black Sea. The long-awaited Russian domination of the inland sea to obtain free passage through the Bosporus to the Mediterranean (and beyond) was now not possible.

In terms of logistics, the British and French had a significant advantage over the Russians as they were able to receive supplies from the sea, while the Russians had to bring supplies over the underdeveloped and dangerous desert tracks of southern Russia. The Russians lost many men and horses in bringing supplies to Sevastopol. The hasty nature, too, of the fortifications, which were damaged every day during the siege by the fire of a thousand guns, and had to be rebuilt every night, required large, unprotected working parties and the losses amongst these were correspondingly heavy. These losses exhausted Russia's resources and when they were forced to employ large bodies of militia in the battle of Traktir Bridge, it was obvious that the end was at hand. The short stories of Leo Tolstoy, who was present at the siege, give a graphic picture of the war from the Russian point of view, portraying the miseries of the desert march, the still greater miseries of life in the casemates, and the almost daily ordeal of manning the lines, under shell-fire, against an assault which might or might not come.

Among the seven surviving defenders of a stone tower on the Malakov Kurgan, which were found by French troops among the dead, was the seriously wounded Vasily Kolchak, the father of Aleksandr Vasiliyevich Kolchak. Kolchak would later become the head of all the counter-revolutionary anti-communist White forces during the Russian Civil War.

As a result of press coverage of the siege of the tower, Malakhov Kurgan became a household name in Europe and many large and expensive towers in Western Europe were named after it. Among these were a number of stone mining towers in the Ruhrgebiet, the so-called caponier Fort Malakoff in Mainz, and the yellow sandstone Malakoff Tower in the city of Luxembourg. In addition, the Malakoff cake was named after Duke of Malakoff, as was a cheese dish in parts of Switzerland. In France, the battle was officially commemorated in a rare way: apart from the Battle of Magenta (in the Italian Campaign), it was the only one of Emperor Napoléon III Bonaparte's exploits to result in the awarding of a victory title (both of ducal rank); this distinction was bestowed upon Marshal Pélissier. A suburb of Paris was also named after this battle, as well as the Avenue de Malakoff. Malakhov Kurgan, where it was fought, now contains the Eternal Fire, commemorating the Siege of Sevastopol (1942). A branch of Franz Roubaud's great panorama representing the battle of 1855 is also located there.