Читать книгу The Egyptian campaigns, 1882 to 1885 - Charles Royle - Страница 16

Penelope. Eight hits, of which three were on the armour, making little or no indentation. Of the others, one passed through the after embrasure on the starboard side; another hit the starboard quarter gallery; the third struck a 9-pounder gun, carried off the sight and damaged the carriage; the fourth hit the mainyard, port side; and the fifth struck the muzzle of one of the 8-inch guns, then broke up and destroyed the transom plate of the carriage. The gun and carriage were put out of action.

Invincible. Eleven hits, six of which passed through the side. A large dent was made in the armour by a shot which also started a plate.

Inflexible. About six hits altogether. One shot struck the unarmoured part of the hull, and, penetrating, damaged the bollards and did other injury. Other shots damaged the upper-works, but the armour-plating was not struck.

The Monarch, Temeraire, Hecla, and gunboats received no hits at all.

With regard to the effects of the bombardment on the various forts, it is proposed to give a short account, taking them in the same order in which they were first presented to the reader.25

1. Fort Marabout.—A small store was burnt. There were several hits on the scarp, but none of the guns were in any way injured.

2. Fort Adjemi.—Uninjured.

3. Marza-el-Kanat.—No injury was done to the fort, but a store of gun-cotton was exploded.

4. The citadel of Mex had several breaches made in the works, but no guns were dismounted.

5. Old Fort of Mex.—Parapets were uninjured, but the buildings in the rear were almost swept away. A small store in front of magazine was levelled to the ground. The large store was riddled with shot, but the magazine was untouched. The barracks were much damaged. The fort was found to contain many fragments of shell, and the loss of life among the defenders was probably considerable. The damage to the guns was as follows:—A 10-inch Armstrong gun was struck in the second coil by a shell which cut a groove of an oval shape in the metal; the coil was shaken out of place and cracked, but the gun was left serviceable. A 9-inch Armstrong gun was struck by a shell, and received an oval graze 1·25 inch in depth. In the right portion of the battery, a 10-inch S.B. and two 8-inch Armstrong guns were struck by shrapnel bullets, and the fifth gun from the left, an 8-inch Armstrong, was struck on the coil by a shell. The blow dismounted gun, carriage and slide. The metal of the gun was ripped off for eighteen inches, and the trunnion ring was also started by the force of the blow. The remaining guns (36-pounders) were uninjured.

Left Flank Battery.—Left gun(10-inch S.B.). This gun was hit on the right of the carriage by a splinter, the gun was uninjured. No.3 gun (10-inch S.B.).—This was hit by a shell on the muzzle, gun uninjured.

6. The Mex Lines, armed with S.B. guns, were not fought, and the works escaped injury.

7. Fort Kamaria was not much injured. A 10-inch S.B. gun was dismounted by a shell.

In view of the tremendous fire to which Fort Mex was subjected, and the comparatively short range at which all the ships except the Temeraire engaged it, it is almost impossible to believe that not a single gun here was disabled or dismounted during the action proper. The 8-inch gun which was dismounted was bowled over by the Penelope long after the fort had ceased firing, and from a distance stated to be about 300 yards. The successful shot was the thirtieth of this series, and was aimed by the gunnery lieutenant.

"This fort was the only one which could not have resumed action on the following day, in consequence of the injury done by the landing-party by exploding gun-cotton and spiking the guns."26

8. Omuk Kubebe.—The effects of the bombardment were considerable, though they were due less to the number of hits than to the size and weight of the 16-inch shells which caused most of the injuries. The effect of three of these shells from the Inflexible was worthy of note. One shell having burst on the top of the scarp made an almost practicable breach. Two others, within a few feet of each other, hit the parapet, 24 feet thick, and almost pierced it. They appear to have struck the exterior slope, and having cut a trough in the parapet about 11 feet in width, burst after penetrating 17 feet, and formed craters 16 feet in diameter, and 5 feet and 4 feet 6 inches in depth, respectively. With regard to the ordnance, the only damage was the destruction of a 36-pounder S.B. gun.

9. Saleh Aga.—One 10-inch and one 6·5 S.B. gun were dismounted, and one of the 6·5-inch S.B. guns was destroyed, though not dismounted.

10. The adjoining battery received only slight injuries.

11. Lighthouse Fort, or Fort Ras-el-Tin.—The barracks to the north of the fort were riddled with shell, and in many parts left in ruins. The parapets on the west side were so scored with shell that it was difficult to estimate the number of hits, but at no point had they been pierced. The scarp also suffered severely, both at the bastions and on the curtain; and the right face of the bastion was much marked by shrapnel bullets. On the west front the parapet showed about twenty-three hits, and the scarp twenty-four; two stores were burnt, and the rifled-shell store was riddled with shell. The Lighthouse itself was hit by several shells, and the buildings round its base were reduced to ruins. Right gun (9-inch).—This gun was sent back to the end of the slide, and breaking the ties was tilted up on its breech with the muzzle in the air. Left gun (9-inch).—This was struck by two shells, and gun and carriage were both destroyed. The former was hit on the trunnion ring, which had been partially carried away, the carriage was in pieces, and the brackets were torn off and broken. The gun was thrown about twelve feet to the rear and crushed several of the gunners, ten bodies having been found beneath it. In the left bastion, a 10-inch Armstrong gun was hit on the muzzle, but the tube was not damaged. The sockets of the levers were broken by use, the tackle shot away, and the shot-crane broken and useless. A 9-inch gun was run back and tilted up on the breech in the same manner as the 9-inch gun in the right bastion. An 8-inch gun was struck in reverse by shells. The gun and carriage were capsized on the left side, but uninjured. One truck of the slide was cut away. The Lighthouse Fort suffered more severely than either Pharos or Adda, since there was not one of the rifled guns which could bear on the fleet left fit for service.

12. The Lines of Ras-el-Tin.—(Left or Harem Battery.) The effects of the bombardment on the fort were small, but the loss of life must have been considerable, as many shells burst in it. The rear face of the tower was in ruins. Right gun (8-inch Armstrong).—A 9-inch Palliser shell struck the lower side of the gun and burst on the breast of the carriage with the following results: the gun beyond being indented for a distance of 8 inches in length was uninjured, but had been thrown about 10 feet from its original position. Both brackets of the carriage were torn away. The entire carriage was a wreck. Centre gun (8-inch Armstrong).—The right-front truck of the carriage was broken, and the gun was struck by a splinter on the chase. The gun and the carriage, however, suffered no serious injury, though the left bracket of the latter was pierced by a splinter. The centre battery in the interior was almost uninjured, though the parapet was deeply scored in all directions by shells. The embrasure of the left gun (9-inch) was choked up by the ruins of the cheeks, whilst the revetment on each side of the neck was swept away. The condition of the guns was as follows:—10-inch Armstrong gun.—The right-front truck of the carriage was carried away, and the buffers of the slide were much damaged by the recoil of the gun. 9-inch Armstrong gun.—The gun and carriage were uninjured except that the lever of the elevating gear was bent, and the holdfast was rising off the pin. 9-inch left gun.—This was hit on the left trunnion by a shell which tore off the cap square, and also by a second shell, on the right bracket six inches in the rear of the trunnion. The gun and carriage were, however, practically uninjured. This battery in the early reports of the bombardment was miscalled the Moncrieff Battery, but there was in it no gun mounted on that system. The Moncrieff gun, 180 yards to the westward, was hit on the left side by a splinter of a shell, and a bolt in the rear of the left bracket was also cut out by a Nordenfeldt bullet. Beyond this it was unhurt, and remained perfectly serviceable.

The Hospital Battery.—The effects of the bombardment here were overwhelming. The entire gun portions were so entirely destroyed that it was difficult to discover where the original crest had been. The injuries to the guns were as follows:—Right gun (7-inch Armstrong).—The cheeks of the embrasure were driven in on the gun, and the trucks were jammed, otherwise the gun and carriage were uninjured. The former was, however, scored with forty-nine hits from a 10-inch shrapnel shell, the greatest depth of any hit being 5 inches. Left gun (7-inch Armstrong).—A shell burst under the front racer on the left side of this gun, tore it up and bent it into a vertical plane, twisting the truck and forcing it off the racer. The slide was also jammed by the ruins of the revetment. The gun-carriage and slide were otherwise uninjured, and were left fit for service.27

13. Fort Adda.—The barracks and stores, especially on the east side of the fort, were very much injured, but the batteries were not materially damaged. The only shell which entered, that on the southern half of the western side, blew up the magazine. The loss of life from the explosion was probably very great, and the entire space between the magazine and the gate was covered with stones, timber, and broken shell. The injury to the guns was as follows:—A 10-inch S.B. gun was dismounted by a shell which threw the gun and carriage to a distance of about 15 feet from the slide. Another 10-inch S.B. gun was similarly dismounted, whilst a third was struck on the left side of the platform by a shell which had previously cut off the cascabel of the second gun to the left; the beams of the platform were completely shattered, and the gun with its carriage was overturned and wrecked.

14. Fort Pharos.—The west tower and front were breached in many places; the minaret was partly knocked down, and the whole of the west front of the keep, with its two turrets, were in ruins. The south-east corners of the fort were also much shattered by the shells which passed over the west front. The stores and barracks suffered severely, and the destruction of so much masonry must have added considerably to the moral effect of the fire of the ships. With regard to the sea front, the parapet was hit in several places (seven in all), but only in three cases did a shell enter the battery. The corners of the traverse to the right of the 8-inch Armstrong guns were carried away by two shells; a third shell pierced the sole of the embrasure of the 10-inch Armstrong gun, and threw the large granite block which formed the sill on to the platform of the gun, so the gun might be said to be out of action. Of the S.B. guns, one heavy 10-inch on the west tower was dismounted, by a 16-inch shell from the Inflexible, one 10-inch gun on the west front was capsized and put out of action, and it is not unlikely that another, with its carriage, fell into the crater formed by a shell.

On the rear face, a 36-pounder, having been hit on the cascabel by a chance shell, was thrown completely over the parapet, and left standing on its muzzle at a distance of 30 feet from its original position. Another gun was also unserviceable, owing to the partial destruction of its carriage by a shell. But it was in the casemates below that the fire of the ships inflicted the greatest injury. The front wall of the casemates, which is faced with masonry two feet in thickness, was in many places torn away under the stress of fire, leaving only six feet of rubble as a protection to the guns. Through the latter the heavy shells pierced with ease. The results were as follows:—Under west tower, casemate penetrated, gun not disabled. In casemates Nos. 1 to 12, just one half of the guns were disabled. Of the casemates on the right sea front, No. 17 was the only one in which there was no gun hit. The loss of life in the casemates must have been out of all proportion to the effect produced by the feeble guns (six 5-inch S.B.) mounted within.

On the scarp of casemates Nos. 1 to 12 there were about 13 hits, of which seven pierced the wall.

15. Fort Silsileh.—The fire does not appear to have in any way injured the guns or stores of this fort, though fragments of at least two shells lay around the rifled guns.

The total number of guns dismounted was, four M.L.R. guns, sixteen S.B. guns, and one mortar.

The forts at Alexandria generally were badly knocked about, but the more modern parapets were not seriously injured. If the bombardment were directed against the forts in their defensive capacity, it must be pronounced a failure. If its object were the dismounting of the rifled guns, it must be conceded that such results as attended the work of either the inside squadron (where only one gun of this type was seriously affected), or even of the outside squadron (where less than half of the guns were permanently disabled), do not justify the verdict of success.

In the wider sense, however, of having driven the Egyptian gunners from their batteries and having silenced the forts, the fleet was unquestionably victorious.