Struggle in Russia

When the three brothers of Archduke Konstantin were marching towards Yevpatoria in the mud, Li Xiao and Nakhimov's light carts went straight to Kerch.

As a traveler, Li Xiao knew very well that when the coalition forces found that Sevastopol was difficult to conquer, they would immediately divert their attention. Topol became an island.

This group of people vigorously advocated attacking and occupying the core areas of Crimea, such as Simferopol. However, this plan was strongly opposed by Raglan, the mediocre British coach who advocated the continued siege and capture of Sevastopol.

It's just that these two groups of people have great differences of opinion, and they have never been able to unite. After the final stalemate, they can only make compromises, that is, turn to capture Kerch.

Historically, Kerch was very important to the defenders of Sevastopol, not only as the gateway to the Sea of ​​Azov, but also for supplies to Sevastopol. Conquering here will close Russia's last outlet in the Black Sea, and it will also cut off the supplies of Sevastopol.

Historically, Kerch has not been taken seriously by the Russian army. The defenders are just passing battalions, and they are not the opponents of the coalition navy and army at all.

But it is different now. Kerch is extremely important to the Black Sea Fleet. After all, almost all of the Black Sea Fleet's main force is hiding in the Sea of ​​Azov. Once Kerch falls, the Black Sea Fleet will really be useless.

So from the very beginning, both Kornilov and Nakhimov attached great importance to Kerch's defense work. They deployed a defensive force of about 6,000 people here and built extremely strong fortifications.

However, Li Xiao still felt uneasy here, because Kerch was too important, and any mishaps here would affect his overall plan, so he took Nakhimov to inspect it.

Three days later, when their group arrived in Kerch, they found that there was a big gap between the situation here and what was seen in the report. This extremely important seaport was loosely defended and could almost be said to be undefended!

"Damn it, Maxim Alexievich, that's what you mean by defenses and everything is in order!" Nakhimov grabbed the Kerch defense commander, Major General Manosevich, and was a madman spray.

Because the major general was so drunk that he couldn't even pour cold water, and all his subordinates became drunk cats. Except for a dozing major in the city defense headquarters, the rest of the officers were not on duty. No trace is a hangover.

It is conceivable what will happen if the coalition forces really come over. Nakhimov doubts whether these drunkards will be taken prisoners directly.

Officers are like this, you can imagine what the soldiers are like. Anyway, apart from a few twilight veterans who were pitifully crowded into a group to keep warm, there were hardly any young and strong young men in the barracks.

According to the veterans, the lads went out hunting because the food rations simply didn't fill their stomachs.

Nakhimov was shocked, because as far as he knew, the ration was absolutely sufficient, and the reason why the soldiers could not get enough to eat was probably because some officers were drinking their blood!

In a fit of rage, he went straight to the storage warehouse. Sure enough, it was empty. Except for a small amount of supplies that were going to be sent to Sevastopol, all the food that should have been there was gone.

This time he really broke out, and immediately ordered the gendarmerie to arrest a group of officers headed by Manosevic. After some interrogation, these scumbags explained what they had done.

These **** even sold their precious grain to Greek merchants, whose merchant ships sailed straight from Kerch to Kamish and Balaklava to sell the grain to the enemy of the Russian army.

Good guy, Nakhimov is so mad that such a scandal happened right under his nose, he couldn't bear it anymore, he immediately wrote a report to Kornilov and Archduke Konstantin, demanding that Manoshevi be severely punished Qi and others, it is best to shoot them openly to slay military discipline!

But before that, Nakhimov still has a lot of things to do. The first is to rectify the Kerch defenders. Now that they are in this state, if they encounter the coalition forces, they will probably only look at the wind and flee.

For the next half month, Nakhimov stayed in Kerch, on the one hand to pay attention to military discipline, and on the other hand to urge officers and soldiers to strengthen defense facilities. The so-called fortifications built by Manosevic and others were just a pile of rubbish.

Here, I have to thank the coalition forces for their ink. When winter came, the senior leaders of Britain and France knew that it was impossible to conquer Sevastopol in a short time. Therefore, some people advocated to march in other directions in Crimea.

Such as Simferopol, such as Kerch. But initially Simferopol was the key target, after all, this is the capital of Crimea.

It’s just that as I mentioned earlier, the coalition forces disagreed, even if the senior leaders of Britain and France had reached an agreement and were determined to attack Simferopol, but when they got to Raglan, the stubborn marshal refused to implement it, saying that the two countries had reached an agreement. The memorandum reached at the top is only a suggestion, and as the supreme commander of the coalition, he has the right to refuse.

As the so-called generals outside the monarch did not accept, Raglan directly chose to refuse, which made the French commander Canrobert jump with anger, because he was more supportive of attacking Simferopol. But the British do not cooperate, and he has no choice at all~www.readwn.com~ The only thing he can do is to complain to Napoleon III:

"The field plan formulated by Your Majesty has been rendered inoperable by the commander-in-chief of the British army who refused to cooperate!"

Even years later, the French were still bitter that the British had not carried out their plan to advance to Simferopol to occupy the rest of the Crimea.

However, their anger is also justified. Raglan really has no right to reject this battle plan. It is blunt to say that this is a blatant disobedience to the command of the High Command, which is strictly a mutiny.

As British Prime Minister Palmerston, he can be dismissed immediately, but it is incomprehensible that this Prime Minister who has always supported the occupation of Crimea and even dismembered Russia did nothing!

As a result, the plan to capture the entire Crimea ended without a hitch. In desperation, the coalition had to take a step back and chose to attack Kerch. Just when Nakhimov was nervously strengthening Kerch's defense, the coalition fleet was ready. Ready, intending to carry 12,000 soldiers to land in Kerch.

It's just that this plan has twists and turns, and the reason is still the internal problems of the coalition forces, but this time it is the French... 4255/10567261