User:Busulb Vash/sandbox: Difference between revisions

Grigoripolis Redoubt[edit]

“This redoubt (Grigoriopolis) is located on a gentle and treeless slope of the mountain,” one of the contemporaries describes the redoubt, “Near it, on the right and left sides, there are deep hollows. To the rear, a mile away from it, is the top of a mountain covered with forest.”

History[edit]

Prelude and preparations[edit]

On the morning of the 19th of July, the troops of Sheikh Mansur began gathering in a forest near the redoubt.Chechen and Kabardian horsemen jumped out of the forest several times with their banners and badges.
As the detachments of mountaineers near the forest continued to accumulate, Lieutenant Colonel Wrede sent a truce to them to ask for what purpose they had gathered. The envoy however was shot at by the mountaineers and forced to retreat. After that, the fortress began taking defensive measures and preparing for the incoming rebel attack. All troops were brought into the fortification and located along the walls. Weak places were filled with food trains, and the gaps and cracks between the carts were filled with boards, logs and other material. State horses and oxen, located in the fortification, were placed in different buildings and in a ditch. Private livestock, having no place in the fortification, were left behind the rampart and placed in the dugouts of the Selenginsky regiment that were not far from the fortification; the doors and windows of these dugouts were hastily boarded up.

Battle[edit]

At about 2 p.m. in the afternoon, the forces of Mansur surrounded the redoubt from all sides and cut off all communication with the fortress through the mountains and on the plain. The rebels intercepted a dispatch to Vladikavkaz, sent with translator Tsygankov, accompanied by seven Cossacks. At a distance of more than a mile from the fortification, the small detachment was surrounded by highlanders, who then opened fire on it. Lieutenant Colonel Wrede immediately sent Cornet Pavlov with several Cossacks to help. Although Pavlov’s team arrived in time to help Tsygankov, they themselves were surrounded and eventually captured.

The army of the mountaineers descended into the ravines surrounding Grigoripolis and began besieging it, opening fire on the redoubt with their rifles. Sheikh Mansur was visible among the mountaineer army, wearing white clothes.
The fire fight, which began at 2 p.m. in the afternoon, continued until late twilight. The first attack of the rebels ended in a failure of capturing the redoubt. Then, using their successful experience from the Attack on Karginsk, the rebels began burning down barns, stables and other buildings around the fortress that belonged to the Astrakhan infantry regiment. The dense smoke that was created by the fire greatly hampered the aim of the redoubt’s artillery. Then, Mansur’s fire, under the cover of the smoke, began climbing the walls of the fortification. This attack was eventually repelled by the Russian troops, but not without suffering heavy casualties themselves.

The siege lasted for two days, and the whole time, the Russian soldiers remained without water, as all the water was used to extinguish the fire started by the highlanders. Colonel Wrede, the commander of the fortress, was forced to make a foray outside of the fortress. The tide of the battle was dependent on the operation.
Under the command of Colonel Wrede, around 180 Russian soldiers (80 rangers, 100 Cossacks), under the cover of cannon fire, rushed at the highlanders and a fierce battle ensued, as a result of which…