‘The New Works at the Siege of Sebastopol on the Right Attack, from the Mortar...

‘The New Works at the Siege of Sebastopol on the Right Attack, from the Mortar Battery on the right of Gordon's Battery’. Coloured tinted lithograph by J Needham, from 'The Seat of War in the East - First Series' after William Simpson, published by Paul and Dominic Colnaghi and Company, 24 May 1855. In the spring of 1855 the British brought up to the batteries before Sevastopol a number of 13-inch mortars. With their high trajectory they seemed ideal for lobbing bombs at buildings within the town. Major-General William Codrington, who commanded a brigade of the Light Division throughout the Crimean War (1854-1856), in a letter written home on 19 April, seems to be unconvinced about the usefulness of these mortars: ‘These big mortars have not been of half the power which was anticipated - the weight and recoil is so heavy that the platforms are very much shaken, and thus destroy the correctness of fire; and the buildings are so large that even a hole made by a shell is like a pin in appearance. It is better to send them at the Works.'