For several days in a row, until March 22, the innumerable enemy Circassian detachments did not make themselves felt at all. The deceptive calmness of the Wulan Valley was sometimes filled only with the whistle of the wind and the sound of rain under the leaden clouds. At night, the garrison desperately peered into the mountains covered with dense darkness in anticipation of the conditional signal promised by the scout. Nerves were on edge. No one, of course, wanted to believe that the Circassians would throw such significant forces on the battle-tattered Mikhailovskoe fortification, about which the scout spoke. Especially did not want to believe in this captain Liko, who knew that this would be the last battle of the garrison.
The night of March 21st to March 22nd, 1840, was particularly dark. A storm was raging at sea, so it was impossible to hope that a random ship of the Black Sea Fleet would notice the tragic position of the fort at the time of the battle and be able to provide assistance with artillery fire.
Finally, fires cut the darkness of the valley. The highlander, who had warned the fort of an imminent attack, kept his word this time. The sentries instantly reported this to the commander. Head-captain Nikolai Aleksandrovich Liko, with doomed concentration, changed into clean clothes prepared in advance and, like all officers, put on his most elegant uniform. True, in order to meet the bony young lady with a scythe with dignity. The soldiers crossed themselves and began to take their assigned places.
The 3rd company of the Black Sea Line Battalion took places on the front of the fortification facing the Teshebs River (sources often say that this side was facing the Pshada River and the Dzhubsky / Dzhubga Gorge). On the opposite face, facing the Vulan River, there was the 2nd company of the "Lineers". On the parapet of the northern side of the fortification, directed deep into the valley, the 9th company of the Tenginsky regiment and the 6th company of the Navaginsky regiment became. The Tengins were on the west side, and the Navagians were on the east. Also, the commander took a small reserve of 40 bayonets of the Navaginsky regiment, which was located between the guardhouse, the seikhhaus and the powder magazine. All the guns were loaded with buckshot, and a tense expectation of dawn began.
The first glimpses of dawn confirmed the garrison's most tragic expectations. The mountains literally turned black from the enemy troops. The few survivors later showed that there were at least 10-11 thousand Circassians. As soon as this whole armada moved towards the fortification and came within the range of a cannon shot, the fortification bristled with cannon volleys. Hundreds of highlanders fell dead, as if an invisible scythe had mowed a whole human layer. But the Circassians did not seem to notice the losses and, with a whoop, rushed to the walls of the fort.
The gunners turned one of the guns so as to keep the firing zone along the fortification ditch. When the highlanders reached this firing zone, the cannon fire in a matter of minutes hid the moat under the corpses of the enemy. But this did not stop the highlanders. The enemy, clinging to the loopholes with hooks, began to climb the stairs to the parapet of the eastern side of the fortification. It was here that a desperate hand-to-hand fight began.
Several times the "Lineers" with the "Tengins" and "Navagians" who had arrived in time to the place of the main blow, overturned the mountaineers from the ridge of the rampart. But the overwhelming numerical superiority of the enemy immediately became noticeable. Finally, seeing the senselessness of their attacks, the Circassians decided to retreat.
And then a remarkable incident occurred. It is no secret that in modern historiography the solidarity and dedication of the Circassians is sometimes artificially exaggerated, and their leaders are endowed with qualities that many of them did not possess in principle, presenting these feudal lords as almost democrats. So, the retreating foot highlanders, realizing that such an assault would be a Pyrrhic victory, and then at best, fell under the hooves and checkers of … their own cavalry. Having hacked dozens of their "faint-hearted" brethren, the cavalry nevertheless forced them to return to the assault on the fort.
As a result, such a wave of the enemy poured into the position that the soldiers of the 3rd Black Sea Line Battalion who survived after the first series of assault attempts were literally overturned from their combat positions. The Juba battery fell. Lieutenant Kraumzgold, shouting "do not be shy", rushed to regain lost positions, but unsuccessfully. The officer was wounded and died in captivity without medical assistance.
Soon the garrison was divided by the enemy into two parts. On the one hand, the 9th company of the Tenginsky regiment fought, and on the other side the 6th company of the "Navaginians" and the 2nd company of the "lineers" fought. At the same time, the main battle began precisely at the positions of the "Navaginians" and "Lineers" located next to the powder magazine and the guardhouse. It was here that our soldiers had to restrain the indomitable onslaught of the Circassian armor (heavy cavalry). The battle with the shells was led by Nikolai Konstantinovich Liko himself. For several hours, the wounded commander continued to give orders, despite the fact that from a lacerated wound on his left eyebrow, blood covered his eyes, and the bone of his right leg just above the foot was shattered. This is how the soldiers remembered their commander - Liko gripped a dagger in one hand, and moved leaning on a saber.
Suddenly, a grinning scout emerged from the crowd of the enemy, who had recently warned the fortification about the avalanche that was moving towards him. The scout offered to surrender voluntarily. Head-captain Liko, amazed at such treachery, shouted an order: “Guys, kill him! Russians don't give up! The two-dealer was instantly shot, which embittered the enemy fighters.
An unequal battle had been going on for several hours, and the forces of our fighters were rapidly dwindling, despite desperate resistance. So, private of the Tenginsky regiment, Alexander Fedorov, finding himself all alone, pressed himself into the corner of the parapet and fought off a dozen highlanders with a bayonet for so long that the latter decided that the commandant of the fortification himself was in front of them. He managed to be taken prisoner only almost an hour later, when the brave man was completely exhausted.
The officers were killed, and the command retreated to the lower ranks, after many hours of shooting it was simply impossible to pick up guns - they were so hot. The hospital, in which at that time there were up to a hundred people, and the barracks of the 3rd company of the Black Sea battalion were on fire. As a result, almost all the patients of the hospital were killed, because there was almost no one to defend it.
By ten in the morning, almost the entire territory of the Mikhailovsky fortification passed under the control of the Circassians. However, in the area of the powder magazine and the guardhouse, a fierce battle continued. Moreover, a handful of "Tengins" that remained on the rampart at the moment when the fort was overrun by opponents turned their guns inside the fortification and with several volleys turned Mikhailovskoye into a huge bloody grave. Oddly enough, but driven, apparently by hunger, the mountaineers in their mass rushed to plunder the fortification, it is banal to steal provisions, personal belongings, and so on. Therefore, when our fighters shot the enemy, sometimes a surreal picture arose, because the latter seemed indifferent to this.
However, such insane carelessness could be explained by another factor. After the battle, the scouts informed Colonel Grigory Phillipson that many of the highlanders who attacked Mikhailovskoye were … drunk in the smoke. Some time before that, these "brave" soldiers, who had captured the Lazarevsky and Velyaminovsky forts, got hold of alcohol in the cellars of the fortifications, which, of course, they drank "for courage."
The last hours of the battle were approaching. This is how Sidor Gurtovoy, a private of the Tenginsky regiment, who miraculously survived, described them:
“At 10 o'clock, fifteen people from the 9th company of the Tenginsky infantry regiment from the Bogatyr battery joined us; the powder magazine was already surrounded by a thick mass of the enemy, doors were chopped open, the roof was opened and walls were broken."
According to the observations of another participant in the battle in the Mikhailovsky fortification, Jozef (Joseph) Miroslavsky, who took command of one of the scattered detachments inside the fort, only in a fight already in the fortification itself, our soldiers killed at least 3 thousand Circassians. This is how he described the wild bloody battle on March 22:
“After the mountaineers rushed to the fortress after the booty … the military ranks standing on the walls began to beat the fortress with cannon …, where we raised some of them with bayonets, and drove others away and beat off the doors."
So came the tragic and solemn moment of Arkhip Osipov. Several dozen people remained in the defended Liko redoubt, so the wounded staff-captain called Arkhip Osipov and said, probably, his last words: "Do your thing."
A small clarifying digression should be made here. In one of the paintings by Alexander Kozlov, describing the feat of Osipov, you can see the figure of a monk walking behind the hero. This is often considered an artistic-dramatic assumption associated with the influence of the church. But this opinion is wrong.
At that time, a priest was present in each garrison to carry out spiritual services. Dozens of clergymen laid down their heads during the hostilities or due to illness, trying to somehow console the fighters who were cut off from their homes. Hieromonk Markel served in the Mikhailovsky fortification. It was he who followed Osipov in the epitrachil and with the cross, so that the hero would receive a blessing before his death and, according to tradition, could kiss the cross.
Arkhip Osipov took a grenade in his hands, tore off the plaster and, taking the lit fuse in his other hand, went to the powder magazine, saying goodbye: "I will go, I will make a memory." A few defenders of the fortification cleared part of the way for Arkhip with bayonets. As soon as Arkhip shouted “It's time, brothers! Who will remain alive, remember my case! " and hid in the cellar, the detachment rushed towards the Naval Battery (the last defensive point clear from the enemy). At about 10:30 am on March 22, a monstrous explosion burst out, dimming the daylight over the entire Wulan Valley for several minutes.
Seeing a terrible picture of scattering stumps of bodies, hellfire and pitch-black earth, the highlanders suddenly rushed scatteringly. It took the enemy several minutes to wake up. Later, no one could find most of the bodies. The highlanders called the very place of the Mikhailovsky fortification “damned”. In addition, after the battle, the enemy could not profit from anything - the warehouses with food and alcohol were burned, the seikhhaus, adjacent to the powder magazine, was wiped off the face of the earth.
However, few people know that even after such an explosion, the Circassians suddenly discovered that the Russians were still in the fortress in the Sea Bastion area. And our soldiers continued to shoot back desperately. Only at two o'clock in the afternoon on March 22 the last defenders of the Mikhailovsky Fort were captured. There was no longer a living space on them. The wounded soldiers were no longer able to throw themselves at bayonets, and there was no ammunition. So the defense of the Mikhailovsky fortification ended. According to the most conservative figures, the garrison of the fort, which amounted to no more than 500 people, including the sick, claimed the lives of 2 to 3 or more thousand enemy soldiers.
