Napoleon was the most enthusiastic about a change of strategy. Though the occupation of Sevastopol was central to his aims, he was convinced that the town would not fall until it was fully encircled, but, when it was, it would fall without a fight. He proposed that instead of bombarding the city from the south, the allies should land an army at Alushta, 70 kilometres to the east, and march from there towards Simferopol, through which most of the Russian army’s supplies were transported. The British agreed with the broad outlines of Napoleon’s strategy, although as part of the bargain they managed to dissuade him from his daring idea of going to the Crimea to take command of the military operations himself. The ‘Emperor’s plan’ (as the Alushta expedition became known in French circles) was included as one of three options for a diversionary attack on the Crimean interior, the others being an offensive by allied troops based at Sevastopol against Bakhchiserai, and the landing of a force at Evpatoria which would march across the plain to Simferopol. The two war ministers signed a memorandum of the agreed plan, which Panmure sent to Raglan on the authority of the British cabinet. Panmure’s instructions left it up to Raglan to choose between the three alternatives, but made it clear that he was being ordered to embark on one of them. The trenches at Sevastopol were to be left in the hands of 60,000 men (30,000 Turks and 30,000 French), whose new task would be to maintain a barrage to prevent the Russians from breaking out of the city rather than continue with any intention of taking the offensive.
Raglan was sceptical of the new plan. He wanted to continue with the bombardment, which he was convinced was on the point of a breakthrough, and believed that a field offensive would not leave enough troops to defend the allied positions before Sevastopol. In an act of open defiance, if not mutiny, against his political superiors, Raglan convened a council of war in the Crimea at which he told his allied commanders, Canrobert and Omer Pasha, that Panmure’s memorandum was only a ‘suggestion’ and that he (Raglan) could proceed with it or not as he thought fit. Raglan dragged his heels over the new plan, coming up with various excuses not to take men away from the siege, until Canrobert, who was in favour of the field campaign and had several times offered to place his troops under Raglan’s command if only he would start it, exploded in frustration. ‘The field plan worked out by Your Majesty’, Canrobert informed Napoleon, ‘has been rendered practically impossible by the non-cooperation of the Commander in Chief of the English Army.’20
For many years the French would blame the British for the failure of the plan to march on Simferopol and conquer the rest of the Crimea. They had good reason to be enraged by Raglan, who could have been removed by Palmerston for insubordination, if not incompetence, after his refusal to implement the order for an attack on the Crimean interior. With their superior rifle power, and the support of the Tatar population on the plain, there was good reason to suppose that a field campaign would have captured Simferopol and cut off the Russians’ main route of supply through the peninsula. This was exactly the scenario the Russians had feared most, which was why the Tsar had ordered the attack on Evpatoria in February. The Russians knew how vulnerable they were to an attack on their supply lines, and had always seen the route from Evpatoria as the most likely one for an allied offensive towards Simferopol or Perekop. As they later admitted, they were amazed that the British and the French had never tried to launch such an attack.21
