The Battle of Kinburn, a combined land-naval engagement during the final stage of the Crimean War, took place on the tip of the Kinburn Peninsula (on the south shore of the Dnieper–Bug estuary in what is now Ukraine) on 17 October 1855. During the battle a combined fleet of vessels from the French Navy and the British Royal Navy bombarded Russian coastal fortifications after an Anglo-French ground force had besieged them. Three French ironclad batteries carried out the main attack, which saw the main Russian fortress destroyed in an action that lasted about three hours.
The battle, although strategically insignificant with little effect on the outcome of the war, is notable for the first use of modern ironclad warships in action. Although frequently hit, the French ships destroyed the Russian forts within three hours, suffering minimal casualties in the process. This battle convinced contemporary navies to design and build new major warships with armour plating; this instigated a naval arms race between France and Britain lasting over a decade.
Background
In September 1854, the Anglo-French army that had been at Varna was ferried across the Black Sea and landed on the Crimean Peninsula. They then fought their way to the main Russian naval base on the peninsula, the city of Sevastopol, which they placed under siege. The Russian garrison eventually withdrew from the city in early September 1855, freeing the French and British fleets for other tasks. A discussion ensued over what target should be attacked next; the French and British high commands considered driving from the Crimea to Kherson and launching major campaigns in Bessarabia or the Caucasus. Instead, at the urging of French commanders, they settled on a smaller-scale operation to seize the Russian fort at Kinburn, which protected the mouth of the Dnieper. The British argued that to seize Kinburn without advancing to Nikolaev would only serve to warn the Russians of the threat to the port. Fox Maule-Ramsay, then the British Secretary of State for War, suggested that without a plan to exploit the capture of the fortress, the only purpose of the operation would be to give the fleets something to do.
Forces involved
The fortress was located on the Kinburn Spit, at the extreme western end of the Kinburn Peninsula, and consisted of three separate fortifications. The primary fort, built of stone, square, and equipped with bastions, held 50 guns, some of which were mounted in protective casemates; the rest were in en barbette mountings, firing over the parapets. Two smaller fortresses were located further down the spit, mounting ten and eleven guns, respectively. The first was a small stone fort, while the second was a simple sand earthwork. The forts were armed only with medium and smaller calibre guns, the largest guns being 24-pounders. Major General Maxim Kokhanovitch commanded the garrison of 1,500 men, most of whom were stationed in the main fort. Across the estuary was Fort Nikolaev in the town of Ochakov with fifteen more guns, but these were too far away to play a role in the battle.
To attack the forts, the British and French assembled a fleet centred on four French and six British ships of the line, led by British Rear Admiral Edmund Lyons and the French Vice Admiral Armand Joseph Bruat. The British contributed a further seventeen frigates and sloops, ten gunboats, and six bomb vessels, along with ten transport vessels. The French squadron included three corvettes, four avisos, twelve gunboats, and five bomb vessels. The transports carried a force of 8,000 men from French and British Army regiments that would be used to besiege the forts.
In addition to the contingent of conventional sailing warships, the French squadron brought three experimental ironclad warships that had recently arrived from France. These, the first three ironclad batteries of the —, , and —had been sent to the Black Sea in late July, but they arrived too late to take part in the siege of Sevastopol. These vessels, the first ironclad warships, carried eighteen 50-pounder guns and were protected with of wrought iron armour. Observers speculated that these untested warships would be ineffective in combat, owing to their slow speed and poor handling.