• Back to History of the Caucasus index
  

The first column, carrying scaling ladders, climbed a cliff on one side of a ravine. But from the apparently bare rocks on the opposing cliff, gunfire directed by Chechen sharpshooters decimated their ranks within minutes. The officers were soon all killed, and the six hundred men, their backs against the cliff, were left trapped by the Murids in the knowledge that exhaustion and exposure would finish them off before dawn.

The second column attempted to make its way to the aoul along the ravine floor. This too ended in disaster, as the defenders rolled down boulders upon them, so that only a few dozen returned. The third column, inching along a precipice, found itself attacked by hundreds of women and children who had been hidden in caves for safety. The women cut their way through the Russian ranks, while their children, daggers in both hands, ran under the Russians and slashed at them from beneath. Here, as always in the Caucasus, the women fought desperately, knowing that they had even more to lose than the men. Under this screaming and bloody onslaught, the Russian column staggered and fell back.

Baffled, Count Glasse sent a messenger to Shamyl to arrange a parley. Conditions at the aoul were extreme, and Shamyl, with a heavy heart, struck a deal, agreeing to release his eight-year old son Jamal al-Din as a hostage, on condition that the Russian army departed and left the aoul in peace. But no sooner had the boy been put on the road to St Petersburg than the artillery barrage opened up again, and Akhulgo was once more pounded from every side. Shamyl realised that he had been duped.

The next day, the Russians advanced again on Akhulgo, and found it populated by only ravens greedily feeding on corpses. The survivors had slipped away during the night. The only Muslims to remain, those too weak to withdraw, were discovered hiding in the caverns in the nearby cliffs, which were reached with the utmost difficulty. A Russian officer later recorded this as follows:

We had to lower soldiers by means of ropes. Our troops were almost overcome by the stench of the numberless corpses. In the chasm between the two Akhulgos, the guard had to be changed every few hours. More than a thousand bodies were counted; large numbers were swept downstream, or lay bloated on the rocks. Nine hundred prisoners were taken alive, mostly women, children and old men; but, in spite of their wounds and exhaustion, even these did not surrender easily. Some gathered up their last force, and snatched the bayonets from their guards. The weeping and wailing of the few children left alive, and the sufferings of the wounded and dying, completed the tragic scene.

Shamyl had made a desperate attempt to lead his family and disciples away during the night. His wife Fatima was eight months pregnant, and his second wife Jawhara was carrying her two month old baby Said. Together they managed to inch along a precipice unknown to the Russians, until they reached the torrent below. Here, the Imam brought a tree down to form a makeshift bridge. Fatima crossed safely with her younger son Ghazi Muhammad; but Jawhara was spotted by a Russian sharpshooter, who killed her with a single bullet, sending her and her child toppling over to vanish into the raging torrent.

Shaykh Shamil and his deputies and officers

Slowly, Shamyl, his depleted family, and the surviving Mujahideen, dodged the Russian patrols, who were now being aided by the Ghimrians who had gone over to the Russian side. Once they encountered a Russian platoon, and in the ensuing fight the young Ghazi Muhammad received a bayonet wound. But Shamyl's sword accounted for the Russian officer, whose men fled in terror. They were free again: as at Ghimri, the Imam had effected a miraculous escape.

Count Grabbes report described the capture of Akhulgo in glowing terms. The Murids, he wrote, had fallen with all their followers and adherents. The Tsar was delighted; but again, the Russian celebrations were premature. While Shamyl was free he was undefeated. And Moscow had once again given the Caucasus reason to seek freedom.

In 1840, Shamyl raised a new army, and again unfurled his black banners. With the Russians falling back along the Black Sea coast in the face of a Circassian uprising, conditions were right for a major campaign, and by the end of the year, the Imam had retaken Akhulgo, and led his forces onto the plains of Lower Chechenya, capturing fort after fort. The Russian response was chaotic: one sortie led by Grabbe resulted in the death of over two thousand Russians. A new commander, the Tsars favourite General Neidhardt, promised to exchange Shamyl's head for its weight in gold to anyone who could capture him; but all in vain. Again and again the Imperial legions were drawn into the dark forests, divided, and annihilated.

Shamyl's techniques, meanwhile, were improving all the time. On one occasion, he attacked a Russian position with ten thousand men, only to reappear less than twenty-four hours later fifty miles away, to attack another outpost: an astonishing feat. One military historian has written:The rapidity of this long march over a mountainous country, the precision of the combined operation, and above all the fact that it was prepared and carried out under the Russians very eyes, entitle Shamyl to rank as something more than a guerilla leader, even of the highest class.

• Back to History of the Caucasus index