The good Crimean War Siege of Sebastopol French Medaille Militaire group awarded to Private Daniel Moran, 1st Battalion, 1st (Royal) Regiment of Foot who saw service in the Crimea during the Crimean War where he would be present during the fighting at Alma on 20th September 1854 and would subsequently be present in the trenches before Sebastopol during the siege which began on 11th September 1854 and for which he would later become one of just seven men of the battalion to be awarded the French Medaille Militaire for his continual faithful service during the whole of the siege operations. After his return from the Crimea, the former reliable soldier served in India for an extended period, during which he would be court-martialled for drunkenness on a number of occasions.
Group of 3: Crimea Medal 1854-1855, 2 Clasps: Alma and Sebastopol; inverted regimentally impressed naming; (21** DANIEL. MORAN. 1ST ROYALS.) France: Medaille Militaire, Second Empire; Turkish Crimea Medal 1855, British issue; (2180 DANIEL MORAN. ROYAL REGIMENT)
Condition: contact wear and edge bruising to Crimea Medal which affects the final two numbers of the service number, all medals with light toning, an Generally Very Fine to Good Very Fine
Daniel Moran was born in the parish of Stradbally in Queen’s County, Ireland around 1828. He would enlist at Maryborough on 1st October 1846 aged 18 years, subsequently seeing service with the 1st Regiment of Foot (The Royal Regiment) After nearly two years, presumably spent with the depot companies.
In July 1850 he would be posted to the 1st Battalion of the 1st Regiment of Foot which at that time was stationed in Halifax, Nova Scotia in North America. He served on that station for only a year, as his battalion was ordered to return to the UK in early 1851. He embarked on HMT Apollo on 15th July 1851 and would arrive at Spithead on the 31st of that month before proceeding to Winchester by rail. The next two and a half years were spent on home service in Winchester, Portsmouth and at various locations in South Wales.
On March 1854 the 1st Battalion, 1st Foot as part of the army proceeding to Turkey under Lord Raglan, was concentrated in the Citadel at Plymouth. Private Daniel Moran then embarked with his battalion on board the SS Oude bound for Gallipoli. The voyage was uncomfortable and unpleasant as the transport was overcrowded and the weather on the first leg of the journey was stormy. There were also 28 women accompanying the battalion and no provision whatever had been made for their comfort or shelter. About midday on 29th April, when off the rock of Galatea and 300 miles from Malta, the ship was discovered to be on fire. The ammunition stores were jettisoned but there was no panic, the fire was dealt with, and the ship saved, the ammunition being replaced in Malta.
On 5th May 1854 the battalion disembarked at Gallipoli and moved inland to Cheflik where it remained until 21st June. The next move was by steamer to Varna on the Black Sea coast, where Daniel Moran and his comrades disembarked on 26th June. During their time in Varna, cholera broke out among the troops, though the Royals were relatively fortunate in losing only 26 men to this disease.
On 31st August 1854 the battalion embarked on the transport Alfred the Great, bound for the invasion of the Crimea. The invasion of the Crimea. The invasion fleet sailed on 7th September and disembarked on 14th September, unopposed, at Kalamite Bay on the Peninsula. On 19th September the allied army moved in the direction of Sebastopol and, by that evening, had their first contact with the Russian army, which had retired after a brief artillery duel.
Daniel Moran had his first experience of battle on 20th September 1854. That day the allied forces encountered the Russian Army occupying a position commanding the River Alma. Under heavy fire the river was crossed and the heights beyond stormed. After desperate fighting and heavy casualties, the advance of the allies proved irresistible and the Russians were driven from their positions. The Royals were fortunate in that, although under fire, they were in a support role and suffered only one man wounded.
By 26th September the Royals had reached a position near Balaklava, which became a base for the allies. They were then deployed in the work of laying siege to Sebastopol. As part of the 3rd Division, they were first employed in preparing positions for the divisional artillery, then in digging and manning trenches. The allied forces began to bombard Sebastopol in mid-October but they were insufficient in number to completely surround the town, enabling the Russians to exploit weak areas and gaps. On 25th October 1854 the Russian cavalry attempted to break through the besieging forces at Balaklava but were thwarted by the 93rd Highlanders of ‘The Thin Red Line’ and then routed by the British heavy cavalry. They tried to break through again at Inkermann, first on 26th October, but were repulsed and then, with greater determination, on 5th November when a savage all day battle was fought. Some 374 of the Royals, led by Colonel Bell took part in this struggle in which the Russians were finally driven back. The rest of the battalion, including Pte Moran, remained in the trenches.
After the Battle of Inkermann the siege proper of Sebastopol began and was to last nearly a year. Daniel Moran and his fellow Royals, in common with the rest of the besieging forces, suffered very severely during the winter of 1854-55 from want of proper clothing, want of food, and want of the means to prepare what little food they had. Because of these conditions and the absence of proper medical care, illness and disease took a terrible toll. The battalion lost 321 men to these causes between November 1854 and March 1855, compared to seven men killed in the trenches over the same period. In the spring of 1855, the 2nd Battalion of the regiment arrived in the Crimea and took its place alongside the 1st Battalion.
After the sixth and final sustained bombardment, which began on 5th September and lasted for 80 consecutive hours, Sebastopol fell to the allies on 9th September 1855. Daniel Moran had not only survived but had remained on duty throughout the long months of the siege. He was later selected as one of only seven members of the battalion to be awarded the French Medaille Militaire. Along with two others, he shared a joint citation for this medal which reads ‘continual faithful service during the whole of the siege operations’
With the siege over, allied troops moved to improved quarters among the mountains behind Balaklava. An effective supply organisation was now in place and so the winter of 1855-56 was spent under much better conditions. On 2nd April 1856 a peace treaty was ratified and on 14th June the 1st Battalion embarked for home in the steamship Adelaide.
On 4th July 1856, the battalion disembarked at Portsmouth and proceeded immediately to Aldershot, where with other returning regiments, it was inspected by Queen Victoria. It then returned to Portsmouth and, after ten days there, the bulk of the battalion embarked on the steamship Prince Arthur and sailed for Dublin. As the first regiment back from from the Crimea to land in Ireland, the Royals received a tremendous welcome from the locals. The remainder of the battalion entrained at Portsmouth for Liverpool and crossed the sea to Dublin a few days later. By the end of July 1856, the whole battalion had been re-assembled in Dublin and, two months later, it attended the celebratory banquet organised by the citizens of Dublin to honour all those who had returned from the Crimea. This event, at which the returning heroes were suppled with copious amounts of drink, ended with much revelry and drunken choruses in the streets of the city.
However, back in July that year, Daniel Moran had been taken into custody on the 26th, tried by court martial on 28th July and sentenced to 42 days imprisonment with hard labour. His offence is not known for certain but was almost certainly drunkenness. He may have been an early casualty of the enthusiastic welcome and generosity of Dubliners in his first days back in Ireland. Whatever the truth of the matter, this episode signalled a long0termn deterioration in his conduct as a soldier. He was released to duty on 8th September 1856 and remained on home service with his battalion until July 1857 when orders were received to proceed to India where the great mutiny had broken out.
The battalion embarked at Kingstown for India on three ships, SS Caledonia which sailed on 25th July, SS Robert Lowe which followed on 28th July and the transport Defiance which sailed on 4th August. Private Moran was on the final vessel and arrived in Madras on 3rd November 1857 before sailing on to Masulipatam, also on the eastern coast of India where he disembarked on 10th November. Daniel Moran served in India for nearly 10 years but he was no longer the steadfast, reliable soldier he had been in the Crimea. Between 1859 and 1866 he was court-martialled and imprisoned a further four times for ‘habitual drunkenness’ as well as appearing many times in the defaulters book.
On 23rd March 1867 Daniel Moran was invalided home from India. Whether he was hospitalised on his return or joined the depot companies of his regiment is not known, but he continued in the Army for a further three years until, in March 1870, he was discharged after 23 years’ service. At his discharge proceedings, held at Chatham on 10th March 1870, it was stated that this was in consequence of a ‘reduction of the army’, but there was little to commend, other than his war service in the report put before the regimental board:
‘His conduct has been bad, from drunkenness. He is not in possession of any Good Conduct Badges. Is in possession of the Crimean Medal with two clasps and the Turkish War Medal also the French War Medal. His name appears forty-two times in the Regimental Defaulters’ Book including five trials by court-martial.
He had however, completed over 21 years service and was entitled to a permanent pension. The Chelsea Boad, convened on 22nd March 1870, concurred and awarded him nine pence per day. His description on discharge was as follows. He was 41 years and four months old, 5ft 7in height, with a fresh complexion, grey hair and grey eyes, by trade a labourer. His intended place of residence was his home area of Stradbally. Daniel Moran drew his pension at Kilkenny for only two years, before he died on 2nd April 1872.
