Until 1784, most of the fortifications around Sevastopol were dedicated to the protection of the harbour entrance, the city itself and its naval base and were positioned close to these features.

The construction of fortifications in the surrounding hills had been planned as early as 1837, but at the time of the battle only basic facilities and roadways had been completed on the north side of the long, westward-facing bay.

Situated about 2+1⁄2 miles (4.0 km) southeast of the city, it consisted of a two-story stone tower of limestone on which the Russians had placed five heavy 18-pounder cannons at the beginning of the siege.

Although it is known that the tower was built some time before the start of the war, the historical records do not show exactly when this occurred, and no mention of this is made in the contemporary descriptions of the siege itself.

The harbour of Sevastopol, formed by the estuary of the Chernaya, was protected against attack by sea not only by the Russian war-vessels, afloat and sunken, but also by heavy granite forts on the south side and by the defensive works.

[24] Lieutenant Colonel Eduard Totleben, the Russian chief engineer, had begun work on these sites early in the war.

Through daily efforts to rebuild, re-arm and improve the fortifications, he was able to finally connect them with a continuous defence system enceinte.

Yet early in October 1854, Sevastopol was not the towering fortress it later became, and Totleben himself maintained that had the allies assaulted it immediately, they would have succeeded in taking the city.

On 16 August, both Pavel Liprandi and Read's corps furiously attacked the 37,000 French and Sardinian troops on the heights above Traktir Bridge.

At the end of the day, the Russians drew off leaving 260 officers and 8,000 men dead or dying on the field; the French and British only lost 1,700.

The same day, a determined bombardment once more reduced the Malakoff and its dependencies to impotence, and it was with absolute confidence in the result that Marshal Pélissier planned the final assault.

That night the Russians fled over the bridges to the north side, and on 9 September the victors took possession of the empty and burning city.

During the nearly one-year siege of Sevastopol in the Crimean War, the fortifications on the Malakhov were hotly contested as they overlooked the whole city and the inner harbour.

The hasty nature, too, of the fortifications, which were damaged every day during the siege by the fire of a thousand guns, and had to be rebuilt every night, required large, unprotected working parties and the losses amongst these were correspondingly heavy.

These losses exhausted Russia's resources and when they were forced to employ large bodies of militia in the Battle of Traktir Bridge, it was obvious that the end was at hand.