Todleben many times asserts that the Flagstaff Bastion, and other works in front of the town, had frequently been reduced to so desperate a condition from the artilleryfire that an assault on them must have been successful, and that the loss of any of these would have entailed the surrender of the place. That the matter did not so present itself to Pelissier's mind is evident from the fact that, with all the means of forming a judgment which the proximity of his siege works to the town defences, and his frequent attacks on the enemy's outworks gave him, he deliberately adopted the course of attacking the proper left half of the Russian line of defence, that covering the suburb; and a necessary preliminary was to wrest the outworks just mentioned from the enemy. With this view, the arming of fresh batteries, and the storing of the great quantities of ammunition necessary for a sustained cannonade. once more went on in the trenches.

But if Pelissier was constant to his own ideas, so was Louis Napoleon. Unable to condemn the previous operations after they had proved so successful, he had, nevertheless, given them but a cold approval, regarding them indeed as false fires leading his General astray.

And now he despatched a telegram to Pelissier in these terms: "For the well-being of France, and for the glory of our arms, you are at the head of the finest army which perhaps has ever existed. You are certain of a deathless fame, but great things must be done for it. The conduct of the siege is even more the business of the chief engineer than of the general-in-chief; but the chief engineer has addressed to you these observations: ' If you push the siege without investing the place, you will only obtain, after bloody conflicts costing you your best troops, what would have come of itself after the investment.' In conformity with the British Government, which writes in the same sense to Lord Raglan, I give you a positive order not to devote yourself to the siege before having invested the place. Concert with Lord Raglan and Omar Pasha measures for the offensive, whether by the Tchernaya or against Simpheropol."

But before receiving this, Pelissier had sent a telegram to the Emperor to a very different purpose: "Today I am going to see Lord Racdan, who shares my ideas, in order to settle the last dispositions for the attack by storm, which ought to place in our power the White Works, the Mamelon, and the Quarry before the Rcdan. I calculate on beginning this operation on the 7th, and on carrying it right through with the utmost vigour." And the telegram he proceeded to act on was his own.

At three in the afternoon of the 6th June the siege batteries opened. Our own guns, as before, were mainly directed on the Redan and Malakoff and their dependencies; but our battery of heavy guns, increased now to twenty, on the right of the Right Attack, and some of the mortar batteries more in advance, were brought to bear on the Mamelon, crossing their fire with that of the French batteries on Mount Inkerman.

The work known as the Quarries was situated at about 400 yards in front of the Redan, at a point where the gradual downward slope was broken by an abrupt dip, and it thus stood on what was comparatively a small eminence. The ground there had lately been occupied with heaps of stones and rubbish, but these had been replaced by a regular work, though retaining the old name. This work, thus covering the Redan, had been itself covered by rows of rifle screens. But, on the night of the 19th April, Colonel Egerton,* (* Killed the same night, later) with a detachment of the 77th, without firing a shot, drove out, or killed with the bayonet, the occupants of these pits, and repulsed the troops supporting them, so that now our advanced line of trench in the Right Attack was face to face with the Quarries. As soon as the French should have secured the Mamelon we were to attack this work, and there establish ourselves.

All the works about to be attacked contained only a small proportion of the troops that were to be employed in their defence. The number sufficient to line their parapets, with a reserve within to make good losses, having been provided, the supports, in much greater force, were drawn up at some convenient spot near by, ready to reinforce the defenders, and to meet the auxiliary attacks which would approach the work from its flanks. The White Works, backed on the harbour, were supported by a battery at the end of the Careenage ravine, and the reserves were placed some in a small ravine in rear, some on the other side of the Careenage ravine.

The fire of the siege batteries was tremendous beyond all precedent. Five hundred and forty-four great guns bore on the Russian works, and were opposed by a nearly equal number. The effect of the fire of the Allies was soon manifest. The work on the Mamelon was terribly crushed, chiefly, says Todleben, "by the English guns, which made up for some slowness of fire by remarkable precision of aim." The White Works were less considerably damaged, and could keep up a fire till evening.

The works of the main line of defence also maintained the struggle, except the Malakoff itself, the right face of which, says Todleben, had been so knocked about by the English guns as to be reduced almost to silence. With dusk the Allied batteries ceased firing, but their mortars continued to throw their huge shells throughout the night. Nevertheless, the Russians, under the inspiration and the eye of Todleben, had made good their damages by morning.

On the 7th the cannonade was resumed with the same terrible effects as before. The Mamelon was reduced to absolute silence, the parapet of its right face was almost levelled, and after two hours the Malakoff was no longer in a condition to support it. By six in the evening the White Works and their auxiliary battery were ruined, and the parapets thrown into the ditch.

Half-past six was the hour fixed for the assaulta time which would allow daylight enough to secure possession of the works, while darkness would come soon enough to cover the working parties against the fire of the supporting batteries. The Russians could perceive the troops for the assault crowding into the trenches, and prepared to meet them. But the French had approached so near to the defences before the town that the part of the garrison on that side was still maintained in greater strength than that which defended the suburb.

At the appointed hour Bosquet sent two brigades at the White Works, which, encountering only half a battalion in each, captured both so speedily that a reserve battalion, hurrying up from the ravine behind, was too late, and was swept away in its turn. Then two other Russian battalions, crossing the Careenage ravine, ascended to the scene of contest; but Bosquet, in anticipation, had sent two battalions down the ravine, which, ascending its bank on their right, took these Russian reserves in rear, and captured a great part of them. No further attempt was made to retake the works; though three other battalions of reserve were despatched by the Russians, they reached no further than to the battery on the point, During the night the French connected these works with their own trenches.

At half-past five the French columns for the attack of the Mamelon were formed at the entrance of the Docks ravine. To each battalion General Bosquet addressed a few words of encouragement. Preceded by their vivandiere, who was well mounted, and wore a white hat and feather, the Algerine Zouaves headed the march, next came the French Zouaves, then the Green Chasseurs, attended by their vivandiere, and several regiments of the line followed, the whole moving down to the point where the trenches in which they were to await the signal to attack were entered from the ravine.

Crowds of spectators from the camps were assembled at points commanding a good view. The Mamelon, always conspicuous, was the cynosure of all eyes. Admiral Nakimoff rode up the rear slope of the hill about six, and leaving his horse at the entrance, passed into the work. Suddenly loud shouts caused him to look over the parapet, when he beheld three French columns advancing to the assault, and driving before them the sharpshooters who had lined the covering trench.

The Turcos formed the right column, the Soth regiment of the line the centre, the 3d (French) Zouaves the left. Led by one man, Colonel Brancion, who kept throughout in advance, the centre column went straight up the slope, passed the line of intrenchment which crossed it, and in a few minutes was crowd~ ing the edge of the ditch. Presently the leading troopE were seen on the parapet, still led by Colonel Brancion, who leaped into the work, where he was instantly slain.

At the same moment the Turcos, passing the intrenchments which extended to the left of the work, ascended the slopes towards its rear, when the defenders, with the Admiral, abandoned it almost without a struggle, and hurried off towards the Malakoff, while the tricolour was presently seen fluttering over the Mamelon.

The captured work was of the kind called a lunette (though a very irregular one), two sides meeting in a salient, and open in the rear, so that not only could reinforcements be poured quickly in, but the batteries of the main line could sweep the interior if occupied by the enemy. To cover their working parties, who would now close and fortify the open rear, the foremost assailants pressed out in pursuit, even up to the verge of the Malakoff, the guns of which at once opened on them, while the rifles of the garrison blazed along the parapets.

For a quarter of an hour the scene was wrapt in smoke; then the Russian reinforcements, arriving in strength, drove the French back upon the Mamelon. The Rus- sians, in their turn, followed up their success, pressing into the Mamelon, and after a short struggle the French gave way, and ran down the hill to their own trenches. Ample provision of reserves had been made for this contingency, and reinforced by these the French again went up the hill and into the work, which they captured and held, and round which their musketry continued to sparkle in the darkness, while their comrades constructed the necessary trench across the rear of the lunette, converting it into what was henceforth called, in obedience to a general order, "the Brancion Redoubt."

The entry of the French into the Mamelon was to be the signal for the English to attack the Quarries. Troops of the Light and Second Divisions were assigned to this purpose, in number 700, for the immediate assault, with 600 in close support, and the 62d regiment in reserve, with strong working parties, the whole under Colonel Shirley.

The stormers, operating by the flanks of the work, easily drove out the defenders, not only from it, but from the collateral trench extending thence across the ridge. But the work, unenclosed, afforded no protection from the fire of the Russian batteries behind it, which came into play, till their infantry, sallying from the Redan, engaged the assailants on the ridge outside. The combat swayed to and fro at intervals, as often as the Russians made a fresh sally, throughout the night, but all the trenches fought for remained in possession of the British.

Morning disclosed not only that Pelissier had accomplished the object of driving the enemy everywhere from their outworks, and restricting them to the main line of defence (for they had abandoned the auxiliary battery on the edge of Careening Bay), but that the advanced positions they had occupied had been converted into the front line of the siege works, connected by trenches with those in rear. In accomplishing this the French had lost in all, killed, wounded, and prisoners, 5440 men ; the English, 693; the Russians, 5000. But, besides these losses, in the six days' cannonade, from the 6th to the 10th June inclusive, the Allies lost 750 men ; the Russians, 3500. The French had taken in the works seventy-three guns.

The Emperor, clinging as was his wont persistently to his idea, did not on account of this success cease to harp on the one string of his plan for operating against the field army. It was not till seven days after the action that he telegraphed to Pelissier saying that, before congratulating him on his success, he had wished to know the cost.

"I admire the courage of the troops," he continued, "but I wish you to observe that a general action, which would have decided the fate of the Crimea, would have cost no more. I persist, then, in ordering you to make every effort to take the field."

In reply, Pelissier reaffirmed his conviction that his course was the right one. "In this situation the complete execution of your orders is impossible. It is to place me, Sire, between insubordination and discredit. . . . The army is full of confidence and ardour; mine equals my devotion; but I pray your Majesty either to free me from the straitened limits imposed on me, or to permit me to resign a command impossible to exercise, in concert with my loyal allies, at the end, sometimes paralysing, of an electric wire."

And to Marshal Vaillant he wrote: "The silence of the Government and the Emperor respecting me, and, above all, respecting my troops, and their brilliant feat of arms of the 7th, has surprised and afflicted me. The telegraphic despatches received since have still more painfully impressed me."

And, finally, on the night of the 17th: "I have waited all day for an answer to my important despatch of yesterday, but have received none, and the combinations settled with our allies are taking their course. To-morrow, at daybreak, in concert with the English, I attack the Redan, the Malakoff, and their dependent batteries. I have firm hope."

Up to this time Pelissier has appeared as a commander not only singularly resolute, but singularly clear of view. But now, with the great attack of the 18th pending, he committed two acts, not of resolution, but of waywardness, and in which his accustomed clearness of view showed itself to be suddenly obscured.

He was already displeased by a difference of opinion between himself and Bosquet (who wished to postpone the assault until the progress of the works should leave less of open ground to be traversed under fire by the assailants), when that general gave new cause of offence.

A plan of the Malakoff had been found on the body of a Russian officer, and brought to Bosquet, who had omitted to forward it to the General-in-Chief. Hearing of this, Pelissier, not content with demanding it with violent reproaches, removed Bosquet from the command of the forces with which the fresh attack was to be made, sending him to the corps on the Tchernaya, and replaced this experienced commander, so well acquainted with the ground, by another just come from France, and knowing nothing of the local features and circumstances.

This was a very grave error, impossible to justify. Niel wrote to Vaillant about it : "Canrobert says it is not an eagle, but a vulture which he has put in his place, and that he regrets what he did. It is impossible to describe the wrath of Bosquet; the proceedings of which he is the object are incredible."

The general who replaced him, Regnaud de St jean d'Angely, Commander of the Imperial Guard, had just thirty- six hours in which to study the very difficult ground and the siege works, and to place himself in relations with troops who did not know him, and who regretted their old chief.

The other error was even worse. Pelissier had arranged with Lord Raglan that the cannonade of the 17th should be renewed at dawn on the 18th, and should last for two hours, in which time it was calculated the enemy's guns might be silenced, and their works, after the repairs of the night, once more ruined.

The attack was therefore to take place at five, or half-past. On the 17th, the batteries opening over the entire front from Quarantine Bay to Careening Bay, produced their effect as before. Evening saw the Barrack Batteries, the Redan, and Malakoff, with their dependencies, and the works thence to the harbour, all disabled, with vast losses within them of killed and wounded.

But suddenly, without a word to Lord Raglan, Pelissier changed the plan. He resolved to dispense with the preliminary cannonade next morning, and to assault at daybreak. He communicated this change to his colleague in a despatch as definitive, and resting on grounds that could not be disputed. Lord Raglan heard of it with deep concern, but concluded that it was better silently to accept and conform to the change than to protest.

Nevertheless, considering the issues involved, it is a question whether he would not have done well in declining to co-operate, except on the jointly arranged plan. The change was lamented by the English artillery officers, who had been very confident of rendering the Russian batteries nearly harmless in a very few hours.

These aberrations of Pelissier have never been quite accounted for. Kinglake suggests that they were due to the extreme anguish of mind inflicted by the Emperor's telegrams, and even states the time during which the perturbation lasted as eight days. In his despatch to Lord Raglan, Pelissier gave as his reason for hastening the hour of attack that the assembly of his troops in the trenches, as had been found on trial, could not after daylight be concealed from the enemy, who would therefore be prepared to meet them. But the cannonade would have already prepared them; moreover, the hour before dawn is that in which all menaced garrisons specially expect attack.

Therefore nothing was so essential to success as to stop the fire which would bear on his troops in the open ground, and Pelissier's reason was not such as ought for a moment to have swayed him.

Before dawn, on the 18th, Lord Raglan and his staff assembled in an advanced trench which seemed suitable for observation, and would have been so, had it not been the focus of fire from the Redan and Malakoff. From thence could be seen our troops, detailed for the assault, and their supports, crowding the advanced trenches; and the movements around the Malakoff were, with daylight, also discernible. The day had been chosen as one on which the memory of Waterloo might happily give place to a joint victory of French and English. Instead of this, it was marked from the outset by a series of blunders and misfortunes.

First, the French troops, destined to form the right column against the Malakoff, found, on reaching the trenches in the night, that the post they were to take up was still occupied by another part of the attacking force. Much delay and confusion was thus caused, and under the brilliant starlight, the enemy, already roused to more than common vigilance, perceived the preparations for attack.

At two in the morning his bugles sounded the alarm ; the reserves closed up to their posts, the embrasures were opened for action., and fieldguns were placed in the Malakoff and elsewhere to fire on the columns of assault. Next, the French general who was to direct the assault against the left of the Russian line mistook a casual shell for the signal of attack, and advanced prematurely. But it is not likely that these mischances greatly affected the result.

The repairs and renewals, which by the extraordinary energy of the garrison and its leaders had been accomplished in the few hours of darkness, enabled them to pour such a storm of shot from every part assailed that no serious impression was made anywhere. Under the overwhelming fire from the ramparts, the spaces of open ground to be traversed by the assailants were thickly strewed with the fallen. For the most part the attacks, made on the part of the French with, in all, 25,000 men, resolved themselves into an exchange of rifle fire between the assailants spread out around the works, and the defenders aiming from the parapets, and aided by the field-guns as well as by the regular armament.

Lord Raglan, though it was seen that the attacks were thus far failures, felt bound to take his part in the enterprise. He was himself under a very hot cross-fire, especially of that now obsolete projectile called grape. It was formed of bullets the size of small apples, piled symmetrically, and tied round an iron spindle rising from the centre of a wooden disc of a size to fit the bore of the gun.

With the discharge the tie was broken, the bullets flew together with a noise like that of a covey 0 partridges, while in rear the spindle, retarded by the pressure of air on the disc, came on separately with a whistling sound of its own. But round shot also dashed plentifully in, and one, after killing a sapper, left a gunner lying headless, as if guillotined, in the trench, and knocked off the arm of an officer.

The grape, besides other damage, prostrated the commanding engineer with a wound on the forehead, and many officers, arriving with intelligence or seeking orders, were killed or wounded. It was from this place that the order had been given to our troops to attack. Upon them, as on the French, a tremendous fire of all kinds was poured. The several columns that moved out were almost annihilated, and the parts of them that still went on were held fast by a belt of abattis in front of the ditch. General Campbell and Colonel Yea, who each led a column, were killed -- the ladder party of twenty volunteers lost eleven; of 120 sailors, fifty-two fell; and the stormers generally in equal proportion. Nothing that could be called an assault, of a kind that even faintly promised success, took place anywhere; and after a conference between Pelissier and Lord Raglan in the Victoria Redoubt, they considered what they had seen and learned to be so discouraging that, between seven and eight o'clock, all the attacking troops were recalled to the trenches.

Meanwhile a partial success had been achieved on our left. General Eyre, with a brigade of 2000 men, descending the Picket House ravine, had driven the Russians out of buildings and a cemetery at the foot of Green Hill.

Here they were immediately under the Garden Batteries, which all day poured on them a destructive fire; and an infantry force descending from thence, and lining a breastwork in the valley, exchanged volleys with our troops, who forced them to reorain the shelter of their works. Eyre, himself wounded, and his troops held their ground till nightfall, with the loss of 6oo men and officers, and the cemetery was then fortified by our engineers, who afterwards handed it over to the French.

The losses in the actual assault, during which the besieging batteries ceased firing, were heavily against the Allies ; but, taken in conjunction with those caused by the cannonade of the I 7th and 18th, the French lost 3,500 men; the English, 1500; the Russians, 5400. Of the six generals and commanders, French and English, who led the six attacks, four were killed and one disabled.

The spirit of resistance shown by the Russians was such as their nation may well be proud to recall. But it was only rendered possible by the reliefs of fresh unharassed troops always available from the army outside. When, however, at the moment which the Russians were giving to exultation and thanksgiving, the cannonade recommenced in all its terrors, the spirit of the soldiery gave way, and many of them made for the harbour, fighting with their own people there for the boats and rafts with which to escape the iron storm that searched the crannies of the south side.

And they soon had other cause for discouragement. Slightly wounded on the 18th, their sagacious, unresting, resourceful, and indomitable engineer, Todleben, was disabled on the 20th by a shot through the leg, and was carried from the fortress, not to return during the siege.

Considering his own share in causing the disaster, Pelissier showed at least his characteristic hardihood in reporting the issue of the attack. The same day he telegraphed to Vaillant thus: "From causes which cannot now be discussed, our attack of to-day has not succeeded, although part of our troops set foot in the Malakoff. Our allies not having attained, in spite of their vigour, a footing in the Redan, I ordered a withdrawal to the trenches."

The "causes" alluded to in this telegram were set forth, in a letter, as the mistakes made by General Mayran, in attacking too soon, and by General Brunet, for remissness in his preliminary arrangements for the assault. When told that both these generals had fallen in leading their troops, he uttered what the French chronicler Rousset calls truly "a cruel word," and which, he says, shocked the staff: "If they were not dead, I would send them before a council of war."

To Vaillant he utters no words which would admit that he was himself to blame. He points out that mistakes made on an open field of battle would entail consequences much more serious than in an assault from the trenches, where the defeated troops were at once sheltered and rallied. Not only a defeat, but even a drawn battle in the field, would paralyse the Allies, far from their ports and resources, and encumbered with sick and wounded. Therefore, he is still for prosecuting the siege.

"I cannot console myself for the failure at the Malakoff otherwise than in repairing it by energy, and, above all, by method."

Niel also wrote to Vaillant, in a tone much more moderate and hopeful than was his wont. But nothing, apparently, could remove P61issier's natural prejudice against one who criticised and opposed his measures, and who had the ear of their master.

On the 26th there was a conference of French generals, when Niel, in endeavouring to argue in favour of a certain direction of the siege works, was thus met, according to his own report of the scene: "The General-in-Chief said to me, 'I forbid you, in the most formal manner, to add anything to the reading of your note, and if you infringe my orders, I warn you I shall resort to rigorous means."

The check Pelissier had met with had not softened his spirit, or rendered him more conciliatory; and when, in compliance with a hint from Vaillant that the Emperor complained of the small attention paid to the Imperial views and messages, Pelissier wrote to Louis Napoleon, he set forth his conception of the situation no less clearly and decisively than before, and weighed the Emperor's plan against his own without any sign of giving way. "We must look even more carefully to the chances of a reverse than to those of a victory. Before the fortress our failures do not change the situation; they leave us to-day where we were yesterday; but in a battle in the field the losses and disorders will be multiplied in proportion to the distance from our base."

He then discusses the problem in a very masterly way, and winds up thus : "I am too devoted to my country, too anxious to serve the Emperor according to his views, to be suspected of being governed by obstinacy; it is simply sincerity and devotion which actuate me . . . . Believe that if I do not enter into the projects which have your sympathies, Sire, it is because I should risk the fortunes of your Majesty, which are the fortunes of France."

Probably it will be thought that Pdlissier gave no greater proof of the firmness of his character than when he thus adhered to the much-questioned plan, in executing which he had just sustained a heavy defeat. The letter made a strong impression on the Emperor. He had been with difficulty dissuaded from displacing Pelissier and giving Niel the command. But he now showed this letter to Vaillant as no less remarkable for its substance than its form. And Marshal Vaillant himself plays a very fine part in the correspondence. He gives excellent counsels, admirably and often wittily expressed, to the Emperor, to Pelissier, and to Niel. He admonishes Niel to conciliate Pelissier; he advises P61issier to trust Niel. And now he declared for Pelissier's plan. "There can be no question of field operations now," he writes to Pelissier; "that would be to abandon the certain, which, I allow, is not brilliant, for the uncertain, which may be disastrous. It is the fortune of France which is played for before Sebastopol. At least, let it be well played for, . . I have often told the Emperor that the time for diversions is past; that we grasp the fortress too closely to distract ourselves with exterior operations, in which a check might have terrible consequences."

And to Niel he says: "To undertake a campaign with the cholera for company, and a great siege at our back, would terrify me -- I could understand it in May; in July it is no longer possible."

So the siege went on; only Pelissier practically confessed his mistake by now resolving to push his approaches (as he had phrased it in his letter to the Emperor), "as methodically, as prudently, and as closely as possible."

There can be little doubt that the event of the 18th June pressed heavily on Lord Raglan. He had never appeared to be a commander who took his responsibilities anxiously; indeed, to some observers, it seemed that they scarcely impressed him in due proportion to their gravity. But the suppression of feeling may itself have been costly. Five days after the failure of the assault, an officer of his staff wrote I fear it has affected Lord Raglan's health, he looks far from well and has grown very much aged latterly."

He wrote to tell Pelissier he was unwell, "but nothing serious." On the 26th he spent the morning in his correspondence, which he always conducted most industriously; but when he concluded it that day, he had written his last letter. Cholera, not in its cruel or violent form, declared itself; he sank gradually away, and, on the 28th, died peacefully in the presence of his military household.

Next day his colleagues came to take a farewell look of him, when the stern Pelissier, who had always evinced a great regard and even affection for his English colleague, showed a new side of his character.

"General Pelissier," says an officer who was present, "stood by the bedside for upwards of an hour, crying like a child." And the tribute he paid him in a general order was highly appreciated in all the camps, and is so evidently genuine in expression, that it may well serve to show in what estimation the deceased commander was held by his colleagues.

ARMY OF THE EAST
No. 15, GENERAL ORDER

"Death has suddenly taken away, while in full exercise of his command, the Field-Marshal Lord Raglan, and has plunged the British in mourning.

"We all share the sorrow of our brave allies. Those who knew Lord Raglan, who know the history of his life, so pure, so noble, so replete with service rendered to his country, those who witnessed his fearless demeanour at the Alma and Inkerman, who recall the calm and stoic greatness of his character throughout this rude and memorable campaign, every generous heart, indeed, will deplore the loss of such a man.

The sentiments here expressed by the General-in-Chief are those of the whole Army. He has himself been cruelly struck by this unlooked-for blow.

The public grief only increases his sorrow at being for ever separated from a companion-in-arms whose genial spirit he loved, whose virtues he admired, and from whom he has always received the most loyal and hearty co-operation.

A. PELISSIER
Commander-in-Chief

HEADQUARTERS
BEFORE SEBASTOPOL
29 June 1855

The funeral was a very striking spectacle. Covered with a white flag, showing the red cross of St George, and borne on a gun carriage, the coffin journeyed slowly, from the farmhouse which had been the English headquarters, across the plains. The generals and staffs of the four Armies, English, French, Turkish, and Sardinian accompanied it, as it moved between saluting batteries and lines of troops extending to Kazatch Bay, the place of embarkation.

Crowds of boats, with naval officers, there awaited its transfer to the Caradoc, the steamer in which Lord Raglan had come from England, and which was now to take home his remains. His destined successsor, General Simpson, was already on the spot, and at once assumed the command of the army.

On the 10th July Admiral Nakimoff, who had commanded the Russian Squadron at Sinope, and had been one of the foremost chiefs of the defence, was mortally wounded in the Malakoff. He was buried, with imposing ceremonies, on the City heights, near the tombs of his colleagues, Admirals Lazareff, Korniloff, and Istomine, all slain in defending the fortress.

All through July the defenders of Sebastopol beheld the works of the besiegers creeping steadily on ; and while the ordinary fire caused them a daily loss of 250 men, they knew that the interval must be short before they would again have to pass through the terrific ordeal of another cannonade, with the now ascertained result of seeing their artillery silenced, and dreadful losses inflicted on the garrison.

At the burial truce, which followed the 18th June, a young Russian officer said to one of our staff,* who had been speaking of the losses of the Allies, "with great bitterness of manner and voice choked with emotion: 'Losses! you don't know what the word means; you should see our batteries; the dead lie there in heaps and heaps. Troops cannot live under such a fire of hell as you poured upon us."'

* The author of Letters from Headquarters, also quoted on P.265.)

In that bombardment the Russians had lost from 1000 to 1500 a day, and a renewal of the terrible time was now approaching. Supposing, then, that the thought of retreat to the north side could not yet be entertained, the question was urgent whether to persevere in the passive defence or to bring up their field army for a general attack upon the enemy. It seemed that the chief officers on the spot were alone competent to settle this, and Prince Gortschakoff was ordered, with the approval of the Czar, to convene them in a council of war, which met on the 9th of August.

The majority pronounced in favour of taking the offensive, but as to the time and mode there was such a diversity of opinion as showed how little hopeful was the situation. Whether to fling the field army against the positions on the Tchernaya ; or to combine with an attack there a great sortie from Sebastopol ; or, as one or two desired, to evacuate the south side, and combine garrison and field army for a great battle; or whether (as Todleben held) the field army should be brought to reinforce the garrison, and both hurled against the besiegers' lines;. also, whether certain reinforcements of militia should be waited for-all these found their advocates.

What was decided on was to attack the Allies on the upper Tchernaya, that is to say, the French on the Fedioukine heights, numbering 18,000 men, with forty-eight guns, and the Sardinians, who continued the line up the stream, also on a line of heights bordering it, and held a hill on the Russian side of the river near Tchorgoun as an outpost, and who numbered 9000, with thirty-six guns; while close enough to act as a reserve were 10,000 Turks, in the valley behind. In addition to these, the French could readily bring down from the Upland a disposable force which would raise the whole Allied Army in this locality to 60,000. Besides the obstacle of the Tchernaya, there was a watercourse along the front of the Allies, who had further protected their lines and batteries by intrenchments.

On the afternoon of the 15th August the Russians brought their troops from the Belbek to join those on the Mackenzie Farm heights. During the following night, the right wing, 13,000 infantry, 2000 cavalry, and sixty-two guns, under General Read, moved down the high road of the Traktir Bridge, and halted opposite the French.

The left wing, 16,000 infantry, seventy guns, under General Liprandi, moved in two columns; the right one, under that general, followed the march of Read ; the left, under General Bellegarde, descending the heights by another path, was to halt on the road to Tchorgoun. The reserve of infantry, 19,000, with thirtysix guns, was to descend by both roads, and draw up behind Read; the great body of cavalry, 8000, with twenty-eight guns, was to follow Bellegarde; the reserve artillery, seventy-six guns, to draw up behind the infantry reserve.

Gortschakoff's plan was this: at daybreak, Liprandi was to drive in the Sardinian outposts on the right bank of the stream, while the whole Army formed to attack. Gortschakoff would then determine whether to use his whole force for the attack of the Sardinian position, or for that of the French, and, till he had determined, all were to await orders. The first step in the programme was accomplished by driving the Sardinian outposts as far as the last height on the right bank, which they continued to hold. But here a terrible disappointment, according to his own report, awaited Gortschakoff.

General Read, apparently interpreting an order sent to him "to commence" as meaning "to attack," launched both his Divisions, prematurely and without a preliminary cannonade, at the heights held by the French. He carried the tete depont with the Division on his left, the Twelfth, and ascending by the road, it reached the French lines. But it got no farther.

Crushed by a tremendous fire, it was driven down the hill, and across the stream, with immense slaughter. Read's other Division, the Seventh, crossing by fords, endeavoured to move along between the front of the French and the river, in order to attack their left flank, but was soon compelled, after a feeble attempt, to regain its own bank in disorder, and though suffering a comparatively slight loss, was not again brought into action.

The Twelfth Division, reformed after its repulse, was now used as a support to the Fifth of the Reserve in again attacking the French right; they again took the t9te depont, and advanced by the road and neighbouring fords across the stream and up the heights, but only to be again driven back to their own bank ravaged as before, and with the loss of General Read, who was killed.

Thereupon the Twelfth and Fifth Divisions, reduced to half their numbers, were withdrawn to ground near the bases of the Mackenzie heights, and Liprandi was ordered to send a brigade of the Seventeenth Division to the assault. It ascended at the same points as its predecessors, and like them, after reaching the French lines, and undergoing heavy loss, was driven back to the other bank, its retreat being covered by another of Liprandi's regiments.

Gortschakoff, seeing that the French were being strongly reinforced (a French Division having reached the ground, and two others being on the march for it, while six battalions of Turks had come up), withdrew his troops. His cavalry and guns formed line across the valley, the infantry in rear; and thus for many hours he waited, beyond cannon shot, in case the Allies should quit their positions to attack him. But this formed no part of Pelissier's design. The Russians, whose disaster was aggravated by want of water, withdrew, and about two P.m. were seen ascending the road to the Mackenzie heights, while other columns followed the route thither from Tchorgoun, till the whole had quitted the field.

The slaughter among them had been very great. Three generals, sixty-six other officers, and 2300 men were killed; 160 officers and 4000 men wounded, and thirty-one officers and 1700 men had disappeared. The French lost 1500 killed and wounded; the Sardinians, 200.

With this defeat vanished whatever faint hope the Russian chiefs might have had of retrieving, in any important degree, their failing fortunes. The employment of militia in this battle showed the approaching exhaustion of their resources.

In May 1855 Lord Lansdowne stated in the House of Lords, as derived from authentic sources, that a return was made up a few days before the death of the Emperor Nicholas showing a total loss to the Russians of 240,000 men. It seems almost incredible, but the march through the muddy flats, and bad, unmetalled roads of Southern Russia, the severity of the winter there, the traversing of the wind-swept steppes of the Crimea, supplies and shelter being throughout the route difficult to obtain, and the transport of the country destroyed, had put such a strain on the troops that, out of every three men who were despatched to the army, it may be said two fell by the way.

Besides losses of this kind, in the six months from March to August inclusive, 81,000 men had been killed or wounded in and around Sebastopol. There was a cemetery on the north side, called "The Grave of the Hundred Thousand," whither the dead were conveyed from the works and the hospitals.

The Armies of the Great Military Powers had not at that time approached to their present magnitude, and it was evident that even the comparatively huge resources of Russia must be drawing towards their end.

Chapter XIII: Destruction of Sebastopol