Everything now betokened the beginning of the end. For some weeks past the daily losses of the garrison, according to Prince Gortschakoff 's own statements, had been enormous; and, while the defeat on the Tchernaya destroyed the last hopes of raising the siege, its prompt termination was clearly foreshown in the now irresistible progress of the Allies towards the place. Not unmindful of the signs of the times, the Eussians had some time before commenced the construction of a bridge of boats from Fort Nicholas to the north side of the harbour; and after the battle of the Tchernaya, this work was urged on with redoubled vigour.
It was completed about the 27th August, and was at once put into operation for the removal of stores from the dockyard and arsenal, which continued incessantly from this time up to the day of the final assault.
THE BAST.
About this time the Allied Generals received positive information that a renewed attack on the lines of the Tchernaya had been determined on; but, even supposing that the Eussians had not profited by their late bitter experience, their hands were now far too full to admit of the possibility of such an attempt; and the report was probably spread by the enemy in the futile hope of delaying the assault.
In the twenty days which elapsed from the 17th August to the 5th September, the Eussian losses from the fire of the Allied batteries averaged daily, according to Prince Gortschakoff's own statement, nearly 700 men, and their works were so severely injured that, for the first time in the siege, it was found impossible to repair them with any approximation to the rapidity with which they were destroyed. The ramparts and batteries, mended at night under a heavy fire, crumbled down at last after a few shots in the morning; the parapets fell in large masses into the ditches, and moments sufficed to render vain the toil and the sacrifices of months.
On the other hand, the French approaches both on the right and left now almost touched the works on which they were directed.
On the side of the town their most advanced trench was within forty metres of the Central Bastion, and within thirty of the Bastion du Mat; and on the right they had approached within twenty-five metres of the Malakoff and of the Little Eedan.
The English were still nearly 250 yards distant from the Great Eedan, on which they could bring about 200 guns to bear; but the rocky nature of the intervening ground rendered it impossible to push their sap beyond this point.
Thus the defeat of the Eussians on the Tchernaya, the enormous losses known to have been sustained by the garrison of Sebastopol, the irreparable damage done to their line of defences, and the close proximity of the approaches of the Allies, all combined to iiidicate that the moment of the final and decisive assault had at length arrived. This was fixed by the Commanders-in-Chief to take place at noon on the 8th September, after keeping up a heavy fire for the three preceding days.
Accordingly, at daylight on the 5th, all the French and English batteries, from the Quarantine Bay to Inkermann, opened a steady and continuous fire against the Eussian works, that on the French left being peculiarly distinguished by its weight and rapidity.
The morning was calm and bright and still, and through the transparent atmosphere the proud city was distinctly visible in scarcely diminished beauty — the last gleam of loveliness which precedes dissolution, — too soon to be folded in the fatal smoke- wreath for a shroud, and reduced to ashes on the funeral pile prepared by her own children. Suddenly the stillness was broken.
the brightness overcast; sheets of the most vivid flame, and thick clouds of sulphur-charged vapour, enwrapped the besieging lines from west to east, and the multitudinous roar of seven hundred pieces of the heaviest ordnance was borne sullenly on the wind to rouse the fated city from its last deceitful slumber. From early morn until the hot September sun was in its noontide glow, the deadly shower of iron hail fell thick and fast on battery and town, crashing through embrasure and parapet, shattering house and church and palace, and mixing with inanimate remains the torn and mangled ruins of humanity.