The reader who may have followed this narrative will perhaps be of opinion that, the army once before Sebastopol, and dependent on a military system so deficient in much that is essential, no arrangement or foresight within the scope of human intelligence could have averted the disasters which followed. The inference drawn from the reports, that blame might justly be affixed in specified quarters, could not be sustained The fact that the different departments of the Army have their proper limits seemed in some measure to be lost sight of by the commissioners, as well as by the public, whose complaints were largely based on the error that everybody ought to understand and take part in the business of everybody else as well as his own. No commander-in-chief would wish to see such an interchange of duties substituted for the restricted and specific sphere of operations and responsibility allotted to each department. To perform the duties of his own branch (including, of course, its co-operation with others when necessary) is all that can be expected from an officer ; and it is the province of the superintending intellect, which knows the instruments it works with,
The Fault lay in the System. 189
to combine all in harmonious action. The search for delinquents pointed to this result, that all the suffering and calamity, not absolutely inevitable, which befell our troops, were the natural consequences of the unpractical and unworkable system, at once improvident and ineffective, which the nation permitted to exist for the conduct of its military business.
CHAPTER IX.
EXTENSION OF THE SIEGE WORKS AND DEFENCES.
Burgoyne's Proposal for our Relief— The French prefer another Mode — Want of Fuel in the Camps — Fortress increasing in Strength — New System of Rifle-pits — Underground Warfare — New Russian Works — Failure of the French Attack — Great Sortie against the French and English Trenches — The Burial Truce — Charles Gordon's Experiences— Russians recross the Tchernaya — Arrival of Pelissier and Niel — The Russians attack Eupatoria — The Attack repulsed — Burgoyne goes Home — Improved Condition of the Allies — Effect of Soil on Trenchwork — Another Cannonade — Severity of Fire upon the Fortress — Two Well-fought Batteries— Carnage in Sebastopol — Impatience for Assault.
IT has been said that the plan of attack, on the I7th October, was that the French should assault the Flagstaff Bastion, and the English the Redan. The first was the chief object, the second subsidiary. To establish French troops and batteries on the Flagstaff Bastion, and maintain them there, would have gone far to assure the surrender or evacuation of the place ; but in order to effect this, it would be indispensable to hold the Redan also, the close fire from which would otherwise render the French operations very costly, or impossible. But a great master of engineering science had been labouring on these works with unceasing energy, and with formidable effect ^ During the first winter months Todleben had greatly extended and strengthened both of these works, and also the Malakoff ; and the Redan
Burgoynes Proposal for oiir Relief. 191