Now there is no doubt that the design of defeating the Russian field army, and severing the communication between the interior of Russia and Sebastopol, would, if successful, have speedily caused the surrender of the place. So far the view was sound. But its two advocates erred in insisting on treating it as if it were the only project which rendered success possible, and in denying that the siege operations contained any promise of victory. For there were several circumstances which clearly pointed to the probability, nay certainty, of the capture of the south side of Sebastopol on the plan hitherto pursued. The enemy had never taken from the Allies an inch of ground on which they had once established themselves. If the Russians had not abandoned all intention of attempting to raise the siege by an attack with their field army, the Allies were confident of defeating any such enterprise. There were signs that if the material of war in Sebastopol showed no token of exhaustion, yet the trained seamen who worked the guns were greatly reduced in numbers. The besiegers' fire could always establish a superiority, constantly increasing, over that of the place. And, finally, the enemy's losses must, from the nature of the case, continue to be immensely^ greater than those of the Allies. In the preceding month the garrison of Sebas-
232 Pelissiers View of the Problem,
topol had lost more than 10,000 men, and there were good grounds for believing that the whole of the Russian Forces now in the Crimea scarcely numbered more than 100,000 men. It was certain, therefore, that should the Allies persevere with the siege, the day, though not yet near, would come when the enemy's fire would be overpowered, his works stormed, and the south side rendered untenable.
Pelissier's mode of grasping this problem is first shown in a letter which he wrote to Canrobert while that general was still Commander-in-Chief. He first expressed his belief that the Allies, by pressing the attack on the works, could certainly render themselves masters of Sebastopol ; " difficult," he says, "but possible." Therefore he proposes, before all things, to push the siege to extremity, without regard to what was outside of it. Nevertheless, in case an exterior operation should be " inexorably commanded by the Emperor," he has his plan for that. But he presently shows that this was merely a concession to the weakness of another, by explaining that, before anything of that kind can take place, the Russians must be shut up so completely in their works that no sortie need be feared, and that the first* operations must therefore be the capture of the Mr.melon and the White Works at any price. " If there are to be operations in the field, they must only take place after we have restricted the Russians absolutely to their defences, and have thus achieved security for our base of operations/'' He meant by this to insist on the necessity of driving the Russians from all those
His Previous Action in May. 233