In February the Russians, finding that the line of sunken vessels across the harbour had been much broken up by the waves, sank six more, in a line inside the other ; and on the 6th March an English battery on Mount Inkerman brought some guns, with hot shot, to bear on two warships in Careening Creek which had greatly annoyed the French, and drove them, one much damaged, round a sheltering point.
Burgoyne goes Home. 207
An important figure also disappeared from the councils of the Allies. In February the new Government, in order to appease a vague desire (part of the general discontent and impatience agitating the country) for any change which might quicken the siege operations, had decided on the recall of Sir John Burgoyne, and General Harry Jones had in that month arrived in the Crimea as his successor. But Lord Raglan desired to keep his old counsellor by his side at a time when so many important engineering questions were pending ; he continued to be present at the conferences, and to issue plans and suggestions, till the third week in March, when he departed for England.
The defence of the place lost a redoubted champion, on the igth March, when Admiral Istomine was killed in the Mamelon. He was buried by the side of KornilofT, in a tomb made by Admiral Nakimoff with the intention of lying there himself, but he now ceded the place to his illustrious comrade.
With the advance of spring the situation of the Allies (though the siege seemed as far as ever from its end) had become greatly more favourable. Not only had the climate grown mild, not only were the plains, clad in renewed verdure, once more easy to traverse, but the time of privations was long past, and almost seemed a bad dream ; the men were well fed, well clothed, and well housed ; the horses had been restored to condition and duly recruited in numbers ; a city of huts, like those to be seen at Aldershot, spread over the Upland ; the railway brought vast stores from Balaklava to the plateau,
208 Improved Condition of the Allies.
from whence they were forwarded to the depots of the camps by a growing land transport. Colonel MacMurdo, armed with independent purchasing powers, had come out to superintend the formation of that transport corps, manned both by old soldiers and recruits specially raised, and had so used his opportunities that horses, trained drivers, escorts, and vehicles, were being rapidly assembled and organised. All this demanded a great outlay, insomuch that on one of the Colonel's many large requisitions the Secretary to the Treasury, Sir Charles Trevelyan, had written : " Colonel MacMurdo must limit his expenditure." When the paper returned to the Colonel with these words, he wrote below them : "When Sir Charles Trevelyan limits the war, I will limit my expenditure." Equal improvement marked the condition of the French, and vast stores of guns had been brought up and mounted in the . batteries early in April, with, for the English ordnance, a supply of 500 rounds for each gun, and 300 for each mortar. We had thus accumulated the means of a sustained and tremendous cannonade, in which 378 French guns would take part, and 123 English, proportionate to the extent of trenches and batteries occupied by each; but the English guns were for the most part so much more powerful that the difference in weight of metal was not great. On these, 466 Russian guns (out of nearly 1000 on the works) could be brought to bear. And it was certainly expected, as before, on both sides that, as soon as the cannonade should have produced its effect, the Allies would be prepared to assault. So all three armies
Effect of Soil on Trenchwork. 209
believed ; so Lord Raglan believed. But, as has been said, General Niel, the counsellor of the Emperor, had no faith in any measures which did not include an investment. It had been evident that some influence had been at work which had held back the French troops from assaulting many parts of the defences which seemed to offer fair chances of capture ; and circumstances, afterwards found to have existed, seem to show that the French commander did not at this time intend to push matters beyond a cannonade.