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 MalakofT. 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,
262 Pelissier's Persistency for remissness in his preliminary arrangements for the assault. When told that both these generals had fallen n 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 Malakofif 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 Pelissier'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