But if Pelissier was constant to his own ideas, so was Louis Napoleon. Unable to condemn the previous operations after they had proved so successful, he had, nevertheless, given them but a cold approval, regarding them indeed as false fires leading his General astray. And now he despatched a telegram to Pelissier in these terms : " For the well-being of France, and for the glory of our arms, you are at the head of the finest army which perhaps has ever existed. You are certain of a deathless fame, but great things must be done for it. The conduct of the siege is even more the business of the chief engineer than of the general-in-chief ; but the chief engineer has addressed to you these observations : * If you push the siege without investing the place, you will only obtain, after bloody conflicts costing you your best troops, what would have come of itself after the investment.' In conformity with the British Government, which writes in the same sense to Lord Raglan, I give you a positive order not to devote yourself to the siege before having invested the place. Concert with Lord Raglan and Omar Pasha measures for the offensive, whether by the Tchernaya or against Simpheropol."
But before receiving this, Pelissier had sent a telegram
248 Pe 'Ussier opposes It.
to the Emperor to a very different purpose : " To-day I am going to see Lord Raglan, who shares my ideas, in order to settle the last dispositions for the attack by storm, which ought to place in our power the White Works, the Mamelon, and the Quarry before the Redan. I calculate on beginning this operation on the 7th, and on carrying it right through with the utmost vigour." And the telegram he proceeded to act on was his own.
At three in the afternoon of the 6th June the siege batteries opened. Our own guns, as before, were mainly directed on the Redan and Malakoff and their dependencies ; but our battery of heavy guns, increased now to twenty, on the right of the Right Attack, and some of the mortar batteries more in advance, were brought to bear on the Mamelon, crossing their fire with that of the French batteries on Mount Inkerman.
The work known as the Quarries was situated at about 400 yards in front of the Redan, at a point where the gradual downward slope was broken by an abrupter dip, and it thus stood on what was comparatively a small eminence. The ground there had lately been occupied with heaps of stones and rubbish, but these had been replaced by a regular work, though retaining the old name. This work, thus covering the Redan, had bsen itself covered by rows of rifle screens. But, on the night of the iQth April, Colonel Egerton,* with a detachment of the 77i:h; without firing a shot, drove out, or killed with the bayonet, the occupants of these pits, and repulsed the troops supporting them, so
* Killed the same night, later.
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The Objects of the Attack. 249
that now our advanced line of trench in the Right Attack was face to face with the Quarries. As soon as the French should have secured the Mamelon we were to attack this work, and there establish ourselves.
All the works about to be attacked contained only a small proportion of the troops that were to be employed in their defence. The number sufficient to line their parapets, with a reserve within to make good losses, having been provided, the supports, in much greater force, were drawn up at some convenient spot near by, ready to reinforce the defenders, and to meet the auxiliary attacks which would approach the work from its flanks. The White Works, backed on the harbour, were supported by a battery at the end of the Careenage ravine, and the reserves were placed some in a small ravine in rear, some on the other side of the Careenage ravine.