Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 3.djvu/395

 PLAN OF ATTACKING THE NORTH SIDE. 3G9 suffices to say of Admiral Korniloff, that he was a c u a P. chivalrous, resolute, and devoted seaman, who, ^' with hardly a hope of any better success than that of an honourable death, had determined to defend the plateau and the fort to the last extremity. Of the reception so prepared for the Allies, I Policy of am content to say only this much, because, after tiie^nortb all, it so happened that the Star Fort was never assailed; aud although there is use in inquiring what would have been the probable result of an attack upon 'the North Side' from the direction of the Belbec, it chances that this very question has already received an answer which comes with so much authority, and is, at the same time, so well supported by detailed statement and labo- rious demonstration, that it is well to give the conclusion without reproducing, in this place, the voluminous materials of proof on which it is rested.* We saw t]]at the officer who planned and di- rected the works of defence was Colonel de Todle- ben. He it is who has now pronounced that the plateau and the fort could not have been success- fully defended against the attack which the Allies had the means of making.f The situation of conclusion will be found in pp. 230-233, 238 and 239 of his work ; but I do not reproduce them, because they fail to deal with the really disputed question— i.e., the question whether the posi- tion could have been advantageously defended by an army. The argument in favour of that last view {i.e., Sir John Bui- goyne's) will be found in the Appendix, No. XII. t Todleben, 'Defease de Sebastopol,' vol. i. pp. 230-233. VOL. m. 2 A
 * The passages in which General de Todleben maintains his