Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 3.djvu/412

 38 G COUNSELS ENDING IN THE CHAP, tile southward declivities ot" tlio ^NFaelvenzie range, . did not have the effect of warning the Allies that there was there an impregnable position, and that, if they should leave it to the enemy, they Mould concede to him irrevocably an advantage of the greatest worth, by giving up their power to attack him in the open field, and compelling themselves to assail him, if ever they should assail him at all, in his lines of defence at Sebastopol. And last, it must be observed that for the Allies to avoid the attack of the Star Fort, which stood within gunshot before them, and to move away to the south coast, was to fly from a task measured out, understood, well defined, and go off to confront things unknown. The weakness of the Fort itself as an aid to defence had been perceived by the Allies ; * and although they did not know that it had been abandoned by the Russian army to the care of the seamen, they were aware that it would be defended, if de- fended at all, by a force suffering under the depression of a lost battle, and having to attempt a stand with an arm of the sea in its immediate roar. Yet to the task of seizing this fort, and so at once gaining the north side of Sebastopol, and the means of destroying the enemy's fleet and dockyards, they were going to prefer the unex- plored forest and the mountain roads, with the necessity of having to debouch into a plain where the presence of a Eussian army might be expected, and of afterwards being forced to
 * See Sir Jolin Ijiir^'oyue'.s McnioriMKluin, j'ost, p. 3P5.