Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 4.djvu/138

 108 HKIIOIC RESISTANCE OF SEBASTOPOL CHAP, confessing that his was the guidance which best ^^- would meet the emergency. The officer who pkumed the defence of Sebastopol has already- been spoken of as one whose authority in his engineering art is of almost resistless weight ; l)ut, until some four or five weeks before the time we are dealing with, the name of Lieuten- ant-Colonel de Todleben had scarcely been heard of at Sebastopol. Colonel de Todleben was born in one of the Baltic provinces lying within the dominions of llussia, and to- "Russia accordingly he has ever devoted himself; but by race, and name, and feature, and warlike quality, he is the fellow- countryman of Count Bismark and of some of the most formidable of the troops which con- (juered at Sadov/a. Whilst the empire he serves is the Empire of the Czars, the power lie repre- sents and almost seems to embody is the power of North Gei'many. The honour of placing this gifted man upon Ihe scene in which he was destined to achieve his renown must be given to Prince Michael Cortschakolf. The keen and piercing intellect of the Prince had enabled him, in his quarters with the army of the Danube, to distinguish be- tween true and false rumours, and to read the si^ns which foreshadowed an approaching inva- sion of the Crimea. Therefore, when he came to learn that the General and High Admiral com- manding in the Crimea was refusing to believe in the likelihood of a descent, Prince Gortscha-