Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 4.djvu/166

 13G IIEUOIC IIESISTANCE OF SEBASTOPOL CHAP. ' of Gud.' Ainoii^'st those entitled to boast that VI. . ° . they were with Koniiloff at this time there are able and gifted men who know and respect the true import of words : yet, speaking and writing now in cold blood, these witnesses say that every one at the time looked up to the chief as to a man 'inspired.' Nay, they still hand it down, and declare that in those last days of September — the glorious days of his life — he was not as other men. Vlll. ToiUebeii's Colouel dc Todlebcu was too deeply versed in plan!"" "" things material, too familiar with the rigid calcu- lations of his engineering science, to be liable to the error of ascribing undue force to all this exaltation of spirit. He did not believe that any efforts of the garrison, however heroic, could, at this time, make good the defence against a de- termined attack.* Nor, again, was he caught by the hope that anything he could do within a brief compass of time would enable the sailors and landsmen then left in the place to resist a determined attack without the aid of the army ; but, on the other hand, he was of a strong sanguine nature ; and there was room for the hope that those same works which were needed for the merely desperate purpose of enabling the • ' Yet neither the exaltation of the troops, nor their resolve ' to light to the last extremity, could have .saved Sebastopol, if ' the Tchernaya.' -Todluhen, vol. i. p. 257.
 * the enemy had attacked it immediately after his passage of