Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 4.djvu/276

 2-16 THE OPENING UF THE SIEGE. CUAP. i'ur their siege ordnance in positions near enougli " to the place to allow of a cannonade which should prove effective against the enemy's (chiefly earth- work) defences, and yet so distant that each posi- tion might be seized and fastened upon at once (under shelter of darkness) without the necessity of having to creep down to it gradually by dint of pickaxe and spade. After that cannonade, if it should prove as destructive as they expected, the Allies did not mean (as is done in regular siege) to dig their way on to close quarters, and there establish new batteries, but at once to undertake an assault. The French were to establish their siege-guns in a single line or system of batteries upon the crest of the hill calk'd Mount Rodolph ; whilst the English intended to plant their 'Attacks' on two separate ridges, one upon ' Green Hill,' and the other on the ' Woronzoff Height.' * Proposal for The first step towards the execution of this iJifantfyon plan was, as the Allies at the time expressed it, f.ear'to """*' to ' draw the investjuent closer ; ' f in other words, Scbastopol. is in confoi-mity with the language of the English Engineers that each system of batteries constructed by them has been called an 'Attack.' The expedient of the capital letter is re- sorted to as a means of indicating that the word is used in its terhnical, and not in its usual sense. t Lord Ii;iglan to Duke of Newcastle, ])rivate letter, 8th October 1854. After all that I have said as to the impossi- bility of investing the place, it is barely necessary to observe that the ' investment ' here referred to extends only to that partial 'investment' which was effected by the position the Allies had taken up on the Chersonese.
 * Guncrally called 1)' the English ' Frenehiiiaii's Hill.' It