Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/114

 82 canrobert's reason. chap, otherwise knowing that every day, every night, ! — their unwearied adversary was bringing his Work 21st March, towards completeness. He finished it on the 21st Todleben s * completion f March ; * and by that time had not only armed and anna- ' ^ ° Kamtchitka ** w ^ n ^ en 24-pounder guns,t but covered it too Lunette. D y ^he lire of twelve other pieces of ordnance for that purpose planted in battery on chosen sites less in advance.^ VI. As may well be supposed, this condition of things proved distressing to both the Trench and the English, but of course to the French more especially, since theirs, as it chanced, was the army, and theirs too the anxious commander, confronted, mocked, baffled, perplexed by the enemy's advancing encroachments. Mortifying The third stage of Todleben's triumph began, and perplex- n -» «- ing effect of as we saw, on the night of the 10th or March, Todleben's ' ° counter- a nd that day (at an earlier hour) was also the one on which Canrobert — after carefully weigh- ing the question — brought himself to reject the proposal of his chief engineer, and abstain from seizing the Mamelon — an enterprise that ap- peared to be almost peremptorily required for the advancement of the siege, and besides to be one recommended by many favouring circum- stances, canrobert's Then, by what course of reasoning was it that declining to Canrobert maintained his conclusion ? What re- t Ibid., p. 57.
 * Niel, p. 175. t Todleben, p. 55.