Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/173

 THE APRIL BOMBARDMENT. 141 those intermediate defences which extended in- chap. VI clusively from the ' Garden ' Batteries on the skirts of the Town to the great Eedan in its oveVthe Faubourg ; and, since those were, all of them, Lt/battelies works which our people directly confronted, it fronted by 11 " .,, • i l • -U the English. was impossible to avoid sharp comparison be- tween what was done by the French, and what by the English artillery. IV. The extent of real battering - power at the what kept n , . within command of our people was far from being com- limits the „ battering- mensurate with the number and weight of the power of the ° . English. ordnance they brought into play ; for their means of compassing havoc were always kept within limits by the nature of the ground in their front, and by want of the ' hands ' they required for more instant, more closely pressed trench- work ; but also, to judge from the frequency of recorded complaints, they were too often checked by the way in which our system applied itself to the ordinary toils of a siege. Our system did not invest any officers under Lord Eaglan with that comprehensive authority which — applied to the tasks of the siege — might have brought the Engineers, the Artillery, and, with these, the infantry ' working-parties ' to act as trained fellow-servants obeying in their several ways the same all-propelling director ; and from want of such governance, there often occurred a great slackness, if not indeed actual default in