Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/222

 190 THE APRIL BOMBARDMENT. CHAP. VI. fireat Re- dan. failed ; since by dint of their ten days' bombard- ment they did not lay open the Work, did not make it more ripe for assault than it was when the firing began. Here and there in the batteries of the Work and its neighbours they of course, every day, wrought seme mischief, but mischief so far from overwhelming that always, and with comparative ease, the enemy found means to repair it in the course of the following night. General Todleben was able to say that in its con- flict with the English batteries, his Great Redan won a ' full victory.' * The Town front. The Rus- sians ima- gining the French to lie resolut'- and deter- mined to seize the Flagstaff Bastion. Moving always from east to west, we come last to the close-threatened part of what men called the ' Town Front ' — to the ' Flagstaff Bastion,' to its neighbours the ' Central,' and the lesser Works clustering near them. There, the Russians in many a combat had been feeling the keen, sus- tained vigour of General Pelissier;t and it seemed to them that the French, in a resolute and peremptory mood, were intent to take the life of the Fortress by coming at last to close quarters with its Flagstaff Bastion.]: To win this all-mastering key, it was necessary, or at all events right, that the neighbouring ' Cen- ' tral Bastion' and other adjacent Works should be also assailed by siege-guns. + Then commanding the 1st Corps, see post, pp. 206-212. t That the fall of this Bastion would involve the fall of Se bastopol, see post, p. 192 and p. 198.
 * Todleben, p. 182.