Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/231

 THE APKIL BOMBARDMENT. 199 and therefore, of course, what resulted to the chap. . VI. Allies was a huge waste of time and of power,. with a yet further loss of the ascendancy won by their battles. To understand why the Allies thus abstained Todieben's J inquiry ; from assaulting his Fortress, General Todleben has exerted divining power.* He had not, how- ever, the clue. It was only in a later year that the clue. the Government of France — then once more a Republic — allowed a servant of the State to search the long - hidden archives of the War Department, and on their authority show that what had passed for an Army sincerely employed by its Chief in earnest though mismanaged efforts against the lines of Sebastopol, was, after all, only an Army kept waiting for Louis Napoleon, and meanwhile restrained from engaging in any determined attack.! t The disclosure was made through Monsieur Rousset, a public functionary on the staff of the French War Department See ante, chap. v.
 * Todleben, p. 186 et seq.