Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/318

 286 pp:lissier's dominant letter. chap, so masterly, but also so masterful, that it became ' an event in the siege, and was pregnant with consequences. First, Pedissier laid it down con- fidently that with their then strength in numbers and their other advantages, the Allies were secure on the Chersonese from every great Kussian at- tack. Next, he treated it as certain enough that in spite of all the interposed difficulty they could carry Sebastopol by proper siege operations. Next again, he declared a conviction that without too much turning aside in search of other expe- dients, the right course was simply to push the siege to extremity. Then boldly, but with con- summate adroitness, he went on to deal with the contingency which would have to be met if the error (as he considered it) of resorting to field operations should be ' inexorably ' commanded by the Emperor. To comply in that case with the mandate, or to treat it at the least with an out- ward seeming of deference, he sketched a plan of campaign, which — since mentioning the port of Aloushta — might be said to have borne at first sight a kind of superficial resemblance to the Imperial project ; but then he went on to show — to show with his Vauban in hand — that neither this his own plan, nor any other field operation, could be wisely or otherwise than rashly at- tempted without first confining the garrison to a strictly narrowed defensive, and reconquering, to be^in with, all those of the counter-approaches which still remained in their hands. Though well knowing of course that, through Canrobert,