Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/320

 288 PELISSIER'S DOMINANT LETTER. chap, posite of what skill and wisdom enjoined. In- . stead of turning his army on the Chersonese into ' an army in waiting,' and making it submit — almost shamefully — to the enemy's audacious encroachments, he, if primed with that knowledge of War which Pelissier now pressed upon him, would have, months ago, urged Niel and Can- robert to prepare for the due execution of his favourite project by peremptorily reconquering beforehand every one of the counter-approaches, and effectually confining the garrison to the strictest defensive. Thus the Emperor was taught after all, that Honour would have been his best policy, and that such a sincere prosecution of the siege as would have kept him free from the guilt of dis- loyalty towards Lord Kaglan would besides have saved the French army from that error of sub- mitting to the counter - approaches which, if rigidly obstructive (so long as it lasted) to the advance of the siege, was also one that forbade the essentially needful preparatives for his own cherished plan of campaign ; so that what to the cynic was ' only a crime,' and — still better — a crime undetected, now stood out exposed as a 1 blunder.' paissier-s Pelissier's insistence on the policy of wresting SwSdlnt the counter-approaches from the enemy's hands came specially well from a general who was fresh from the conquest of one of these strongly held Works ;* and it was in the nature of things that
 * See ante, p. 208 et seq.