Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/35

 CONDITIONS AFFECTING THE BESIEGBES. 3 there leant upon the resources of a vast naval chap. arsenal, and a fleet broken up for land-service, whilst — left free, as he was, to communicate with Simpheropol, Odessa, St Petersburg — he could always be drawing new strength from the Musco- vite empire at large, and moreover could wield at his pleasure the army he always kept imminent in the open field. By a part of that Eussian field-army on their flank, and the garrison of Sebastopol entrenched along their whole front, the Allies, as we saw, had allowed themselves to be completely hemmed in on the land side ; and how they thus became hampered in the task of supplying their armies, we already have painfully learnt ; * but the bear- The bearing , • i 11 .i ■ offchis ing that this duress had upon their powers as duress upon ., their power combatai bs must not the less be remembered, as combat- ants. So long as they had been able to promise them- selves that within a few days they would break their way into Sebastopol, the duress they suffered could of course be regarded as only a brief re- straint to be followed by a dazzling conquest well fitted to end all their troubles ; but the moment they had resolved that the crisis of their enterprise should be indefinitely put off, this Chersonese on which they had lighted, as though it were simply their stepping - stone, seemed thenceforth rather their prison. With their ' parallels ' ' first,' ' second,' and ' third,' and all their siege apparatus, they still had the air of assailants, yet were not in reality minded to
 * Ante, vol. vii., chaps, i. v. vi. vii. and viii.