Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/397

 APPENDIX. 365 not so determined beforehand as to secure a basis for his opinion, but left to be dealt with afterwards. NOTES TO CHAPTER V. Note 1. — 14th February 1855. — This letter was printed by Niel in his ' Si6ge de Sebastopol ' (p. 478 et seq.), but relegated to the cold shade of the Appendix, and not shown by the writer to be anything more than one of the numberless documents by which able men in those days were prone to record their opinions, it seemed to have no more than an • academical ' importance un- til the recent disclosures by M. Rousset invested it with a new significance, and showed it indeed to have been something very real indeed — to have been, in short (when approved), a full Memo- randum of the principles on which Niel conducted his mission. Note 2. — Begun and continued. — The brief, though valiant night - attack of the 24th of February, under General Monet and Colonel Cler was arrested in mid - course by the hand of authority, and ivas never renewed; so that, taken as a whole, it can hardly be treated as a substantial exception to the state- ment in the text, and may rather perhaps be regarded as con- firmatory of the general rule then repressing the enterprise of the French army. Note 3. — Lasting success. — We may take it for granted, I trust, that the disloyal expedient of maintaining secrecy against Lord Raglan must have been distressing to General Canrobert as well as to General Niel ; and it seems probable that if Lord Raglan, when sounded on the question of investing Sebastopol,* had proved to be of the same opinion as Niel, all further conceal- ment on the part of the French would have been gladly aban- doned, so that thenceforth the Allies might have been frankly acting together with the same immediate objects. Lord Raglan, however, showing no such inclination, the French still went on concealing from him their adoption of the Emperor's plan — the plan on which they were acting ! Note 4. — By 'approaches.' — That the arrangements recorded on the 2d of February were, as I have called them, a ' retreat' on the part of the French from the engagements of the 1st of January, and that Niel caused the change, is shown by General Bizot, who wrote to Vaillant, 8th February 1855: * Le G6n6ral
 * At the Conference of the 4th of March. See ante, pp. 75, 76.