Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/46

 14 TODLEBEN 's AGGRESSIVE MEASURES. OHAP. ' by daylight,' winch, according to the judgment ' of many highly skilled engineers, might have brought the besiegers to ruin ; for he almost acknowledges that his own darling plan — his plan of assailing Mount Kodolph with powerful forces and so wresting it from the grasp of the French — was one hardly within the competence of Prince Mentschikoff's army when crippled and in some sort disorganised by its losses on the Inkerman day. Hisag- But short of undertaking great sorties, Colonel gressive ° ° batteries. Todleben did all he could to conduct his defence of Sebastopol in an eagerly aggressive spirit. His lately, his yet more lately, his still more lately raised batteries never ceased to be harrying the besiegers with new, perturbing challenges deliv- ered at break of day by means gathered during the night which forced his overmatched adver- saries to be straining their inferior resources in efforts to meet his designs ; and, so great was the quickness, the ease with which he thus prepared fire — the fire of heavy, well-covered guns — from changed and changing fronts, that, if hazarding a form of expression rather true than exact, one might say he ' manoeuvred ' with earth-works as others 'manoeuvre' with troops. ma rifle- Another way in which Todleben maintained pits. his aggressive defence was by sinking and main- taining 'Eilie-pits' at points so far in advance that the fire from marksmen there posted tor- men tingly galled the besiegers, thus oftentimes making it hard for them, if not indeed almost