Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 9.djvu/114

 84 liESULTS OF THE KEKTCII EXPEDITION. CHAP. IV. General results of Mir K' i 1 1 b expedition. These not attained by fmrprise; Peninsula, the seizure of all the ground needed for the object in hand, the coercion that forced the enemy to destroy his whole chain of coast batteries, and burn down vessel by vessel, his war-squadron formed and assembled to guard these precious waters of Kertch, the opening of the famous straits of the Cimmerian Bos- phorus, the armed occupation of the Sea of Azof excluding all other Hags, the hand of Authority laid on the shores of every pro- vince of Russia that bordered on what until then had been a ' closed ' Russian lake, the en- forced withdrawal of Russia from Soudjak-Kale, from Anapa (the last of the strongholds she owned on the south of the Kouban), her immedi- ate abandonment of the whole of the Circassian coast, the infliction besides on the Czar of such minor forfeitures as that of some 340 pieces of ordnance, of nearly 500 vessels engaged in his great commissariat tasks, and of supplies in enor- mous quantities all amassed for his army engaged on the Sebastopol theatre of war — these indeed, one may say, were results which, if purchased by battles and victories, might well have seemed more than sufficient to compensate serious losses; and yet the whole string of conquests scarce cost the Allies any sacrifice, did not cost them even one single life. Nor can any man say that the conquerors attained their end by surprise ; for since even so early a time as the spring of the previous year (1854), the Russians had been actively