Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 9.djvu/240

 men Is. 210 A KUSSIAN FABRICATION. chap, one not destined to alter events — prevented all ' the attacks attempted against the enceinte from being pushed home, or even carried so far as to he closely approaching the counterscarps. Prince The whole scheme of the great Engineer de- Gortcha-. ., state- fending Sehastopol was — not to maintain but — prohibit what Englishmen mean by a 'fight' — to battle all attempts on the part of the besiegers to come to close quarters by the fire he poured down from his ramparts ; and this object he so well achieved that (except in the instance adduced) the counterscarps of the Karabelnaya defences from the west of the Great Redan to the easter- most end of ' the Point ' were never once reached, were never once closely approached by any as- sailants, Yet in face of this truth — now well shown and recorded by Russians, French, and English alike — Prince Michael Gortchakoff al- lowed himself to represent that his troops had been fighting, as it were, a grand battle, had fought it too at close quarters, and had won it by bayonet-charges ! To make the fable consistent with itself, the inventor ascribed to the assaulting columns of the Allies a degree of initial success which — unhappily — they never attained, declar- ing that they had come up with their ladders tc the works of defence and were scaling the para- pets when they found themselves met by ' the 'points' of the Russian bayonets and were thrown back into the Ditches ;( 6 ) the truth, we know, being that — always- shattered by fire in some earlier stage of their nnu-ches— the columns