Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 9.djvu/258

 228 HIS DEFENCE OF SEBASTOPOL. chap, the sick, the dead were constantly replaced by !_ fresh troops ; and even a plague of down-hearted- ness in the soldiery such as showed itself on the 18th of June, was an evil that the commander of the garrison knew how to shake off by marching away the dispirited regiments, and promptly fill- ing their places with troops in a more warlike mood. Great of course was the power, though not to be told by arithmetic, of an ever fresh body of troops thus peculiarly circumstanced, with Todle- ben's mighty defences to cover their front; but proportionately great was the strain that Sebas- topol put upon Eussia by continually exacting fresh troops for a garrison that was fast losing men, yet — on peril of a fatal disaster — must al- ways be kept in due strength. Because he defended the fortress under all these conditions at a time when the forces on each side were avoiding grave field operations, General Tod- leben, 1 think, must be said to have virtually held the command in that protracted conflict which we have almost been ready to call a ' continuous ' battle,' and indeed — since the Inkerman day — to have virtually wielded the power — the whole of the power that Russia opposed to her invaders on the Sebastopol theatre of war. nob quite so great as the ' round number ' imports, but great enough (speaking poetically) to warrant the tragic surname.