Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 9.djvu/265

 HIS DEFENCE OF SEBASTOPOL. 235 after month his steadfast design, and brought chap. VIII. it to a climax victoriously on the morning of the 18th of June, was he who, if armed in the spring — some months after the fitting time ! — with a share of official authority, still remained the same man as the volunteer Colonel of Sappers, whose greatness began in that interval when the Czardom for the moment had ceased to exercise sway in Sebastopol, leaving room in its stead for heroic, spontaneous action adventured by resol- ute men. And what Todleben achieved, he achieved in his very own way. Never hearkening apparently to the cant of the Russian army of those days winch with troops marshalled closely like sheep professed to fight with the bayonet, he made it his task to avert all strife at close quarters, by pouring on any assailants such storms of mitrail as should make it impossible for them to reach the verge of his counterscarps. That is the plan he designed from the first, and the one he in sub- stance accomplished. From the day when he made his first efforts to hissuiwr- cover with earthworks the suddenly threatened in the war. South Side to the time, more than eight months afterwards, when his wound compelled him to quit the fortress, he successfully defended Sebas- topol; and, as we have seen, to do this — after Inkerman, or at all events after the onset at- tempted against Eupatoria — was to maintain the whole active resistance that Russia opposed to her invaders in the south-western Crimea.