Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 9.djvu/267

 HIS DEFENCE OF SEVASTOPOL. 237 the Karabelnaya its thousands upon thousands of chap. wounded soldiery, the resolute chief and brave L_ garrison did not therefore remit, did not slacken, their defence of the place ; so that — even twice over — by valour they refuted a saying till then held so sure that, receiving the assent of man- kind, it had crystallised into a maxim. Yet, so far as I know, these brave men never vaunted in print or in speech the peculiar dis- tinction they had won. Their triumph over the axiom twice superbly made good could only be shown by first telling of the defeats sustained in the field by their Czar's unfortunate armies, and that last condition apparently the loyal, generous men never cared to fulfil. For other Kussians the glory of having defended His personal Sebastopol until the time we have reached was, fevered s * after all, a forerunner of approaching defeat ; but subsequent for Todleben personally, whilst still he toiled in rS." ° the Fortress, no such reverse lay in wait. The time when he quitted it (wounded) was for him more than ever a time of victory, following close, as it did, on his crowning achievement made good on the 18th of June. If the Czar had come down to Sebastopol, or rather to the Karabelnaya, at the close of the en- gagement on the morning of the 18th of June, he might there have apostrophised Todleben, as he did long years after at Plevna, when saying: ' Edward Ivanovitch, it is thou that hast accom- 1 plished it all ! '