Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 9.djvu/279

 GENERAL PELISSIER. 249 tusk of steadfast resistance to a dangerous sov- CHAP. ? IX. ereim which we have seen him maintain with. — high courage, though not without being su har- assed by the difficult strife as to lose for a while the full command of his judgment. With respect to Pelissier's power as a com- asacom- . manderiii maimer in war, one of course must beware of war. founding conclusions too general on the merits and faults he disclosed within the time spanned by a narrative which ends with the 28th of June ; for he then, as all know, was only in mid-cam- paign with a critical future before him. From the moment of his acquiring an extended authority — and this occurred some weeks before his becoming the Commander - in - chief — he brought an immense strength of will to bear on the course of the war. Far away from the Crimea, in the autumn of 1854, he had never of course shared the counsels which nailed victorious armies to ground on the south of Sebastopol, and his sense of not having created the wondrous predicament which, coming out some months later, he found closely fastened upon them, may have made it the easier for him to study with coolness the problem demanding solution. Of all solutions, the ugliest was the one asking France and England, after hugely increasing their forces, to incur the needed sacrifices of life, how- ever appalling, and carry the South Side by storm. To this conclusion, however, Pelissier came. He