Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 9.djvu/56

 2G FIGHTS ON WEST FLANK OF SEBASTOPOL Oil AF IE. Ground on which the ai i iii< ea made by Pelissier were justi- fle-1. VIII. The losses thus incurred by the French made a heavy addition to those they before had sus- tained when — with similar objects — assailing the obstinate Sousdal Counter-guard; and, it having been long since determined that the real attack on Sebastopol should be made through the Fau- bourg, an adverse critic might say that Pelissier was making his sacrifices in the wrong part of the field. Pelissier, however, was one who ac- cepted the teachings of science, and authoritative science assured him that, whatever might be his design for ultimately attacking the fortress, he perforce must uphold the ascendant of a firm, unrelenting besieger, and uphold it along his whole front by all the fighting required for securing the end thus enjoined. Still, observers with minds not high-strung, and not sufficiently braced by the cogent precepts of Vauban might well feel pain in reflecting that all these distress- ing sacrifices offered up on the west of the Chersonese could be only indirectly conducive to what had become the real object — the object of reducing Sebastopol by first reducing the Malakoff.( 2 )