Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/316

 286 OEDERS AND PREPARATIONS CHAP. XVII. Sftcoiul conference. The French urge the abandon- ment of the expedition against the Crimea. slial St Arnaud, Lord Raglan, General Canrobert, Sir Edmund Lyons, General Martimprey, Sir George Brown, and Colonel Troclni. The French Generals grasped this as an occasion for bringin" about the relinquishment of an enterprise which they had always held to be rash. They sub- mitted that the general instructions addressed to both of the Allied commanders made it their duty to provide, in the first instance, for the safety of the Ottoman territory, and that, until that object was secured, they were not warranted in attempt- ing an invasion of a Eussian province far distant from the threatened frontier of European Turkey ; that the order to invade the coast of the Crimea had been framed by the Home Governments, and acceded to by the Allied Generals upon the as- sumption that the armed intervention of Aus- tria, then believed to be imminent, or, at the very least, a continuance of her menacing attitude on the flank of the Russian army would preclude any attempt by the Czar to resume his war on the Danube ; that that assumption now unfor- tunately turned out to be unfounded; and that the abandonment by Austria of the common cause made it the bounden duty of the Allied commanders to return to their defensive meas- ures; because it was now plain that, if they quitted Bulgaria, Omar Pasha, without aid from any quarter, would have upon liis hands the whole weight of the Russian army. Now then, supposing the premises to be conceded, the French counsellors had made out good grounds for aban-