ing bay. This line encloses the docks, and the camp of that part of the Russian army which is in immediate co-operation with the garrison of the town. The besieging army occupies a development of not less than twelve miles the French, British, and Turkish troops extending from Streletska Bay on the west to the river Chernaya on the east, and crossing the Balaklava and Woronzoff roads. The only ground on which the approaches can be carried on, is an open plain about 2200 yards broad, between two ravines, one of which leads to the Quarantine bay, and the other to the inner harbour, which forms the eastern side of Sebastopol. Stretching across this plain, at 1300 yards from the outer line of the ramparts of the place, the first parallel has been formed; the second parallel is scarcely 400 yards in advance of the first. A chain of batteries extending over a line four miles in length forms a sort of countervallation, which is within 600 yards of the ramparts of the town and the fortifications of the entrenched camp ; and several of these batteries are armed with the heaviest ordnance. The presence of a Russian army of observation in the field has rendered it necessary to form a chain of redoubts and batteries, which constitute a line of circumvallation: these are nearly four miles distant from the works of the town; and immediately beyond them took place the actions of the 25th of October and the 5th of November, in which British gallantry was displayed under very unfavourable circumstances. The task assigned to the besieging army is precisely that of attacking a strongly entrenched camp in connection with a powerful fortress, which is open to receive supplies to an unlimited amount. The allied army is, in fact, situated between two armies, each apparently as numerous as itself; and it has to contend with the most serious difficulties from the nature of the ground, which is such as scarcely to admit of trenches being dug in it its works are incessantly exposed to the fire of a powerful artillery in the massive casemated towers of the place, and to the numerous batteries established on the recently constructed lines by which these points of defence are now covered and connected, and harassed continually by the powerful army in its rear; while the brunt of action has to be borne by the French and English troops, who can place little dependence on their Turkish allies. After two months of open trenches, the besiegers have not even arrived within the distance at which a practicable breach can be made in the works of the place; and, even were such breach effected, they would only be at the point of commencing the most difficult and most murderous part of the attack in advance of the third parallelthe passage of the ditch and the ascent of the ramparts. Nothing less than continuing the approaches to the counterscarp, and laying the whole length of the two lines of rampart in ruins, will allow an assault to be made with the least hope of success, more particularly if there should be loop-holed walls and stone casemates in the ditches. But, should the rocky nature of the ground prevent the continuance of the approaches by sap, and an assault be attempted, it is plain that an immense loss, as at Badajos, must be sustained: the troops marching over a great extent of open ground, will be opposed in front and flank by the fire from all the works of the place; and should the remains of the weakened and disordered columns arrive at the ditch, they would have to attempt the passage under a deadly fire of musketry and incendiary missiles, as well as of the artillery from the flankingworks of the fortress, all of which, it appears, have been vastly improved, extended, and strengthened since this protracted siege commenced, and especially whilst active operations against the place have been suspended, or prosecuted with litttle vigour all this is independent of the resistance which would be made by the troops of the garrison, strengthened as those troops would then be by the army encamped within the lines. Nor does it appear that a successful assault of those outworks would enable the allied armies to take and occupy the town, nor open the port to the ships of the combined fleet, until the commanding position on the northern side shall have been taken likewise. Thus only can the fortress and arsenal of Sebastopol, and all it contains, be captured. * We are taught by a high authority, and the precept is fully illustrated by what is now passing before Sebastopol, that the most effectual mode of retarding the operations of a siege, as well as of rendering them difficult and sanguinary for the besieging army, is to have the place so strongly garrisoned that the defenders may be able to make frequent sorties (retours offensifs), and to be, moreover, in immediate connection or to have secure communications with a strongly entrenched camp. This is precisely the state of Sebastopol, which serves as a grand tête to the northern position with its citadel and numerous other works; the whole being open towards the rear, by which reinforcements and supplies to any amount may arrive along the great road from Perekop. Very different is the condition of the Russians at Sebastopol from that of the Austrian army at Ulm, in 1805; that city being in a position which admitted of being surrounded by the French, and far distant from the army which should have supported it, was compelled to surrender. Rather may their circumstances be compared to those of the Austrians at Olmutz, in 1758, when that city was besieged by the army of Frederick II. On that occasion General Thierheim connected the detached forts about the place by works of earth, so as to convert the city into a strongly retrenched camp, by which the place was enabled to hold out till the king was obliged to retire from it. (Jomini, ch. x.) The state of the allies before Sebastopol is nearly similar to that of Bonaparte (Napoleon I.) when, in 1796, he besieged Mantua. That great general, finding himself in danger of being immediately surrounded by the two armies which were advancing to relieve the place, did not hesitate to raise the siege, abandoning even his siege artillery. He threw his whole force on each of the Austrian armies in succession, and, in defeating them, he struck the decisive blow * Bousmard, "Des Camps Retranchés sous les Places," chap. vii. p. 224. ] U. S. MAG., No. 314, JANUARY, 1855. Ꮐ which rendered him master of the north of Italy. (Jomini, ch. xxx.) Active operations against the entrenched position on the southern heights of Sebastopol having been suspended, the safety of the allied army through the winter is become a matter of painful interest. After an unopposed landing, most skilfully and gallantly conducted by Rear-Admiral Sir Edmund Lyons, acting under the orders of the Vice-Admiral Commanding in Chief, in the manner practised at Aboukir, in 1801, and a series of brilliant exploits in the field, in a few short weeks the allied army, disappointed in its expectations of speedy and complete success, finds itself shut up and besieged in a cul-de-sac in the remotest corner of Europe; while large portions of the fleets are to be employed throughout the winter, in a stormy sea and at all risks, in conveying to the imprisoned troops succours of the first necessity, and in which service so many ships have been already lost. Here the whole of the British army, almost to the last man (all the colonies of England being drained of troops), must remain, depending for every article of subsistence and warlike stores, as well as of shelter from the inclemency of the weather, on supplies sent from England or France. Whatever may be done to provide for the safety, comfort, and repose of the army throughout the winter, there can be no rest for the fleet. The ships will have to encounter a more formidable enemy than that which menaces the land army, in having at all risks to force their way through a stormy sea, which cannot be navigated with safety at such a season, in order to convey to the imprisoned troops the supplies without which they must inevitably perish, or be compelled to surrender to the enemy. As it happened in the blockades during the war with France, so may it happen in this. When the fleets shall be compelled by the weather to get as far from the land as possible, or run for shelter to remote harbours of refuge, opportunities will offer, long before the combined fleets can resume their stations on the coast, for the Russian steam-ships, of which there are many yet unhurt in Sebastopol, to pounce suddenly upon vessels freighted with succour, as they attempt to approach Balaklava bay. This bay is small, its anchorage is bad, and, from what happened to the illfated Prince, it is evident that it is not easily accessible: thus serious interruptions will take place in the arrival of supplies to the allied army by the only line of communication with their remote bases in France and England. Those persons are seriously mistaken who assert that the command of the sea by the fleets of England and France will always enable the allies to convey reinforcements and supplies of every description to their respective armies in the Crimea with greater promptitude than Russia can send troops there by land; but unless the allied admirals be endowed with power to "ride the whirlwind and direct the storm," the contrary, during the tempestuous months of winter, will be found to be the fact;-of this too ample evidence has been afforded in the fearful wrecks which have lately taken place on the coasts of the Black Sea. It may indeed be feared that reinforcements will reach the enemy in the Crimea, by land, with greater certainty than they can be supplied to the allies by sea from England or France, when snow and frost shall have rendered steppes at present impassable with wheel-carriages, easily and rapidly traversed by sleighs and sledges. Whenever the allied army shall, happily, be well furnished with provisions, stores, and comforts of every description; whenever it shall be strongly reinforced, and re-equipped with all the means necessary to enable it to resume offensive operations-horses and beasts of burthen can scarcely be expected to survive the winter, from want of forage and shelter-those operations must be conducted in a manner very different from that which has ended by placing the army in its present perilous predicament. If it be true, as undoubtedly it is, that the capital error lay in invading the Crimea with so small a force, and in besieging a strongly-fortified place without having previously invested it, a force adequate to the retrieval of those errors should be sent out; but no greater force should be sent to the southern side of Sebastopol than would be sufficient to render the position at present occupied by the allies quite secure: rather it would seem that a force sufficient specially to invest and attack the town on the northern side should be sent out. Eupatoria should be secured: it was useless as a base point when the attack of Sebastopol by the north side was abandoned, but it will be highly advantageous should an attack on that side hereafter take place; and effectual means should be taken to prevent the enemy from communicating with Sebastopol by the line from Perekop. No siege should ever be undertaken in any seat of war till the enemy in the field shall have been defeated, and completely driven back by the covering army of the besiegers, so that the operations of the siege may be carried on undisturbedly. This might have been done by the allies, had the descent on the Crimea been made at an earlier season, with a force larger and better provided with the means of more effectually carrying out the object of the expedition. An army of 70,000 men, of such troops as those of the allies have proved themselves to be, might, as the Duke of Wellington said of his army in Spain, "have gone anywhere and done anything." It would be a great error to land all the force that may be provided for carrying on the war in the Crimea, in 1855, at Balaklava; and strategical combinations very different from those recently made must be formed for the operations of the coming year; but upon this subject, the author, for obvious reasons, declines to enter. On contemplating the nature of the for ifications about Sebastopol, it may not be out of place to remark, that an experiment is now being tried for the solution of the problem concerning the means of equalizing the powers of attacking and defending fortified places. Since the invention of gunpowder, the superiority has always been in favour of the besiegers; for, whatever be the resources of the garrison in men and materials, they must ultimately be exhausted; but by placing the artillery of the fortress chiefly in casemates of masonry, according to the principles of Montalenibert and the latest engineers of Germany, instead of mounting it on ramparts of earth, as in the systems of the French schools, it is supposed by some that the advantage will, as in ancient times, be turned in favour of the defenders. Hitherto no opportunity has existed of bringing this question to the test of experiment. VINDICATION OF THE THE CAMPAIGN IN THE CRIMEA- THE favourable events of the first period of the war led to an offensive continuation of the contest on the part of the Turks and their allies; and it became a matter of prudence, and even of necessity, to direct the operations against really vulnerable points of Russia. In consequence of the geographical situation of the contiguous provinces of the twocontending empires, the scene of the principal struggle might have been either the territory adjacent to the Pruth and Dniester, that is the southeastern provinces of Russia, or the Crimea or Caucasia; and previously to selecting one of these zones of operation, it was first to be considered which of them was most likely to be fruitful of real results and lasting advantages. Armies operating successfully in Europe, crossing the Danube, the Pruth, might occupy the Principalities and Bessarabia, reach the Dniester, and even render themselves masters of some passages over that river; they would, nevertheless, have only obtained inconsiderable results. On the one hand, Russia has there no vulnerable points-no blows can be there struck which would affect the existence of the empire, and seriously react upon its vitality. Even the occupation or destruction of the flourishing commercial city of Odessa, though attended by great material loss, would only be of local effect. Neither would those operations greatly promote the interests of the Turks, who can never think of making any conquest there, because Europe will never consent to narrow the bonds extant between the Ottoman Empire and the Principalities, far less to extend them over Bessarabia-a province wholly inhabited by a Christian population. Thus the futile effects of such operations confine the choice to an invasion of the Crimea, or to a great campaign in Asia. The first of these alternatives was adopted, and has reflected great lustre on our arms, whatever may be the ultimate result. In some quarters, indeed, the operations have met with censure, particularly from M. Kossuth, who desires to give a public proof of his proficiency in generalship; and censures are listened to the more, as the course of events has disappointed many wished-for, but unwarranted anticipations. It may be admitted that the campaign in the Crimea has been characterised by a depreciation of the difficulties to be encountered; but the objections of M. Kossuth are wholly untenable. The decisive object of the invasion of the Crimea is the destruction of the Russian naval power in the Black Sea; and a campaign undertaken for the achievement of that aim may be twofold-it will purport either the conquest of the whole peninsula or only the capture and reduction of Sebastopol. Both cases must be well defined, because the operations of the expeditionary army, depending upon the aim in view, are necessarily varying in conformity with them, obviously the first alternative is including also the second, and that latter is to be considered as the restriction of the former solely to its principal part. A careful examination of the condition and character of the seat of |