The science of the engineer has reduced to a certainty the time which is required by an army, with sufficient means, to reduce any fortified place. (See note on the Siege of Sebastopol at the end of this Chapter.)

It is an important rule that every place, besides being sufficiently garrisoned, shall be provisioned not only for the time during which it can sustain a siege, but also for at least one third in excess of that time.

Should a place whose possession is essential to an invading army be provisioned only for the period during which it can sustain a siege, then the army may continue its advance, leaving a comparatively small force to blockade the place, in the certainty of reducing it by famine in the same time, and without the loss, demanded by an actual siege.

Those places whose possession by the enemy would enable him to endanger your communications, although it may not be essential for the army to hold them when taken, must be dismantled.

If a general take a fortified place whose defenders do not become prisoners of war, he adds to his enemy's active force in the field. And if it be necessary that he should hold the place when taken, he weakens his own active force to the extent of the garrison required, thereby conferring a double advantage in this particular on his adversary.

In the Peninsula the sieges of Badajos and Burgos were undertaken because the first lay close to the base of operations, the last, on the line of operations, of the British army.

In the first Scinde campaign, Sir C. Napier undertook a flank march of eight days into the desert to destroy Emaum Ghur, where 2000 Beloochees had shut themselves up, and whence they would have cut off his line of communication, had he advanced without taking that place.

NOTE TO MAXIM 9 ON SIEGES.

Without entering on the subject of sieges which falls peculiarly within the province of the engineer, a few words on the Siege of Sebastopol and the criticisms to which it gave rise, may not be misplaced.

The expedition to the Crimea was undertaken in the belief that Sebastopol would fall before a coup de main. In any other view, the strength of the allied armies which landed at Eupatoria was very insufficient. The information of which our generals were in possession, as regarded the strength of the garrison of Sebastopol, the nature of its defences, and the number of Russian troops in the Crimea, was very imperfect. The march of the Allies from Eupatoria to the Belbek was hazardous; their right flank rested on the sea, their left was exposed to an enemy of unknown strength. It is true the ships were an effectual protection, but the condition of that protection was fine weather; a storm would have deprived the army of their support. But the Allies forced the strong

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position of Alma, and could judge with tolerable certainty of the number of Russian troops then in the Crimea; although they could not know how many were on the march towards it, nor how soon they could arrive. The army advanced to the Belbek. The questions which then presented themselves were: 1st. Is the great Severnaia fort on the north side capable of resisting a coup de main? 2nd, Will the fall of Sebastopol and the destruction of the Russian fleet necessarily follow the capture of that fort?

In answer to the first question, it was decided that the north fort was too strong to be carried by a coup de main, and that it would require a siege. As to the second question opinions were divided, but we now know that the possession by the Allies of Fort Severnaia would have had no effect on either the town or the fleet.

To besiege that fort without any secure base of operations, and with the continually increasing Russian forces gathering on their left flank and rear, the generals rightly considered would be too hazardous ; the flank march round the head of the harbour became a necessity, and considering the depressed and disorganised state of the Russian army, it was safe. The Allies established themselves on the south side, and adopted the harbours of Kamiesch and Balaklava as their base.

They numbered about 50,000 men, a sufficient force, it may be thought, to justify an assault on the weak defences of Sebastopol, and on what we now know to have been the strength of its garrison, depressed as it was by the defeat of Alma*: the Allies would certainly

* No general would be justified in such an attack, unless he saw some confusion and fear to tempt a sudden blow. Had it

have got in, though they would have suffered fearfully in the assault, having no heavy guns to answer the Russian fire; but the Russian men-of-war were in the harbour, the garrison would have retired to the north side in perfect security, and the conquerors, in their already reduced condition, would have been incessantly exposed to the terrible fire of the ships. It would have been a conquest barren of all results, except the destruction of the conquerors. In declining such a risk the allied commanders acted wisely; they waited for reinforcements and resolved to besiege the place.

They were well provided with siege trains; but these were still on board ship, and after being landed the heavy guns with their stores had to be dragged over seven or eight miles of soft ground, great part of the way uphill, before they could be put in position to batter the defences. This required time, which was employed by the genius of Todleben in fortifying the place.

It was decided to commence the approaches at nearly three times the usual distance, in the belief that our preponderance of fire was sufficient to reduce the place by what is called the artillery attack. The newspapers proclaimed, exultingly, that the defences of the town would fall down before our fire, as did the walls of Jericho before the trumpets of Joshua; and there was more reason in this than has been generally supposed, for when the Allies opened their fire on the 17th October, the English guns soon silenced the greater part of those opposed to them; and had it not been for the unfortunate explosion of the French magazines, there is little doubt

been made in this case, its foundation would have been guesswork, not calculation; and guess-work is inadmissible in war.

that a successful assault might have been delivered on the 19th or 20th; and though the assailants would have suffered terribly from the fire of the ships in advancing to attack, yet after the defences were carried the heavy guns of the Allies could have taken up such a position as would soon have put an end to their power of further annoyance.

Owing to the explosion of the French magazines the bombardment was a failure, and the siege dragged on its weary length through the terrible winter.

It was neither the cold nor the privation of that winter which was so fatal to the English army, but the overwork; 20,000 Englishmen had the same amount of trench work and trench duty to perform as was allotted to the French force of 60,000. In addition to this, they occupied the most vulnerable point of the position. It is somewhat remarkable that in the march from Eupatoria the exposed flank was the left where the British were posted, and that after the march to the south side, the British were again to be found on the exposed flank, which was then the right. In both cases the French flank rested on the sea; in the last case they obtained the convenient harbour of Kamiesch, while the English had the miserable harbour of Balaklava as their base.*

Of all the absurdities that have been uttered with reference to this siege (and there have been a good many), none is greater than the assertion that it has established

*These inconveniences are all to be traced to divided command. Without that, the work would have been equally divided; and the occupation of Balaklava, which weakened the Allied position, and entailed greatly increased labour on the English force, would not have taken place.

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