“Sebastopol, a vast retrenched camp, defended by field fortifications of strong profile, derived its principal strength from an armament such as could only exist in an extensive maritime arsenal, and from a large army which always preserved its free communications with the interior of Russia.”

“If the enceinte had been provided with good revetted scarps; if it had been necessary to breach these, and subsequently have been compelled to penetrate through difficult passages, in rear of which the heads of our columns would have met an army, Sebastopol would have been an impregnable fortress.”

“When we compare, in effect, the works of attack at Sebastopol with those of an ordinary siege, we will see that on the 8th of September, 1855, the day of the last assault, we had only executed, after the greatest effort, the besieging works which precede the crowning of the covered way; we had not then, as yet, entered upon that period of the works of a siege which is the most difficult and the most murderous; and there was no occasion to engage ourselves in them, since the ditches and parapets of the enceinte were not insurmountable, as the sequel has proved.”

   “The difficulty consisted in conquering the Russian army upon a
   position prepared long beforehand for its defence, quite as much as in
   surmounting the material obstacle of the fortification.”

“Our places of arms being established at thirty metres from the besieged works, we were able to choose our own time for action, and to throw ourselves unexpectedly upon the enemy when the fire of our artillery had forced him to shelter himself, up to the last minute, behind his numerous blindages; to have gone further would have been inviting the initiative in the attack on the part of the Russian army.”

“The absence of scarp walls, which would have secured the place from escalade, did not exercise a less influence upon the defence; for the besieged were compelled to keep permanently at the gorges of the works, strong reserves, in readiness to repulse the assault, which they saw themselves menaced with from the commencement of the siege.”

“Finally, it can be remarked, that these reserves, which were decimated night and day by the concentric fire of our batteries, were able to issue out from the enceinte through wide debouches, without having to pass through the narrow defiles which are formed by the drawbridges of revetted places; they were, then, a permanent threat for the besiegers, who were exposed to seeing their trenches unexpectedly invaded by the greater part of the Russian army.”

   “Neither side, consequently, was in a position analogous to that
   which is presented in the siege of a fortified place, protected from
   insult by good masonry scarps.’” (Note to page 443.)

And again, page 423, the same authority remarks: