PfiLISSIER'S APRIL FIGHTS. 207 to make that war against 'lodgments' of which chap. , vii. we are going to speak.* Thence sprang the anomaly of Frenchmen Theanom- r ° . J aly thence yielding tamely to pressure in that chosen part resulting. of the field where they meant the attack to be real, and asserting their strength with decisive- ness on ground far away towards the west where their chief regarded the task as one of inferior moment.t What thus turned the scale against seemingly fair presumptions was — a well-known disturbant of inference— the strong, fierce will of one man. The ' Cimetiere ' chain of Lodgments was one Fights so boldly thrown forward that from some of them cimetiere . Lodgments the enemy commanded a near, an endangering view of the French siege- works ; and Pelissier, not willing to brook so plain an affront, deter- mined to attack them on the night of the 10th of April. His purpose being divined by the Rus- sians (who had seen him preparing his enterprise), they resorted to a plan which apparently was based on some theory that in contests for lodg- ments, it is better to have to attack than it is to have to defend them. Under cover of evening, they withdrew their troops from the lodgments and prepared to ply the new occupants who might soon be there posted with a powerful fire
- Niel, p. 203. With respect to the ' counter-guard lodg-
' merits,' my inference that Pelissier carried his point alter some 'effort,' is warranted, I think, by Niel's account, pp. 239, 240, and more decisively hy Rousset's, vol. ii. p. 166. t Ibid.
