Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 9.djvu/261

HIS DEFENCE OF SEBASTOPOL. 231 there had been at Sebastopol a brief interregnum, chap, when the glory achieved by brave Eussians L contrasted with the plight of the Government. They adopted, if so we may speak, the great volunteer ; and, although not apparently strong enough in the face of known army prejudices to give him — to give him ostensibly — a wider com- mand than that of general officer commanding the Engineers in a fortress, they yet duly pro- vided, or suffered Prince Gortchakoff to provide, that he who had conceived, had begun, had maintained the glorious defence of Sebastopol, should still have the power required for going on with his task. That, whilst the war lasted, the Government of the new Czar should aid in bringing to light the true history of ' the interregnum ' was hardly to be expected ; for no man, when dealing with the events which began towards the close of Sep- tember, could well give a just meed of praise to the heroes of that trying time without confessing the facts — facts shaming of course to the Czar- dom — which gave them the occasion they seized ; and it seems to have resulted that, at the time of the war, the Eussians in general were kept ill acquainted, or not acquainted at all, with what, in those days, was so gloriously achieved by their people. If allowed at the time to have full acquaintance with what seems to me a great page in their history, the Eussians might perhaps have inferred that their uniform discomfiture in the open field,