PLAN OF THE FLANK MARCH. 383 the passage iu Mr Oliphant's book was strength- chap. ened. Thenceforth the probability of finding X"_ Sebastopol weakly fortified on the land side never ceased to be kept in remembrance ; and it was only the supposed want of a convenient landing- ground on the southern coast of the Crimea which afterwards caused the Allies to discard for a time the plan of attacking the place from that side. At the time of the earliest deliberations on the Lord subject, Lord Eaglan had been disposed to think orifinai^ that Sebastopol ought to be attacked on the south side ; and although he had ceased to dwell on the idea from the time when the west coast was chosen for the place of landing, it recurred to him, its revival, as we saw, on the morrow of the battle, when he found himself encountered at the French Head- quarters by a refusal to attack the Star Fort. He conception then conceived that if the French should persist n-arcii. to the last in their refusal, he at least might avert that utter cessation and collapse of the whole en- terprise which their determination threatened to produce by persuading them (as a substitute for the old plan which they were thus abandoning) to join with him in marching across the country to the south coast, and there establishing a new base of operations, from which to attack Sebastopol on its south side. The hazardous character of such an undertak- objections ing as this has been masked, as we shall here- tiw'Vian after see, by a strange coincidence, and by the ^*^°p®" singularly happy immunity which that coinci-
