FIELD OF THE ALMA. 347 'true they liave more wuiuided than I luive, and chap, ' that they are farther from the sea.* AVliat ' ' slowness in our movements ! War can hardly ' be carried on in this way. The weather is ad- ' mirable, and I am not profiting by it. I rage.'"f* It being now seen that St Arnand's refusal to advance on the position of the Northern Ports was the cause of the halt on the Alma, there remains the task of determining how far this refusal was warranted. Of the strength of the The star works which were thus arresting the Allies on the morrow of their victory we shall have to speak more fully by-and-by. Por the present, it is enough to say that the main obstacle was the Star Fort, an octagon earthwork, surrounded by a ditch and glacis, looking down upon the open sea towards the west and the Sebastopol bay on the south ; that the Fort was not a work designed expe.iiency against invaders coming from the Belbec, being u:^ '^^ '"* commanded and looked into from the ground by which the Allies might approach it;:J: that the lire of the French and English ships could be easily brought to bear upon it;§ that, whatever accession of strength might be given to the ad- jacent ground by the hasty labours of the enemy, there were only twelve out of all the guns then
- Letter to his brother, 22d September.
t Private journal under same date. i Sir John Burgoyne questions this, but he had not an opportunity of effecting any sufficing reconnaissance of the grouml ; and upon such a matter I can hardly refuse to treat General de Todleben's statements as a safe guide. — 'Defense de Sebastopol,' pp. 131, 230. § Ibid. p. 222.
