468 APPENDIX. enemy, disenibarked on an open beach, without transport, stores, or reserves, and in a country destitute of resources, must be admitted to have been a most daring and perilous undertaking. 10. The Russian account, which is written ostensibly for the pur- pose of exalting as much as possible the brilliancy of the defence, and in which the author is consequently under a strong temptation to depreciate the strength and resources of the defenders, admits (he great dilficulties of the undertaking when General Todleben says that the Russians could not believe that the Allies could be so im- prudent as ' se Jeter dans une contrde pre-'^que dcnuee dc rcssourccs.' I will accept the Russian testimony here given of the difficulties of the enterprise, and hope my countrymen will do the same. Instead of being censured for not overwhelming the enemy at once by the most desperate assaults, the Allies deserved very great credit for so perseveringly prosecuting to a successful end operations of unexampled hardship and difficulty. 11. In his new volumes, recently published, Mr Kinglake adojits in toio certain views of the campaign which have been put forth by the Russians, but which I hope to be able to show are entirely erroneous. i. These opinions were originally advanced by Prince Gortscha- kolf in a conversation wit?i Sir William jlnnsfield at Warsaw in 1858, and have been reproduced by General Todleben in his account of the defence of Sebastopol. They are well known to be the views entertained by Prince Gortschakoff, but it is not so generally known that they are, for the most part, put forward to u[)hold his own opinions on the subject of the campaign, in contradiction to other views upheld by the party of Prince Mentschikoff ; and this fact should have made Mr Kinglake very cautious in adopting them so absolutely. He should have been all the more cautious upon this occasion, because the reasoning of General Todleben is contradicted on many occasions by the facts adduced by the same writer. 13. In dealing with the published accounts of military operations 1<y an adversary, the safest rule for an historian is to accept his facts and disregard his reasoning, so far as it applies to the measures of an opponent. Mr Kinglake does the contrary — he disregards the facts, and accepts all the reasoning without hesitation. 14. Tiie first point of difference between myself and the Russian commanders is contained in the statement that the Allies ouglit to liave attacked the north side of Sebastopol in preference to the south ; and they add as an inducement to this enterprise, that the works on that side of the harbour were so weak that they could have been carried by a coup de main.
