Odessa is built of stone and stucco, and is composed of large open places and squares, offering little combustible matter, and placed at such a distance behind the shore batteries as to be accessible only to mortar-vessels and horizontal fire at a very long, and therefore at a very uncertain, range. The houses are roofed with iron, and in many cases there is no woodwork in the flooring or ceiling of the different stories, but iron girders and tiles and slabs of stone are used instead of planks and rafters. Many of the houses are detached, and stand like so many palazzi in their own grounds. Under these circumstances a general fire would have been almost out of the question, and the damage caused by a bombardment would not have been very decisive or extensive. With all the efforts of friends and foes to destroy it, how much of Sebastopol remained after it had fallen into our hands! The Russians, by the agency of powder, of piles of wood, of tar, of turpentine, and of all sorts of combustibles, tried to get it into a blaze, but they failed, notwithstanding a favourable breeze; and we rained shells on it for months, and never succeeded in creating any conflagration of importance. Well, Sebastopol contained much more wood than Odessa does, and was more accessible to our fire. The inference is, that we could not by any bombardment of the fleet have set the town in a blaze, or have inflicted damage which would have compensated the Allies for the expenditure of all their shell. It is evident that at some period or another our fire would have ceased from exhaustion of means. Even a line-of-battle ship's powder magazines and shot and shell rooms are not illimitable. It is equally clear that a line-of-battle steam-ship could not have come in close enough to the forts to develop her fire, without running the greatest risk of being disabled before she could have got into position. The moment would have eventually arrived when our bomb-vessels and gun-boats and heavy steam-frigates would have been compelled to cease firing, and that probably before much injury had been done to a large, distant, stone-built town like Odessa; and then, if the Russians could have fired even one gun as we retreated, they would have claimed, and with some colouring — which would have seemed very bright and decided in{403} some circles in England and in many cities and towns of despotic Germany and of free America — the credit of having beaten off the Allied fleets!
Sir Howard Douglas declares that a 13-inch mortar ought to hit a large object such as a fort, at the distance of 4,000 yards; but I know that many of our bombs missed Kinburn when fired from a distance of less than 3,000 and 3,600 yards. The whole of the glacis and of the ground before the fort for some hundred yards was burrowed up and pitted by the craters of bombs, which made prodigious holes in the soft sand on which they expended their force. For one shell which would fall through the roof of a house in Odessa, three or four would fall in the public streets, squares, and yards, where they would be comparatively harmless. These large missiles take up great space, and the fleet did not hold enough to lay Odessa in ruins. Had the Admirals been provided with all the appliances for destroying Odessa, they might have caused great damage to property and loss of life by firing on the place during their stay; for, though destruction is difficult, damage and loss may easily be effected, and there can be no doubt that a vigorous fire would have occasioned the enemy a considerable amount of both. The French Admiral, indeed, suggested that a certain number of gun-boats and mortar-vessels should go in every night, and throw shell into the town; but Lord Lyons was of opinion that such a petty measure of warfare was unworthy of us; that we ought either to destroy Odessa, or refrain from a partial attack, which the Russians would say, and not without pretence, had been unsuccessful the moment it was abandoned.