establishing even more solid guarantees for its safety than the valour ami constancy of its defenders; and this course, no less than the serious character of the attack of the 17th, demonstrated forcibly the importance which was attached on both sides to its possession. After the fall of Southern Sebastopol it was universally believed that it would become the basis of a series of operations having for their object to threaten the rear of the Russian force on the Mackenzie plateau, and to intercept the supplies coming from the north to the south of the Crimea. Marshal Pelissier seems to have shared this opinion, and a large French force was transferred to this point, which, after several ineffectual reconnaissances, was compelled by the physical obstacles presented by the conformation of the country, and by the total want of water during the period still available for field operations, to desist from the enterprise. Another campaign would doubtless have told a diflferent story, and proved that the blood shed by the Turks in the battle of Eupatoria was not after all spent in vain.
But we are anticipating, and it is time that we should return to the more important theatre of action in the Chersonese.
Up to the 19th of February, the weather had been fine and temperate, and at times even sultry, and on the evening of this day preparations were made for a reconnaissance on an extended scale; in which Sir Colin Campbell with his Highlanders, and a French detachment under Generals Bosquet and Villenois, were to take part. Information had been received that a force of some thousands of Russians was encamped in the neighbourhood of Tchorgoun, and the Allied Generals had reason to believe that by a movement of concentration, secretly planned and rapidly executed, it would be easy to cut off this body of the enemy, and either destroy or take prisoner every man composing it. The French assembled at their headquarters soon after midnight, under arms and ready to march, when the weather suddenly changed; rain began to descend in torrents; soon after the wind chopped round to the northward, blowing every moment with greater severity, and accompanied by blinding storms of hail and snow. Our allies, convinced that the enterprise was now impossible, returned to their quarters; and Major Foley, the British oflScer attached to the French head-quarters, was at once despatched to acquaint Sir Colin with the change of plan. The messenger unfortunately lost his way in the snow; Sir Colin, deaf to all considerations but those of duty, marched off his division at the appointed hour, and, joined by Brigadier-General Villenois,
who, though aware of the counter-orders, chivalrously determined not to abandon his colleague, pushed on in the direction of Kamara and Tchorgoun.
The result was what was to have been anticipated. The darkness was more favourable to the enemy than to the Allies; the alarm was given, the Russians retired towards the Tchernaya, and the English and French, who, in so short a space of time, had suffered severely from frostbite, returned weary, cold, and disheartened to the position. The reconnaissance had failed, the enemy were warned, and the scheme, impracticable to-day, became impossible to-morrow.
For some time past the French had now been steadily pushing their approaches through the ground of which they had relieved us on the right, and were gradually nearing the Malakoff, which they threatened to take in flank, if not in reverse. Alarmed at their progress, the Russians, with their usual secrecy and dispatch, threw up during the night between the 22nd and 23rd February a redoubt upon the incline of Mount Sapoune, an eminence which forms the right side of Careening Bay, and which is a spur of the ridge running down in the direction of the town from Inkermann.
This work was called the Selinghinsk Redoubt, after the regiment principally employed in its construction, and which was still actively engaged in its completion when, on the following night, it was attacked by the French, to the number of loOO, under the immediate command of General Monet, and directed by Generals Bosquet and Mayrau.