charge was a remark by a French observer, "It is magnificent, but it is not war."

The Russians enjoyed several advantages: superior numbers, they were defending their own soil, and were under single command. On the other hand, they were almost as inefficient in staff and logistics departments as their enemies. Tsar Nicholas was titular commander in chief, but his sole qualification was his interest in toy soldiers and their movements on the palace floor. In 1828 he had personally led his army against the Turks, when

the Sultan had no allies and his army was disorganized and badly led. The Russians were beaten by hunger, sickness, and the Tsar's incapacity. Conditions had not improved in subsequent years. Menshikov, the Russian commander in the Crimea, was 70-years old and had been on the retired list for the preceding 30 years. He passively allowed the Allied Army to land and march to the Alma River before making a stand. Beaten there, Menshikov fell back to Sebastopol, blew up the Russian vessels in the harbor, and awaited attack.

The Allies had no base but the open beach south of Eupatoria, so they decided to march around Sebastopol and occupy the small Peninsula at Cape Kherson, which had a sheltered cove. The British established their camp at Balaclava. This move allowed the Russians to reinforce Sebastopol from the north and east; the Allies faced north and the Russians faced south. The Allies now had a two-fold task: to break down the Russian resistance in Sebastopol and to protect their own right flank across the base of the small peninsula against attack by the Russian field army. The Battles of Balaclava and Inkerman resulted from such Russian attacks. The winter of 1854-55, one of the severest in the Crimea, ended active operations. Both sides used the lull to reinforce their positions. Siege guns arrived from France and Britain; a Sardinian contingent joined the army; the French strength rose to about two-thirds of the total force. St. Arnaud was replaced by General Canrobert, who was in turn succeeded by General Pelissier. Raglan was blamed for an abortive attack on the Malakoff and Redan redoubts on June 18, 1855, and replaced by General Simpson.

The summer months of 1855 were spent in artillery duels, which battered the Sebastopol defenses and probably caused 100,000 Russian casualties. The final Allied assault was made on September 8. The French captured the Malakoff and held it against repeated counterattacks; the British failed to capture the Redan. The Russians had had enough. They evacuated the city and retreated northward. That was the end of the fighting, but peace was not concluded until early in 1856.

Tsar Nicholas I had died in March 1855. His successor, the liberal Alexander II, was willing to end a war which had cost the lives of half a million men, two-thirds of whom had died of disease, not wounds. Russian influence was severely damaged in the Near East. The signatory powers guaranteed the independence and

territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire but they retained the right to intervene in international disputes to which Turkey might become a part. Napoleon III had achieved his military triumph, which led him to further foreign adventures-in Italy and Mexico. Britain's prestige was lowered; its military organization was shown to be hopelessly outdated and its navy had not been very efficient. Both branches underwent drastic reforms during the subsequent decades.

We have already met Count Leo Nikolaevitch Tolstoy, author of War and Peace and other classics of Russian literature. Sebastopol is one of his earliest literary efforts and was written during his service as an artillery officer in the Russian Army. He had studied at Kazan University from 1844 to 1847, then spent several aimless years as a rich and aristocratic young man about town. Perhaps the itch for military service infected him, for he volunteered for service in the Terek region of the Caucasus as an artillery cadet. This experience was the basis of his excellent long stories, The Cossacks and Hadji Murad. He left the army shortly before the Crimean War, only to return to active duty with the Russian forces in Wallachia. He transferred to the garrison at Sebastopol in November 1854. He fought at the battle of the Chernaya and commanded guns in the famous 4th Bastion, the most dangerously exposed position in the Russian fortifications. He left Sebastopol in October 1855, during the Russian evacuation.

Note the difference in tone and mood as the story of the siege unfolds. Tolstoy is young, idealistic, patriotic when he tells about "Sebastopol in December 1854." His mood changes under the impact of war, death, wounds, and hunger. "Sebastopol in May 1855" is realistic; men are no longer the idealized heroes of the first tale, and war is not glorious and romantic. It is grim and terrible and Tolstoy's description of it was severely censored. The final tale, "Sebastopol in August 1855" is somewhat in between, less bitter, more in the tone of the disillusioned but not cynical veteran. He has fought well against odds and accepts defeat as part of the game, for he is no longer a boy, but a man.