ad started to scale the steep
heights. The task of the English troops proved more difficult. They were
compelled to advance under a galling fire, but stormed the parapets despite
the resistance which they encountered. The attacking force, however, was
too small; reinforcements did not come in time, and the remnant of the
party was compelled to withdraw. It was the story of Balaklava told over
again with bloody emphasis--the story of splendid courage on the part of
the men, of wretched generalship on the part of their commanders. After the
attack, the Russians withdrew from the south side of Sebastopol. That
portion of the city had been so thoroughly bombarded that Gortschakov could
no longer hold out. "It is not Sebastopol that we have left to them, but
the burning ruins of the town, to which we ourselves set fire," wrote the
Russian commander after his brave defence. He could indeed boast that later
generations would "recall with pride" the great siege and its stirring
events. The investment had lasted eleven months. It involved the
construction of seventy miles of trenches and the employment of 60,000
fascines, 80,000 gabions, and 1,000,000 sandbags. One and one-half million
shells and shot were fired into the town from the cannon of the besiegers.
The Russian forces in and about Sebastopol numbered 150,000; their losses
sustained in its defence amounted, in killed, wounded and missing, to
90,142. The allied armies numbered 80,650 French, 43,000 English, and
20,000 Turks in January, 1855. The British troops suffered terribly from
disease. The forty-one English infantry battalions, which embarked
originally, mustered 36,923, and were reinforced by 27,884. Their strength
at the conclusion of hostilities was 653 less than it was at the beginning.
The Sardinians suffered proportionately. The wastage, due principally to
disease, thus amounted to 28,537 men.

[Illustration: BALAKLAVA--"OUT OF THE MOUTH OF HELL--"
Painted by Elizabeth Thompson (Lady Butler)
Copyright. By permission of Henry Graves & Co., Ltd., London]

[Sidenote: The defense of Kars]

With the fall of Sebastopol the war may be said to have ended. A brilliant
chapter which had little effect on the Crimean campaign, partly because it
occurred after the fall of Sebastopol, partly because it concerned chiefly
the Armenians, was the long defence of Kars by Colonel Williams and Wassif
Pasha against an overwhelming Russian army under General Muraviev. Wi