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It was roofless, but an inner chamber had been constructed a cellar, so to speak under the ground-floor, with a roof of its own of rammed earth many feet thick, supported by heavy beams. This was one of the famous casemates invented by Todleben, impervious to shot and shell, and affording a safe shelter to the troops.
"I told you it would be no use," interrupted a third. "He is as obstinate as a mule." "Stay! what is that?" cried Todleben, suddenly. "Over there, in the direction of the Green Mamelon." Three rockets were seen to shoot up into the evening sky. "It is some signal," said another. "Yes; heavy columns are beginning to climb the slopes away there to our left."
See Justin McCarthy's Modern Leaders; Kinglake's Crimean War; History of the Franco-German War; Lives of Bismarck, Moltke, Cavour; Life of Lord Palmerston; Life of Nicholas; Life of Thiers; Harriet Martineau's Biographical Sketches; W.R. Greg's Life of Todleben.
"I appeal to you, sir," he pleaded, "as a general officer, a man of high honour and known integrity, to protect me from outrage." "I can do nothing," replied Todleben, gravely, shrugging his shoulders. "The Prince himself will decide. Take him away. I cannot waste time with him if he is not disposed to speak. Let him be kept a close prisoner until the Prince is ready to see him."
It is a speciality which does not form captains and generals for the field, at least such instances are very rare. Of all Napoleon's marshals and eminent commanders, Berthier alone was educated as engineer, and his speciality and high capacity was that of a chief of the staff. Marescott or Todleben would never claim to be captains.
The young American might now add that when a man was needed to defend Port Arthur another German was chosen Stoessel, whose heroism the whole world is now applauding, as it once applauded Todleben, the general of German birth who carried off the Russian laurels of the Crimean War.
Eyiau and Friedland attested this, and many a later field, and the chronicle of his recent wars, from Potiamkin to Skobeleff, from Kutusov to Todleben, illustrate the justice of Napoleon's verdict, "unparalleled heroism in defence." And yet out of the sword the Slav has never forged an instrument for the perfection of a great political ideal.
It was the opinion of Todleben himself, afterward expressed, which was that of Lord Raglan, and also of Sir Edmund Lyons, commanding the fleet, that the Star Fort which defended Sebastopol on the north, however strong, was indefensible before the forces that the allies could have brought to bear against it.
It was now clear that Osman must be starved out from the position which the skill of his engineers and the steadiness of his riflemen had so speedily transformed into an impregnable stronghold. Todleben, the Russian engineer, who had strengthened the outworks of Sevastopol, had been called up to oppose trench to trench, redoubt to redoubt.
These reinforcements were the first sent out to mitigate the hardships the British Army underwent during a campaign that the genius of Todleben and the fortitude of his courageous garrison rendered far more protracted and costly than had been anticipated. Charles Gordon reached Balaclava on New Year's Day, 1855.
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