garrison are not
harassed by the necessity of being constantly prepared to repel an
assault."

"Now, in the siege of Sebastopol, the trenches of the besiegers
never reached the edge of the ditch; so that, had the fortification been
a permanent one, the most difficult, slow, and dangerous part of the
siege remained to be undertaken, viz., the crowning of the covered
way, the establishment of the breach batteries, the descent and passage
of the ditch, and the assault of the breach; in other words, at the
moment when the weakness of the temporary works became apparent and
fatal, the true strength of the permanent defences would have commenced
coming into play."

"Assuming the progress of the attack to have been as rapid as it was
under existing circumstances, the besiegers, on the 8th of September,
would not yet have been in a condition to crown the covered way, the
siege would certainly have extended into the winter; and it may even
be doubted whether the place would eventually have fallen, until the
allies were in sufficient force to invest the north as well as the
southside."

General Neil remarks:--

"Struck by the length of the siege of Sebastopol, certain foreign
officers have expressed the opinion that masonry-revetted scarps are not
of incontestable utility in fortified places."

"Sebastopol, a vast retrenched camp, defended by field fortifications
of strong profile, derived its principal strength from an armament
such as could only exist in an extensive maritime arsenal, and from a
large army which always preserved its free communications with the
interior of Russia."

"If the enceinte had been provided with good revetted scarps;
if it had been necessary to breach these, and subsequently have been
compelled to penetrate through difficult passages, in rear of which the
heads of our columns would have met an army, Sebastopol would have
been an impregnable fortress."

"When we compare, in effect, the works of attack at Sebastopol
with those of an ordinary siege, we will see that on the 8th of
September, 1855, the day of the last assault, we had only executed,
after the greatest effort, the besieging works which precede the
crowning of the covered way; we had not then, as yet, entered upon that
period of the works of a siege which is the most difficult and the most
murderous; and there was no occ