London, July 20. The debate on Roebuck’s motion* did not turn 
out in the way the Ministry was fond of thinking. Even yesterday 
morning it was prophesying in its semi-official organs that 
Roebuck’s motion would be defeated by five votes to one. Last 
night it considered itself fortunate in obtaining 289 votes to 182 
for the previous question,”* i.e. the refusal of the House to 
decide on the motion at all. The same House that forced 
Aberdeen to resign because he refused to set up a Committee of 
Inquiry, saved Palmerston by refusing to come to a conclusion on 
the verdict of its own Committee. The adjournment of Parliament 
adjourns the fate of Palmerston’s Cabinet until the new session. 
That is when its lease of life will end. We shall return later to the 
sitting itself. 

At present there is a lull in the war operations in the Crimea. 
No more attempted assaults, the cannon are almost silenced; and 
if it were not for the constant exchange of rifle fire between the 
two lines of trenches, if the allies were not advancing their position 
up the Malakhov hill by mining and sapping, and if the Russians 
did not make the occasional sorties, one might think that all 
hostilities had been suspended. 

That is the calm before the storm. In two or three weeks a battle 
will begin, man against man, much fiercer than at Inkerman, the 
Green Mamelon or the assault of June 18.’ The month of 
August ought to be decisive up to a certain point: the Russian 
forces which are now on their way will have arrived,and the allied 

forces will have been reduced by sickness. The life-and-death battle 
will then begin, and the allies will have enough to do maintaining 
their ground on the plateau. 

Even the English press has now given up the idea of the south 
side of Sevastopol being taken this year. They are now reduced to 
the hope of subduing Sevastopol bit by bit; and if they manage to 
proceed with the same speed as they have up to now the siege will 
last as long as that of Troy. There is absolutely no reason to 
believe that they will speed up their task, for we have been as 
good as told officially that the deficient system adopted so far will 
be stubbornly continued. The Crimea correspondent of the 
Constitutionnel, a man of high rank in the French army (it is said to 
be General Regnault de Saint-Jean-d’Angély, commander of the 
guards), has announced to the public that it can spare itself the 
effort of indulging in speculation about a campaign in the open 
and the possible blockade of the northside of Sevastopol. He 
maintains that under the present circumstances this could not 
happen without first abandoning the siege and surrendering the 
whole of the plateau to the Russians. It has therefore been 
decided to hammer away as fiercely as possible at the position 
which has already been attacked until it has been completely 
destroyed.* The announcements contained in this letter can be 
regarded as semi-official, as there is every reason to believe that 
Bonaparte not only approves of them but that he also checks every 
report from this source before it goes to print. Regnault is one of 
his special favourites—the Minister of War who, at the time of the 
Legislative Assembly, gave his signature to the dismissal of 
Changarnier.**8 

The consequences of all this are not hard to predict. The 
Russian army in and around Sevastopol consisted of the 3rd and 
4th Corps, two divisions of the 5th and one of the 6th Corps, 
apart from marines, sailors, local troops, Cossacks and cavalry, all 
in all an army of 180 battalions or 90,000 infantry with 30,000 
men of the artillery, cavalry, etc., plus about 40,000 sick and 
wounded. Even the French Moniteur estimates their effective force 
under arms to be 110,000 men.” Now, the whole of the 2nd Corps 
(50 battalions, 32 squadrons and 96 cannon) and two divisions of 
infantry with a division of cavalry (24 battalions, 32 squad- 
rons, 72 cannon) are marching towards or are already near Sevas- 
topol. They represent an additional force of 55,000 infant- 

> Le Moniteur universel, No. 198, July 17, 1855.—Ed. 

ry, 10,000 cavalry and Cossacks and 5,000 artillery. Thus the Rus- 
sians will soon have concentrated an army of at least 175,000 
men, considerably more than the allies can have after their most 
recent losses in the sorties and from sickness. It is all the more to 
be expected that the Russians will be capable of at least holding 
the territory they have held so far, since they are able constantly 
to relieve with fresh forces the garrison troops exhausted by their 
efforts. 

The allies on the other hand have no chance of receiving similar 
reinforcements. They now number 21 divisions of infantry (12 
French, 4 English, 3 Turkish, 2 Piedmontese), or approximately 
190 battalions, 3 divisions of cavalry (J French, 1 English, 1 
Turkish), or approximately 60 squadrons and a corresponding 
number of cannon but, since their battalions and particularly their 
squadrons have been substantially thinned by the losses in the 
campaign, their total strength will not exceed 110,000 infantry, 
7,500 cavalry and 30,000-35,000 artillery, vehicle train and those 
unfit for active service. If the forces of the two opposing parties 
were thus almost equally balanced before the arrival of the 
Russian reinforcements, the scale must clearly tip to the disadvan- 
tage of the allies as soon as those reinforcements arrive. What has 
been sent so far have merely been detachments from the depots, 
who were to make up the losses suffered by the battalions and 
squadrons engaged in combat, and they cannot be many in 
number, if the press reports are reliable. In the meantime it is 
reported that 3 divisions are marching to Marseilles and Toulon 
where steamships are being concentrated, whilst in England 
regiments intended for the Crimea have received orders to be 
ready for immediate embarkation. They will comprise approxi- 
mately one division of infantry and one division of cavalry. Thus 
approximately 33,000 infantry with perhaps 2,500 cavalry and 
artillery might arrive little by little in the Crimea in August and 
September. This, however, depends entirely on how quickly they 
embark. At all events the allies will again find themselves 
numerically inferior and can be wedged in on the plateau once 
more, where they were brought to ruin during last year’s sad 
winter. 

Whether the Russians will succeed this time in driving them 
from that fortified hiding-place we dare not say. But it is clear that 
all the allies can expect to do is to maintain their own ground, 
unless they were to receive reinforcements on a gigantic scale. 
Thus the war could be reduced to a series of encounters and 
hand-to-hand fights, as fruitless as they are bloody, with each side 

sending forward fresh troops daily to meet the enemy in 
hand-to-hand fighting, whether it be on the ramparts of the city, 
on the parapets of the trenches, or on the escarpments round 
Inkerman and Balaklava. Of all the possibilities it is most likely 
that matters will take that course. No situation involving two 
enemy armies could be devised where greater spilling of blood will 
lead to results of less significance than can be expected from 
engagements of this kind. And this has been brought about by the 
mediocrity of the commanders-in-chief on both sides, by impotent 
dilettantism at Paris and deliberate treachery in London.