Note 327 — Chapter XI · THE FALL OF SEVASTOPOL.

Hamley, Crimea , p. 242. Established now at last on the shores of the Sea of Azof, the Allies might even at this late period have inflicted a crushing blow on the enemy in the direction of Circassia, and so have brought about the end of the war, and a severe check to Russia’s advance through Central Asia and towards India—the objects that Great Britain had in view when she undertook to curb the Tsar’s pretensions in the East. It appears that the attention of the Foreign Secretary (Lord Clarendon) was directed at that time to this most important point; but there was a difficulty with the French, who, conceiving that they would be giving assistance to a purely English policy, would not concur in any such scheme (see Rawlinson, England and Russia in the East , 272 note). It must not be forgotten that Louis Napoleon disapproved of the expedition to Kertch—the one operation in the war which was crowned with complete and immediate success, and which cost the Allies nothing,—and that he peremptorily ordered Pélissier to take no part in the attack on Anapa on the Circassian coast (Kinglake, viii. 79).