the _coup de main_ were to miscarry, and a lengthened siege became necessary? Was not the Euxine in our sole possession, and, as long as this remained so, was not Sevastopol outside the sphere of military operations, and entirely innocuous? ----- Footnote 218: The overwhelming catastrophe that overtook Napoleon I. in 1812, when, in spite of his military genius, he lost his whole army of 500,000 and his great power in Europe, calmed the impetuosity of those who might have hoped to invade Russia, as if she were an ordinary European nation. Yet the object-lesson could have been, and it is feared was, pushed too far. Napoleon’s disaster was due to his own perversity and to his military pride; for had he been content to re-organize and emancipate Poland, and avoid the snow-covered and barren steppes of the interior, his success, in destroying the sources of the power of Russia, could not have failed to be complete, and the tide of her encroachments must have rolled back for generations. Footnote 219: See Map No. 2, p. 149. ----- Austria had been allowed to close the western theatre of operations against the belligerent Powers. But it never seemed to have occurred to them to cast a thought on that other theatre of war, which still lay open to their attack in Asia. During 1854, the Turks were in disorder there; acrimonious quarrels broke out among the leaders of their forces, and, though the Russians made no great progress, the fortunes of the war were deciding against our allies, to the detriment of the cause we had undertaken to defend. In this quarter, moreover, we had every prospect of success; we should have exposed ourselves to the least risk, and, if victory crowned our efforts there, we should have secured the most brilliant results. This field of operations, not distant from the Crimea, offered ample scope for our energies, and, as we approached it in 1855, though we did not avail ourselves of its advantages, a brief allusion to it must here be made.