On the part of the Allies, the approaches to the fortress were pushed forward with considerable activity, both by ourselves and by the French, but there was little actual fighting except what was brought about by the siege operations. In the beginning of February, the French, who, thanks to the liberal supply of men sent to the seat of war, were growing in numbers, undertook to extend the siege-works on our right;[311] thus continuing the line of trenches towards the roadstead of Sevastopol. Bosquet’s Corps was employed for this purpose. Another element of strength was brought into the field during the winter, to which brief allusion must be made. It was at last determined that Omar Pasha’s army should be removed to the Crimea from Bulgaria, where it was unable to influence the course of hostilities; the concentration was effected at Eupatoria, and, on the 17th of February, before the movement was complete, the Turkish force there amounted to 23,000 men. The Russians, having reinforced the troops they had in this part of the peninsula to 20,000 men, attacked the place on that date, and were repulsed with a loss of some 800 men. This success seems to have been decisive, in so far that the Allies now held firmly a point within striking distance of the enemy’s communications through the isthmus of Perekop; but its value was considerably lessened by the following fact. In the autumn of 1854, General Menshikoff was dependent upon this line to draw reinforcements from Bessarabia, and, as he found it open, he advanced freely along it, and reached Sevastopol before the 5th of November, as has been already related. This advantage gained, the road through Perekop became of comparatively minor importance, and the enemy thenceforward relied upon the line from the Sea of Azof. His communications in this quarter could, of course, only be threatened by a force based somewhere in the neighbourhood of Kertch; but that place was avoided, and Eupatoria was selected. Hence the achievement of the 17th of February, while it might have been followed by satisfactory results had it taken place early in October, was, to a certain extent, a barren victory, and served only to show that our Turkish auxiliaries were capable of performing some service in the war.[312] ----- Footnote 311: Our allies had 56,000 men in the Crimea in November, 65,000 in December, and 78,000 in January (Hamley, _War in the Crimea_ , p. 176). Footnote 312: Colonel (now Field-Marshal Sir Lintorn) Simmons was present with Omar Pasha as British Commissioner with the Turkish army. He served in that capacity from the summer of 1853, until the end of the war. -----