“Ten days did the terrific storm of iron hail endure; ten days did the Russian reliefs, holding themselves ready to repel attack, meet wounds and death with a constancy which was of necessity altogether passive. On the 19th they saw the fire of the Allies decline, and settle into its more ordinary rate; they saw too, that the sappers were again at work with their approaches, and reading in this the signs of a resumption of the siege, and the abandonment of the policy of assault, they once more withdrew their sorely harassed infantry to places of shelter and repose. Then they began to reckon their losses, which amounted for the ten days, in killed and wounded, to more than 6,000 men. The French lost in killed and disabled, 1,585 men; the English, 265.”[323] ----- Footnote 323: Hamley, _War in the Crimea_ , p. 212. ----- All this expenditure of lives and of war _matériel_ effected just nothing, nor was anything even attempted against the enemy; for the French, though having an opportunity to assault, not possessed at that time by their British allies, were “kept waiting for Louis Napoleon, and were restrained from engaging in any determined attack.”[324] ----- Footnote 324: Kinglake, vii. 195; compare Hamley, _War in the Crimea_ , p. 225. ----- In order to accomplish the views of the Emperor Napoleon, a French army of reserve was being collected near Constantinople, and as it was expected soon to reach the Crimea—to undertake the plans which had been sketched out in Paris,—two important operations against the enemy were delayed. First, a further bombardment, arranged to take place at the end of April, and to be followed by an assault, was put off; and secondly, an expedition, at last agreed to, against the Russian communications in the Sea of Azof, and which had actually started to Kertch (May 3rd), was recalled.[325] Both these events caused much embarrassment to Lord Raglan, who, understanding imperfectly even then the Emperor’s proposals, found his own plans thwarted by the supine and unintelligible conduct of his colleague. The confidence reposed in the latter was naturally shaken; and when, a few days later, Napoleon’s scheme was fully revealed to the allied Commanders, was discussed, and was found to be impossible of execution, General Canrobert felt his position to be intolerable, and he resigned the chief command of the French army. It is right to add that, though Canrobert’s character unfitted him to direct the difficult operations which lay before him, he was well suited to assume the lower functions of a commander of a division or army-corps. Being of a loyal and soldierlike disposition, and unwilling to leave the seat of war, he begged that he might revert to the position he originally occupied in the French army when the war broke out, and recommended that General Pélissier (who had reached the Crimea in January) should be appointed the new Commander-in-chief. These proposals