The war nominally lasted for several months longer: the allied armies occupied the Sebastopol peninsula during the winter, and small operations were directed against other points of Russian territory. Substantially however the fall of Sebastopol was decisive; the destruction of the great arsenal and fortress was a heavy blow to Russian power in the Black Sea, and the retention of it had been made so definitely a point of honour by Russia that its capture was a formal symbol of defeat. With the spring of 1856 terms of peace were agreed on, which included the prohibiting any ships of war to sail on the waters of the Black Sea. At one moment it seemed as if France would have acceded to terms which required from Russia practically no sacrifice; but Napoleon III. yielded to remonstrance from England, coupled with the assurance that England was now able, and quite prepared, to carry on the war alone. The history of England is full of evidence that there is almost no limit to the power which an industrial nation, having command of the sea, can bring gradually to bear upon a warlike enterprise, always assuming that she has the necessary resolution. And no more striking evidence is to be found than from comparing the state of the English army in the Crimea in December 1854 and in December 1855, especially if we bear in mind the expenditure in men and material during the year. Whether anything of the same kind could happen again, whether in another war time would be available for utilising resources which must in a sense be latent till war begins, whether other nations have gained on England in the race of material progress, whether England would again exhibit the national tenacity displayed in the Peninsula and in the Crimea, are questions which every lover of peace will desire to see remaining, as they are at present, matters of speculation. INTERMEDIATE NOTE INFERIOR RACES