When it was decided to attack the forts, several hundred Shapsookians, including gray-haired old men and youths of tender age, swore to conquer or to die. They kept their word. At the fort of Michailoff, which made the most obstinate defence, the ditch was filled with their corpses. The conduct of the garrison was truly heroic. Of five hundred men, only one third were fit for duty; the others were in hospital, or on the sick-list. But no sooner did the Circassian war-cry rend the air than the sufferers forgot their pains; the fever-stricken left their beds, and crawled to the walls. Their commandant called upon them to shed their last drop of blood for their emperor; their old _papa_ exhorted them, as Christians, to fight to the death against the unbelieving horde. But numbers prevailed: after a valiant defence, the Russians retreated, fighting, to the innermost enclosures of the fortress. Their chief demanded a volunteer to blow up the fort when farther resistance should become impossible. A soldier stepped forward, took a lighted match, and entered the powder magazine. The last defences were stormed, the Circassians shouted victory. Then came the explosion. Most of the buildings were overthrown, and hundreds of maimed carcases scattered in all directions. Eleven Russians escaped with life, were dragged off to the mountains, and subsequently ransomed, and from them the details of this bloody fight were obtained. The capture of these forts spread discouragement and consternation in the ranks of the Russian army. The emperor was furious, and General Rajewski, then commander-in-chief on the Circassian frontier, was superseded. This officer, who at the tender age of twelve was present with his father at the battle of Borodino, and who has since distinguished himself in the Turkish and Persian wars, was reputed an able general, but was reproached with sleeping too much, and with being too fond of botany. His enemies went so far as to accuse him of making military expeditions into the mountains, with the sole view of adding rare Caucasian plants to his _herbarium_, and of procuring seeds for his garden. General Aurep, who succeeded him, undertook little beyond reconnoissances, always attended with very heavy loss; and the Circassians remained upon the defensive until the year 1843, when the example of the Tshetshens, who about that time obtained signal advantages over the Russians, roused the martial ardour of the chivalrous Circassians, and spurred them to fresh hostilities. But the war at the western extremity of Caucasus never assumed the importance of that in Daghestan and the country of the Tshetshens.