All the Russian officers with whom I have conversed--all the testimony I have heard or read, coincide on these two points--first, that if on the 25th we had moved to Bakschiserai in pursuit of the Russians, we should have found their army in a state of the most complete demoralisation, and might have forced the great majority of them to surrender as prisoners of war in a sort of _cul de sac_, from which but few could have escaped. Secondly, that had we advanced directly against Sebastopol, the town would have surrendered after some slight show of resistance to save the honour of the officers. The deduction from these propositions is that the flank march was the certain precursor of a long siege, of bloody battles and great losses; was an evidence of diffidence, and at the same time of boldness which, though favoured by fortune in its execution, was scarcely justifiable in a military sense, and was an abandonment of the original character of the expedition. And here I may be permitted to remark, that the statement in the letters (of a Staff-officer) "from Head-quarters," page 224, to the effect that Lord Lyons could not have disapproved of the flank march because he was not present when Sir John Burgoyne proposed it, and that his manner, when he received Lord Raglan at Balaklava, "proved he highly admired" that movement, is calculated to lead to very erroneous impressions in the minds of those who attach any weight to the assertions of that officer. Lord Lyons, when he heard of the flank march, expressed his disapproval of it, and when he met Lord Raglan, he (as I heard from his own lips) told his lordship that he conceived the flank march to be a departure from the spirit in which the expedition was undertaken, and said, "This is strategy, but we are in no condition for strategical operation. We came here for a coup-de-main, but this is strategy!" The effects of that march are now matters beyond argument, and we can only weigh probable results against events--a very difficult equation. Whatever may be the opinions of civilians or military men respecting the flank march, it is certain that to Sir John Burgoyne belongs the credit of originating the idea at the conference which took place between the generals on the Belbek. [Sidenote: A DANGEROUS EXAMPLE.]