personal interference with the Foreign Policy of her Government, usually so wise, prudent, and beneficial, had led to bad results, it was maladroit on the part of Prince Albert to gird at Constitutional Government. Very little reflection should have served to show the Court that it was only under the Muscovite autocracy that blunders in war and statecraft, _more_ ghastly even than our own, could possibly be perpetrated. When the Conference at Vienna closed, Austria, as might have been foreseen, refused to join England in carrying on the war. On the other hand, the King of Sardinia had, on 26th January, entered into a military convention with the Allies, and, in return for their guarantee of his territory, engaged to send an army of 15,000 men to the Crimea. The war in 1855 was carried on under more favourable conditions than in the previous year. Reinforcements were sent out quickly. The commissariat, sanitary, and transport services were put into effective working order. On the 17th of February, the Turks under Omar Pasha gallantly repelled a Russian attack on Eupatoria--a feat which revived the drooping spirits of the Allies, and restored confidence in the fighting power of the Osmanli. The news of this defeat was peculiarly humiliating to the Czar, whose contempt for the Turk was unbounded, and his bitter vexation at being beaten by a despised enemy, perhaps had some effect in undermining the vitality of his iron constitution. The bombardment of Sebastopol began again in April--but, though the allied trenches were pushed closer and closer to the fortress, no serious impression was made on it. The English troops were eager for action, but Canrobert’s weakness and irresolution held Lord Raglan back.[216]