On Sunday, the 9th of September, the news that Sebastopol had fallen was proclaimed through England. And so the siege that had gone on for the best part of a year, which had involved the construction of seventy miles of trenches, and the expenditure of 1,500,000 shells, came to an end--gloriously for the French with victory at the Malakoff, ingloriously for England with ignominious defeat at the Redan. On the 29th of September, the Russians were repulsed at Kars; but on the 28th of November, the neglected and famine-stricken garrison, whose heroic defence under General Fenwick Williams was one of the most brilliant episodes of the war, had to surrender. The occupation of Kinburn and the bombardment of Sweaborg were the only successes won by us at sea. [Illustration: GENERAL TODLEBEN.] When Sebastopol fell, it was not the Russians but Generals Simpson and Pélissier who were paralysed by the catastrophe. The Allies, in fact, seemed to sit helplessly looking on, and gave the enemy time to render his position on the north side of the city almost impregnable. Thus once more the besiegers became the besieged, and found themselves in even a more perilous position than that which they held before the fall of the city. The Queen was greatly distressed to hear that all our sacrifices had been in vain, and that Simpson and Pélissier were even more incompetent than Raglan and Canrobert.[257] At last her Majesty’s impatience could no longer be controlled, nor her irritation concealed. On the 2nd of October she wrote to Lord Panmure saying, “there may be good reasons why the army should not move, but we have only one.... When General Simpson telegraphed before that he must wait to know the intentions and plans of the Russians, the Queen was tempted to advise a reference to St. Petersburg for them.” And the intensely provoking thing was that if the Allies had only threatened a landing between Eupatoria and Sebastopol after the fall of the city, the Russians would have been compelled to evacuate the Crimea.[258]