=Siege of Sebastopol.=--On September 23rd, 1854, the army began its slow and "most remarkable flank march in military history." Balaklava was ultimately reached, "the result of blind accident rather than knowledge of how war should be conducted," and the armies of Britain and France settled down on the Chersonese upland, and the siege of Sebastopol commenced. From September 28th, 1854, it ran its long course until September 11th, 1855, when the Russians, who had fought so well under Todleben, retired and the allies entered it unopposed. This long and complex siege cannot here be dealt with in detail. How the unfortunate troops fared in the trenches has passed into the history of this country as a blot upon the administration which allowed brave men to die like flies; "between November 1854 and February 1855 there were 9,000 deaths in hospital, and by the end of February there were no less than 13,600 officers and men in hospital," and no wonder when men, emaciated by disease and tried by the severe weather, "carrying great-coat and blanket, marched through a sea of mud to the trenches," where they remained in a cramped position all night until day broke, and, after a few hours' rest, "often in a puddle, which chilled their bones under a worn-out tent through which the rain beat"; they who had the heart of a lion were compelled to do asses' work. The hospitals were frequently merely bell tents, and "the men lay, often in mud, on the ground, and in many cases their diet was only meat and biscuit. They were, moreover, so crowded together that the doctors could scarcely pass between the patients." The heroic Florence Nightingale, as every one knows, with her band of nurses helped to lighten the burden of pain and suffering which the men endured, but the lasting disgrace which attaches to the callous administrators of the period is only accentuated when we consider the dire necessity for her action.