First Sentence

"BY following the course they approved on the morrow of 'Inkerman,' the Allies did more than make waste of that onward momentum which victory is wont to confer; for they even, as we saw, gave their adversary the priceless respite he needed for his Flagstaff Bastion; and not judging the Sebastopol front to be anywhere else in a state that could warrant assault, they now found their armies committed to what-unless roughly cut short by recurrence to bold resolves, or by some grave disaster befalling them-seemed destined to prove a long siege."