After their double repulse at the Malakoff and the Redan the Allies lost no time in resuming the ordinary operations of the siege: their approaches were steadily pushed forward, and their guns kept up a heavy fire upon the fortress. In July the average daily loss in Sebastopol was two hundred and fifty, while each day in August saw the strength of the garrison diminished by eight or nine hundred officers and men. The Russians, magnificently stubborn fighters as they were, began to realise that the place was becoming untenable. The parapets were crumbling under the projectiles of the Anglo-French artillery; many guns were disabled or worn out, and though there was still a large reserve of cannon in the arsenal, the fire of our mortars made it impossible to mount them on the shattered batteries. Round the disabled guns the dead lay in great heaps, while the wounded could not be moved till darkness brought some respite to the harassed garrison. Barracks, arsenals, and store-houses were all more or less in ruins; and the hospitals, overflowing into the streets and squares of the town, were rapidly emptied into a cemetery, grimly termed “the grave of the Hundred Thousand.” Towards the end of August the Russians determined to abandon Sebastopol; they began to build a bridge across the outer harbour, strong enough to carry guns and waggons upon its sixteen feet of roadway; threw up barricades across the streets of the town, and laid great mines under the forts and magazines. On the 5th of September, the Allies once more brought all their guns into action, and bombarded the fortress, almost without intermission, for three days and nights, and on the 8th, the French once more assaulted the Malakoff, and the British the Redan. As the third division was in the reserve and did not come into action, the XVIIIth regiment was not engaged, and therefore all that need be said about the result is that we failed to take the Redan, while the French carried the Malakoff, and succeeded in holding it against the strenuous efforts of the enemy to recapture it. These attacks were made by the Russian rear-guard to gain time for the retreat of the main body from the southern shores of the harbour, and were so far successful that when the French General heard that the head of the enemy’s column was marching over the bridge, he was still too uncertain of ultimate success to attempt any interference with the retirement. During the night the Russians successfully exploded many of their mines; destroyed their few remaining warships; set fire to the town in many places, and called in the troops from the forts; and by daybreak on the 9th the whole of the garrison, carrying with them most of the wounded, had crossed the bridge, broken it behind them, and found safety on the heights to the north of the harbour of Sebastopol. The losses on both sides in this, the last important episode in the Crimean War, were very heavy. Our defeat at the Redan cost us 2271 officers and men, among whom were three generals, wounded: the French casualties amounted to 7567 of all ranks, including five generals killed and four wounded: the Russians lost nine generals and 12,906 other officers and men.