Ready, be ready to meet the storm!"

In less than a year the storm broke. It broke in Eastern Europe. Of
the personal forces that brought the breaking, the two principal were
the Czar Nicholas and the Emperor Louis Napoleon. In 1853 the Czar
demanded of the Sultan certain guarantees of the rights of the Greek
Christians in the Turkish provinces. This was refused, and the
Crimean War broke out on the Danube. The first power in Western Europe
to support the Sultan was France, while England and Sardinia came hard
after. There was an alliance of England and France in support of the
Turkish cause. In the bottom of the difficulty lay this question:
Whether Russia might now move forward, gain control of the Black Sea,
overawe the Porte, force her way through the Sea of Marmora into the
Mediterranean, and thus rectify the mistake of Peter the Great in
building his capital on the Gulf of Finland. All this and much more
was called _The Eastern Question_.

The coast of the Black Sea became the seat of the war that ensued. The
Russians posted themselves strongly in the Crimea. That peninsula was
commanded by the famous fortress of Sebastopol, situated at the
southwestern extremity. On the twenty-fifth of September, 1854, the
heights of Balaklava, lying south of the fortress, were seized by a
British division under command of Lord Raglan. In this way the
Russians were besieged; for the allied fleets had made their way into
the Black Sea, and the land side of Sebastopol was commanded by
Balaklava.

The siege that ensued lasted for nearly eleven months, and was one of
the most memorable of modern times. On two occasions the Russians
sallied forth and gave battle. The first conflict of this kind was on