WHITE TO PLAY AND WIN

‘One evening in Sevastopol while Tolstoy was sitting with his adjutants and the Commander of the Garrison, Prince Urusov entered the room and wished to speak to the general. When ten minutes passed Urusov left looking very glum. After he had gone the adjutant explained to Tolstoy that Urusov had come to suggest that a challenge should be sent to the English to play a game of chess for the foremost trench of the Fifth Bastion: a trench that had changed hands several times and had already cost some hundreds of lives. The Commander naturally refused to issue the challenge.’ (The Life of Tolstoy: First Fifty Years, 1908)