Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 3.djvu/212

 186 BATTLE OF THE ALMA. CHAP. L Uelplessiiess of the deep column which was fonued by D'Aurelle's brigade and Prince Napoleon's Division. Condition of Kiriakuff on the Telegrapli HeiLdit. enemy inclined to make a stand against them ; and they were even, it would seem, very lielple.s3 for purposes of mere self-defence.* Indeed, it is hard to see how they could have escaped a great disaster, if a bold ilussian officer who knew the ground had come down with a few score of light- infantry men upon the flank of D'Aurelle's bri- gade. Apparently Kiriakoff's abstinence from all enterprises of this sort, and the quiet confidence with which he afterwards manoeuvred on the pla- teau, were both owing to the steepness of ground which hindered him from perceiving the small slender head of D'Aurelle's column. Upon the whole, then, Kiriakoff, though hand- ling no forces except his two batteries, his four Taroutine battalions, and his fast-dissolving mili- tiamen, was not at this time out of heart. His artillery, sweeping down the smooth cap of the Telegraph Height, both on its northern and north- western sides, commanded the only ground by which Canrobert could advance ; and, firing over the heads of the Taroutine battalions, effectually kept him down. Moreover, it still tormented all those masses of French infantry which, though approaching the Telegraph Heiglit, were not yet so close as to have come in for the shelter which the steepness of the hillside afibrded. And now we shall see the cause of the stress Division and D'Aurelle's brigade were disposed. It is taken from the official French plan of the * Atlas de la Guerre ♦d'Orient.'
 * See the ]>lan showing the way in which Prince Napoleon's