Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 3.djvu/306

 280 BATTLE OF THE ALM.V. CHAP. man. It coukl not but be that bis beavt was in tliG cause. A momentous battle had been raffing. Of one of the contending armies lie was the Commander-in-Chief. He was in full health. He yearned to be acting : yet from the moment when he entrusted to Kiriakoff the great column of the eight battalions, his mind had given no impress to events. The part lie In ovdcr to 866 how tliis camc to be possible, taking ill it must bc remembered, first, that the tract of ground over which Prince Mentschikoff watched was somewhat broad ; and, secondly, that all the decisive fighting of that day was condensed into a narrow period of time. The Allies had been advancing upon a front of five miles ; and all the fights in which the combatants had en- gaged with their ranged battalions took place, as I reckon it, within a period of some thirty- five minutes. Now, if any man used to the saddle, and acquainted also Mith a country of open downs much divided by hollows and ravines, will fasten his mind upon any t^^■o hill-tops or other landmarks which he knows to be five miles asunder, and will then imagine a number of brief events to be happening, first in one part of this extended tract and then in another, but all within little more than half an hour, he will be able to understand how it might be possible for the Russian General to be eagerly riding from east to west and from west to east, yet always being so luckless as never once to strike in upon the ground wdiere the event that