Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 3.djvu/324

 298 BATTLE OF THE ALMA. CHAP, turmoil, and there is reason to fear that, with the ^- shouts of the victors, there mingled the voices of the hapless riflemen crying vainly for quarter; and although the Eussian guns were withdrawn, French batteries, pursuing with fire, still main- tained the roar of artillery. With such sights and sounds to guide them, observers might easily im- agine that the Telegraph Height was the theatre of a struggle which must include in its area the clash of hostile battalions ; but, as from the battle-field itself, so also from the imaginations of men brooding over it, the smoke after some time was lifted ; and for that assemblage of facts which was needed to constitute a real infantry fight, one essential ingredient proved wanting. No Rus- sian battalion was present ; and accordingly the im- petuous Zouaves, no less than their more gentle comrades of the line, were precluded by sheer want of opponents* from the means of engaging Telegraph itself, I find that I might have averted the con- troversy to which the above statement gave rise. In the 'Souvenirs d'un officier du 2'"'= Zouaves,' published in 1859, the 'opponents' are thus estimated: — 'The 1st Regiment of ' Zouaves operates the same movement ; the two regiments ' [i.e., the 1st and 2d Zouaves, which had together a strength of about 3000— they kept a strengtli of no less than 27G8 even so late as the following November] ' arrive at the foot of the ' tower, of which they take possession, notwithstanding the ' resistance of two companies of sharpshooters armed with large ' rifles,' pp. 144, 145. Considering that the Zouaves were 3000, followed close by many thousands more of French troops, and that the Russians attempting to obstruct them were estimated iij their as.'iailanls at 'two companies,' it will hardly be denied any more that there was that 'sheer want of opponents' which is suggested iu the text. — Note to 5th Edition.
 * So far as concerned the notion of a serious fight at the