Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 3.djvu/36

 10 KATTLH OF TlIK ALMA. CHAP, nutiiig on the west of the Telegraph Height at a . '. distance ot" two miles from the sea. In that way he thonglit he might elude both of the o])jections above stated ; for his extreme left would be comi)aratively distant from the ship- ping, and the whole ground occupied would be so far contracted that the troops which he had at his command might suffice to hold it. Upon tliis plan he acted. So, although the position of the Alma, as formed by nature, had an extent of more than five miles, the troops which stood charged to hold it had a front of only one league. l*rince Mentschikoff's resolve was based npon an as- sumption that the whole of the ground which he proposed to leave unoccupied was inaccessible to troops ; but if he had walked his horse into the waggon-track, which was within half a mile of his extreme left, he would have found that it led down to a ford opposite to the village of Almatamack, and that, although it is true very steep, the road could still be ascended by artillery. His army had been on the ground for several days, yet, with a strange carelessness, he not only omitted to break up or to guard this road from Almatamack, but based all his dispositions upon the apparent belief that the natural strengtli of the ground secured him against .any hostile approach at- tempted in that ])art of the lield. H«8 forces. The forccs brought forward to defend this position for the Czar were IG squadrons of regu- lar cavalry, besides 11 sotnias of Cossacks, with 44 battalions of infantry supported by 10 bat-