Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 4.djvu/124

 94 KVASIOX OF MKXTSCHIKOFF AND HIS CHAT, carried bread; and liis trains, reduced, for the _ purpose of tlic march, to a moderate scale, were moving with the rest of the force. Now, the English army, it will be remembered, began the {lank march this same day, at half-past eight in the morning; and supposing that Prince Mentschikofi' — wlio was master of the intervening country, and of ample cavalry forces — had been taking only those common means for ascertaining liis adversary's movements which, even in days not regarded as specially critical, the customs of Avarfare prescribe, he would have learnt, by the time we are speaking of, that Lord Eaglan was moving in force towards jNIackenzie's Farm ; and only a little later, if not indeed some time before, lie must have come to know that the whole Allied army was following the flank movement of the English General. The orders which the Prince might have issued, after making this discovery, would have enabled him to stay the march of his army towards Baktchi Seriii, to face it about, and to dispose it in such way as he might think fit in the woodland and broken ground lying east of the paths by which the Allies had to cross the moun- tain, lie then would have had at his back the country traversed by the great road to Baktchi Serai, and opening to liini his communications with the interior of Kussia; whilst, before him, ho would liave seen the Allies moving painfully across his front in all the helplessness of an army broken up into a trailing column, with a depth so great as to make it a day's march from the rear