Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 4.djvu/501

 APPENDIX. 471 part of their forces to watch his movements, and protect their com- imiuications. 22. Upon the subject of the number of men inside the place it is remarkable that General Todleben nowhere precisely mentions the aggregate force which the Russians possessed ; but the forty-four battalions must have represented a very large body of men. In fact, in one part of his book he describes a battalion as consisting of 970 men. His description of '16,500 combcUtants outre les troupes de ' marina placSes sur la ligne de defense du cole sud, et les artilleurs des ' batteries de cote,' conveys little information, and omits 3500 troops on the north side of the harbour, which were manifestly available at this time to resist an assault against the south. Upon the whole, I believe my original estimate of 25,000 men is by no means ex- aggerated. The deserters from the Russian army estimated their force inside the place as much higher, and although the statements of deserters are not to be depended on, they represented the impres- sion within the place among their own men. 23. I remember well that during one of our earliest reconnaissances, the Russians made an ostentatious display of a very large force within view of our glasses, and there were certainly more than 20,000 men on the ground upon that occasion. Nobody who reads General Todlebeu's account of the state of the place at this period but must remark that a manifestly forced attempt is made to reduce the value of the description of their means in this respect. Rus- sian Generals do not seem to be easily satisfied with the amount of force at their dis])osal. For my own part, I should have been very glad to have defended Sebastopol at this period with 20,000 men. 24. The works on the south side, according to General Todleben, mounted, at the period of the arrival of the Allies, 174 pieces of artillery, varying in calibre from 30 to 12 pounders. Stress is laid upon many of these guns being of small size ; but against an open assault the smaller class of guns is more efficient than the larger, from the rapidity of the service of the piece ; and the Allies possessed no guns as large as the smallest of the Russian pieces. In addition to these means of defence, men-of-war were moored with their broad- sides bearing upon the approaches to the place. The effect of these preparations was such that Colonel Elphinstone, in his account of the siege, shows that the ground in front of the Karabelnaia suburb, over which the British must have advanced to the assault, was swept by the fire of upwards of 100 pieces of artillery. After deducting the necessary guard for Balaclava and our communications, and the