Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/203

 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 181 to bear upon the issue of the battle. Years after chap that day, when in times of peace and amity the ' narratives, the maps and the plans of the once warring nations were collated and studied, it at last became easy enough for the French and the English to understand the extent of the change which had been wrought in the enemy's position by the victory of our heavy dragoons ; but it was given to Lord Raglan to perceive all this at the time. The defeat of the Russian cavalry carried with The change it, of course, the retreat of the powerful artillery the position which the horse had escorted ; and not only was sums by the defeat the English camp and its vicinity now free from of their cavalry. even the sight of an assailing force, but all that part of the North Valley which divided the Fedi- oukine Heights from the line of the Turkish redoubts was left without troops. The change wrought by Scarlett's dragoons was therefore such, that whereas the Russians, half an hour before, had had a miniature battle array which enabled them for the moment to take the offen- sive and penetrate even home to the English cavalry camp, they were now all at once reduced to what one may call two weak columns — two weak columns having the whole breadth of the North Valley between them, no longer connected with one another except by their rear, and each of them so placed as to be impotently protruding its small narrow head in the face of the divisions coming down from the Chersonese, and debouch- ing in strength upon the plain. An array which