Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/79

 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 57 santly, by preventing it from getting into battery, oh a P. and, failing that, by disquieting its batteries when formed. The decision of Lord Lucan was much governed his decision by a sense of the great need there would be for the aid of our cavalry if the enemy, after carrying all the outer defences, should come on and attack Balaclava;* but it would also seem that his deter- mination — a determination entirely approved, and even, I hear, originated by Sir Colin Campbell — involved a leaning to the first of the two opinions above indicated. Be this as it may, the result was that, without The r us - being met by any hindrance on the part of our fered to " cavalry, the Eussians were suffered to advance their bat- from three points of the compass and converge out nind- -i • t -i-i i-i ranee from upon the chain of little redoubts which extended our cavalry from Canrobert's Hill to the Arabtabia. The thousand or twelve hundred Turks who manned the three works thus assailed saw converging upon them some eleven thousand infantry and thirty- eight guns. Upon the heights of Kamara, which overlooked Canrobert's Hill from the east, and upon the part of the Causeway Heights which overlooked the same work from the north, the enemy placed thirty guns in battery ; and he now opened fire upon the work crowning Canrobert's Hill, as also upon the Fort Number Two. He Artillery fire was answered by the Turks with their five Im- pounders ; -J- and, for a while, by our troop of t Three on Canrobert's Hill, and a couple on the Number Two Redoubt.
 * See Lord Lucan 's statement in the Appendix,