Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 9.djvu/115

 ers. HELPLESSNESS OF RUSSIA IN THESE REGIONS. 85 unerased in endeavouring to secure both their ciiai Straits and their Kertchine Peninsula from the !_ much-apprehended attacks;* whilst, so far as concerned the advantage of being newly put on his guard, Baron Wrangel was specially blest; since but three weeks before, he had seen and studied the lineaments of the then approaching Armada not as yet overtaken at sea by Can- robert's words of recall. Nor again can the main of what followed be nor (in o the main) fairly said to result from the faults or defaults JgJjjJJ of the Russian commanders. Baron Wrangel command- was plainly unable to defend the Kertchine Peninsula, and warranted therefore in yielding. Rear-Admiral Wuiff on the whole could hardly perhaps do much better than destroy, as he did, his own squadron. General Khoumatoff, when abandoning the Circassian fortresses and the whole Circassian coast, acted under the painful stress of what — perhaps rightly — he judged to be hugely superior force; and, although it may be that, if led with a valour in action proportioned to the valour in words displayed by the officers summoned on the shores of the Sea of Azof, the troops under Prince Lobanoff-Rostoffsky, under General Krasnoff, and under Colonel KostrukofF might have saved a good deal of their sovereign's property, and subjected the Allies to some loss, they, even so, could not have met the full stress of the naval invasion, or altered at all its main issue.
 * Todleben, vol. ii. pp. 267 et seq.