Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/132

 88 THE BATTLE OF INKEEMAN. CHAP, fessed to take it for granted that Soimouoff — ■ ' in forgetfulness of all past decisions — would be making his attack on the west of the Careenage Ravine, and gave him accordingly three sub- sidiary directions, all plainly based on the as- sumption that the Victoria Ridge, and not Mount Inkerman, was to be Soimouoff's theatre of action* Indeed his aide-de-camp says that he parted at night from Soimonoff's people with an *au revoir' for the morrow on the crown of the Victoria Ridge. With the same object, and still using the same indirectness of language, Dannenberg sent a re- port to Headquarters which, however obliquely expressed, still said quite enough, it would seem, to arouse almost any commander, and force him Prince at ouce to arbitrate ; f but Prince Mentschikoff, koft'snou- as though seized by that torpor which oltentiuu's iiit6rf6r6iic6. palsies a man who has long been preparing great issues, did not so interpose his authority as to take care that Dannenberg should be either over- ruled or obeyed ; and, the expedient of personal interviews or of further communications by the pen not being adopted, Soimouoff was left in his Soimonoff's dilemma. He had either to accept the strangelv tUial deter-. miuation. indirect language of one not yet in strictness his chief as a sufficing warrant for the abandonment of a plan adopted and still tacitly sanctioned by Prince Mentschikoff, or else venture to resist the directions of a general who on the morrow (if t See this the 'Third Papor' in the A^jpeudix. Kote VI.
 * See Ids •Secoiul Paper' in the Appendix, Note VI.