Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/144

 100 THE BATTLE OF INKERMAN. CHAP. VI. st Period. The ease with which the Russians had thus far carried their enterprise. had singularly prospered, for at no greater cost than that of being galled by a picket, they had been able to make themselves masters on fully three-fourths of Mount Inkerman, and to estab- lish their guns on a crest whence they swept the approaches of Pennefather's position, and searched his very camp with their fire. The plan of defence conceived by Evans. V. Eespecting the way in which the 2d Division could best meet an attack such as that now be- gun, two almost opposite ideas had successively reigned in their camp. Sir De Lacy Evans would have concentrated his scant force of 3000 men on the English Heights. Eanging his twelve guns on the crest of Home Eidge, and posting his bat- talions on its reverse slopes, he would have asked that a like disposition of artillery and infantry might be made on the Fore Eidge also, so soon as reinforcements competent to the task should come up. Far from supporting his pickets with fresh troops, he would have been willing to see them driven in after a moderately lengthened resist- ance ; but, the front being then left clear, he would have provided that the enemy's approach- ing columns should be torn by his artillery-fire, and that their shattered remnants, if still coming on, should be met on the crest of the English Heights by well-ordered battalions of infantry springing up at his word of command from their place on the reverse slopes.