Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/199

 THE MAIN FIGHT. If) 5 and reserves already lending tlieir weight to the chap. defence of Mount Inkerman. Such a comment '__ would not be unfair; but, if forces which were ^"^p*^^ only approaching are treated as part of the strength, they must be counted, of course, on each side, and under that mode of reckoning the disparity of the compared numbers will still ap- pear great ; for then, with a present and an ap- proaching strength, comprising altogether scarce more than 7000 infantry and less than forty pieces of cannon, the English must be found to have stood confronted by a body of 35,000 foot * and 135 guns of which 54 were 12-poundGrs. And it can scarcely be said that in this early The strength part of the fight the English foot-soldiery made ground not " • 1 • 1 r taken ad- up for scant numbers by using their advantage ot vantage of (Tround ; for those of their infantry who engaged English o ' ^ ^ < ^ infantry. the enemy's columns did not even in any one instance stand still to await the attack behind their sheltering heights, but always, on the con trary, pushed forward, and chose the scene of each combat by simply striking at the enemy wherever they chanced to find him. The mist was a circumstance which at first Efrectof crave advantage to General Soimonoff; but it on the " ° respective afterwards proved a graver embarrassment to forces, the Russians — engaged as they were on strange ground — than to the troops of our 2d Division, long camped on Mount Inkerman, and defending, as it were, their own copse. The Russians, it is true, had masses so great and so dense in pro
 * 35,385.