Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/205

 THE MAIN FIGHT. 161 could now move his battalions under the cover chap. of nearly ninety guns already in action,* well '__ planted on commanding heights, and extended ^'' Period along a whole mile of front. -j- berg's dis- General Dannenberg, for some reason, deter- mined that, notwithstanding the long, toilsome march which they had even then hardly com- pleted, the troops of the lltli Division just brought up by Pauloff should exclusively con- stitute his attacking force, and that the sixteen battalions, which had been hitherto employed as inactive supports and reserves, should still remain charged with like functions in the approaching fight ; but the disposition of those last troops was now so far altered as to make them extend their protection to the batteries newly placed on East Jut. Though drawn up, from the first, on high ground, and not, for the most part, at any great distances in rear of Soimonoff's guns, the 9000 ^ men composing those supports and reserves had been as free from the strain of actual fighting as the battalions newly brought up ; and, upon the whole, it may be said that (except the troops assailed in their march by Goodlake's thirty men) eighty-six guns in battery. + Of the enemy's 135 pieces, no less than fifty-four were of the great calibre, belonging to what the Russians called ' bat- ' teries of position,' the guns being 12-pounders, with 32- ponnder howitzers.
 * At this moment, or very soon afterwards, there were
 * J: 9036, without counting the 207 Sappers who, however,

were also on th(ground. VOL. VI. L