Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/329

 THE MAIN FIGHT. 285 Brought ahout, as wc saw, by mistake, the chap. fights which raged on the Kitspur were a mere waste of strength in so far as concerned the old 2d Period battery, or the ground where it stood ; and their results sway in the battle was owing to no other circum- stance than the havoc they wrought in the numbers and organisation of the contending forces. That havoc, however, was great. Out of some 2600 * English engaged on the Kitspur, near a thousand, it is believed, were killed or wounded ;-f- and besides, though victorious, the remains of the forces thus mangled had not come out of the fight in an orderly or collected state. From the nature of their strife on the Kitspur, but more especially from their unbridled pursuit down the steeps and through copse -wood, our battalions and demi- battalions had become broken up ; and although we shall find them re-forming, and returning to the front with an excellent promptitude, it is still very plain that for the purpose of immediate and organised resistance to the next impending attack, we hardly can now count on any of those magni- ficent troops — 2600 in their original number — + The casualties which occurred in the several regiments con- tributing to the force on the Kitspur were 1275, but that re- turn includes the casualties in the three wings which fought elsewhere, with also those losses which were sustained by the combatants of the Kitspur in other parts of the field ; and, upon the whole, [ conceive that the estimate of 1000 cannot be far from the truth. It must not be supposed, however, that all the wounded were disabled.
 * 2646.