Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/509

 CLOSE OF GENERAL ACTION. 465 antil the defenders of Mount Inkerman should chap. be pressed back by sheer weight of numbers to an ascertained spot; and the unforeseen — nay, unimagined — tenacity of a scanty yet obstinate soldiery averted the fulfilment of the one con- dition which would serve to unleash him. The Allies, no less than the Eussians, had their inaction of instance of 'non-intervention.' The French forces con-' 1 -u 1 1 V 1 r 1 fronting the works, as we saw, had been pushed lorward Fiagstatr at one point to within a few yards of the ene- my's ramparts ; and perhaps, in that disheart- ening hour when the garrison was learning of the defeat and the slaughter sustained on Mount Inkerman, a determined attack on the Flagstaff Bastion might have led to the fall of Sebas- topol ; but General Canrobert was not in the mood — nay, he hardly, indeed, was the man — for undertaking any such enterprise.* The Allies engaged in the siege did notliing to convert the enemy's overthrow on Mount Inkerman into a crushing disaster. Upon the whole, it may be said that the issue Tiie bearing of this general engagement of the 5th of Novem- AgiitonThe ber was governed exclusively by the issue of the gagemen°i fight on Mount Inkerman ; and, with only those limited qualifications which have been already in- and of the dicated, one might add, that the fight on Mount elsewhere Inkerman was left to run out to its actual conclu- Aght! brave — would, I believe, say this himself. Always willing, and even prone to risk his own litV, he could not bear taking upon himself to sacrifice bis men. VOL. VL 2 G
 * General Canrobert— a man no less candid than personally