Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/520

 476 THE BATTLE OF INKEKMAN. CHAP Vlll. more time, but — more troops. Buller, the Duke of Cambridge, and Cathcart — the Generals who brought up reinforcements — were all early enough in the field, and the real task was to make their scanty numbers suiBce for that ' everywhere ' uttered by Pennefather which summed up in one composite word the positions requiring suc- cour.* The evident pressure of concurring emer- gencies which our people traced to ' surprise ' was brought about in reality by their adversary's com- mand of huge numbers, and his vigorous use of the prerogative which enabled him — because the assailant — to throw immense weight on one spot ; but also, after half-past seven o'clock, by that destructive mistake which led them to imagine that the parapet of the Sandbag Battery must be a part of the Inkerman defences, and that there- fore in that outlying part of the field no less than at home on their own ridge they ought to main- tain a tough fight. EfTorts madf to account Tor tliC de- feat of the Russians. IV. That the Czar — all nations observing him — should have succeeded in assembling some 120,000 troops upon the scene of his projected attack, that fortune should so far have favoured him as to give his people at once a magnificent vantage-ground from which to deal their main blow, and that the 40,000 men chosen out for • See, ante, p. 225, Peuiiofather's answer to Cathcart when asked where troops were wauted.