Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/524

 480 THE BATTLE OF INKERMAN. CHAP, which Soiinonotf had spread out before them hy ^"^- coming up first to the topland with his 20,000 infantry as well as 38 guns, and from first to last they were supported by those 9000 foot, all be- longing to Soiinouoft^'s force, who along with their artillery comrades were the garrison, if so one may call it, of the stronghold formed on Shell Hill. Without those priceless advantages it seems idle to say that Pauloff's troops only could have overwhelmed General Pennefather, or even forced him to ask for large succours. The only troops under Pauloff which dispensed with the base pro- vided for them by Soimonoff were the 6000 men of the Taroutine and Borodino regiments.* Those 6000 men, it is true, found a way of their own into action, but with a result which showed how ill Dannenberg could really aflbrd to act upon his own crude idea ; for the whole of them were not only defeated at once by some 800 men of Penne- father's Division, but finally exterminated from the battle-field. If Dannenberg had had no troops of Soimonoff's on Mount Inkerman, he must have found himself reduced to sheer im potence before eight o'clock in the morning ; for after the ruin and flight of his Taroutine and Borodino regiments, the necessity of providing a reserve and support to his guns would have ab- sorbed so great a proportion of hh remaining infantry as to leave him without the means of attempting any attack.-f- + (Tnlcss in tlio fmjrpoxcd state of tilings 1ir could liave mailc
 * 5844.