Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/525

 SEQUEL TO INKERMAN NARRATIVE, 481 It may be added that the personal position of cmap Dannenberg on Mount Inkerman with Pauloff's '_ troops only, would have been one of an anomalous kind ; for he must have had to wait until other generals should win a battle before becoming en- titled to assume his destined command.* It is true that the slaughter incurred by the Russians was in great measure owing to the heavi- ness of the masses in which they attempted to fight ; and at first there seemed ground for infer- ring that this excessive conglomeration of soldiery must have been caused by heaping 40,000 men on Mount Inkerman alone, and thus depriving them of the space they required for effective action ; but the conclusion was one reached through study by the diligent men of Berlin comparing num- bers with maps, and had no sound basis of fact. The heaviness of the masses into which the Russians packed themselves resulted from their attachment to a gross, huddled method of fight- ing ; and this is well enough shown by adverting to the tactics they followed in another battle. On the Alma, their numbers, instead of being exces- sive, were much too scanty for the position, and yet even there, they fought huddled, choosing rather to leave precious ground altogether unoc- cupied than to abstain from their gross formations. So again on the 26th of October, though the force shift with smaller supports andreseiTes than those which heac- tuaUi/ maintained, he woiild have had only 1 676 men available for an attack. 16,556-5844-9036=1676. See awfe, pp. 149-151. VOL. VI. 2 H
 * See ante, chap. ii. sec. iJi.