Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/563

 APPENDIX. 519 proportion of the slain were killed in the act of exerting their strength to the utmost, and then it was that ' biting ' the dust ' became -ilmost an equivalent for being killed in battle. However hotly engaged, a modern infantry soldier does not commonly exert, whilst halted, any great amount of physical strength, and the instances in which he liter- ally * bites the dust ' are comparatively rare. NOTE XIII. The Immediate Cause op the Enemy's Retreat. 'BiENTOT le feu meurtrier de I'artillerie ennemie nous ' contraignit k faire retraite sur la ville.' — Dannenberg's Despatch. That the statement referred to the 18-pounders is apparently certain ; for, apart from the power of those two guns, the Allies were grievously inferior to the enemy in the artillery arm. Indeed Mentschikoff in his despatch* gave the required point to Dannenberg's general expression, and distinctly ascribed the irresistibly coercive power of the allies to the ' siege artillery ' brought up by the English — i.e., to the two 18-pounders. Dannenberg does not men- tion any pressure from infantry at this juncture ; but that omission is quite consistent with the above surmise, for it is not at all probable that he could have seen the few sol- diery who worked their way up through brushwood to assail the battery, and to him it would seem that the bat- tery was succumbing to the fire of the 18-pounders alone. The discomfiture sustained by this particular battery was made specially signal, and to a Russian observer distress- ing, by the fact that, in order to carry off the dismounted
 * Quoted ante, note, Sixth Period, sec. i.