Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/245

 OPERATIONS OX THE DANUDi:. 215 schaltofF perhaps overrated the force which had chap. come with the British flag. At all events, he did uot instautly move dowu to the attack ; and whilst he seemed to hesitate, the Turks and the English worked hard. Captain Bent and his sappers, with the aid of our seamen and the Turks, threw a bridge of boats across the main stream of the Danube. This done, it was plain that, if Gortschakoff were to attack, he would have to do, not merely with the five thousand Turks already established on the left bank, but with the whole of the force which lay at Eust- chuk. He resolved to avoid the encounter. Retreating upon Bucharest, he no longer dis- puted with the Turks for the mastery of the Lower Danube. In this campaign on the Danube, those who fought for the cause of the Sultan were helped, it is true, by Fortune, by the anger and unskil- fulness of the Czar, by the assured support of Austria, and by the impending power of England and France ; but still there is one point of view in which their achievement was a great one. Military ascendancy is so closely connected with En-odofthe military reputation, that to be the first to bring ^e"iS« down the warlike fame of a great empire is to °"ry s'lceu-" do a mighty work, and a work, too, which hardly uHsia? can fail to change the career of nations. By the time that Prince Gortschakoff retreated upon ' benzie and the town of Giurgevo with gunboats, which was ' done ; otherwise the Russians would have turned the posi- ' tion of Slobenzie.' — Note lo ilh Edition.