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BATTLE OF THE ALMA. 291 Taroutine and the four ' Militia ' battalions ; but, chap. supposing that the breaking-up of the ' Militia ' ^' battalions was by this time virtually complete, Kiriakoff had no infantry on the whole Telegraph Height except the four Taroutine battalions, and the stricken, the bleeding column which he had just withdrawn from the front. Yet at this time, condition though Kiriakoff evidently did not know of the L tbLt%rt proximity of many of the French battalions which were hanging back close under the plateau, there were in reality some thirty thousand Frenchmen and Turks standing on ground from which, in a period of only a few minutes, they might close in both upon his front and his left flank. Without apprehending the extent to which he was encom- passed, Kiriakoff came to see that the troops he had in front of the Telegraph must not be left standing under a cross-fire of artillery. He had not in his own hands the means of repelling or silencing the guns which were pouring their fire from the west along the summit of the plateau ; The result and being without orders, and even, it seems, Kiriakoff without tidings, he tried to find a clue for the oiaservedin guidance of his conduct by learning the course partoAiie which the battle was taking in the English part of the field. Hitherto his glances in that direction had brought him no comfort. Even so early as the time when he pushed back the head of Can- robert's Division, he had found that the English were gaining the ascendancy over the centre and right wing of the Russians. 'When,' he writes — • when the first success of the enemy had been