Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 3.djvu/343

BATTLE OF THE ALMA. 317 schikoff's infantry reserves, and drove them at chap once from the field. This discomfiture of the '._ Russian centre could not but govern the policy of Kiriakoff, obliging him to conform to its move- ment of retreat ; and he must have been the more ready to acknowledge to himself the necessity of the step he was taking, since by this time he had suffered the disaster which was inflicted upon liis great 'column of the eight battalions' by the French artillery. He retreated without being molested by the French infantry, to take up a nev/ position at a distance of two miles from the Alma ; and soon afterwards, though the heads of their columns were struck by artillery fire, the French thronging up in great strength took pos- session of the Telegraph Height. At the moment when the French heads of columns appeared on the crest they had reached, Colonel Hood's Grena- diers in a distant part of the field were moving up to attack the battalions confronting them on the Kourgane Hill, and there, within a few minutes after a sheer fight of infantry, the enemy's whole strength was broken and turned to ruin by the Guards and the Highlanders. Thenceforth the slaughter that is wrought by artillery upon retreatiug masses was all that remained to be fulfiUed. XLIX. The trophies, we saw, were scanty. But was Themceacf there a gain of that priceless spoil which one earned on ° ^ . ^ . the Alms. nation takes from another when it proves itself the