Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 4.djvu/123

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ARMY FROM SKBASTOPOL. 93 only about six miles above that part of the CHAP. stream on which the English were then liivou- '. — acked.* From that village of Otarkoi, a half- hour's ride of the Prince's cavalry scouts along the road through Duvankoi would have brought them in full sight of the English army. At the moment when Lord Raglan came suddenly upon a Kussian battalion and waggon-train, all the rest of the army then marching under Prince Ment- schikoff, including Kiriakoifs force, had already passed to the eastward of INIackenzie's Earm. At the village of Otarkoi Prince jNIentschikoff re- mained a great part of the day ; and at about eleven o'clock in the morning, both he and his army were so placed, that those commanders who pass much of their life in sighing after the great occasion which comes but too rarely, would be likely to regard him, in that forenoon of the 25th of September, as a man to be keenly envied. His wdiole army, with all its train, except a Tiie oprnr- 11 tunity tlien few waggons and a small rear-guard, was already oirerea him. on that part of the road which is to the eastward of Mackenzie's Earm ; but, at the same time, no part of it was distant enongh to be out of his reach; so that, if he should see reason to stop the march of his more advanced columns, and assemble his army in the neighbourhood of jNfackenzie's Earm, he would be able to do this by an early hour in the afternoon. Ilis troops

  • I say the7i bivoiiackcil, because the time sjiolcen of is ciglit

A.M., and the foremost column of the English army did not march till half an hour later.