Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 4.djvu/125

ARMY FROM SEBASTOrOL. 95 to the Villi, and a front so narrow as to consist of chap. one gun and one horseman — and all tins defiling [ through forest or steep mountain-paths. Some of these roads, too, and especially the mountain-road descending from the iMackenzie Heights to the valley of the Tchernaya, there would have hceii time to break up or obstruct. To add to his advantages, the Eussian army would have had abundant water in its immediate rear, whilst the Allies, after draining the last turbid cupful from Mackenzie's Farm, would have been condemned to bear the torment of thirst, with a liability to liave their sufferings aggravated indefinitely by the detention, and the labour which the necessity of having to combat, or prepare for combat, could not fail to occasion. ISTor can it be rightly said that any inferiority in point of numbers, or any depression occasioned by late defeat, unfitted Prince IMentschikoff s army for operations against the uncovered flank of a lengtlicned string of soldiery and waggons pursuing its difficult way through woodland or mountain-roads ; for during at least some hours, the bare numliers of an army thus caught in the process of journeying, with a day's march between A'an and rear, would have no more served to re- press an enemy assailing its uncovered flank, tlian the length, the mere length, of a far-stretching tliroad can avail it against a knife ; and the enter- prises to which the occasion invited were exactly of the kind which may be usefully undertaken with a brave though discomfited army, because