TIIR COUNSKLS OF THE ALLIES. 185 'Nothing less than an army can be competent, chap. ' Well, but the only army the enemy has at his
- present disposal is the one which has marched
' off to Baktchi Serai, having with it Prince ' Mentschikoff in person, the Commander-in-Chief ' of all the Czar's forces in the Crimea, both mili- ' tary and naval. We do not accurately know ' the strength of the detachments which Prince ' Mentschikoff may have left in the place ; * but ' whether they be great or small, it is, of course,
- a huge advantage to us, in assailing an en-
' trenched position, to have to do with some mere ' fractions of an army instead of with the army ' itself. Prince Mentschikoff may have been led ' lo withdraw his army from a despair of being ' able to save it alive by any less ugly ex- ' pedient ; f or he may have been acting, in ' part, from a cogent desire to insure the junc- ' tion of expected reinforcements ; J or, again, he
- was perhaps impelled by the blended force of
' both motives ; but every supposition which ' seeks to explain his withdrawal, invites us to ' be prompt and summary — invites us to storm ' the defences whilst yet the field army is absent. 'It is surmised — and this especially in the ' French camp — that the Prince may have with- ' drawn from Sebastopol with a determination to
- We do now : 5000 militiamen, as I call tliem, and some
companies of sappers. There was, besides, a battalion which lost its way in the course of the march towards the IJelbcc, and came back at night into the town. t It was so. See nn(e, chap. vi. X This also was one of his motives for the step. Sec ibid.
