Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 9.djvu/72

42 THE RENEWED EXPEDITION TO KEBTOH. chap. Of those two tracts of ground far disji lined from ' each other which Baron Wrangel, if able, would have anxiously sought to defend, the one towards the east comprised the Coast batteries fraught with the absolute control of the Straits, and its retention he might well deem momentous, since only to that very end was he there with horse, foot, and artillery ; but then he could not forget that the command of free access to the Isthmus and the roadway along its whole course was something more than 'momentous' to him and his forces — was in truth rather what men call ' vital,' because involving his all-precious com- munications with the main army under Prince Gortchakoff to which he belonged, and the Gov- ernment of the country he served. In common land-warfare, a distance of some seventy miles between two tracts of ground that have to be guarded may not be a circumstance hampering to plans for defending them both; but it grievously baffled resistance to squadrons with troops on board, and propelled by steam-power at a rate vastly greater than any that battalions of Foot can attain by marching and countermarching along the weary miles of a road. To mistake a feint for the opening of a real attack might be to incur a disaster; yet how to distinguish between the two operations by merely watching ships out at sea ? The Allies made no feint ; but by simply advancing straight forward to what, as we know, was their object, they did not prevent Baron Wrangel from thinking that the movement was