Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/125

VI. THE MAIN FIGHT. 81 whole range of the English Heights with power- chap. fill batteries supported by a proportionate force of good infantry, might be trusted to keep his hold against assailants double in number. But it was no such smooth problem as this that offered itself for solution on the morning of the 5th of November. Far indeed from having the 60 guns and the 20,000 troops which would elicit the military value of the English Heights, Gen- eral Pennefather had only in the early morning 12 pieces of field-artillery and something less than 3000 foot, with a right to expect reinforce- ments of uncertain amount as well as at uncer- tain intervals, from time to time coming up ; and it did not, of course, follow that heights, excel- lent as a standing-ground for a whole army-corps, must be a proportionately good stronghold, or even any stronghold at all, for a general thus weak in numbers. So, whatever General Penne- father may be presently shown to have achieved by dint of sheer fighting in many parts of the field, we shall scarce see him forming or wielding that particular engine of defensive war which soldiers call a force ' in position.' III. The upwold in the immediate rear of Mount The ground Ti oo 1 ^ ij_T 1 close in rear Inkerman anorded no second standing-ground, of Mount either natural or artificial, to troops which by stress of battle might be driven back through the Isthmus from the position of the English Heights: VOL. VI. F