Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/514

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470 THE BATTLE OF INKERMAN. CHAP, and re-pluuge their bayonets into the body of a — . — '— prostrate, disabled adversary, had been 'conse- ' crated ' only a few hours before by blessings and prayers, and psalms and anthems grandly roaring for blood.* In answering the denunciation, which reached him under a flag of truce, Prince Mentschikoff resorted to one of those shameless forms of Rus- sian denial, for which Wellington found the right word,t and loftily repudiated the complaint as a charge which could not be even listened to, if brought against the Imperial array generally ; de- claring that a defenceless enemy was, and always would be, under the protection of the Russian flag. He, however, admitted it to be possible — though he did not, he said, know the fact — that ' individually, and in the heat of combat,' some exasperated soldier may have suffered himself to do an act of violence which was to be deeply re- gretted ; but then he went on to show that, sup- posing the imputed butcheries to have been really committed, they must have been provoked, after all, by a religious sentiment. His countrymen, he said, were an eminently religious people, who could not but be filled with horror when they learnt that a church — very holy in their estimation — had been desecrated by the invaders of Russia; and thence he went on to conclude that, if any of

  • As to the relij^ious, ur rather ecclesiastical, orii,'iii of the

war (which had been almost forgotten by statesmen, but not by either the priests or the common soldiei's of Russia), see ' Inva- ' sion of the Crimea,' vol. i. As to the 'consecration' for Inkernian, see ante, chap. ii. sec. iv. t ' It sickens me.' — Duke of Wellington to Lord Aberdeen.