Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/146

V 102 THE WINTER TROUBLES. CHAP, lately receiving great accessions of strength, and on the morning of . the 25th of October, we saw him. -take, ^yhe v^Qensive. J^>om that day until one, o'clock on the 5th of November, the Allies wercanJer a peremptory challenge, delivered by a largely outnumbering army with settled purpose to crush them ; and during the critical period thus occupying nearly twelve days, there was not and could not have been any thought of having roads made by those too scanty English troops which were performing the enormous task of not only besieging one half of Sebastopoi, but also defending Balaclava, and also, again, defend- ing their Inkerman Heights against the enemy's assembled hosts. Although resulting in victory, the Inkerman morning brought with it so great a disclosure of the enemy's numerical strength that, far from lifting off a huge weight from the minds of the Allied generals, it quickened their sense of the need — the painful need — that there was for preparing resistance to largely superior numbers, and thus doubled the cogency of the motives under which they held fast to their ' siege,' with all its burthensome toils ; because this— like the sword that will thrust, yet can also ' parry ' and ' guard '^ — was not only pointing still to the worlc of attack, but, moreover, now effectively serving to defend the Chersonese Heights. (2^) Thus the ceaseless perseverance of our army in its quasi-siege duties was always essential — was essential from the first, as a part of con- certed attacks on Sebastopoi, and also after the