Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/47

R?:SOLVE OF THE ALLIES. Resulting from the policy of the ' flank march,' chap. and the more and more siege-like measures which _ — !_- _ followed, there had come upon the Allies before enedSJ*' Inkerman a change of conditions so harsh that *'°°' they who, on the day of the Alma became potentially masters — if not of Sebastopol itself, yet certainly — of all the rest of Crimea, were now without a spot of ground left them except what lay under their feet, and had lost, too, all freedom of movement. Having voluntarily abandoned to the enemy not only his precious line of communication, but almost the whole of the Crimea ; having judged that — at least for the present — Sebastopol must stop them in front ; and, finally, having suffered Liprandi to close round their flank, nay, even to encroach upon their camp, and warn off our people from the Woronzoff road, — they had become com- pletely hemmed in on the land-side. In surrendering themselves thus to the yoke their conse- '-' quent waot of their own chosen strategv, the Allies, amongst of power to °'^ appropriate other thinrfs, ventured to put themselves at war theresour. ° -^ . . , . ces of the with the elements ; and, their armies l}'ing country. camped for the most part on the bleak, open wold of the Chersonese, it was there that they now undertook to confront the approaching winter. But, moreover, for their place of duress they had chosen a pittance of ground so small and so barren that not only did it yield their soldiery no food, but even denied them what they needed of forage and fuel — things that rarely before had been wanting to the victorious invaders of a country in whicii hay and wood-