Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/106

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62 THK BATTLE OF INKE11MAJ!T. CHAP. Calm, trustful, assuring, every message that came ^- from liiiu tended to avert or allay all alarm for the safety of the Victoria Kidge ; and Lord Rag- lan, never finding it necessary to be there present in person, was able to remain undistracted at the seat of the real attack. V. Result of We have now passed from west to east through m'adebyu.e all that part of the battle which extended along Karnson. ^^^ Sebastopol frout to ground on the verge of Mount Inkerman, and are left after all to con- clude that if Prince Gortschakoff's measures on the opposite flank did but little to arrest the march of French and English reinforcements, General Moller with far greater numbers efiected stiK less. It was not to TimoviefTs vigorous sortie that the paucity or the tardiness of the succours obtained from Forey's siege-corps could rightly be traced ; and, so far as concerns English troops despatched from their lines before Sebas- topol to encounter General Dannenberg's masses, the garrison did not even endeavour to forbid this transfer of strengtli by feigning an attack on our trenches. It is true that in proportion to their huge task, the English reinforcements were pressed, though in vain (through Mackenzie), that the three companies of the 19th, wliic}i had been brouglit to his ridge, should go off to Mount Inkerman. Ker, Lidwill, and Bright, and the officers and men of the three companies, were eager to do so ; but the Major resolved to place them, as before shown, on the west side of the Victoria Ridge.