152 THE liATTLE OF INKERMAN. CHAP. And, as regards the numbers actively participat- ' ing in that decisive series of combats which ut Period, ^egan with Egerton's charge, the disproportion and of those ° ^ . n l actively was Bven morc huge ; for the twenty Russian engaged in , , . „ the decisive battalious throwu forward to assail General conflicts. Pennefather with the might of full 15,000 men* were themselves assailed and defeated, nay, brought to sheer ruin ; and (apart from the op- portune aid contributed by Turner's three guns) all the blows which produced this result came from small and separated bodies of English in- fantry scarce numbering altogether 1200 ; M-hilst, moreover, the sixteen battalions which the enemy held in reserve were themselves so far dominated that they made no effort to avert or retrieve the overthrow thus inflicted upon their comrades. Inaction of Thosc sixtecu battalions, it is true, remained Tesetvls7 unshaken, and had hardly, indeed, been subjected to any special strain on their courage, for, besides being kept out of fire, they all of them occupied heights from which they could see little or nothing of their fugitive brethren now draining off through the ravines. But the loss of General Soimonoff — the soul of the enterprise — and of General Villebois, and an appalling number of other officers — many high in command — was of itself almost fatal to any hope of obtaining fresh ser- vice from the remnants of the defeated columns , and, upon the whole, it resulted that this discom- minofhis fiture of the twenty battalions which actively en- batuiitons"" gaged in the attack was not a mere repulse, but, • Their strength at the outset was 15,420.
