Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 3.djvu/69

CHAP I.

of the Russian officers, the leading divisions of the men in red were massed in no sort of column, and were clearly seen coming on in a slender line—a line only two deep, yet extending far from cast to west. They could not believe that with so fine a thread as that the English General was really in- tending to confront their massive columns.^[1] Yet the English troops had no idea that their forma- tion was so singular as to be strange in the eyes of military Europe. Wars long past had taught them that they were gifted with the power of fighting in this order, and it was as a matter of course that, upon coming within range, they had gone at once into line.

Fire from the shipping. Meanwhile, the war-steamers—eight French and one English—had pushed forward along the shore in single file, moving somewhat in advance of the land-forces; and now, at twenty-five minutes past one o'clock, the leading vessels opened fire against the four guns at the village of Ulukul Aides, and again tried the skill of their gunners upon the distant masses of infantry which occupied the Telegraph Height and the low flat ledge at its base. This last part of the cannonade from the ships was followed by a change of no small moment in the Russian front of battle.

followed by a retrograde movement of Russian troops confronting the French. Convinced that his chief had been guilty of a grievous error in placing the Taroutine and the militia battalions on this low narrow ledge, General Kiriakoff, who commanded in this part