"
"What have you left to pursue with?" asked Lord Raglan, still hoping
to encourage the French to undertake the offensive.
"Seven or eight hundred now, in the first brigade alone."
"To pursue thousands!" exclaimed Canrobert, when this was interpreted
to him; "you must be mad! I will have nothing to do with this; we have
done enough for one day."
Now again, as on the Alma, when the heights had been carried by storm,
the fruits of victory were lost by our unenterprising, over-cautious
allies.
This, indeed, is the true story of Inkerman, as told on incontestable
evidence of the great historian of the war. The French did not rescue
the English from disaster; they were themselves repulsed. At the close
of the action, when they might have actively pursued, their
irresolution robbed the victory of its most decisive results.
It was a terrible and far too costly victory, after all. The English
army, already terribly weak, suffered such serious losses in the fight
that there were those who would have at once re-embarked the remnants
and raised the siege. Retreat on the morrow of victory would have been
craven indeed, but to stand firm with such shattered forces was a bold
and hazardous resolve, for which Lord Raglan deserves the fullest
credit, and the coming winter, with its terrible trials, was destined
to put his self-reliance to the proof.
Pages:
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198