in in which melancholy offices they received the most material assistance from both the officers and men of the fleet, who displayed an indefatigable zeal and a warmth of sympathy beyond all praise. The Eussians, who had been entirely abandoned by their own people, having had their wounds bound and dressed, were left under the care of Dr. Thompson of the 44th, who heroically devoted himself to this arduous and trying task, and who, soon after rejoining the head-quarters of the British Army, fell a victim to cholera; the result, it is scarcely possible to doubt, of his philanthropic exertions in behalf of the enemy. " At daybreak on the 23rd the British Army was under arms, and soon after the Allies moved from those heights to which so many memories of sorrow and of glory are attached, and marched in the direction of the river Katcha, on the banks of which they arrived about three o'clock in the afternoon, without having come upon a trace of 'the enemy. After having crossed the river, however, they beheld the most indisputable evidences of a precipitate flight, amounting to panic, on the part of the Eussian Army. The road was covered with arms, accoutrements, and cartridges, which had been hastily abandoned to facilitate the rajjidity of their retreat, and the account given by some Tartars who came into the British lines, confirmed the obvious deductions "from data so clear. The Eussians, it appears, had reached the Katcha on the night of the battle, and an alarm having spread that the English and French were in pursuit, dreading a fresh encounter with foes flashed with victory and confident of success, they had manifested the better part of valour, and decamped.
This circumstance renders the want of Cavalry at Alma, and the inevitable delays subsequent to the battle, the more to be deplored, since it can scarcely be doubted that, had the false alarm been a founded one, the Eussian presentiments would have been verified in the issue, and it is difficult to limit the advantages which might have accrued from such a result.
On the 24th the armies marched on the Belbek Eiver, and finding the Eussians in position on its right bank, they took ground to the left, thus turning the Eussian batteries, and the English occupied the village of Belbek for the night.
The Allies were now within four miles of Sebastopol, and in all probability there was not a soul in eithei' army, with the exception of the Commanders and those in their confidence, who did not anticipate that the Northern side of the fortress was to be the object of attack. The place originally chosen for the landing, the hne of march subsequent to the battle of the Alma, and many other circumstances, would combine to suggest such a plan of operations as being the one most likely to have been decided on by the two Generals, and indeed it is believed with reason that the course eventually adopted was in part the result of a careful reconnaissance of the l fortifications on this side ol the town. These were known to be in themselves stronger than those on the South, and were found on observation to have been still further strengthened since the landing of the Allies in the Crimea had appeared to indicate to the enemy the direction of the attack which they had to dread. Any attempt on this side therefore was certain to be attended with delay and loss, nor did the mouths either of the Katcha or the Belbek afford so sure an anchorage as might have justified their being taken as a base of operations in the event of a i^rotracted siege. On the other hand, the fortifications to the South were of a less formidable character, and were supposed to be even slighter than the event proved them, while ttie Chersonesus was known to possess harbours, commencing with that of Balaklava, which would afford shelter to a number of vessels, greater even than that required in so extensive an enterprise. Some such considerations as these must have determined the march upon Balaklava, a movement whose boldness of conception was only equalled by the judiciousness of its execution, and the good fortune with which that execution was attended.
This great flank march, one of the happiest strategic inspirations on record, which at the time when it was carried out was the theme of loud and universal eulogy, has since fallen into some degree of disfavour, from the supposed disproportion of its results to the anticipations formed. Such is at best but an illogical mode of arriving at an opinion, but even by this standard it may be fairly defended, since it must, at least, remain a matter of doubt whether the difficulties, delays, and disasters which marked the progress of the siege on the South, would not have been equalled, perhaps outstripped, by those the Allies would have had to encounter on the North.