nearest point at which the Allies could have touched the Russian communications was Mackenzie's Farm. But the heights there were waterless, therefore the intercepting force could not have remained there ; it must have gone farther, to the Upper Belbek. It would then have been some seventeen miles from its base on the Katcha — one so precarious that a strong breeze from the wrong quarter would render it useless. This long line of supply must have been covered by the rest of the army, throughout its length, from attacks which might be directed on any part of it either by the garrison of Sebastopol on the one side, or by MenschikofFs army in the field on the other. The reduction of a fortress by pressure of this kind must of course be slow in its operation, and had the Allied commanders been reckless enough to put a force into such a position, it would have been impossible to maintain it, under the stress of such enterprises against their communications and their line as the enemy showed himself capable of undertaking shortly afterwards at Balaklava and Inkerman.
On the afternoon of the 24th Lord Raglan visited Marshal St Arnaud, and the arrangements for the flank march were then agreed on. The French commander sat rigidly in his chair during the interview, and his manner and looks showed that his sickness was gaining on him. On leaving the French camp, Lord Raglan said to one of his staff, "Did you observe St Arnaud? — he is dying."* When the visit was * Kinglake.
The Flank March begun. 75
repeated next morning, the Marshal was no longer able to take part in discussion.
On the morning of the 25th the heavy cavalry, a troop of horse-artillery, and a battalion of rifles, were sent as an advanced guard on the road through the woods leading to Mackenzie's Farm. Towards noon the march of the main body began. Four field batteries advanced up one of the roads leading to Sebastopol. Outside a small house by the roadside Lord Raglan and General Airey were seated with a map before them, and Lord Raglan himself indicated to the officer at the head of the column the direction in which it was to strike through the wood on the left of the road, and called out to him to go " south-east." Thereupon the guns, with their waggons and carriages, in long procession, plunged into the narrow woodpath, the wheels crashing through the coppice, and steering by the sun when there was a divergence of ways, kept the main path for about an hour, passing as they went some of the heavy cavalry, small bodies of which were drawn up on their right, on the edge of the heights that looked down on Sebastopol. Their further progress was stopped by the troop of horse-artillery which was halted in the path in front. The cavalry and rifles, either by accident or design, had diverged to the right, and the troop thus found itself leading the advance of the army in ground where it could do nothing effectual for its own defence, and was devoid of all proper protection or support. Presently Lord Raglan rode up with his staff, demanding sharply why the troop had halted, and ordered it immediately to proceed, himself leading the way. The march
76 Rencontre with Menschikoff' s Rear.
was continued in this extraordinary manner, the headquarter staff first, then thirty guns in long procession, through a thick wood, and moving round an enemy's fortress and army. What this might have portended was presently made evident, for in an open space Lord Raglan came suddenly on a Russian column moving at right angles to his own course.