If these orders had been destined to be carried out under Menschikoffs own superintendence, their vagueness might be excusable. But, regarding himself apparently as the commander of all the forces in the locality, he committed the direction of the two bodies who were to make the main attack to another officer, General Dannenberg, who was to take command of
1 38 How carried out.
them " as soon as they shall have effected their junction." This general only received his orders at five o'clock in the evening of the 4th, and neither he nor Menschikoff appears to have been then aware of the obstacle which the Careenage ravine — its sides nearly inaccessible — offered to the combined action of troops astride of it, and both of them dealt with the ground on both sides of it as one clear battlefield. After many perplexing orders had been issued, Dannenberg seems to have at length realised the nature of the chasm which would intersect his front, and he therefore made further arrangements for the advance of his two generals on the two sides of it. But Soimonoff had interpreted the orders of the Commander-in-Chief as directing him to advance on the eastern side of the ravine ; he had framed his plan for the movement, and submitted it to Menschikoff, who, though he must have seen how it conflicted with Dannenberg's scheme, seems to have made no attempt to decide between them. Soimonoff, therefore, followed his own idea, and thus it came to pass that 35,000 men, with 134 guns, were crowded into a space insufficient for half their numbers, while Dannenberg, who possibly only learned on the field of this wide departure from his design, was left to conduct an enterprise the plan of which he could not approve.
Here a moment's pause may be made to point out that, when two bodies of troops, separated by a distance of several miles, were to move by narrow issues to the ground where they were to join forces, it would have been an immense advantage to possess a commanding fortified point between them and the enemy. Shell Hill
Proximity of Corps to Battlefield. 139
would have been such a point, and that circumstance will -be seen to be amply explanatory of the Russian design in the action of the 2Oth of October.
Against the formidable attack in preparation, the menaced ground was then occupied by very nearly 3000 men of the Second Division, placed on the alert by the attack on their outposts. On the adjoining slope, the Victoria, was Codrington's Brigade, which, with some marines, and three companies brought in the course of the action from Buller's Brigade, numbered 1400 men, and, as these might be regarded as partly the object of the attack, they remained throughout the action on the same ground. Close to them was the Naval Battery, which had been placed to fire on the Malakoff, but four of its heavy guns had been withdrawn to the siege works, and only one remained, which could not be brought to bear till the close of the battle.
Three-quarters of a mile in rear of the Second Division was the brigade of Guards, which was able to bring into action 1331 men.
Two miles in rear of the Second Division were the nearest troops of Bosquet's army corps, stretched round the south-eastern corner of the Upland.
Buller's Brigade, on the slope adjoining Codrington's, was a mile and a half from the Second Division. Cathcart's Division (Fourth), two miles and a half from the Second Division, and England's (Third), three miles, were on the heights in rear of our siege batteries.
Soimonoff issued from the fortress before "dawn, crossed the Careenage ravine, and ascended the northern
1 40 Soimonoff A t tacks.