It cannot be insisted too often that the Sandbag battery was a battery only in name; and that its importance consisted in the fact that it served as a rallying-point, on account of its being a conspicuous object, round which the main struggle on the Kitspur raged. Russian exaggerations have given it a wholly fictitious value; even Todleben, describing the fight a little after eight o’clock, says that the Okhotsk regiment (3000 strong) attacked the Sandbag battery held by their “worthy rivals—the intrepid Coldstream,” that they expelled the latter, and that nine guns were the reward of this brilliant feat of arms! (see Hamley, _War in the Crimea_ , p. 160). ----- “Had he, at the commencement of the battle, pushed these columns resolutely forward, it follows nearly as a matter of course that, by sheer momentum of his heavy masses, the British lines would have been broken through and trampled down utterly. It would have been a question of weight alone. As it was, no devotion, no exertions on the part of the Russian Officers, could at the outset spur their battalions to one grand combined rush. Time was frittered away in a series of persevering but desultory attacks, which were invariably repulsed, thanks to English valour and English firearms.”[291] ----- Footnote 291: _Our Veterans, etc._ , p. 309. It is proper to add that the Russian Rifle corps, 1800 strong, were armed with as good a weapon as our Minié, also that some of the British battalions (the 20th Regiment, for instance, who distinguished themselves greatly in the battle) carried the old smooth-bore musket, known as “Brown Bess” (see Kinglake, v. 475). ----- [Illustration: N.R. Wilkinson del. PRIVATE 1742. Mintern Bros. Chromo.] CHAPTER X. THE WINTER OF 1854-55 IN THE CRIMEA. Prostration of both sides after the battle of Inkerman—Sevastopol not to be taken in 1854—Tardy arrangements to enable the army to remain in the Crimea during the winter—Violent hurricane of the 14th of November; stores scattered and destroyed—The winter begins in earnest—How the Government at home attended to the wants of army at the seat of war—Absence of a road between the base at Balaklava and the front—Miserable plight to which the army was reduced—Indignation in England, and the measures taken to relieve the troops—Admirable manner in which the misfortunes were borne by the British soldiers—Operations on both sides during the winter—The Turks occupy Eupatoria; successful action fought there—The Guards Brigade sent to Balaklava.