The battle of Inkerman exhausted the energies of the combatants, and for a few days they recoiled from each other, stunned by its effects. The Allies had gained a Pyrrhic victory; another such victory, and their forces must be annihilated. The enemy also had received a crushing defeat, which shattered his military prestige and ruined the _morale_ of his army. Neither side was in a condition to operate against the other, and each faced his opponent listlessly, almost helplessly. But Menshikoff, though disgraced in the field, deserved the gratitude of his Imperial Master, and had every reason to be content with what he had achieved; for, he had gained an advantage of supreme importance. He had put it out of the power of the Anglo-French invaders to finish the war during the year 1854, and thus, while chaining them fast to the bleak and narrow upland of the Chersonese, he had the satisfaction of knowing that they would be exposed to the rigours of the approaching winter. This result was all the more disastrous to us, since, not having foreseen it, we were in no position to meet it, and were unprovided with the means of maintaining our troops in the inhospitable region to which we had become committed. In short, the Allies were about to be handed over to foes far more destructive and terrible than those they had hitherto met. Instead of contending against Russian weapons, they were now also to struggle with the forces of nature and the fury of the elements. On the 6th of November it was finally determined to put off the bombardment, and to winter in the Crimea. The Commissariat Department, informed of this decision, was then, and then only, ordered to make such preparations as would enable the army to remain on the upland. But the tardy order came too late, for in less than ten days the winter began in earnest, and nothing could then be got ready to save the troops from the cruel trials that awaited them. On the day after the battle, the Allies were engaged in burying the dead, in removing the Russian wounded who still lay on the ground, and in clearing the field of the traces of the struggle. An invitation addressed to General Menshikoff to agree to a truce, and to send out his men to bury their own dead, was refused, for that prudent commander was naturally disinclined to give his troops so sombre and depressing an object-lesson of their utter inefficiency in the field. His army, however, met this invitation in another fashion, and, whether in error or by design, they answered it by firing upon our burying parties. As another attack was feared, the front was cleared of incumbrances as soon as possible, and the wounded were promptly taken to Balaklava. Their sufferings were considerable; there was a scarcity of hospital comforts and appliances at the seat of war, and the ambulances in use were unfitted for the purpose of conveying injured men.