The Czar Nicholas was also angry at the invasion of his dominions and the defeat of his troops; and anger and prudence alike dictated the reinforcement of Prince Menschikoff and the resumption of offensive operations. Accordingly, he gave orders for the march of the 3rd and 4th Corps d'Armée to the Crimea, and by the end of October the Russians outnumbered the Allies by two to one. Prince Menschikoff meanwhile was meditating a counter-stroke, and devising plans to force the Allies to raise the siege. Surveying their position, he deemed it assailable on two points; from the Tchernaya, in front of Balaclava, and from the head of the harbour on the British right flank opposite Inkermann. Perhaps the feasibility of the latter operation was then only germinating in his mind. He was seduced into another operation. The apparent weakness of the British position about Balaclava made him impatient to attack it. From the lofty ridge of Mackenzie, on the north, and from the heights to the east, which on one side look towards the Baidar valley and the road to the Crimean undercliff, and on the other into Kamara and the Balaclava plain, he saw the weak-looking defences of the Allies in front and flank. The little knolls crowned by the Turkish redoubts lay exposed in the plains, nearly two miles from any support. They ran in a curved line north-west from Kamara--No. 1, on a mound called Canrobert's Hill, being nearest to Kamara; and No. 5 being almost under the ridge of Mount Sapoune. Between them and Balaclava and Kadikoi, and on to the Col and the fortified ridge, there was nothing except the Marines on the eastern Balaclava heights, the 93rd in front of the gorge leading to the harbour, the sailors' gun-battery above Kadikoi, and the camps of the British Cavalry Brigades, north-west of that village. Could he not by a rapid and vigorous movement sweep through these defences, expel the Turks, destroy the 93rd, seize Balaclava, destroy the shipping, and cut off the British from their road out to the sea? Having won Balaclava and the heights on both sides, could he not next carry the Col, and so break into the rear of the allied camps, and place them between his guns and bayonets and those of Sebastopol? General Liprandi had arrived with the 12th Division and four regiments of horse and 44 field-guns, and reinforcing these from his over-abundant garrison, Menschikoff determined to attempt the enterprise.