render their right of private judgment. Their strategic prejudices were shocked and confounded by the irregularity of the whole proceeding; and they required some weeks after the landing to recover from that fluttered and flurried state which so frequently led them to complain of their more sedate and less mercurial allies as slow.

We are not going to re-write the battle of Alma; but we must revert to two or three of its most remarkable episodes, if only to suggest that there are British as well as French versions of the facts.

M. de Bazancourt relates, with the graphic detail and coloured language of the novelist, how, on the morning of the battle, the French marshal being informed that the English had not come to time, sent Colonel Trochu to remonstrate with Lord Raglan:

"My Lord,' said the Colonel, the Marshal thought, after what you did me the honour to tell me yesterday evening, that your troops, forming the left wing of the line of battle, were to advance at six.'

"I am giving the order,' replied Lord Raglan, we are getting ready, and about to start: a part of my troops did not arrive at the bivouac till the night was far advanced.'

"For heaven's sake, my Lord,' added the Colonel, 'be quick; every minute of delay destroys a chance of success.'

"Go and tell the Marshal,' replied Lord Raglan, ‘that at this very moment the orders are given along the whole line.'

"It was half-past ten when Colonel Trochu announced that the English were ready to march. But all these unexpected delays, and the indecision in the movements which necessarily resulted from them, no longer permitted the plan of battle to be executed such as it had been primitively conceived. The Russian army, instead of being surprised by a rapid manœuvre, as it should have been, had time to make its dispositions whilst following from the heights the motions of our army, which was advancing in perfect order, in the midst of an immense plain."

This is too dramatically and literally related to inspire complete confidence. The precise words used in moments of high excitement are always variously reported by the bystanders. Our doubts are increased by finding that, according to M. de Bazancourt, this same Colonel Trochu was despatched on the evening before (the 19th), to communicate the plan of the battle, and that Lord Raglan then "accepted entirely the detail of the plan laid before him." Yet this plan, if it ever existed, must have undergone great modifications; since at 5 A.M. on the 20th, when the Maréchal (p. 199) explained it to the general officers before his tent, "it consisted in making the English army execute a turning movement on the right of the Russian army;" and later in the day, (see p. 205) the Maréchal was occupied in "des reconnaissances indispensables," during which "les troupes avaient fait le café." At all events it is not correct to state that any delay on the part of the English necessitated any essential change in the plan definitively arranged, which was not executed because the French failed to perform their part.

The French occupied the safest position, and were exposed to less danger in the advance, by reason of their proximity to the sea, which enabled the ships to cover their flank. The English were exposed to the attack of the Russian cavalry (estimated by St. Arnaud at 5000), if they ventured into the open ground. This explains why, in the conversation between Lord Raglan and the Maréchal, when they reconnoitred the Russian position the very morning of the battle, Lord Raglan decided on carrying the heights in his front, instead of turning them. It was arranged at the same time-and this completely disposes of Colonel Trochu's reference to an alleged pledge of the night before-that the English advance should be preceded by the assault of the Telegraph—

an unfinished tower-by the French. Lord Raglan waited nearly two hours in momentary expectation that they would advance in force to turn the position instead of leaving him to take the initiative by attacking in front, at the certainty of an enormous sacrifice of life.

It is quite true that the Zouaves behaved with their wonted gallantry, and got near enough to threaten the Russian flank. It is also true, that those French commanders, particularly Prince Napoleon, who were nearest to the enemy, became alarmed, and that message after message arrived to say that they were compromis or (as some say) massacrés. But the French had contented themselves with vigorous skirmishing, and not one of their columns had advanced to the assault, or been engaged, when Lord Raglan, seeing no other alternative, took the bull by the horns, and, without waiting for the promised diversion, ordered the formidable heights. before him to be carried at all hazards. He then, followed only by his staff, crossed the river, and, at considerable personal risk, reached a knoll or hillock, which commanded a full view of the scene of contest, and enfiladed, as it were, the Russian defences which his troops were climbing the hill to assail. His quick eye instantly fell upon two large columns of Russian infantry, drawn up to support their artillery. They were within range from the knoll, and on a sign from him Colonel Dickson galloped off for a couple of guns, which were brought up within a few minutes. The first two shots missed, but gave the alarm to the gunners of an advanced Russian battery, who moved off with their guns. Each succeeding shot told with fatal effect on the two devoted columns, which, after ten or twelve rounds had been fired, fell back in confusion. The Russian artillerymen, abandoned by their supports, limbered up their guns, and left the

field. This was the turning-point. The British crowned the heights, and the Russians were retreating, before they were assailed in force by the French.

M. de Bazancourt calls the taking of the telegraph tower by the French troops l'épisode le plus saisissant de la journée, which, had it taken place earlier, it might have been, and exclaims: "There is the battle there are the genuine efforts of the attack and defence!" Describing the assault, he continues :"It is a human torrent that nothing can stay. Colonel Cler arrived first at the tower-all followed-all arrive, ardent, impetuous, irresistible. It was a short struggle, but one of those bloody, terrible struggles where each man fights body to body with his enemy, where look devours look, where the hands are locked, where the arms strike fire, clashed one against the other. Dead and dying are heaped up together, and are trod upon and stifled by the feet of the combatants."

The slender foundation of fact on which this bombastic description rests, seems to be that, towards the end of the struggle, there was a smart handto-hand fight in and about the telegraph tower, the approach to which was steep and defended by riflemen. But the Russian guns could not be sufficiently depressed to sweep the acclivity with grape, as was the case with the heights which fell to the share of the British; who bore the brunt of the battle, and suffered accordingly. The official returns represent them as having lost, in killed and wounded, only one-third more than the French: but the wonder at the time was, where the bodies of the French killed had got hidden, for very few were to be seen. There was a rumour that, by some extraordinary mistake, deaths from cholera were computed amongst their killed, but that the error did not extend beyond the non-commissioned officers and the rank and file. This may help to elucidate an otherwise unaccountable fact

in which all the returns agree, namely, that the French had only three officers killed, and the English twenty-six.*

M. de Bazancourt says, that if the English cavalry had not got embourbée in the Alma, the retreat of the Russians might have been turned into a rout. He ought to have known that the English cavalry were quite ready to act, but were kept in check by a far superior force of Russian cavalry. He might also have learnt that, when Lord Raglan urged the advance of Prince Napoleon's division to improve the advantage, it was intimated that their ammunition was expended, it did not appear on whom, -and that they were waiting for a fresh supply.

A careful comparison of the accounts of the battle of the Alma, justifies a conclusion that, if the English had done no more than the French, it would have been little more than a skirmish, and that, if the French had attacked with all their available strength simultaneously with the English, or if they had pursued the victory at the moment indicated by Lord Raglan, the greater part of the Russian army would have been taken or destroyed.

In the report to the Emperor, dated from the field of battle, and described in the " Moniteur" as "ce récit si simple d'une grande victoire," St. Arnaud claims all the glory for himself and his army. In his private letters, he suppresses the English commander altogether, and uses the first person singular throughout. “I attacked at eleven; by half-past four, the Russians were completely routed, and if I had had cavalry, I should have taken more than ten thousand prisoners-unhappily I have none." "I have twelve hundred men hors de combat; the English fifteen hundred." The Marshal adds,

"The turning move

* Bazancourt, vol. i. p. 242. Lettres de St. Arnaud, vol. ii. p. 494.