steadiness to the body. In eight minutes the huge column was broken, and retreated to the eastern end of the valley.

The charge

of the Light Brigade.

The retreat of the Russian horse altered the conditions of the battle. Russian artillery still occupied the heights which overlooked the valley on the north. Russian troops still held the guns which they had seized from the Turkish troops on the southern heights, and a Russian army still stood at the eastern end of the valley. But the valley itself was swept of the enemy. In these circumstances it was natural that the British should desire to regain the redoubts on the south of the valley which the Russians had captured, and whose possession seemed essential to the safety of Balaklava. Raglan accordingly directed Cathcart to recapture them. The order was only imperfectly obeyed; and Raglan, chafing at the slow movement of an infantry division, decided on employing cavalry for the purpose. The order was understood by Lucan as a command to attack the Russian guns at the eastern end of the valley, and, though he foresaw the fatal nature of the task, he ordered his brother-in-law, Lord Cardigan, who commanded the light cavalry, to undertake it. The fated force, thus despatched on a hopeless mission, charged down a valley swept by the guns from the northern heights, from the captured redoubts on the south, and from the enemy's batteries on the east. Suffering cruel losses, it rode with heart never failing, with speed never checked, at the thick Russian columns before it. The remnant of the bold men who arrived at the goal even asserted their mastery over the thousands whom they charged. But, for all practical purposes of warfare, their valour was useless. The charge reduced to one third of its former strength a brigade already too weak for the heavy duties cast upon it; it prevented any effort being made for the recovery of the captured redoubts; and it left, therefore, the Russians masters of the position which seemed essential for the safety of the little port of Balaklava.

No one need feel surprise that a brilliant feat of arms should be cherished in the memory of the British race, and that the six hundred who rode in the light cavalry brigade should be

immortal. The courage, the glory of the deed, was theirs; the blunder was not theirs; and on them should be the fame of having achieved it, on another 1 the disgrace of having ordered it. But it is a matter of surprise that, while the charge of the light brigade promises to be recollected for ever, the charge of the heavy brigade is already well-nigh forgotten. Yet the one charge was executed with as much gallantry as the other; and, while Scarlett and his men were the heroes of a gallant, successful, and advantageous feat of arms, the men whom Cardigan led were the victims of a miserable error.

2

At Balaklava the allies were the victors in every contest, but the Russians held the prize of war, the mastery of the

The attack of the 26th of October on Inker.

mann.

battlefield. On the day which followed the action, they delivered another attack on another part of the allied lines. They threw a heavy force on Mount Inkerman. They were easily repulsed by De Lacy Evans, who was in command of the British troops opposed to them, and who gradually withdrew his pickets and dispersed his assailants with artillery. But few men who shared in this battle could have imagined that the Russian effort was to be repeated ten days later on a larger scale, and that the ground on which Evans stood was destined to gain immortal memory in British story.

Of the deeds wrought at Inkerman little can be said here. Are they not written in the book of Kinglake? The tactics of armies have no right to occupy much space in Inkerman. general history, and the tactics of Inkerman were little better than the fights of the Iliad or the Æneid. It was

The battle of

1 A history of this kind, which does not deal with military details at length, cannot discuss the responsibility attaching to Lord Raglan, Sir R. Airey, Lord Lucan, and Lord Cardigan respecting this charge, nor even the personal questions connected with Cardigan's conduct. I have omitted with more reluctance reference to the brilliant charge of the French cavalry which temporarily silenced the Russian guns on the northern heights, and to some extent diminished the dangers of the retreat of the light brigade.

2 I do not forget that Lord Tennyson has endeavoured to repair his previous omission by describing the charge of the heavy brigade. But, for one man who is acquainted with his later poem, probably ninety-nine men are familiar with his earlier stanzas.

Menschikoff's purpose, on the 5th of November, to drive the allies from the Crimea by an attack along their line. Largely reinforced, he felt himself strong enough to threaten all points and to strike at many. But he proposed dealing his main blow at the rocky eminence which stood on the right flank of the British army. There Pennefather-for Evans was disabled by illness and a fall-a hot-headed Irishman, held command over a small force of a few thousands. On a raw, foggy morning, which favoured the surprise, the position was strongly assailed by vast columns of Russian troops, numbering in the aggregate 60,000 men. Pennefather, instead of imitating Evans' example-withdrawing his pickets and relying on his artillery to crush the attack-hurried forward such men as he could collect in support, and maintained a combat at his outposts. There, shrouded in mist, with only such temporary guidance as individual officers could give them, a few British soldiers, fighting like heroes, maintained for hours an unequal combat. Time after time they drove back the enemy, till at last, reinforced by the French, a remnant of them stood undisputed masters of the ground which they had made historic by their prowess.

The Briton who can read the story of the Alma, of Balaklava, and of Inkerman without feeling his blood stirred by the brave deeds of his countrymen must be strange to some of the noblest influences which affect mankind. But the Briton who can read the story without recollecting that the vanquished showed in some respects valour as great as the victors must be dead to that sense of justice which all fair men retain. There may,

indeed, be some who imagine that, in contests in which hundreds defeated thousands, the prize of valour must be allotted to the few. But this conclusion will not be shared by the most competent judges. As surely as the light cavalry brigade was sacrificed at Balaklava to a mistake, so surely were the Russian columns at the Alma, at Balaklava, and at Inkerman the victims of a blunder.

The Russians imagined that by massing their troops in columns they could impose on their enemies by their size,

They failed to see

and overwhelm them by their weight. that the fighting strength of the column was reduced to the strength of its front; and that two weak companies, deployed in line, could present a longer front, and therefore greater fighting power, than eight strong companies massed in column. The Alma taught them that lesson, but they listened not to the teachings of the Alma. At Balaklava they not merely repeated, they emphasised the error. The weight of a column depends on its motion, and they allowed their heavy columns to remain motionless while they were charged by detached squadrons of horse. But the lesson of Balaklava fell, like the lesson of the Alma, unheeded, and the old error of fighting small detached bodies with heavy columns was repeated at Inkerman. There the mere weight of the column was a disadvantage to the few men who were face to face with their enemies. It encumbered their action; and when, later on in the day, British guns played on Russian columns, the inherent fault of the formation was more plainly visible. The column was an easy mark for the gunners, and every shot cleft a bloody lane through its closely-packed files.

Once on that day, while the Russians were disheartened by defeat and encumbered in their retreat, a band of brave British soldiers, who had learned from experience that no deed was too difficult, had the hardihood to make a dash at the rich prize of guns which their enemies were endeavouring to withdraw. The engineer who had saved Sebastopol by his skill, but who had no authority over the armies which assailed Balaklava and Inkerman, happened to be near the spot, and immediately threw out, not a column, but a line of skirmishers to resist the attack. The simple contrivance at once succeeded and it suggests the reflection that, if Todleben had been in supreme command in the Crimea, the story of the Crimean war might have ended with the day of Inkerman.

Though, however, the allies had won a fresh victory, the battle very nearly necessitated the raising of the siege and the evacuation of the Crimea. On the eve of Inkerman 120,000 Russians were gathered under Menschikoff in defence of

The new

conditions of the cam

paign.

Sebastopol. The French, English, and Turkish armies did not number more than 76,000 combatants.1 The Russians lost 12,000, the British 2600, the French 1800 men in the battle; and, at the close of the engagement, the Russians must have had some 108,000, the French 39,300, the British 22,250 combatants. The allied forces had always been too weak for the prosecution of the siege, and their weakness had become more apparent from the casualties of combat. Though, too, the allies decided on adhering resolutely on their purpose, they could not conceal from themselves that the revelations of the battle had altered the conditions of the campaign. Until the eve of Inkerman, they had pushed forward their approaches in preparation for an immediate assault. They could no longer, after the battle, venture on assaulting a position held by troops largely out numbering their own. It at once became evident that the enterprise on which they were engaged had changed its character. The objects of the expedition were no longer attainable in the autumn. The allies were engaged on a campaign which, at the least, would last throughout the winter.

66

Up to that time fine autumn weather had lightened the task of the commissariat. The army was fed with punctuality; and, except through his own neglect, no man was ever without his pound of good biscuit, his pound and a half or pound of good beef or mutton, his quota of coffee, tea, rice, and sugar, or his gill of excellent rum for any one day."2 Thus things on the whole fared well with the soldiers during the early days of November. On the 14th day of that month, very early in the morning, the camp was struck with a fearful hurricane. In one squall nearly every tent was levelled with the ground. Soldiers and sick were almost in a moment deprived of shelter. Men and horses were rolled over by the blast, and perished in many

The storm

of the 14th

of Novem

ber.

1 Kinglake, vol. vi. pp. 2-4. The French numbered rather more than 40,000, the British rather less than 25,000, and the Turks 11,000 combatants. 2 Mr. Russell, writing on 8th of November, The War, p. 263.