HOW THE BATTLE OF THE ALMA WAS WON.

New Zealander, Volume XIX, Issue 1890, 9 June 1863, Page 3

HOW THE BATTLE OF THE ALMA WAS WON.

We take the following vivid and eloquent passages from Mr. Kingslake's recently published book : LORD RAGLAN IN THE CENTitE OF THE RUSSIAN ARMY. Suddenly, to Russians, expectant of a dreaded calamity, there was presented a sight well fitted to confirm :ae'ir worst fears—nay, even to make them imagine ihat the whole tenor of iheir duty was changed. For one of the high knolls jutting up "from the eastern slopes of the Telegraph height, and closely overlooking the Russian reserves, became crowned all at once with agayiooking group of horsemen, whose hats and white plunus showed that they were staff officers. What made, the apparition seem the more fatal was that it was deep in the very heart of the Russian lines, and even somewhat near to the ground where Prince Menschikoff had posted his reserves. It could be seen that the horsemen wore coats of dark blue. They were exactly on the ground where the van of the French army might hope to be if it had achieved a signal victory over the left win<;of the Rnssian army. It was hardly to be imagined possible that the Allies could have a numerous st..ff in that part of the field without being there in great strength. The riders whose sudden appearance on the knoll thus scared and misled the enemy were a group of perhaps 18 or 20 Englishmen. How came it that they were sitting unmolested in their saddles, and contentedly adjusting their field glasses in the heart of the .Russian osition ? p At the time when Lord Raglan despatched to his leading divisions the final order to advance, he was riding between the French and English armies, and was close to a road or track which led down towards a ford below the burning village. Impelled by his desire for a clear view of the coining struggle, and guided only by fortune, or by the course of the track, he role down briskly into the valley, followed close by his staff, but leaving our troops in his rear. He soon reached, soon passed through the vineyards, and gained the bank of the river. The stream at this spot flowed rapidly, breaking against a mass of rock, which so far dammed it back as to form on the upper side of it a pool about four feet deep. One of the staff rode into the stream at that point, and his horsenearly lost his footing. Lord Raglan, almost at the same moment, took the river on the right or lower side of the rock, and crossed it without any fouble. Though he was parted at this time from his own troops, there were several French soldiers near him They tvere a part of the chain of skirmishers which covered the left flank and left front of Prince Napoleon's division. They seemed to be engaged with some of the enemy's sharpshooters, whom they were able to discern through the foliage ; for they were sheltering themselves behind vineyard walls, watching moments for firing, and receding in order to load, or cautiously peering forward. , They looked surprised when Lord Rtglan, with the group which followed him, rode'down and passed them. Moie than one of them ,a°-acious and curious paused in his loading, and stood gazing with ram-rod half down, as though lie were tryin t to make out how it accorded with the great science of war, that the English General and his staff should be riding through the skirmishers, and entering without his battalions into the midst of the enemy's domin10Tncu'h they were unseen by our officers, the Russian sharpshooters who had been exchanging shots with the French riflemen, were not far away. Of this they gave P) oof. Leslie dropped out of his saddle and fell to the "-round. His startled horse, making a move much as though he were blundering at a grip, the fall seemed at first sight like a fall in hunting ; but a rifle ball had entered Leslie's shoulder. Nearly at the same tune Weare, another of the staff, was struck down. I nere no.v was a heavy fire, but the Russian sharpshooters had been patiently duelling with the French skinmshers and, of course, when they saw Lord Raglan and bis'plumed followers, they .-eized the occasion for easier shooting, and tried to bring down two or three of the cry cavalcade. . After gaining the left bank of the river, Lord Ragkn at first got parted from most of those who had followed himrforhe took a track into a kind of gvlley towards his right, and there for a moment he had no on- very near him except one man, who bad crossed t ie stream next after him ; for the rest of the horsemen, when thev had reached the dry ground, had borne rather towards their left. Some one, however, from chat quarter cried out, <• This seems, a better way my Lord'' and Lord Raglan, then turning, rejoined the rest of the staff, and took the path recommended I do not know who the offieer was who advised this road. He bus possibly forgotten the counsel which he gave; but i he remembers it, and sees how the issue was governed by taking the path which he chose, he may suffer himself to trace the gain of a battle, with all its progeny of events, to his few hurried words. Body and soul, Lord Raglan was so made by nature, that though he knew how to be prudent enough in the orders he gave to officers at a distance, yet when he was in the saddle directing affairs in person, and there eamc to be a question between holding back and going forward, his blood always used to get heated, and, like his great master, he had been so happy in his cho:ce of the time tor running a venture, that his spirit had never been cowed. Having once begun to ride lorward, he did not restrain himself. And surely there was a great fascination to draw him on. The ground was of such a kind that, with every stride of his charger a fresh view was opened to him. " For months and months he had failed to tear off the vail which bid him from the strength of the army he undertook to assail ; and now, suddenly in the midst of battle, he found himself suffered to pass forward between the enemy's centre and his left wing. As at Badajoz, in olden times, he had alone to the drawbridge, and obtained the surrender of St. Christoval, so now driven on by the same hot blood, he joyously rode without troops'into the heart of theeneiny's position ; and Fortune, still enamoured of his boldness, was awaiting him with her radiant smile. For the p \th he took lay winding up—by a way rather steep and rough here and there, but easy enough for saddle horses—and presently in the front, but some way off towards the left, he saw before him a high commanding knoll, and strange to say, there seemed to be no Russians near it. Instantly, and before he reached the high ground, he saw the prize and divined its worth. He was swift to seize it. Without stopping—nay, even one almost may say, without breaking the stride of his horse, he turned to Airey who rode close at his side, aid ordered him to bring up Adam's brigade with all r ossible speed. Then still pressing on and on the fore- | most rider of the allied armies, he gained the summit ; of the knoll. „ , , ».. I know of no battle in which, whdst the forces ot his ! adversary were still upon their ground, and still unbiof] en a General has had the fortune to stand upon a spot • .commanding as that which Lord Raglan now found ! I"ummUof the knoll. .The ( fgftMJ floft'rfta'iidtt bW Hot troop* enough to occupy

the whole position, and the part which he neglected was. happily that very one into which Lord Raglan had ridden. lJuring :hj earlier part of the day a battalion imd been jiosfed in the ravine close nnder the knoli ; but, in an evil hour for the Czar, the battalion had been removed, and the enemy having no other troops in the immediate neighbourhood, and having no guns in battery which commanded thesummit of the knoll, the English General, though as yet he had no troops with him, stood unmolested in the heart of the enemy's position—stood between that wing of the Russian army which confronted the French, and that much larger portion of it which confronted the English ; but so far in advance as to be actually in the close neighbourhood of the Russian reserves. It was clear that even from afar the enemy would make out that it was crowned by a group of plumed officers ; and Lord Raglan's imagination being so true and so swift as to gift him with the faculty of knowing how in giving circumstances other men must needs be thinking and feeling, it hardly cost him a moment to infer that this apparition of a few horsemen on the spur of a hill was likely to govern the enemy's fate. It would not, he thought, occur to any Russian General that 15 or 20 staff officers, whether French or English, could have reached the knoll without having thousands of troops close at hand. The enemy's General would therefore inter that a laiye portion of the Allied force had won its way into the heart of the Russian position. This was the view which Lord Raglan's mind had seized when, at the very moment of crowning the knoll, he looked round and said' li Our presence here will have the best effect." I'lteu, glancing down as he spoke into the flank of the Causeway batteries, and carrying his eye round to the enemy's infantry reserves, Lord Raglan said, " .Now, if we had a couple of guns here !" ADVANCE OF THE HIGHLAND BRIGADE. With three battalions, Sir Colin Campbell was about to engage no less than twelve [2s'<>o against 8000 men] but the three were in line, and the twelve were massed in five columns. Few were the moments that Campbell took to learn the ground before him, and to read the enemy's mind ; but, few though they were, they were all but enough to bring the 42nd to the crest where their General stood. The ground they had to ascend was a good deal more steep and more broken than the slope close beneath the Redoubt. In the land where those Scots were bred, there are shadows of sailing clouds skimming straight up the mountain's side, and then 1 paths are rugged, are steep, yet their course is smooth, easy, and swift. Smoothly, easily, swiftly, the " Black Watch," seemed to glide up tiie hill. A few instants before, and their tartans ranged dark in the valley. Now, their plumes were on the crest. The small knot of horsemen who had ridden on before them were still there. Any stranger looking into the group might almost, be able to know—might know by the mere carnage of the head —that he in the plain, darkcoloured frock, he whose sword-belt hung cross-wise from his shoulder, was the man there charged with command; for, in battle, men who have to obey sit erect in their saddles ; he who has on him the care of the right seems always to fall into the pensive, yet eager bend which the Greeks—keen percei vers of truth—used to join with their conception of Mind brought to bear upon War. It is on board ship, perhaps moiv commonly than ashore, that people in peace time have been used to see their fate hanging upon the skill of one man. Often, landsmen at sea have watched the skilled, wea-ther-worn sailor when lie seems to look through the gale and search deep into the home of the storm. He sees what they cannot see ; he knows what, except from his lips, they will never be able to learn. They stand silent, but they question him with their eyes. So men new to war gaze upon the veteran commander, when, with knitted brow and steady eyes, he measures the enemy's power, and draws near to his final resolve. Campbell, fastening his eyes on the two columns standing before him, and on the heavier and more distant column on his left front, seemed not to think lightly of the enemy's strength ; but in another instant (for his mind was made up, and his Highland blood took fire at the coming array of the tartans) his features put on that glow which, seen in men of his race—race known by the kindling grey eye, and the light, stubborn crisping hair—discloses the rapture of instant fight. Although at that moment the 42nd was alone, and was confronted by the two columns on the farther side of the hollow, yet Campbell, having a steadfast faith in Colonel Cameron and in the regiment he commanded, resolved to go straight on, and at once, with his forward movement, lie allowed the battalion to descend alone into the hollow, marching straight against the two columns. Moreover he suffer, d it to undertake a manoeuvre which (except with troops of great steadiness and highly instructed) can hardly be tried with safety against regiments still unshaken. The " Black Watch," " advanced firing." But whilst this fight was going on betweeu the 42nd and the two Russian columns, gave danger from another quarter seemed to threaten the Highland battalion; for, before it had gone many paces, Campbell saw that the column which had appeared on his left front was boldly marching forward, and such was the direction it took, and such the nature of the ground, that the column if it were suffered to go on with this movement, would be able to strike at the flank of the 42nd, without having first to descend into lower ground. Halting the 42nd in the hollow, Campbell swiftly measured the strength of the approaching column, and be reckoned it so strong that he resolved to prepare for it a front of no less than five companies. He was up on the point of giving the order for effecting this bend in the line of the 42nd, when, looking to his left rear, he saw his centre battalion springing up to the outer crest. But almost in the same moment he saw or in some way divined that this battalion, in its extreme ardour for the fight was coming up wild and raging. He instantly rode to his left.

The 93rd ill the Crimea was never quite like other regiments, for it chanced that it had received into its ranks a large proportion of those men of eager spirit who had petitioned to be exchanged from regiments left at home to regiments engaged in the war. The exceeding fire and vehemence, and the ever-ready energies of tiie battalion, made it an instrument of great might, if only it could be duly held in, but gave it a tendency to be headlong m its desire to hurl itself upon the enemy. In a minute this fiery 93rd came storming over the crest, and, having now at last an enemy's column before it, it seemed to be almost mad with warlike j>y. Its formation, of course, was disturbed by the haste and vehemence of the onset ; and Campbell saw that, ■uilcris the regiment could be halted, and a little calmed clown, it would go on rushing forward in disordered fury, at the risk of shattering itself against the strength of the hard, square-built column which was solemnly coming to meet it. Jiut he who could halt his men on the bank of a cool stream when they were rushing down to quench the rage of their thirst, was able to quiet them in the midst of their warlike fury. Sir Colin got the regiment to halt, and dress its ranks. By this time it was under the fire of the approaching column. Campbell's charger, twice wounded already, but hitherto not much hurt, was now struck by a shot in the heart. Without a stumble or a plunge the horse sank down gently to the earth, and was dead. Campbell took his aide-de-camp's charger ; but he had not been long in Shadwell's saddle, when up came Sir Colin's groom with his second horse. The man, perhaps, under some former master, had been used to be charged with the " second horse" in the hunting field. At all events, here he'was ; and if Sir Colin was angered by the apparition, he could not deny that it was opportune. The man touched his cap, and excused himself for being where he was. In the dry, terse way of those Englishmen who are much accustomed to horses, be explained that, towards the rear the bails had been dropping about very thick and that, fearing some harm might come to his maste. 's second horse, he had thought it best to bring him up to the front. When the 92rd had recovered the perfectness of its array, it again moved forward, but at the steady pace imposed on it by the chief. The 42nd had already resumed its forward movement. It still advanced firing.

There are things in the world which, eluding the resources of the dry narrator, can still be faintly imaged "ov that subtle power which sometimes enables mankind to picture dim truth by fancy. According to the thought which floated in the mind of the churchman who taught to All the Russians their «rand form of prayer for victory, there are " angels of light" and " angels of darkness and horror," who soar over the heads of soldiery destined to be engaged in close fight, and attend them into battle. When the fight grows hot the angels hover down near to earth with their bright limbs twined deep in the wreaths of the smoke which divides the combatants.

The turning moment of a fight is a moment of trial for the soul and not for the body ; and it is theretore, that such courage as men are able to gather to being gross in numbers can be easily ontwe.ghcdbj he war like virtues of a few. To the stately Black Watch and the hot 93rd, with Campbell lending'hemoo, vouchsafed that f on ger heart for whichJhe b«o, pious Muscovites had prayed Over t men in the columns there wasis. , then the swarm of vain delusmns and at w T strait on ° The three battalSns gS nearer and nearer, and although dimly mSin- the scant numbers of tne Highlanders-there Las still the white curtain of smoke which always rolled on before them, yet fitfully, and from moment to mompnr; ih'e <%n« of them coald be traced on the right

hand and on :'.i_- left i i i long, shadowy line, and iheir coming was ceaseless. But. moreover, the Highlanders being men of great stature, and in strange garb, their piutnes being tall, and the view of them being broken and distorted by the wreaths of the smoke, and there being too an ominous silence in their ranks, there were men among the Russians who began to conceive a vague terror—the terror of things unearthly ; and some, they say, imagined that they were charged by horsemen strange, silent, monstrous, bestriding giant charters. The columns were falling into that plight—we have twice before seen it this day—were falling into that plight, that its officers were moving hitherand thither, with their drawn swords, were commanding, were imploring, were threatening, nay, were even laying hands on their soldiery, and striving to hold them fast in their places. This struggle is the last stage but one in the agonv of a body of good infantry massed in close column. Unless help should come from elsewhere, the three columns would have to give way. But help came. From the high ground on our left another heavy column—the column composed of the two right Sousdal battalions—was seen coming down. It moved straight at the flank of the 93rd. So now for the third time that day a mass of infantry, some fifteen hundred strong, was descending upon the naked flank of a battalion in English array ; and, coming as it did from the extreme right of the enemy's position, this last attack was aimed almost straight at the file—the file of only two men—which closed the line of the 93rd.

But some witchcraft, the doomed men might fancy, was causing the earth to bear giants. Above the crest or swell of ground on the left rear of the 93rd, yet another array of the tall bending plumes began to rise up in a long ceaseless line, stretching far into the east, and presently, in all the jrrace and beauty that marks a Highland regiment when it springs up the side of a hill, the 79th came bounding forward. Without a halt, or with only the halt that was needed for dressing the ranks, it sprang at the flank of the right Soudal column, and caught it in its sin—caught it daring to march across the front of a battalion advancing in line. Wrapped in the fire thus poured upon its flank the hapless column could not march, could not live. It broke, and began to fall back in great confusion, and the left Soudal column being almost at the same time overthrown by the 93rd, and the two columns which had engaged the " Rlack Watch" be'ng now in full retreat, the spurs of the hill and the winding dale beyond became thronged with the enemy's disordered masses.

Then again, they say, there was heard the sorrowful wail that burst from the heart of the brave Russian infantry when they have to suffer defeat; but this time the wail was the wail of eight battalions ; and the warlike grief of the soldiery could no longer kindle the fierce intent which, only a little before, had spurred forward the Vladimir column. Hope had fled. After having been parted from one another by the nature of the ground, and thus thrown for some time info echelon, the battalions of Sir Colin's brigades were now once more close abreast ; and since the men looked upon the ground where the gray remains of the enemy's broken strength were mournfully rolling away, they could not but see that this, the revoir of the Highlanders, had chanced in a moment of glory. Knowing their hearts, and deeming that the time was one when the voice of his people might fitly enough be heard, the Chief touched or half lifted his hat in the way of a man assenting. Then along the Kourgane slopes, and thence west almost home to the Causeway, the hill sides were made to resound with that joyous, assuring cry which is the natural utterance of a northern people so long as it is warlike and free.

Descending into the hollow where the vanquished troops flooded clown, the waves of sound lit upon the throng and touched it, some imagined, as a breath cf air touches a frost lightly stirring its numberless leaves. And in truth it might be that even in this the hour of turmoil and defeat the long-suffering Muscovites were stirred with a new thought ; for they never before that day had heard what our people call " cheers," and the sound is of such a kind that it startles men not born to freedom.