[83] It must be remembered that the range of the musket was very short, so that the bullets could hardly do mischief in neighbouring squares if they missed the cavalry.
[84] Readers who are curious in mendacity should read in Napoleon's Correspondence the bulletin dated Lâon, June 20, 1815, in which the battles of Ligny and Waterloo are reported.
[85] Napoleon's Egyptian expedition is no real exception: it reached its destination, but the battle of the Nile rendered it a total failure.
[86] It was said that Captain Nolan, the aide-de-camp who bore the order, and who was well known from his writings to be a firm believer in the power of cavalry to perform the most impossible feats, answered Lord Lucan's objections by putting on the written words an interpretation which Lord Raglan did not intend, and that Lord Lucan was stung by implied imputation on his courage. Nolan however was shot dead at the first moment of the charge, and there was consequently no means of knowing what he could have said in his own defence.
[87] On the other side of the Tchernaya are some conspicuous remains of ancient walls known as the ruins of Inkerman: from these the allies, who found it convenient to have names for all portions of the ground they were concerned with, named the opposite portion of the plateau Mount Inkerman.
[88] It is not suggested that the French general at the outset, or later, evaded his due share of the common duty: it is one of the evils of a divided command that if a mistake is made in such a matter, as may easily happen from imperfect information, obstacles to remedying it arise from motives on both sides which are in themselves perfectly reasonable.
[89] Decisive Battles of India.
[90] Englishmen in India made many mistakes at one time or another, but there was always some one at hand to redeem the blunder, or else they were saved by the reputation for audacity and invincibility due to previous successes. They were guilty of many wrongful acts, but the sufferers were the native princes whom they dispossessed: it is probably no exaggeration to say that the rule of the English at its worst was better than the best government of any native princes.
[91] Colonel Malleson, in his Decisive Battles of India, gives a very clear account of this remarkable feat, as well as of other similar battles, which must be here passed over.
[92] In memory of this great victory the 39th bears on its colours the motto "Primus in Indis."