The battles of the British Army

by Robert Melvin Blackwood

The remaining five battalions of the Light Brigade pressed forward up the bank, and Sir George Brown himself it was, on horseback, flushed and breathless, who first gained the summit, a mark for the entire Russian artillery. That he remained unshot was a miracle. Simultaneously, Codrington and the Royal Fusiliers, under Lacy Yea, gained the summit of the river bank, and the five battalions pressed on up the hill.

Facing them, on their right and left, were the Kayan infantry columns; in the centre was the Great Redoubt. The Kayan columns on the British left were soon put to flight by the Riflemen, the 19th, and the Royal Welsh, who had joined the centre for the attack upon the Great Redoubt, but the Kayan column on the right engaged the Royal Fusiliers in a stubborn fight.

Terrible was the death roll as our Light Division pressed up the hill towards the Great Redoubt. Men fell on every side. The Welsh and Royal Fusiliers suffered heavily, and for a moment had to pause and reform. The gallant Colonel of the Welsh Fusiliers was killed in the front of his men, and with the words “On, lads, on!” upon his lips. Old Sir George Brown was knocked from his horse, but rose immediately, and remounted with the assistance of a rifleman named Hannan, who coolly asked, “Are your stirrups the right length, sir?” Up swept the scarlet coats, only pausing for a second now and again to reform. During one of these pauses the Eddingtons were killed. The two brothers were in the 95th, the Derbyshires. Captain Eddington was deliberately murdered by a Russian rifleman when lying wounded on the field, when his brother, perceiving the act, rushed forward, in a frenzy, in advance of the regiment to avenge him, and fell, literally torn to pieces by a storm of grape shot. But the men pressed on in spite of all the carnage around them, and then suddenly, as they neared the Redoubt, the smoke lifted for a moment, and disclosed the Russian gunners limbering up and making off. Quick as lightning, young Ensign Anstruther of the Royal Welsh rushed forward with the colours of the regiment, and, outstripping all, succeeded in planting them upon the parapet of the Redoubt. A second later and he fell back riddled with shot, dragging the colours involuntarily with him. A sergeant of the same regiment, Luke O’Connor, seized the colours again, and planted them firmly upon the wall of the Redoubt, when General Codrington, uncovering, saluted the colours, and leapt his horse into the embrasure just as the last of the enemy’s guns galloped off. In the fight no fewer than thirty-one officers and non-commissioned officers had been killed. One Russian gun was captured in the act of withdrawing.

By this time the 1st Division under the Duke of Cambridge, consisting of the Guards and Highlanders, was moving to the support of the Light Division, who thus occupied the Great Redoubt. But as yet they were only at the river, so the Light Division found themselves isolated, while before them were the Vladimir regiment, supported by the Ouglity corps and others, sixteen battalions in all with horse and artillery.

In the meantime the position of affairs on the allied right, where Camobert and Prince Napoleon’s divisions were advancing to the support of Bosquet, was distinctly unpromising for the allies. The heavy column under Kiviakoff had checked Camobert’s advance, and Prince Napoleon was not yet in touch with the enemy.

At this juncture there happened that which is perhaps unique in the history of battles. On the one side a large proportion of the Russian army was engaged with the French attack, on the other their troops were about to push the British down from the ground which they had so hardly won in the storming of the Great Redoubt. In the centre, however, to the Russian left of the Causeway batteries, there were in the meantime no troops, and here Lord Raglan found himself in his eager pushing forward to obtain a clear view of all that was happening.

The effect of the appearance of Lord Raglan and his staff upon the rising ground in the centre was tremendous. The Russian right, on the Kourgané Hill, seeing a group of staff officers in the centre of the Russian lines, supposed that the French had been entirely successful in their part of the field, and accordingly halted to take counsel as they were in the act of advancing upon our unsupported troops who had won, and were now occupying, the Great Redoubt.

Not content, however, with the moral effect of his presence, the significance of which he fully appreciated, Lord Raglan ordered a couple of nine-pounder guns to be brought up to him, and with these (Colonel Dickson working one of the guns with his own hands, says Kinglake), he opened fire upon the flank of the Causeway batteries, and upon the enemy’s reserves. The Causeway batteries retreated higher up the road, leaving it open for Evans’ advance; the enemy’s reserves were disorganised, and the Russian right advance was for the moment paralysed.

General Evans was quick to seize the opportunity. Advancing up the road with his troops, and with the batteries of Sir Richard England, directed by that General in person, he drove back the Russian artillery and took up a firm stand in line with Lacy Yea and his Royal Fusiliers, who, it will be remembered, were still engaged with the (Russian) left Kayan battalion. The fight here was a stubborn one, and much depended upon it, for as long as the Fusiliers could hold their own, and keep the Kayan battalion fully occupied, our troops to their right could take up an effective position with comparative ease. But the Fusiliers did more. Assisted by the 55th Regiment, who had been gradually advancing up the hill, and who now poured a flanking fire into the Russians, they routed the Kayan battalion. This advantage was followed up by the Guards, who passing the severely battered but victorious Fusiliers, led the van of that second severe fight on the Kourgané Hill, which ultimately terminated in victory for the allied armies.

Seen at this point of the battle, the British line was more or less continuous, and was formed as follows, from its right—the Grenadiers, covering the Fusiliers reforming; the Coldstreams, the Black Watch, Camerons and Sutherland Highlanders in the order named. Opposed to them were the Vladimir columns, supported as before on either hand by the Kayan columns, that on the British right sadly disorganised by its sanguinary encounter with the Royal Fusiliers.