[182] The attack on the central redoubt by Sir G. Brown’s Light Division was a confused rush by an armed mob. It failed because the Duke of Cambridge, who led the First Division, did not bring up his supports. But for the remonstrance of Sir Colin Campbell, one of his Brigadiers, he would even have made his Guards ignominiously retire and re-form at a critical moment in the advance, which would have spread panic, and lost the battle. De Lacy Evans and Campbell were the only commanders in this fight who seemed capable of handling troops in a workmanlike manner. Colonels Hood of the Grenadiers, and Ainslie of the 93rd Highlanders, also displayed skill.
[183] It is a melancholy satisfaction that the French Prince Napoleon proved himself to be as incapable as the English Royal Duke. He lost a regiment of his Zouaves who, getting tired of him, went away into the fray on their own account. One of Brown’s Brigadiers (Buller) also lost himself, and spent most of the day with his men in hollow square, waiting to receive imaginary cavalry.
[184] It is an amusing fact that Raglan’s van actually came on Menschikoff’s rear, as the lines of march intersected, and that neither General had the faintest idea of what the other was about.
[185] It may be pointed out that the works on the north side of the town, where the citadel was, commanded those on the south side. Raglan’s vaunted flank march had left the Russian garrison in the North Town open and safe communication with their base, and their army of observation in the field. He had given them ample time to make affluent use of this advantage. It was, therefore, a moral certainty that if we had taken the South Town after the bombardment of the 17th our position would not have been tenable. Though Cathcart and Campbell would have walked into it easily had they been allowed on the 25th of September, the failure of the bombardment of the 17th of October was thus probably a fortunate occurrence.
[186] The ships were also dreadfully underhanded—4,000 of their fighting force being on shore with the army.
[187] It may not be quite fair to blame Lord Raglan too much for this ridiculous manœuvre. At one time his partizans claimed for him the honour of planning it. But Prince Albert ascribed it to Sir John Burgoyne, and so did many others. Burgoyne’s own correspondence seems to show that the Prince was right. (Lieutenant-Colonel Wrottesley’s “Life and Correspondence of Sir John Burgoyne,” Vol. II., pp. 95-164.)
[188] Receiving heavy masses of cavalry in this fashion was but a development of another piece of tactics which Campbell always used “contrary to the regulations.” That was advancing in line—as at the Alma—firing on dense masses of infantry all the time. This he learnt from Sir J. Cameron, colonel of the 6th Regiment, in the Peninsula. Oddly enough Cameron’s son commanded the Black Watch under Campbell in the Crimea, and he, too, had, “contrary to regulations,” taught his father’s tactics to his men. Colonel Hood, of the Grenadiers, had a glimmering of this idea at the Alma. But he did not venture to advance in line firing until the enemy’s column was demoralised. The Scottish Regiments used the manœuvre for the purpose of demoralising the enemy. But it should never be used except by troops of coarse nerve-fibre, in perfect training, and whom their leader can hold in hand as in a vice.
[189] The responsibility for this fearful butchery has been cast on Lord Lucan. He certainly lacked moral courage in obeying an order which nobody but a maniac would, in the circumstances, have issued. But Nolan’s insinuation that Lucan was afraid to attack forced the general’s hand. Nolan was a brave man, with a crazy fad as to the capacity of English cavalry to go anywhere and do anything. He had written a book to show that they could—and he was bitterly disappointed because the campaign had not been conducted so as to illustrate by practical experiments the soundness of his views. He took it on himself to ride in advance of the Brigade, with which he had nothing to do, and excite the men by voice and gesture, as if their own officers, who were personally responsible for their lives, were not fit to lead them. This would indicate that he was one of those meddlesome aides-de-camp, whose interference with operations in the field renders them the pest of British armies.
[190] The success of the Heavy Brigade was due to Scarlett attacking in line, when, to his surprise, he found he was riding with a slender force against enormous masses of Russian cavalry, and to the Russians perpetrating the atrocious blunder of halting to receive the fierce onset of the Scottish and Irish horsemen. Only a third of the Light Brigade were rescued from the “valley of death,” and they owe their lives to a brilliant and impetuous charge which a fiery squadron of French Chasseurs d’Afrique made on a Russian battery, that was cutting our troopers to pieces during their retreat.
[191] History of England, Vol. V., p. 125.