Part 1

As it was intended that the French should, if possible, turn the Russian left, before the English attacked the right and centre of the position, our gallant Allies were engaged for some time before our own troops, who on getting within range of the enemy's guns were ordered to lie down, and remained in this attitude until the moment for their action arrived. At halfpast twelve the French steamers commenced shelling the heights, which, where the Alma falls into the sea, are abrupt and precipitous; an operation which was attended with the most complete success, and which in a short time compelled the enemy to retire from the cliffs, while it permitted the Zouaves to clamber up their almost inaccessible heights. This they accomplished with a degree of agility and rapidity which was the admiration of all of our own troops who were fortunate enough to witness it, and, forming into lines as they reached the summit, they dashed at the Russians with the bayonet, and drove in their outposts in every direction. " Here," says Marshal St. Arnaud, " commenced a real battle all along the line, a battle with its episodes of brilliant feats of valour. Your Majesty may be proud of your soldiers; they have not degenerated, — -they are the soldiers of Austerlitz and of Jena." Nor was this high praise unmerited: — exposed to a heavy and destructive fire of musketry at short range, the French still pushed on, and, though for a moment checked, would not recede, nor yield an inch of ground. The contest raged with peculiar fury around an octangular white tower, still in an unfinished state; and here it was that Serjeant- Major Fleury displayed a heroism and forgetfulness of self which, though it cost him dear, was assuredly not without its moral effect on the event of the day. Throwing himself into this tower, he succeeded in planting the Tricolor on its summit: no sooner had he accomplished this act of daring than he fell mortally wounded. Exasperated at the fate of their hero, the Zouaves again charged the Russians at the point of the bayonet, with that peculiar vehemence which has been so often and so naturally contrasted with the " solidity " of the English advance; and the enemy, unable to make head against the impetuous rush of this torrent of war, were compelled to retreat in confusion on their centre, which the French were still menacing when the