left behind at the place of disembarkation to clear the beach, and did not arrive till after the battle. Our force engaged was 23,000 infantry, 1000 cavalry, and sixty guns. The French and Turks together numbered about 35,000 infantry, with sixty-eight guns. Deducting the column that passed the Alma at its mouth, they had 25,000 infantry, and sixty-eight guns ; these when brought to bear would of course overwhelm the force opposed to them, which, moreover, only came by degrees on the French part of the field, where no attack had been provided for by the Russians. It is impossible, therefore, that the French could have met with any very strong opposition. As the skirmishers on our right approached ftourliouk they were met by the fire of Russian light troops and light guns in the village ; while the skirmishers in front of the Light Division (four companies of its rifle battalion), encountered a large number of the enemy's skirmishers in the vineyards ; but, as our columns advanced, these retired across the stream, first setting fire to Bourliouk, the conflagration of which was a notable incident of the battle. It was now that the twelve-gun battery on the Kourgane Hill gave our people a taste of itsquality ; shot and shell, of a size far greater than that of fieldartillery, began to tear the ground, and to burst in the air. The Light and Second Divisions began thereupon to deploy ; but our right was much too close upon the French, and a great deal of marching and countermarching now took place, without mending the fault, for too little ground was taken, and our troops were crowded in their advance to a most damaging degree.
54 English ordered to advance.
The delay was not accidental, however, but was according to the plan, in pursuance of which the advance against the front of the strongly occupied part of the position was only to take place when Bosquet's movement against the left should begin to take effect. His voltigeurs, and afterwards those of Canrobert, had been seen swarming up the heights, and some guns (Bosquet's twelve) had been heard, along with the Russian batteries opposing them. But, as already said, the French artillery had all to advance by one road ; the process was slow, and Canrobert's main body of infantry, as well as Prince Napoleon's division, waited for the support of the guns — hence the delay. Kinglake says that, while thei, movement was still incomplete, a French staff-officer came from St Arnaud to ask Lord Raglan to advance. The order to attack was thereupon given to the Second and the Light Divisions.
Having issued this command, the English general took a course too extraordinary to remain unnoticed. Accompanied by some of his staff, he rode round the right of the burning village, and descending to the Alma, crossed it by a ford close to the left of the French Army. Proceeding up the opposite bank, he reached a knoll between the Telegraph Hill and the post-road, from whence he looked from a distance, which was at the moment beyond the effective range of field-artillery, upon the flank of the Russian position on the Kourgane Hill, and also, on his right front, on the columns of the Russian reserves. He was thus in the singular position for a commander of occupying,
First Onset of the English. 55
with a few officers, a point well within the enemy's lines, and beyond the support, or even the knowledge, of any of the rest of his army ; and Kinglake, the historian, who accompanied him in this excursion, and who records it with applause, says, also, he was too far from the scene of the main struggle on which his army had now entered to be able, for the time, to direct the movements of his own troops.