V. in reserve under the southern slopes of the Causeway CHAP. Heights; and Lord Lucan, then acting in person with his Heavy Brigade, sought to check the advance of Determinthe enemy by demonstrations;'* but-with the full approval of Sir Colin Campbell, who indeed seems to ation of Lord Lu can (in concert with Sir have counselled this policy-he determined to con- Colin fine himself to threats. Campbell) as to the use that should be made of alry. tempt to check the enemy by threaten ments. The high degree of warlike skill that is required for enabling a cav. alry offi cer to had yet found no hindrance; and indeed it seems the cav probable that the firmness of purpose they soon after Failure of disclosed was in some measure occasioned by the theat circumstance of their having detected our cavalry leader in a determination to threaten without striking. Since the ground, in most places, was favourable for the manoeuvring of horsemen, with no such obstructions as would prevent them from attempting flank attacks on the enemy's infantry and artillery, it may be that a cavalry officer fresh from war-service would have been able to check Liprandi, and to check him, again and again, without sustaining grave loss; but if a man can so wield a body of cavalry as to make it the means of thus arresting for a time an attack of infantry and artillery without much committing his squadrons, he has attained to high art' in his calling; and to expect a peace-service general to achieve such a task, is much as though one should take a house-painter at hazard and bid him portray such a a Madonna. There were riding amongst our squadrons men well tried in war. - men famed alike for * Lord Lucan with the Heavy Cavalry moved about, making de'monstrations and threatening the enemy.' check the advance of infantry and artil. lery with out grave. ly risking his squad. rons. The im probabil. ity of an officer be ing com petent to task unless he is a man prac tised in war. CHAP. their valour and their skill as cavalry officers; and V. The advance of General Gribbé although the perversity of our State authorities laboured, as it were, to neutralise the unspeakable value of such experience by putting the men who possessed it under peace - service generals, yet if Campbell's command had included that cavalry arm which formed so large a proportion of the scanty resources, available, at first for defence, it is imaginable that he would have been able to say a few words to some such a man as Morris, which would have had the effect of checking the enemy without bringing grave loss on our squadrons.* Such a result would appear to be the more within reach, when it is remembered that Liprandi's advance was in three columns moving upon 'external lines' without speedy means of intercommunication, and that Gribbe's column-the one upon which the whole enterprise much depended-comprised only three battalions of infantry.t The Russians had begun their advance at five o'clock in the morning. Without encountering the least opposition, General Gribbé, moving forward from the direction of the Baidar valley with three batHe seizes talions, a squadron of horse, and ten pieces of cannon, and estab- had been suffered to take possession of the village of from the direction of Baidar. Kamara, lishes a battery, Kamara; and when there, he was not only enabled I refer to Captain Morris (commanding the 17th Lancers) and Lieutenant Alexander Elliot (aide-de-camp to General Scarlett) merely as the two war-service officers of cavalry then in the Crimea whose names first occur to me. They were both of them men who had earned fame in honest war. + See, in the Appendix, Lord Lucan's view as to this. V. which opens fire to cover the advance of the assailing forces on their CHAP. left flank, but also on the high ground aboveground commanding the object of attack-to establish his ten guns in battery, with the purpose of directing their fire, at close range, upon the work crowning Canrobert's Hill.* at close the Re range on doubt No. 1. Advance of the cen tral colGeneral umn under Semiakine. tion on the north east of Canro bert's Hill. Nearly at the same time, Semiakine's forces having advanced from Tchorgoun gained the slopes of the ridge on the north-east and north of Canrobert's Hill. With five battalions (besides a separate body of riflemen) and ten guns, General Semiakine in person prepared to operate against the work on Canrobert's Hill; whilst, on his right, General Levoutsky took up a like position with three more battalions and ten of Levoutguns. His goal was the Redoubt Number Two. At the same time Colonel Scudery, who with four Odessa battalions, a company of riflemen, three squadrons of Cossacks, and a field-battery, had advanced from the Tractir bridge, was now moving Advance upon the Arabtabia. § the * This battery included, besides six light field-pieces of the No. 6 Light Battery, four guns of heavier calibre belonging to the Position Battery No. 4 (Liprandi's despatch, October 26, 1854). The three battalions were the 1st, 2d, and 3d battalions of the Dnieper regiment. The squadron was one belonging to Jeropkine's Lancers. + With four battalions of the Azoff regiment, one-viz., the 4thof the Dnieper battalions, the 2d company of the Rifle battalion, four heavy guns of the Position Battery No. 4, and six pieces of the Light Battery No. 6. The three Ukraine battalions, four heavy guns of the Position Battery No. 4, and six guns of the Light Battery No. 7. § On Redoubt Number Three.' The riflemen forming part of Scudery's column were of the 4th Rifle battalion, the Cossacks of the 53d Cossack Regiment, and the battery was No. 7 of the 12th brigade. Advance sky's force. ts posi the left of tion on the forces with Se miakine. of Colonel Scudery's column. Its position on the left of Le voutsky. CHAP. V. Advance of the Russian cavalry, and the batteries which it escorted. The cir cumstan which Lord Lu can had to the use that The main body of the cavalry under General Ryjoff, with its attendant troops of horse-artillery, was already in the North Valley, and supporting the advance of the columns. Whilst the Russians were marching upon the heights which they now occupied, and whilst they were there establishing their thirty guns in battery, ces under Lord Lucan, as we see, was present with a superb division of cavalry, and this upon fine ground, which, determine though hilly, was very free from obstructions; but except his six light pieces of horse-artillery, he was wanting in the ordnance arm, and of infantry forces he had none. Thus, then, by a somewhat rare conThe emer- currence of circumstances, there was brought about an emergency which enforced, and enforced most cogently, the decision of a question involving more involving or less the general usefulness of the cavalry arm. should be made of our cav. alry. gency forced a decision upon a question more or less the general usefulness of the cavalry arm. Some are chary, it seems, of acknowledging a condition of things in which cavalry can be used for the repression of the ordnance arm. Others fully agreeing that a body of horse, with its great extent of vulnerable surface, must beware of coming, or at all events of remaining, under the fire of artillery, are yet of opinion that cavalry, after all, is the very arm which, in many contingencies, can best be exerted against the power of ordnance. They say that artillery in march, or engaged in unlimbering, is good prey for horsemen ; that artillery established in battery is assailable by horsemen at its flanks; and that, in general, where the country is at all open, a powerful and well-handled cavalry ought to be able to challenge the dominion of V. artillery by harassing it incessantly, by preventing CHAP. it from getting into battery, and, failing that, by disquieting its batteries when formed. The decision of Lord Lucan was much governed by a sense of the great need there would be for the aid of our cavalry if the enemy, after carrying all the outer defences, should come on and attack Balaclava; but it would also seem that his determination-a determination entirely approved, and even, I hear, originated by Sir Colin Campbell-involved a leaning to the first of the two opinions above indicated. hindrance offered by alry, the our cav Russians were suf fered to establish teries Canro bert's Hill and the Be this as it may, the result was that, without Without being met by any hindrance on the part of our cavalry, the Russians were suffered to advance from three points of the compass and converge upon the chain of Ru little redoubts which extended from Canrobert's Hill to the Arabtabia. The thousand or twelve hundred their batTurks who manned the three works thus assailed saw against converging upon them some eleven thousand infantry and thirty-eight guns. Upon the heights of Kamara, which overlooked Canrobert's Hill from the east, and upon the part of the Causeway Heights which overlooked the same work from the north, the enemy placed thirty guns in battery; and he now opened fire upon the work crowning Canrobert's Hill, as also upon the Fort Number Two. He was answered by the Turks with their five 12-pounders ;† and, for a while, by our * See Lord Lucan's statement in the Appendix. Three on Canrobert's Hill, and a couple on the Number Two Redoubt. No. 2 Redoubt. Fire an swered to Turks, and by the (without much effect) by of horse |