The Alma chapter is the most graphic, for
there the fight was concentrated, offering to a spectator by Lord
Raglan's side a coup d'oeil of the entire action. The French were
by bad generalship virtually wiped out; for Bosquet crossed the
river too far to the right, Canrobert was afraid to move without
artillery, Prince Napoleon and St. Arnaud's reserves were jammed
together in the bottom of the valley. We see, as though on the
spot, the advance, irregular and unsupported, of Codrington's
brigade, their dash into the Great Redoubt and subsequent
disorderly retreat; the enemy checked by the two guns from Lord
Raglan's knoll and by the steadiness of the Royal Fusiliers; the
repulse of the Scots Fusiliers and the peril which hung over the
event; then the superb advance of Guards and Highlanders up the
hill, thin red line against massive columns, which determined
finally the action.
The interest of the Balaclava fight centres in the two historic
cavalry charges. Here again, from his position on the hill above,
Kinglake witnessed both; the first, clear in smokeless air, the
second lost in the volleying clouds which filled the valley of
death.
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