M. de Bazancourt's Strictures

Upon the conduct of the Battle of the Alma there has been much foreign criticism, and the results and deductions have been unfavourable to the Russian General, who permitted his left to be turned without any serious resistance, although he ought to have calculated on the effect of the operations by sea on that flank. In apparent opposition to this judgment there has been at the same time great praise awarded to the French for the gallantry with which they attacked that portion of the position. They deserve every laudation for the extraordinary activity, rapidity, and bravery with which they established themselves on the centre and left-centre, but on the extreme left they had no hard fighting. The English seem to have been awarded the meed of solidity and unshaken courage, but at the same time hints are thrown out that they did not move quite quickly enough, that therefore their losses were great, and their work after all not so hazardous and difficult as that of the French, inasmuch as the English attack took place only when the Russian left was turned. In effect, however, the right of the enemy presented less physical difficulties to the establishment of a hostile force on the flank, and it was there that the greatest number of artificial obstacles in the shape of guns, cavalry, and men, was accumulated. But was the plan of battle good? In the first place, we attacked the enemy in the position of his own selection, without the least attempt to manœuvre or to turn him. It might have been difficult, situated as we were, without cavalry, and with masses of baggage, to have attempted any complex manœuvres; but it has been asserted that by a flank march we could, by a temporary abandonment of our seaboard, have placed the enemy between two fires, and have destroyed his army in case of defeat. It has been suggested that early on the morning of the 20th the Allies should have moved obliquely from the bivouac on the Bouljanak, and, crossing the Alma to the east of the enemy's position, have obliged his left to make a harassing march, to get up and occupy new ground in a fresh alignement, have deprived him of his advantages, and have endangered his retreat to Bakshi Serai or Simpheropol, if he refused battle, and that in event of his defeat, which would have been pretty certain, considering how much weaker his new line would have been, he would have been driven towards the shore, exposed to the fire of our ships, so that his force would have been obliged to lay down their arms. Menschikoff's army utterly ruined, Sebastopol would have at once surrendered, disposed as it was to have done so with very little compression. Criticism is easy after the circumstances or conduct of which you judge have had their effect; but to this it may be remarked that criticism cannot, by its very nature, be prospective. Even civilians are as good judges as military men of the grand operations of war, although they may be ignorant of details, and of the modes by which those operations have been effected. Alexander, Cæsar, Pompey, Hannibal, may have had many club colonels in their day, who thought they made "fatal moves;" we know that in our own time there were many military men who "had no great opinion" of either General Wellesley or{122} General Bonaparte; but the results carry with them the weight of an irreversible verdict, which is accepted by posterity long after the cliques and jealousies and animosities of the hour have passed away for ever. Now, without being a member of a clique, having no possible jealousies, and being free from the smallest animosities, I may inquire was there any generalship shown by any of the allied generals at the Alma? We have Lord Raglan, as brave, as calm, as noble, as any gentleman who ever owned England as his mother-land — trotting in front of his army, amid a shower of balls, "just as if he were riding down Rotten Row," with a kind nod for every one, leaving his generals and men to fight it out as best they could, riding across the stream through the French riflemen, not knowing where he was going to, or where the enemy were, till fate led him to a little knoll, from which he saw some of the Russian guns on his flank, whereupon he sent an order for guns, seemed surprised that they could not be dragged across a stream, and up a hill which presented difficulties to an unencumbered horseman — then, cantering over to join the Guards ere they made their charge, and finding it over while he was in a hollow of the ground. As to the mode in which the attack was carried on by us, there was immense gallantry, devotion, and courage, and, according to military men present, no small amount of disorder. The Light Division was strangely handled. Sir George Brown, whose sight was so indifferent that he had to get one of his officers to lead his horse across the river, seemed not to know where his division was, and permitted Brigadier Buller to march off with two regiments of his brigade, leaving the third to join Codrington's Brigade. The men got huddled together on the other side of the river under the ridge, and lay there seven or eight instead of two deep, so that when they rose and delivered fire, their front was small, and the effect diminished. Then they were led straight up at the guns in a confused mass; when they had got into the battery they were left without supports, so that the enemy forced them to relinquish their hold, and were enabled to recover the work. The Light Division had, it is true, drawn the teeth of the battery, but still the enemy were able to fire over the heads of the columns from the hill above. However, the Alma was won. Menschikoff was in retreat, and the world was all before us on the evening of the 20th of September. Whether our generals had any foresight of what that world was to be — what were to be the fruits of victory, or the chances of disaster — let the history of the war on some future day communicate to the world.