The French are disposed to think that the English were too slow in beginning the attack, which it was agreed should not take place till our allies had gained the left of the Russian position. It is certain that Lord Raglan received one, if not two, pressing messages from Marshal St. Arnaud to hasten his columns: but one may ask how it was that here, as everywhere else, the honour of taking the initiative was ceded to our allies, and the opportunity given to them of saying " The English were too late." They only numbei-ed 23,000, whereas we had about 27,000. If it resulted from their position on our right, why did they take the left when we halted before Sebastopol? The assaidts on the place were made on the same principle — the French first, the English afterwards; and, whether it be true or false that we were " too late," there can be no doubt there was from the beginning a tendency to say so.
It is beyond question, in the opinion of many officers, that the Light Division were not followed closely enough by the First in their advance up the hill at the Alma. In other words, the latter were too slow or " too late." The French did their part admu-ably, and their intelligence and personal activity were wonderfully displayed in their progress up the steep ravines and sides of the high banks of the plateau, but their loss in killed and wounded was vmder 700 men, while ours was just 2000. The Admiral Bouet Willaumez, in his recent so-calleA Jlistor^ of t/ie French Navy, distinctly avers that the English General would not permit the victory to be followed up by marching next day, and that the French were retarded by their allies.
A different impression prevails in our army, but this is one of the points which must be cleared up for history by those who were in the confidence of Lord Raglan. The statement, at all events, shows what was the Lolief of the cJief d'etat major of the French r^axj in the Black Sea. Of the necessity and of the motives for the delay, of its results, of the practicahilit}- of getting such aid from the fleet as would have relieved us entirely from the charge of sick, wounded, and prisoners, I shall not speak; hut it is to be remarked that the feebleness and imbecility of om* arrangements in this portion of om* administration became apparent at the very fii-st pressui'e by the abandonment of our ambulances just at the very time they were most needed, by the disgraceful exhibition of the "Kangaroo" crowded with sick and wounded till she had to make the signal that she was unmanageable and unsafe in the sight of the whole fleet, by the sufl'erings of her miserable cargo, left to the charge of one surgeon, who could not attend to a tithe of his patients, and who could not even, get at them if he could have dressed their wounds, and by the wretched, foolish, and cruel expedient of leaving another surgeon, l\Ii-.
Thompson, and his servant on the field to take care of 700 wounded men. Dr. Thompson felt the hopelessness and positive criielty of such a proceeding, and remonstrated against it, but he was told it had been " ordered," and that if the "Cossacks" came down his "professional character" would protect him. Standing on the banks of the Alma, one has many bitter reflections to make, and all the glories of that name cannot sweeten them. The battle itself was one of the most brilliant in the world — the shortest and sharpest, and our army, young in battle but veteran in service, displayed the best qualities of British infantry. We have since heard of the incredulity, of the dismay, with which the news was received in St.
Petei'sburg, and of the subsequent eagerness of the Russian army to avenge the defeat and to huny to the Crimea, to di'ive the allies into the sea. They found a barrier they could not break at Inkermann; but they are a people prone to put faith in their own invincibility, and slow to credit defeat, and they believe in themselves even yet. The position of the Alma is so well marked that it can never be mistaken by any future visitors. The French attacked the steep and almost perpendicular cliffs, which are broken here and there by ravines which mount upwards from the river. They were divided from us by the most marked and extensive of those ravines, and eastward of that boundary the whole of the ground suddenly falls, and, instead of rising abruptly from the Alma, gains the high level of the hills by a series of sweeping undulations, offering many VOL.