BOOKS.
MR. KINGLAKE'S CRIMEA.*
[SEcoasie NOTICE.] WE have spoken of Mr. Kinglake's literary powers as an historian, and have appreciated the valus of his work up to a certain point. We may now carry a-A:cis-in a step further, and touch upon tome points iu his second volume. And here we come upon a striking fact. It was u common opinion that Mr. Kinglake, whatever he might make of the politics of the war, would certainly excel in mil:tag narrative. His manly love of war, it was wellknown, had led him more than once under fire. He was a student of military history. He had conned over the camp.tigus of the first Napoleon. It was assumed that the excetieits refinement and clearness, and the conc:ntrated force of his etyl would tell when he had the operations of warfare for his tl.enee. Iu this respect public ex- pectation has been dig:yet:due d nearly as much as it has been exceeded in the treatment of the polizical branch of his subject. That constructive art which has eeabled him to paint character to the life, to unfold scene by scene, and in perfect order, the drama of the Holy Places, to narrate the history of the coup d'e'tftt and unvsil the motives of the great a. tees in the play, seems to desert hi.n when he has to deal with the action of the war itself. Not that seleudid battle-pieces are not to be found on the broad canvas. They are numerous ; but the design wants compactness as a whole. In the second volume, as in the first, he surprises and d.liehts the reader whenever he deals with character and motives, eta the clear stream of the narrative becomes the clearer fix breaks and digressio:.s. But he fails when he comes to write of the tnevements ant the shock of armies ; then, breaks in the coutLuity tell p infully on the reader. Then it seems as if the na rater had himself formed no distinct coecspt:oa of t e sit -rem.: a. t of war— a battle. 'That diffuseness which !r in his peu leak s cleanr and stronger the political narrative and exposition, becomes a positive blemish ellen used in military mue-ative. It is a grave fault of style using the word in the largest sense, to describe a campaign as you would describe the flo w or po:itical events and the strife of diplomatists. Mr. Kinglake, in our opinion, has committed this fault. His battle of the Alma is composed on the same 17,e leevaion of the Crimea. 131 A. W. Kiv,lake. Ron.-B:Ackwood and Sons.
principles as his battle of the Emperors and Mini-tens and Ambassadors. But while the latter struggle is easily understood and easily followed, we shall be surprised to learn that any one can say, after reading the three hundred pages devoted to the battle of the Alma, that be understands the action; Napier, in ten pages of concentrated and precise description, would have set the p!ctu re before us complete and without a flaw. Mr.Kinglake might have taken a larger space, lie might have taken even a hundred pages ; had he done so no fact need have been omitted, and his readers would have been able to form a clear conception of the whole engagement, which they can do now only after a laborious study and a recomposition of the material set before them.
The practicability of invading the Crimea from the sea and destroying Sebastopol n ed not now be discussed, for the thing has been done ; but in the summer of 1834 it was a subject of grave debate and an enterprise of doubtful issue. The Allies knew little about the country, and less about the strength of the army within it. They felt the dangers attending a descent on the coast. They had good reason to believe that they could get to the Crimea, but, when they got there, the plan of 01v-rations to be adopted would depend less upon them than the enemy. Happily for them Prince Menschikoff was a man of small capacity and no insight, and he took the course best suited to the objects and circumstances of the Allies. It is now well known that the favourite plan of the French Emperor was different from that adopted. He would have had the Allies land at Kaffa, and fight their way from that base to Sebastopol. This would have been the more scientific course, and had the armies been of one nation and under one chief, and had the object been the conquest of the Crimea, a landing at Kaffa would probably have been adopted. But the object was not the conquest of the Crimea ; it was the destruction of Sebastopol. The English Cabinet, to whose views the Emperor gave way, calculated on a rapid march, a battle, the surrender of the place as the result, its destruction, and even the re-embarkation of the troops. There- fore, Lord Raglan, who executed the views of his Government, put aside the French objections, would not land at Kaffa or at the mouth of the Katcha, but disembarked a few miles south of Eupatoria, between the salt - lakes and the sea, and marched thence to fight the Russians, who were known to be in position on the Alma. Had Prince Menschikoff been a good commander, he would not have indulged the Allies with a battle, even ou that strong ground. The main bodies of the Russian army were on the march from the Prate The Prince should have declined a combat until they came up. He had it in his power to fight os not, as he pleased, for he might have flanked the allied line of march, instead of fronting it. Had he done so, the alli_ s must have sought to bring on a battle, for they could not have continued their march with an army on their inner fi uk. He need not have fought one unless be pleased, and, if he pleased, he might have fooght it at a distance from the sea. But unless he had fought before reinforcements arrived, and unless he were beaten, the Allies could not have marched upon Sebastopol. He decided to fight, and be decided to fight near the sea, and strove sith a farce iufsrior by one-third to driest the m ,reh of the Allies by forming across the great road. This was a happy chance ; for the safety of the Aides depended upon a battle and a rapid march, the goal of which was Sebasto- pol. The Allies began to laud on the 14th of September. The hazardous character of their enterprise is sheen by the fact that six d ,ys ehtesed before they came to blows with the enemy, although he was distant only a march and a liaK On the 19th of September, the French taking the post of honour and the English the post of danger, to use the words of Lord Raglan, the Allies advanced ; and on the 20th they were under the chosen position of the Russian general.
This p sition was one of great natural strength, but it was too large for the force appointed to defend it. The front was covered throughout its length by the river Alma. On the Russian tight a succession of open downs sloped up from the stream. In the centre the high road traversed a dip of the ground, and passed through a slight ridge, which ran east and west. On the left was a high cliff extending to the sea, broken here and there by rough roads leading to the plateau above. On this plateau, overlooking the cea tee, was a telegraph station, a sort of tower. The wl ole of the ground was undulating. On the river bank were gardens, and vineyards, and villages, and then to the north stretched an. open plain. Over this plain, its right resting on the sea, its left resting on nething, marched the allied armies. There were on those heights 39,000 m n and 102 guns. A slight -field-work • armed with twelve or'fol.r.1:en guns was thrown up on a ridge of
the down-like slope, and another to its right. A battery of six- teen or eighteen guns swept the high road. The main force of the infantry, in heavy columns, say 23,000 men, and nearly all the cavalry, were on the right and centre ; the remainder on the left. To assail and defeat themthe Allies had 63,000 men and 128 guns. This was great odds, but Prince Menschikoff relied on his posi- tion—a poor makeshift, when you have no brains.
The plan of the battle was very simple, and it was made on the ground. The French were to turn the left, and when they had thus shaken the enemy, the English were to storm the steep elopes before them. Accordingly, protected by the fire of the ships, the French, at three points, made their way up the cliffs ; but they met with mishaps. Their artillery could only be dragged up with much labour, and they were a long time without it. Bouat was isolated, with 9,000 men, by the sea ; Bosquet got on the plateau, but could not move without guns ; Canrobert was in the same position ; Prince Napoleon remained in the valley. Menschikoff, alarmed at this unex- pected movement, drew part of his reserves to the extreme left, but did nothing with them. On the English side the action was confined to a cannonade. But, urged by the French, who now felt the danger of the flank movement they had not completed, Lord Raglan gave the order for a general attack. As near as can be computed this was about three o'clock. In an hour there- from the action was won.
Our line was on a front of two divisions, with two in support, and one with the cavalry on the exposed left flank. Sir George Brown, commanding the Left Division, did not take up ground enough, and he overlapped the Second Division on his right. Here began confusion, and the Russians, having fired the village of Bourliouk, that confusion increased ; for the Second Division had to avoid the flames, and their left brigade encroached still • further on the Light Division. Nevertheless the men, bravely, though not skilfully led, went well at the river and crossed it But they went at it as a mob, crossed it as a mob, as a mob arrived under the shelter of the bank, and when led into the open, it was as a mob that they storied up on the Russian battery. Two regiments escaped from their brigadiers and joined the attacking crowd. At this stage of the fight part of the French were on the heights, but not in active battle, part in the valley under fire. Next to them were the regiments of the Second Division under the bank of the river, while a storm of shot from the road batteries swept over them. Then came the Light Division. It had got on to the bill-side. 'One regiment, the 7th Fusiliers, in a rude line, was gallantly engaging a heavy Russian column on the right, and the re- mainder, under Codrington, with the 95th, which had quitted the Second Division, and except two regiments under Buller, guard- ing the left flank, were ascending the hill in a swarm.
At this stage Lord Raglan had taken a step which was certainly strange. He had ridden into the heart of the Russian lines when his own troops moved he rode off to cross the river wi them ; when at the river he found himself .0 ran enfilide fire. " Ah !" he said, "if they can enfiladeriis hefirsVe =can cer- tainly enfilade them on the rising grounc1•135yond. Order up Turner's battery."* This is not Mr. KitiglAe's story. He seems to think that Lord Raglan rode intiolthe Russian position by a ti
chance, and happened to find thereeat advantage ; but if the remark we have quoted be true, it jaiuk be that he foresaw the advantage and sought it. He rode' ; found a piece of high ground unoccupied, got up two guns, and with them flanked the Russian batteries. The consequence was that the Russian batteries on the main road went higher' up the downs, and the Second Division established itself in the hollow through which the road runs. It is said that the heavy guns were hurried out of the field-work, assailed by the Light Division, impelled by Turner's fire; but whether that be so or not it is certain that when the Russians began to move the guns the mob, representing the Light Division, was so close that in their rush they took one gun and the team drawing it, and found another in the work.
At this time, on the eieme-left,_there were two British regi- ments, fearful of moving lestl'aVay should burst upon them ; in the field-work were the ,tight Division, on the high road the Second Division, and iterear the Third and First. The French, relieved somewhat by this advance, were preparing to move for- ' ward. Now, the First p_kision, Guards and Highlanders, should have been thrown institetigto the fight. They were not. Now, Lord Raglan's abrneests'effectual as it had been in a different way, was felt,..for‘a decisive command was required. He was not in a place whence he could issue orders to troops, * &Mrs from Hoadvarlars, p.1TF,1K Station. and the First Division was not commanded by a man of decision. It did at length move, after a stinging remark from Sir Colin Campbell ; but it did not move in time to save the Light Division. For the enemy came down upon Sir George Brown's mob, and drove them from the field-work, just as the First Division was coming up ; and the fugitives, as they ran, broke the Scots Fusilier Guards, the centre of the brigade. The French were now moving upon the Telegraph hill. The 7th Fusiliers had beaten off their assailants, and had formed the link between the Guards and the SecondDivision, an important service rendered by the sturdy 7th, for while the Guards, well led by their regi- mental officers, went in fine array directly upon the massive defenders of the disarmed field-work, the Highland regiments stepped up the hill-side in echelon, and fell successively on the flanks of columns hastening to assail the Guards, and the position was carried. The French had also driven off the defenders of the 'Telegraph hill. Mr. Kiuglake says the Russians did not defend it ; but while in sonic French accounts there is gross exaggera- tion, the evidence before us of a conflict is so strong that we are compelled to think lie is in error. The position was crowned when the sun was yet high. Lord Raglan wished to pursue the enemy, but his colleague declined, and so the Russians got away, shaken and beaten, but not broken up and destroyed as an army.
We have not space to give to extracts of splendid battle pic- tures from Mr. Kinglake's pen, nor to indulge in any but a general criticism of his story. In some details it is inaccurate, and we are sure he has relied too much on the Pole Chodasiewiez. On the whole, the battle of the Alma seems to us to have been a battle fought without a plan and won without a general. It was lost because there was even less generalship as well as fewer num- bers on the side of the Russians. Prince Menschikoft's conduct of the battle is. only equalled by his conduct of the campaign. He might have barred the road to Sebastopol without standing across it. But he laid himself down there, and the Allies walked over him. It was not his fault that the Allies did not within a week capture the great fleet and arsenal they had crossed the sea to win.
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