BATTLE OF THE ALMA. 77 against Canrobert's Division as was afterwards en a P. • 1 successfully executed by Kiriakoff, he would have L._ fouud the French battalions quite soft to his touch by reason of their want of artillery ; * and Can- robert's retreat from the verge of the plateau would have occurred at a time when half the Fi'ench army was so far from the true scene of conflict as to be unable to give the least help. Except by reckoning broadly upon the quality of the French and the British troops, or else upon the smiles of fortune, it is hard to see how the Allies could then have escaped a disaster. But men move so blindly in the complex busi- ness of war, that often, very often, it is the enemy himself who is the best repairer of their faults. It was so that day. During the precious hour in which the liussian forces might have wrought a way to great glory, their cavalry were suffered to remain in idleness, and the battalions which formed the instrument afterwards used for strik- ing the blow were marching in vain from east to west and from west to east. The torpor and the false moves of the enemy countervailed the short- conn"ngs of the Allies. No combat of any moment was going on at this Tiie battle time. It is true that Colonel Lawrence with the langufshed. right, and Major Norcott with the left wing of the 2d battalion of the liifle Brigade, had gone into the vineyards in front "f of our Light Division.
- I should not have ventured upon tliis sentence if it weie
not that I am warranted in doing so by wliat actually occurred a little later. See pud. f During the march, as was shown in a former note, M^jor
