Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 3.djvu/257

BATTLK OF THE ALMA. 231 system of military dispensation which could keep CHAP in the background a man thus tried and thus ^' known. Upon the breaking-out of the war with Eussia, Sir Colin was appointed — not to the command of a division, but of a brigade. It was not till the June of 1854 that his rank in the army became higher than that of a colonel. Campbell was not the slave, he was the master of his calling, and therefore it was that he had been able to save his intellect from the fate of being drowned in military details. He knew that although a general must have a complete mastery of even the smallest of such things, still they were only a part — a minute though essential part — of the great science of war. He understood the precious material whereof our army is formed. He heartily loved our soldiery ; for he was a soldier, and had fellow-feeling with soldiers, and they had fellow-feeling with him. Instinctively they knew that, together, they might do great things — he by their help, they by his. Knowing the worth of their devotion and their bodily strength, he cherished them with watchful care ; and they, on their part, loved, honoured, and obeyed him with a faith that all he ordered was right. He set great store upon discipline, but it was never for discipline's sake that he did so (as if that were itself an end), but because he knew it to be one of the main sources of military ascendancy. So, although the ofiicers and soldiers serving under him got no more rest than was