had been hurriedly constructed about the port; now they must be extended; hence sprang up those redoubts of which England was to hear so much after the lapse of a few days. Although for a full week Liprandi had prowled over the ground he intended to make the scene of his coming operations, yet a full sense of their great insecurity never seems to have completely possessed the British commanders. Lord Raglan's anxiety set the spade to work with greater vigour, and Sir Colin expressed his opinion that even if we could resist an attack by day, in the night we were far from safe. The majority of the leaders, however, expressed a full confidence in the strength of the outworks; so it too soon came to be accepted that they were as strong as they were hoped to be. Whether this majority of judges were capable of giving a sound opinion can now be decided in the negative. Respecting the defence of Balaclava, there can be no manner of doubt that several egregious mistakes were made. The first was in leaving it with a very insufficient garrison-a garrison that could not be promptly succoured from the camp; the second was in so disposing of its slender body of defenders as not to make the best use of their strength. The troops employed in the defence were the 93rd Highlanders, the cavalry brigades, about 1,200 marines and marine artillery, and 3,000 Turks. The 93rd and Marines protected the town and the inner line; the cavalry were encamped in the valleys north of the town; the Turks occupied the newly constructed redoubts in the outer line. The outer line of defence was certainly weak and faulty; but, says Kinglake, "the Engineers were confident in the security of the inner line,' and at times certainly Sir Colin Campbell shared their belief; but I gather that he was brought into an anxious state of mind by the peculiar responsibility which weighed upon him, and his language in regard to the security of the position was not always the same." The troops with which Sir Colin had to defend the gorge of Kadikoi -the weak spot in the line-were the 93rd, a battalion of Turks and a battery of field artillery. The worst feature of the case, however, was that there was duality of command. Campbell commanded at Balaclava, and controlled the few infantry there stationed, but the rules of the Service had placed over the splendid cavalry brigade a peace-officer who was Campbell's superior! The day when the perfection and wisdom of the arrangements for the defence of Balaclava should be passed through the trying ordeal of actual battle was near at hand. A few days before the fight, Campbell is said to have been satisfied and to have thus reported his satisfaction, "I fancy we are now very strong as well as secure." This report is said to have satisfied Lord Raglan, who reposing all confidence in Campbell's skill and energy, dismissed the defence of Balaclava from his immediate attention. On the 25th October, the Russian onslaught was made. In the early morning, and indeed before the day had fairly broken, the Turks descried the movements of troops which portended the attack. Lord Lucan an Sir Colin were reconnoitring, and in the grey dawn they also discerned the movement; when with Campbell's assent Lord Lucan gathered together his heavy cavalry, "making demonstrations and threatening the enemy." But these "demonstrations" were unheeded. A strong body of infantry aided by cavalry, and a powerful and numerous artillery assailed the first line of redoubts occupied by the Turks. These redoubts were carried, the Turkish so.diery being mostly slain, fighting bravely in their defence. A question may be asked how it came that these Russian soldiers, with their overpowering artillery, were allowed to mass themselves for the assault without serious interruption from the splendid forces that were then certainly under the command of Lord Lucan, and perhaps more or less under the control of Sir Colin Campbell? and the answer to that question might be arrived at, although it might not be satisfactory. Unity of command was wanted; and a unity of command where the more skilful governed the less skilful and not the reverse. The world knows the results of the Battle of Balaclava. In those fatal valleys our gallant cavalry showed courage and disci pline that have probably never been equalled by any other body of horsemen, but their efforts were unavailing. With the small body of infantry, however, fortune was less hard. At the first news of the advance of the enemy Campbell had drawn up the 93rd Highlanders a little in front of the road to the town. When the Russians carried the first line of defence, Campbeli ordered the 93rd to retire for temporary shelter to a better position in the rear, where he awaited the proper moment to advance and receive the rapidly coming charge of the Russian cavalry. After chasing the the unfortunate Turks from their redoubts, 1,500 Russian hor-emen "drew breath for a moment, and then in one grand line dashed at the Highlanders. The ground flies beneath their horses feet; gathering speed at every stride, they dash on towards that thin red streak topped with a line of steel. The Turks fire a volley at eight hundred yards and run. As the Russians come within six hundred yards, down goes that line of steel in front and out rings a rolling volley of Minié musketry. The distance is too great; the Russians are not checked, but still sweep onwards through the smoke with the whole force of horse and man, here and there knocked over by the shot of our batteries above. With breathless surprise every one awaits the bursting of the wave upon the line of Gaelic rock; but ere they come within one hundred-and-fif y yards another deadly volley flashes from the levelled rifle, and carries death and terror into the Russians. They wheel about, open files right and left and fly back faster than they came. "Bravo, Highlanders! well done!" shout the excited spectators; but events thicken. The Highlanders and their splendid front are U. S. MAG. No. 506, JAN., 1871. G soon forgotten, men scarcely have a moment to think of this fact, that the 93rd never altered their formation to receive that tide of horsemen. "No," said Sir Colin Campbell, "I did not think it worth while to form them even four deep.' This is the account given by Russell in his letter to the Times, describing the affair; it is highly picturesque, and for the most part truthful, but it is not quite accurate in detail. It fails to shew how stern a hand Campbell held over the fiery soldiers he commanded, and by how accurate a glance he read the yet incomplete signs of the battle. It fails also to shew how keenly alive he was to the fact that upon him the crisis of this battle hung, as the crisis of other battles had hung before in his life-time. Riding down the line while the attack was impending, he said in addressing the soldiery. "Remember there is no retreat from here, men ! You must die where you stand!" The answer came quick and simultaneous from the men he addressed, "Ay, ay, Sir Colin; we'll do that!" They were ready to fight to the last, and die if necessary; nay, almost too ready. They began to shew signs of a craving thirst for the stroke of battle. Once while the squadrons. were charging down upon them the regiment showed a strong disposition to burst forth and meet the serried ranks at the point of the bayonet; but in a moment Sir Colin was heard crying fiercely, "Ninety-third! Ninety-third! damn all that eagerness!" and the angry voice of the old soldier quickly steadied the line. With his men then well in hand Campbell calmly awaited the onslaught of the squadrons, and smote them with a death blow ere they reached him. But with Campell's gallant feat the battle was not over. The worst features of the fight had yet to be discovered, the charge of the "Six Hundred" had yet to take place. About ten o'clock Lord Raglan began to throw infantry forward to sustain the attack. The Guards and Highlanders were moved down towards the plains, and the Duke of Cambridge, who came up to Lord Raglan for orders was told by his lordship, "who was ready to give the honour of the day to Sir Colin Campbell," to place himself under the orders of the Brigadier. And so it was admitted, in the midst of disaster and confusion, that on the field of battle war-service shouid be reckoned superior to peace-service. * It is probable that as some have represented this scene is a little overdone. Campbell was too good a soldier, and one who too well knew that cavalry can become very dangerous to infantry even in the best formation, to expose his men with recklessness. It is true that his boyhood was passed among soldiers who at the point of the bayonet had charged and defeated French cavalry; and it might be that in the field of Balaclava the old soldier's mind reverted to the day when the 5th and 77th Regiments drove away the French Cavalry at El Bodon, and utterly defeated it; but if this were so, one can scarcely think that, knowing the immensely critical state of affairs, he should deliberately hold his regiment in line for the purpose of repeating a feat the attempt to peform which had alarmed and astonished everybody who had witnessed it. However, the feat he then performed is perhaps without parallel in the annals of war, and was a wonderful feat in the career of a general whom sapient military critics had already pronounced "over cautious." In the battle of Inkerman and the early affairs of the siege, Sir Colin Campbell took no part, his command at Balaclava for the time occupying his full attention. Making reconnaissances and preparing for attacks which rumour declared to be imminent, although rumour was always proved to be wrong, Sir Colin afterwards passed the dreary winter of 1854 in the miserable place whence the famine which was destroying the English Army stalked from confusion on the one hand and quagmires on the other, in all its hideousness. As the spring advanced, he continued to carry out his reconnaissances, often in conjunction with some of the French generals of division; but all his watchfulness was not sutlicient to catch the wary Russ, whose experiences of the valleys in rear of Balaclava were not so cheering as to cause him to tempt his fate a second time. And so Sir Colin's life went on, dull and monotonous, and unrelieved by warlike excitement, until he stole down to the front to witness the assault of the Mamelon, where, placing himself under fire, he was welcomed with a few rounds of shell and grape. After the death of Lord Raglan, Campbell was generally looked upon as his most fitting successor. Few of the first batch of generals-these who commanded in Turkey and the early days of the Crimea were left with the Army, and of those few it was unquestionable that Campbell, as a soldier, was the best. Not only had he often and again proved himself skilful in war, but he had the fullest experience of the war which was then being carried on; yet the great wisdom of the system found another candidate and appointed him. It is said that Campbell acquiesced in the appointment of General Simpson, whose experience of the Crimea was little, as he had only lately gone out as chief of the Staff, and whose war experience was nothing. But when Simpson, after a brief and inglorious rule, resigned the command, and Campbell was again passed over to make room for the appointment of Sir William Codrington, the sense of the indignity under which he suffered, stirred his anger. He requested to be allowed to resign his command and return to England. It was an insult to ask him to serve under a general who besides being subordinate to him in mere war office rank, knew little of war, and had known nothing previous to his arrival in the Crimea, as a colonel of the Guards suddenly made a major-general by one of the pieces of good fortune to which Guardsinen are especially liable. The authorities, however, could not afford to lose the services of the man whom they did not scruple to insult, and it is said that the highest authority of the realm made it a personal favour with Sir Colin that he should return to the Crimea and resume his command. Such a request calmed the old soldier's indignation and brought him back to duty. In the meantime, Sebastopol fell, and its fall being followed by the peace, Campbell's further chances of distinction and recognition were at an end. I fortune seemed to haunt him with the most dogged pertinacity. The war in which he commenced his career closed at the very moment when he appeared to have stepped on the high road to fame and left him unrequited; the war in which he seemed to have terminated his career, after forty-eight years of unceasing struggle, collapsed at the very moment when there again appeared a chance of having his great services publicly rewarded. The beginning and end were indeed bitter; but as bitter was the recollection of the many noteworthy steps in his career which connected them. (To be continued.) PENNY WISDOM. It may be wise and sound policy to keep secret any arrangements making for the re-organization of our Army; but lookers-on and tax-payers are getting anxious, and in these days of Treaty breaking and secret combinations, few see any advantage in "statu quo, or at the best in "marking time." Whatever consolation may have been derived from ministerial oratory, or confidence given by authoritative dialectics after dinner, yet three facts present themselves, and are as patent to us all as to those loving us so dearly in foreign lands. First. That in the autumn of the year 1870, the British Army reduced its offensive and defensive strength by twenty thousand men. Second. That in the autumn of the year 1870, the consent of Parliament was asked to increase that ariny by twenty thousand men. Third. That before the new year scarcely two thirds of these twenty thousand new men had been obtained. There must have been gross blundering somewhere; both as regards the too hurried dismissal of soldiers, and in the issue of instructions by which these, or at least an equally reliable body of men, might be induced to serve their country. On whom the blame may be fixed, and to what purpose all this was done may be shewn in 1871; for the present we must rest dissatisfied with the knowledge that we have no friends anywhere; have the prospect of a terri le war with some large Power, such as Russia, America, or even Prussia, and are less prepared than formerly. The political horizon, during the past two years, more especially during 1870 has been most dark, and so ominous of war that no Ministry were justified in reducing the offensive or defensive strength of this country, nor in dilly-dallying over the better armament of its soldiers. Few there were, unless wearing War Office spectacles, who did not foresee that the constant recurrence of squabbles between France and Prussia would lead ultimately to |