XXXIX.

CHAP landing-ground, their whole flotilla, their boats and their troops, when landed, would be hopelessly mixed up with the French; and what might be expected to follow would be ruinous confusion nay even, perhaps, angry and violent conflict between the forces of the Allies. To propose to move the buoy, or to get into controversy with the French at such a time, would be to delay and imperil the whole undertaking; and yet the boundary, as it stood, extruded the English from all share in the chosen landingground. It might seem that the whole enterprise was again in danger of failure, but again a strong will interposed.

Sir Edmund Lyons.

His way

of dealing with the

emergency.

From the moment when Lord Raglan consented to undertake the invasion, he seems to have acted as though he felt that the belief which he entertained of its hazardousness was a reason why he should be the more steadfast in his determination to force it on. Nor was he without the very counsel that was needed for overcoming this last obstacle. Lyons, commanding the in-shore squadron of the British fleet, was intrusted with the direction of our transports and the whole management of the landing. Moving long before dawn in the sleepless Agamemnon, he saw where the buoy had been placed by the French in the night-time, and gathered in an instant all the perilous import of the change. He was more than a mere performer of duty, for he was under a passionate force of purpose. ping to indulge his anger, he darted

a man driving Without stop

upon

the means

XXXIX.

ing-place

the Eng

Kamishlu.

of dealing with the evil. He had observed that about CHAP. a mile to the north of "Old Fort" there was that strip of beach, before spoken of, which divided the lake of Kamishlu from the sea. There Lord Raglan and he now determined that the landing of the British forces should take place. It was true that this plan New landwould sever the French from the British forces dur- found for ing the operation of landing, but the evil thus en-lish at countered was a hundred-fold less grave than the evil avoided for, even in the face of an enemy, the separation of the French from the English would have been better than dispute or confusion; and, moreover, the observations of the previous day had led the Allies to conjecture that the enemy did not intend to resist the landing. The morning showed that this conjecture was sound: therefore, great as was the danger from which the Alliance had been delivered, it turned out in the result that the immense advantage of having two extended landingplaces instead of one, was not counterbalanced by any evil resulting from the severance of the two armies.

In point of security from molestation on the part of the enemy, both of the two landing-places were happily chosen. Both of them were on shores which allowed the near approach of the fleets, and placed the whole operation under cover of their guns. Also both landing-places were protected on the inland side by the salt lakes, which interposed a physical obstacle in the way of any front attack by the enemy; and

XXXIX.

CHAP. the access to the flanks of the disembarking armies was by strips of land so narrow that they could be easily defended against any force of infantry or cavalry. It is true that the line of disembarkation of either army could have been enfiladed by artillery placed on the heights; but then those heights could be more or less searched by a fire from the ships; and the enemy had not attempted to prepare for himself any kind of defence on the high ground.

Position of the English flotilla adapted

change.

and the

The necessity of having to carry the English flotilla to a new landing-place occasioned, of course, a painful dislocation of the arrangements which had already to the been acted upon by the commanders of the transports; but after much less delay and much less confusion than might have been expected to result from a derangement so great and so sudden, the position of the English vessels was adapted to the change. The cause Meanwhile, few of the thousands on board undernature of stood the change which had been effected, or even saw that they were brought to a new landing-ground. They imagined that it was the better method or greater quickness of the French which was giving them the triumph of being the first to land. Both Lord Raglan and Lyons were too steadfast in the maintenance of the alliance to think of accounting for the seeming tardiness of the English by causing the truth to be known; and even to this day it is commonly believed that the English army effected its landing at Old Fort.

the change

kept secret.

The bend of the coast-line at Kalamita Bay is of

XXXIX.

of the

rons.

such a character that a spectator on board a vessel CHAP. close in-shore is bounded in his view of the sea Position towards the south by the headland near the Alma; ' in-shore but if he stands a little way out to sea, the coast squadopens, and he then commands an unobstructed view home to the entrance of the Sebastopol harbour. So, whilst the in-shore squadrons approached the beach so closely as to be able to cover the landing, the bulk of the English fleet, commanded by Dundas in person, lay far enough out to be able to command the whole of the vast bay from Eupatoria to Sebastopol, keeping up an unbroken chain of communi- Of the cation from cape to cape, and always held ready lish fleet. to engage the Russian fleet if by chance it should come out and give battle.* Detached vessels reconnoitred the coast, and practised their gunners upon every encampment or gathering of troops which seemed to be within range. As though in the arrogant, yet quiet assertion of an ascendant beyond dispute, one solitary English ship, watching off the Sebastopol harbour, stood sentry over the enemy's fleet. Men had heard of the dominion of the seas now they saw it.

main Eng

The plan of the English disembarkation was imi- Plan of the

* It has been already explained that the French men-of-war were doing duty as transports, and were not therefore in a condition to engage the enemy. There were people who thoughtlessly blamed Dundas for not taking part with the in-shore squadron in the bustle of the landing. Of course his duty was to hold his off-shore squadron in readiness for an engagement with the Sebastopol fleet; and this he took care to do.

landing.

XXXIX.

CHAP. tated from the one adopted by Sir Ralph Abercromby when he made his famous descent upon the coast of Egypt; and it was based upon the principle of so ranging the transports and the boats as that the relative position of each company, whilst it was being rowed towards the shore, should correspond with that which it would have to take when formed upon the beach.*

General Airey.

to

All the naval arrangements for the landing were undertaken by Sir Edmund Lyons; but to dispose the troops on the beach to gain a lodgment take up a position, and, if necessary, to intrench it these were duties which specially devolved upon the Quartermaster-General. The officer who held this post was General Airey; and since it was his fate to take a grave part in the business of the war, and to share with Lord Raglan his closest counsels, it seems useful to speak here at once, not of the quality of his mind (for that will best be judged by looking to what he did, and what he omitted to do), but rather to speak of those circumstances of his life, and those outer signs and marks of his nature, which any bystander in the camp would be likely to hear of or see.

A strictly military career in peace-time is a poor schooling for the business of war; and the rough

*The plans and the papers of instructions for the landing will perhaps be given in the Appendix; but I abstain from giving a detailed account of the operation, because it was not resisted by the enemy.