The Battles: the
Alma
 It was a dispirited
and cholera-weakened army wracked by dysentery that landed on the western
coast of the Crimean peninsula some 35 miles north of Sevastopol, on the13th
September 1854. They landed at a place with the inauspicious name of Calamita
Bay. The British with their usual ineptness muddled their way onto the
beaches with little organisation. The French managed to get ashore and
had pickets four miles inland before the British even set foot on the beach.
Luckily the landings were unpposed. Six days later the two armies headed
south. The French claimed the right to march on the right of the line and
this gave them the enviable position of having the sea protecting one flank
and the British protecting the other.On the march the allies had to cross
three rivers and it was at the second of these, the River Alma, that the
Russians decided to stand. Led by Prince Mentschikoff, the Russian army
was numerically stronger than the combined Anglo-French army and occupied
a position of immense natural strength. Mentschikoff was an experienced
soldier who had been castrated by a Turkish roundshot in a previous war
against Russia's traditional enemy. He hated the Turks with an understandable
passion and this hatred extended even to their allies.
The river flows roughly east-west and in September is quite shallow in
some parts deeper in others. On the northern bank, where the British and
French were bivouacked, the ground slopes gently down to the river. Not
so on the south. At it's mouth the Alma flows past a series of steep precipitous
cliffs 350 feet high on the southern bank These cliffs continue inland
for almost two miles where they meet a less steep, but equally high hill
known as the Telegraph Hill across the river from the village of Bourliouk.
To its east lies the Kourgane Hill, a natural strongpoint with wonderful
fields of fire and the key to the whole position. Two earthworks had been
dug to protect the Kourgane Hill from infantry assault; the Lesser Redoubt
on the eastern slope and the Greater Redoubt on the west. The road to Sevastopol
ran between the Telegraph and Kourgane Hills and every inch was covered
by Russian batteries sited on the hills and in the narrow valley between
them. The Russians had only to hold their ground and keep the pass closed
and victory would be theirs. The French, however, had a plan. Not a very
good one but a plan nevertheless. Positioned on the allies' right (the
western end, nearest the sea) they would assault the cliffs across the
river. Such an obvious attempt to turn the Russian flank would so concern
the Russians that they would not notice the British attacking their centre
and left. One could almost hear Napoleon Bonoparte turning in his grave.
Of course, things didn't go quite according to plan. On the far right,
General Bousquet's  division,
supported by the guns of the French fleet, did get across the river, did
scale the cliffs and did drive off the weak Russian infantry and artillery
units positioned there. Bousquet could go no further without reinforcements,
however, and they were dreadfully slow to arrive. On Bousquet's left, French
troops under General Canrobert crossed the river but were unable to drag
their guns up the steep cliffs. To Canrobert's left Prince Napoleon's division
didn't even cross the river. In the face of heavy fire from the Telegraph
Hill their advance stalled and the troops took shelter in the vineyards
outside the village of Bourliouk.
Meanwhile the British had moved forward. The army was arranged in two lines.
The first had the Light Division on the left under Sir George Brown and
the 2nd Division under Sir George de Lacy Evans on the right. Behind them
on the right of the second line Sir Richard England led his 3rd Division.
On his left the Duke of Cambridge commanded the 1st Division. The 4th division
under Sir George Cathcart and the cavalry under Lord Lucan were held in
reserve. Unfortunately, the Light Division had not extended its line far
enough to the left and as it advanced it did so at a slight
angle. Sir George Brown was extremely shortsighted and he failed to notice
that this had occurred. Soon the troops on the right of the Light Division
and the left of the 2nd Division were irrevocably intermingled. The parade
ground exactness with which the British had set off had now been lost and
as Sir George Brown turned red with rage the Russians on the Kourgane Hill
must have chuckled at how quickly the British formation had turned into
what looked suspiciously like a mob. Unable to reorganise their men into
anything like their original units British officers finally ordered their
men to charge as they were and this the troops did. As they struggled up
the slope a densely-packed mass of Russian infantry came towards them.
The British troops stopped and opened fire on the Russians. Firing and
reloading with the practiced skill of professional riflemen the British
forced the Russians to pull back. As the red-coated line started back up
the hill, the Russian guns opened up. Scrambling up the slopes of the Kourgane
Hill in the face of determined artillery fire, the British line was no
solid mass of troops, however, more like a thick skirmishing line and the
Russian guns could only hurt them and not stop their advance. They moved
upward and on till at last they tumbled over the walls of the Greater Redoubt
as the Russians tried to remove their guns. Some men stopped to carve their
initials on captured Russian guns, most simply cheered at the sheer impudence
of their achievement. Some looked back down the hill and saw no reinforcements
coming. The First Division, consisting of the Guards and Highland Brigades,
was still crossing the river and a great Russian column was moving on the
Greater redoubt in counterattack. The Russians came on and as the British
prepared to meet them an unknown officer shouted,"Don't fire! They are French."
Other officers shouted to fire and in the confusion the British troops
decided it was time to get back down the hill and they started to drift
away.
As the Russians marched in column down to the Greater Redoubt, an astonishing
fact became apparent. Earlier in the day, Prince Mentschikoff had left
the Kourgane Hill and proceeded to view the action on the far left of the
Russian army where the French had seemed to, initially, to be causing a
danger. Now his second in command, watching his men push the British down
the hill, looked westward for sign of his C-in-C. Instead he saw the cocked
hats and white plumes of British staff officers atop a spur of the Telegraph
Hill calmly watching the battle as if on some kind of bizarre picnic. Lord
Raglan had wanted a better view of the proceedings and followed by his
staff had ridden past the French skirmishers on the left of Prince Napoleon's
division and through the Russian skirmishers facing them. Stumbling across
an upward path, he finally found himself on a ridge jutting out from the
Telegraph Hill, overlooking the Kourgane Hill and the valley between. Intimating
to his staff that it might be a good idea to have some guns in such a commanding
position, the suggestion was taken as an order and soon two nine-pounders
were firing from the ridge. They forced Russian batteries in the valley
to limber up and withdraw and though they could not reach the massed infantry
on the Kougane Hill, a few shots fired in that direction persuaded the
Russians it would be imprudent to pursue the retreating British down the
hill. Then the Russians saw the Guards.
The First Division had finally crossed the river and the Russians by the
Greater Redoubt saw approaching below them the Grenadier Guards on the
right of the British line, the Royal Scots Fusilier Guards in the centre
and the Coldstream Guards on the left. Out of sight on the far left was
the Highland Brigade. Below the Greater Redoubt, however, a group of Royal
Welch Fusiliers had held their ground when their comrades had retreated
and were firing up at the redoubt. Suddenly, hundreds of Russians swarmed
over the parapets of the retaken redoubt and unleashed a shattering
volley of musket fire. The Royal Welch Fusiliers were smashed and rushed
pell-mell down the hill, crashing into the advancing Scots Guards with
such impetus that the line was torn in many places. The Scots Guards faltered.
They were 40 yards from the redoubt when the Russians mounted a massive
bayonet charge. the Scots Guards had no choice but to retire and they did
so with a humiliating speed that saw no halt till they reached the river.
Almost 200 of them lay dead on the slope, some with bayonet slashes in
the back from pursuing Russian troops. Now there was a yawning gap between
the Grenadiers and the Coldstream guards. The Russian generals saw their
chance and pushed two battalions into the gap. As the Grenadiers prepared
to meet this charge, again strange orders were given. It had happened earlier
when British troops inside the Greater redoubt had been ordered to hold
their fire by an officer nobody knew. Now an equally unknown officer told
the Grenadiers to retire. The colonel commanding the left-wing company
of the Grenadiers, however, felt this order to be foolish and instead 'dressed
back' - that is his company retired to form a right angle with the rest
of the battalion which thus now assumed an 'L' shape, with the base of
the 'L' pointing back down to the river. As the Russians moved into the
gap, his men were able to pour deadly accurate fire into their flank. Using
the recently invented 'Minie ball' bullet, they did great execution and
the Russians hesitated. Seeing this the British advanced and the Russians
turned and fled. The Greater Redoubt was again in British hands and the
defences on the left of the Russian centre were shattered.
 The last act came
on the far right of the Russian line where 10,000 troops were still unused
and uncommitted. they were faced by the advancing Highland Brigade; a mere
three battalions. Led by Sir Colin Campbell, the 93rd Highlanders, the
Cameron Highlanders and the Black Watch came on in their dark tartan kilts,
red tunics and great black bearskin bonnets. Their ludicrously thin line
extended for almost 2,000 yards and in the smoke and confusion of battle
the Russians were unable to see that it was only two ranks deep. Superbly
disciplined the Highland Brigade advanced firing, a very difficult manouevre
in those days. For the Russians it was too much and they fell back. The
Battle of the Alma was effectively over and won. On the right of the allied
line, Canrobert had finally got his guns up the cliffs and his Zouaves
seized the Telegraph Hill. The ridge Lord raglan had so dramatically made
his own was now swarming with red-coated troops. The Russian right was
fleeing before the Highland Brigade, the Greater Redoubt was taken and
the pass bearing the road to Sevastopol untenable for the Russians. The
Russian retreat became a rout.
Lord Raglan wished to pursue the Russian but General St.Arnaud said this
was impossible for his French troops had left their packs at their start
points across the river and would have to go back for them. Raglan was
unwilling to pursue the enemy without French support and the broken Russian
army was allowed to live to fight another day.
It took two whole days for the dead to be buried and the wounded collected from
the field.
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