Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 3.djvu/127

 BATTLE OF THE ALMA. 101 which attached ipon General Buller at this mo- chap. meiit was one of a grave kind ; for if the enemy ' should seize the moment 'o^ Sir" George B"i'ovn's uie'liSy^ assault upon the Great Eedoubt as his time for u"onL,';i making a resolute attack wltlr horse,- -l^ob+y a>id artillery upon the flank of our advancing troops, the safety of the whole Allied army would be challenged, and would be found to rest greatly upon such dispositions as General Buller might have made for covering our left. Sir George Brown's order to Buller empowered him to advance until he was over the stream ; but, that duty having been executed, the brigadier now found himself on the bank of a river, without, so far as I know, having any fresh orders to guide him, yet charged by circumstance with the duty of covering the flank of the whole Allied army at the moment of an assault upon the enemy's strong- hold. The business was a vital one; and the caution which Buller used at this time was re- quired by the occasion.* For to push forward the two regiments which formed the extreme left of the whole Allied front, and to march them against the enemy's stronghold in a line, out- flanked by the enemy's horse, and even, it would seem, by a portion of his foot, would have been to lay open, not Buller's brigade merely, but the whole Allied army, to the risk of a Ihmk attack haadletl at a hiter period of the action was not the necessary result of the dispositions made at this time, and is a fit subject for distinct comments.
 * The way in which the 88tli and the 77tli rie<,ainents were