Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 3.djvu/211

 BATTLE OF THE ALMA. 185 events, what he did was this: having his whole CHAP, brigade iu a close, deep, narrow column, he ' pushed forward and jammed it into a steep road exactly in front of Prince Napoleon's foremost battalion. He thus made it impossible for Prince Napoleon to get into action by that road,* and put him in the plight of a man left behind — in the plight of a general who commands one of the Divisions intended to be foremost, and yet is left planted with his force in the rear of troops meant to act as reserves. Nor did D'Aurelle's brigade do any the least good by thus thrusting itself in- to the road in advance of Prince Napoleon ; for, either because of the nature of the ground or from some other cause, the brigade never spread itself out so as to be capable of fighting. Always in deep column with narrow front, it hung back but in an clinging fast to the steep part of the hill, and "ncapaci-"'^ remaining unseen by Kiriakoff, who moved free- from any ly across its front as though there were no such combat force on the hill-side. Upon the whole, the re- sult was, that, taken together, D'Aurelle's brigade and Prince Napoleon's mutilated Division were a column of near 12,000 men, which might be said to be in mere order of march during all the critical period of the battle ; for, with a depth of nearly a mile, the column had a front of only a few yards. Thus disposed, the 12,000 men who formed the column were not, of course, in a state which allowed of their attempting to engage an which at a later period he did, ascend.
 * There was another road by which the Prince could, and hy