Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 3.djvu/270

 244 BATTLE OF THE ALMA. CHAP, had been growing more anxious, for, besides the ^' troubles that were besetting liis front, he could not but know that Pennefather's brigade was established in the Pass ; and the apparition of our Headquarter staff on the knoll, followed quick by Turner's guns, had cheated hira into the notion that the whole French army was marching straight eastward into the English field of battle. Nay, he imagined that the guns on the knoll were throwinix a flaukin<:f fire into the left of his Vladi- niir battalions ; * and indeed it would seem that these battalions were really struck — not by shot against the cohimns on the KourganJ; Hill, Iiut found the dis- tance too great. The passage in which Kvetzinski speaks of the state of things in the direction of ' the knoll ' is this : — ' From the left, the French, having forced our left-wing fore- ' posts, were hurrying to the rescue of their allies, whose ' efforts were beginning to Hag before the unheard-of and un- ' paralleled heroism of the brave Vladiuiirtzi. The French ' battery, having takeii up its position on the left wing of our ' side' (this so-called 'French battery' was Turner's battery on the knoll), ' began to fire sideways on the fast-thinning ranks ' of our gallant regiment. Their reserve were hastening to cut able it was that Kvetzinski and all other Russians on the Kour- ganfe Hill should make this mistake— should suppose that the group of plumed officers in blue frocks who crowned the knoll betokened the presence of the French army in that part of the field, and that Turner's guns were a French battery. H amongst the French or their friends there are any men so con- stituted as to wish to keep the benefit derived from this mistake, their best course will be to quote this passage from Kvetzinski, and to suppress the explanation which shows how his error arose. For the sake of fairness, and not without a foresight of the wrongful use which may be made of the passage, I give what I believe to be a close and accurate translation from the Russian words in which it was written.- -i"'o/c to st Edition.
 * He was wrong in this. Turner's guns tried their range
 * off our retreat.' I have already shown how all but inevit-