Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 3.djvu/345

 BATTLE OF THE ALMA. 319 At three o'clock, as we saw, the battle had c ii a r beea suffered to lapse into such a condition that there was then bitter need of a general, and of troops so placed in the field, and so inclined to- wards the practice of close fighting, as to be able to restore — to restore, as it were, by sheer force — the waning fortune of the day. How the occasion was met this History has shown. I narrate, and soldiers will comment. They must judge, and say whether, for simplicity's sake, it be better to pile up a heap of praise, and distribute it, like a cargo of medals, amongst all the French, English, and Turks who heard the sound of the guns ; or, in a harsher and more careful spirit, to part off the troops which fought hard from the troops which scarce fought at all, and to show by whose ordering it was that the course of the battle was governed. I have been eager to acknowledge the valour and the steadiness of the Eussian infantry. If I had caused it to appear that, upon the whole. Marshal St Arnaud and the troops he commanded had done marvels on the day of the Alma, I should have been helping to prolong a belief in that which I know to be false, and should be even running counter to what, with f^ood reason, I hold to be the opinion of the French army ; * but I subsequently to the battle, but the conviction of which I speak was not slow to show itself in the French army. Writing three days after the battle, Lord liaglan said, 'The French arnjy ' accomplished what they undertook perfectly well ; ' but then, and speaking of the conviction which was produced upon tha I.
 * I spoak in great measure from knowledge ac>iuired long