Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/191

 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 169 trace the neutrality of our Light Brigade to a chap cause of miscarriage which, far from being ex- ' clusively English, has often condemned the great cavalry forces of the Continent to the imputation of losing opportunities. No less clearly than any of his comrades the Vicomte de Noe" perceived the strange error which had been committed ; but he traced it to a want of that initiative power which enables a general of cavalry to seize his occasion.* When we turn from the surmises of the French The cause to our English sources of knowledge, and there siedthe . Light seek to find out the spell which palsied Lord Brigade at the time o' Cardigan s squadrons, we learn that the brigade Scarlett's . . engage- Was kept where it stood by the interpretation mmt. which its chief had been putting upon Lord Lucan's parting instructions. The Brigadier had been left in the position he occupied with direc- tions to defend it against any attack ; but other words accompanied this direction ; and upon the whole, after giving to the terms of the order, as gathered by him at the time, the best construc- tion which his unaided judgment would furnish, Lord Cardigan haplessly came to the conclusion that it was his duty to abstain from attacking the enemy in flank whilst our Heavy Dragoons were attacking him in front, and to suffer the Eussian ' cavalry] regained the heights, where it might have been an- ' nihilated if the English Light Cavalry, under the orders of ' Lord Cardigan, had charged it during its retreat. There was ' the occasion, there should have been exercised the initiative ' of the cavalry general, and later in the day it was made ap-
 * ' Repulsed with loss,' says the Vicomte, ' it [the Russian
 * ' parent that bravery is no sufficient substitute for initiative.'