Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/245

 THE HATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 223 shows with how sound a judgment Lord Raglan chap. had acted when he ordered, and ordered twice L over, the advance of our cavalry. In both of the two last orders, as we saw, the significant position of the enemy on the Causeway Heights the Odessa , ., t i • t i battalions was assigned as the ground which our horse- men should endeavour to win : and although our Light Cavalry, now advancing at a trot, had been launched from the first in a wrong direction, yet the ulterior purpose of pushing the attack down the valley had not yet so developed itself as to be discernible by the enemy. To him for the mo- ment, and until our troops had moved down a distance of some hundreds of yards, this superb advance of our cavalry was so far similar to the advance which Lord Raglan had directed, and which Liprandi was plainly expecting, that at the mere sight of our squadrons there began to take place, on the part of the Russians, that very sur- render of ground — nay, that very surrender of captured guns — which Lord Raglan had expected to obtain when he sent down his third and fourth orders. The weak and protruding column of in- fantry by which Liprandi had hitherto clung to the line of the Causeway Heights, and of the captured redoubts, began all at once to curl up. As already we know, the head of that column was formed by the Odessa Regiment, a force number- ing four battalions, which stood drawn up on the heights near the Arabtabia Redoubt.* "Well upon the approach of our Light Brigade those bat-
 * Otherwise called the ' Number Three' Redoubt.