Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/299

 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 277 should come, a complete immunity from one at chap. least of the two flanking fires under which it had L been condemned to advance. Well imagined, well timed, undertaken with Thcbni- exactly apt means, performed with boldness as th e n ir y ° f well as with skill, and then, suddenly, at the ment e ' right moment, arrested and brought to a close, this achievement was not only brilliant in itself, but had the merit of being admirably relevant, if so one may speak, to the then passing phase of the battle, and became, upon the whole, a teach- ing example (on a small scale) of the way in which a competent man strikes a blow with the cavalry arm. The troops engaged in this enter- prise were not the fellow countrymen of those whose attack they undertook to support ; but that is a circumstance which, far from diminish- ing the lustre of the exploit, gave it only a more chivalrous grace. The names of General Morris and General d'Allonville are remembered in the English army with admiration and gratitude. When the 11th Hussars had so far descended Theiith the valley as to be close to the battery, it appeared Hussars that the right troop of their right squadron was confronted by some of the Eussian guns, whilst all the rest of the regiment outflanked the line of the battery, and had clear ground before it. Meeting little or no obstruction to their progress from the mounted and dismounted artillerymen who were busy with their teams in the hope of carrying off their Czar's precious ordnance, this