line of defence. The troops on which Sir Colin CHAP. Campbell relied for the defence of the gorge were

V.

Camp

bell's force at the

gorge.

The other

the main body of the 93d Highlanders, with a bat- Sir Colin talion of Turks and a battery of field-artillery. There was a frigate in the harbour, and (besides a score or two of English soldiers, having duties of some resources kind which brought them to Balaclava on the day of ing to the the battle) there lay in the town some eighty or a hun- the inner dred English soldiers, who, although invalided, were not so prostrate as to be unable to handle a musket.

contribut

defence of

line.

stance

illustrat

quiet

with

the inner

line of

defence

was made

So great was the confidence which most of our Circumpeople reposed in the strength of this inner line of curiously defence, in the quality of all the troops which manned ing the it, and in the prowess of the veteran soldier who com- efficiency manded the garrison, that the safety of the ground thus which covered cost them little or no uneasiness; and, as a not inexpressive sign of the quiet efficiency with which this part of the defence was made good, I may mention good, that an officer holding a very high and responsible command, and one, too, which did not at all tend to divert him from this part of the Allied position, was long able to remain unacquainted with the very existence of the inner line of defence, and to hear of it for the first time some ten years after the peace. To him in the Crimea this inner line of defence was what oxygen is to a peasant-a blessing unperceived and unheard of, on which his existence depended.

of Bala

The gorge of Kadiköi opens out into a large tract The plain of ground which, though marked in some places by clava. strong undulations, by numberless hillocks, and even by features deserving the name of 'heights,' is yet,

VOL. IV.

F

CHAP. upon the whole, so much lower, and so much more

V.

even than the surrounding country, as to be called 'the plain of Balaclava.'

This tract of comparatively low ground is the field of the engagement, which we are accustomed to call the battle of Balaclava, but it lies a mile north of the town.* It has an average length of about three miles,

* See the map; but a glance at this diagram may aid towards an apprehension of the general features of the field.

V.

with a breadth of about two, and is hemmed in on CHAP. almost all sides by ground of from some 300 to 1000 feet high; for, on the north of the plain, there are the Fedioukine Hills; on the east, Mount Hasfort; on the south, the Kamara Hills and Mount Hiblak; on the west, the steep buttresses of the Chersonese upland.

The distinctive feature of the basin thus formed is a low ridge of ground, which, crossing the so-called plain' in the direction of its length-or, in other terms, from east to west-divides it into two narrow valleys. So completely has this range of heights bridged over the plain, that it served as a natural viaduct, enabling the designer of the Woronzoff road to carry his trace-line across from the Kamara Hills on the east to the Chersonese uplands on the west without letting it ever descend to the general level of the ground which had to be traversed; and therefore it is that the features which constitute this ridge are distinguished as the 'Causeway Heights.'

From the foot of the Chersonese the North Valley sloped down in an eastern direction till it reached the embankment of the aqueduct, there crossed, it appears, by three bridges. A yet farther descent of only a few yards down the valley brought a rider to the left bank of the river Tchernaya, and to fords by which he might cross it. On the other side of the river, and at a distance of less than a mile, there stood the village of Tchorgoun, where Liprandi, as we know, had established his Headquarters, and gathered his main strength. This North Valley is ground on

CHAP. which the memory of our countrymen has brooded. It was the scene of the Light Cavalry charge.

V.

Conception of the

of defence.

The South Valley is on the Balaclava side of the 'Causeway Heights.' At its eastern extremity there is a knoll between 500 and 600 feet high, which, being joined to the Kamara Hills by a neck of high ground, juts out over the valley as a promontory does over the sea, and for a feature thus conspicuous men soon found a name. They called it 'Canrobert's Hill.' At the opposite or western extremity of this valley, the road connecting Balaclava with the Chersonese passed up by way of the 'Col.' It is with the slope of a hillside descending into this South Valley, and with the glory of Scarlett's Dragoons, that England will have to associate her memory of the one great fight between cavalry and cavalry which took place in the course of the war.

It was of so much moment to secure Balaclava from outer line disaster, that there could not but be a desire to prevent the enemy from coming within the limits of the South Valley; and considering, on the one hand, the inconvenience of diverting troops from the siege for merely defensive purposes, and, on the other, the configuration of the ground in the plain of Balaclava, men thought that what was wanting in bayonets might possibly be eked out with the spade; and this idea was the more readily pursued because it happened that, in part from the confidence of the Sultan, and in part from the graciousness of the French Commander, Lord Raglan had obtained the services of some 3000 Turkish soldiers, who might first be employed in constructing

V.

the requisite earthworks, and then in manning them. CHAP. Our Engineers saw that by throwing up a slight work on Canrobert's Hill, and a chain of little redoubts on the bosses or hillocks which mark at short intervals the range of the Causeway Heights, there might be formed an entrenched position which would enable a force of moderate strength to hold the ground against one much more numerous; and it is evident that the design would have had a great value if the position of Balaclava, when expecting an attack from 20,000 or 25,000 men, had had a small army of 10,000 or 12,000 men to defend it. But this was not the real exigency; for, on the one hand, the Allies, if they could have time to come down, were in no danger at this period of being outnumbered in. the plain; and, on the other hand, there was not only no army at Balaclava of such strength as to be able to defend an entrenched position like that which might be formed on the line of the Causeway Heights, but actually no army at all, and no force of any kind that could be charged to support the men placed in the intended works, save only a division of cavalry, with a single troop of horse-artillery. Our Engineers formed an entrenched position which could only have strength upon the supposition that several thousands of the Allied infantry would have time to come down and defend it. Yet unless there should be a more than English vigilance in the plain of Balaclava, and unless, too, our Division of Cavalry should be so brilliantly wielded as to be able to check and disconcert for some hours the marches of the enemy's columns,