574 
ACHIEVEMENTS OF FIELD ARTILLERY. 
battle-fields tell ns of desultory combats and a general lack of cohesion 
amongst the component parts of the force engaged. In such a state 
of things it is not surprising that, although we find several instances of 
artillery performing effective service on a small scale, service out of all 
proportion to what was to have been expected from the meagreness of 
the force employed, and although our batteries supported the infantry 
most loyally, their success was due to isolated efforts, and no concen¬ 
trated blows, no masterly combinations of masses of guns, and therefore 
no signal triumphs for the arm, such as it could boast of at the 
commencement of the century, are recorded. 
It is not intended here to criticise the tactics then in vogue, but 
rather to make note of the performances which were the outcome of 
such tactics, and therefore no endeavour beyond the little that has 
already been said will be made to explain the absence of anything like 
an endeavour to obtain a concentrated effect from our guns which 
marked the battles of the Crimea. Such success, however, as individual 
effort could compass was not wanting, and it must be noted that on 
two occasions at least small artillery detachments exerted a marked 
influence on the progress of the fight. In accordance with what lias 
been said of artillery during the Peninsular War, no very detailed 
account will be given of the first of these two occasions, but the 
second, at any rate, deserves something more than a passing notice, for 
on it, though the guns were but two, they materially influenced the 
fortunes of the day. 
At the Alma the Russians kept their infantry in column, and with 
that preference for artillery, which has ever marked their tactics, relied 
on the fire of powerful batteries aud the weight of the heavy masses of 
infantry to push their assailants back. Two batteries protected by 
breastworks were placed so as to sweep the post road which led directly 
up the heights, while a battery of 12 or 14 powerful guns, known as iho 
“ great battery,” protected their right front. The English, who were 
opposed by two-thirds of the Russian army, deployed the two leading 
divisions into line, when they came within about a mile of the enemy's 
position, and their artillery began to make itself felt. The divisions in 
the second line were also subsequently deployed, and the whole advanced 
until the fire of the Russian batteries became very destructive. They 
then halted and lay down to wait for the French turning movement on 
their right. But although their Allies gained possession of the heights 
above Almatamak, they had outmarched their guns, and their progress 
was for the time checked. The position of the French troops beyond 
the river being critical, Lord Raglan now ordered the British to con¬ 
tinue their advance. The burning village of Bourliouk broke the 
symmetry of their advance, the second division was obliged to get into 
column to pass it, and in this formation suffered heavy loss, while, even 
when it succeeded in pushing across the river which flowed at the foot 
of the Russian position, and deployed once more, the line it formed was 
but a broken and ragged one. Meanwhile the battalion of Rifles, who 
as skirmishers had covered the deployment, cleared away to the left, 
the light division advanced with great difficulty, the left brigade got 
over the river, but Codrington's brigade was checked under its high 
