BATTLE OF THE ALMA. 183 the spear-liead is to a spear, that its Zouave Eegi- chap. ment was to each of these three Divisions.* regiment. Prince Napoleon's division comprised 9000 Prince Najioleon i."; men ; and of these, some 2000 were men of abandoned the 2d Eegimeut of Zouaves. Whether this zouave regiment was impatient of the supposed slow ness with which Prince Napoleon had hitherto advanced — whether it was governed by its con- tempt of line regiments, and a fierce resolve to have no neighbourship with any other than Zou- ave comrades — or whether there were other causes which shaped its movements, I have not learnt ; but what happened was this : the regiment after fording the river, broke away from the unfor- tunate Division to which it belonged, marched off towards its right front, began to climb the height, and never stopped until it had coolly ranged itself close alongside of the 1st Zouave Piegiment — a regiment which formed the left of Canrobert's array. With Canrobert's Division, instead of with Prince Napoleon's, the regiment continued to act until the close of the battle. Before men are hard upon a divisional general for his seem- ing backwardness in an action, they ought to allow for the misfortune which left him indeed the master of some 7000 men, but robbed him of the warlike corps on which he must have relied as the element for giving life and fire to his
- I have borrowed this expressive image from Lord Clyde,
who used it once iu conversation as a means of ilhistrating the kind of power which even a large body of our native Indian troops is accustomed to derive I'roai the presence of one or two Eutilish battalions.
