300 BATTLE OF THE ALMA. CHAP. L Opportunity of cuttinj; off some of the enemy's retreating masses. Vain endea- vours of Lord Raglan and of Airey to cause the requisite advance of French troops. XL. At this time, two messengers came in liaslo from different parts of the English field of battle : they both came with the same object. The first of these was an aide-de-camp sent straight from Lord Raglan to the nearest French troops he could find ; the other was Colonel Steele, who came charged with the request which General Airey from another part of the field had taken upon himself to address to Marshal St Arnaud. Whilst the Russian battalions were retreating be- fore the English infantry, Lord Raglan in one part of the field, and General Airey in another, had, almost at the same moment, observed the same opportunity, and fastened upon the same mode of seizing it. Each of them had seen that masses of the retreating infantry were moving in such a direction, and through a gorge which so straitened their movements, that their retreat could be cut off or turned into a ruinous disaster by the im- mediate advance of a few battalions pushing for- ward from the left of the French line, and bearing towards the great road. When Lord Raglan's aide-de-camp reached the Telegraph, he found that the troops he came upon had just halted two hundred yards in front of the building, and that the column with which he sought to find the Prince was under a good deal of excitement. Used to the silence of English troops, the aide-de-camp was a good deal struck with the effect produced by thousands of soldiers
