Struggle in Russia

Fortunately, although Raglan was unreliable, other officers of the British army, especially some generals, still had excellent military qualities. When they lost contact with Raglan, although they were panicked, they quickly made their own judgment.

For example, three regiments of the Guards Brigade: the Grenadier Regiment, the Scots Fusiliers and the Coldstream Regiment crossed the Alma River on their own. Wearing red military robes and tall bearskin hats, they looked very powerful.

However, it took a long time for the Guards Brigade to regroup after crossing the river.

Because he couldn't stand the dilly-dallying of the Guards Brigade, the commander of the Highland Brigade, Sir Colin Campbell, ordered an immediate attack.

This man's belief that bayonets were better than bullets prevented the Highland Brigade from firing until they were "only a yard away from the Russians." It is conceivable how much damage this untimely tactic will cause. Anyway, the Highland Brigade was knocked down by the Russian army row by row, and in a short time the corpses were covered with the river bank.

The Scots Fusiliers of the Guards Brigade was the first unit to cross the river. After receiving the order, they immediately launched a charge towards the big hill. As a result, they repeated the mistakes of the previous light infantry division!

At that time, the light infantry division had just retreated from the hillside. The two troops collided head-on, and for a moment they were overturned!

The soldiers of the Scots Fusiliers were knocked to the ground one after another, their bearskin hats flying everywhere. After they finally avoided the friendly troops who were fleeing in panic, only half of them were left, and their formation was in disarray.

In the midst of the chaos, 23-year-old Second Lieutenant Hugh Ansley saw:

"Suddenly, the Russian army seemed to be full of hillocks again, and their firepower became more and more intensive. At this time, the 23rd Regiment retreated from the hillside in a swarm, disrupting our line... I kept shouting:' Guards regiment, move forward!', we spent a lot of effort to rush to a place only thirty or forty yards away from the trench."

"At this moment, a bullet hit me head-on in the mouth, and suddenly black stars shot out in front of my eyes. I thought the game was over, so I lay on the ground quietly waiting to die. At this time, our adjutant Riding up on horseback with a sword in his hand, he loudly ordered us to retreat. I immediately got up from the ground and turned around and ran."

"I used all my strength and ran all the way down the slope to the river. At this time, the gunshots became more and more intensive, and the dust on the ground flew up. I thought that this time it would be fatal, and maybe I would die in the next second. He would be killed by a bullet."

"I stumbled and fell to the ground on the way, but at that time I thought I had been shot again, but when I got up I realized it was nothing serious, so I took a deep breath and continued running down. My gun , sword and bearskin hat are all gone, especially the bearskin hat, this thing is really cumbersome, and it’s too hot to kill, God knows which lunatic invented this crappy hat!”

Ainsley, who saved his life, was seriously injured. The bullet entered his left cheek and flew out from the right corner of his mouth, knocking out 23 teeth and part of his tongue.

But he saved a small life after all. Most of the soldiers of the Scottish Fusiliers failed to escape. Some were shot dead and others were captured by the Russian army.

So much so that in this battle, even though they were repeatedly urged to fight again, the Scots Fusiliers always delayed and refused for various reasons until nothing happened.

The other two regiments of the Guards filled the fighting gap left by the retreat of the Scots Fusiliers, but like the Scots Fusiliers, they refused to continue charging the Russian army on the big hill.

They began to use the Miner rifles in their hands to shoot at the Russian troops on the big hillock, and the fight was in full swing.

But compared with the Russian army, which was only equipped with old-fashioned smoothbore flintlock muskets in history, the rifles in the Russian army at this time were just as powerful as the Minie rifle. Historically, the Grenadier Regiment and the Coldstream Regiment used the Minie rifle. The range advantage taught the Russian army a hard lesson, but at this time it could only be suppressed by the Russian army and was unable to raise its head.

To be honest, neither the commanders nor the soldiers of the British Army, historically or now, actually understand the greatest advantage of the Minie rifle!

That is, the range is long and the shot is accurate.

It is a pity that the British army issued the Minie rifle too late and too hastily. It was almost hastily changed after the outbreak of the war.

Therefore, officers and soldiers did not actually understand the difference between the Minie rifle and the old flintlock musket. In history, it was this battle that made the British army understand the advantages of the Minie rifle, so that they continued to seize this point to make The article frequently launched precise strikes beyond the range of the Russian army's muskets, which often caused the Russian army to suffer miserably.

But now the British army is not so good. The Russian army, which is also equipped with breech-loading rifles, does not suffer at all from the shooting, and can also use the protection of fortifications and bunkers to beat the British army from a high position.

After several exchanges of fire, the Grenadier Regiment and Coldstream Regiment suffered increasing casualties and gradually began to lose their support. At this time, Kornilov ordered the 1st Cossack Cavalry Regiment hidden behind Brlyuk to attack the Guards Division's defense line from the flank.

Seeing groups of saber-wielding Cossacks rushing over, the British army began to panic. The officers continued to encourage the soldiers and ordered them to stick to their positions, but the effect became worse and worse. In desperation, the officers could only ride on horseback. Other than whips on horses whipping soldiers who tried to escape, there was no senior commander to control the war.

In the British army's own words: "No one gave us orders to tell us what to do to hold the position. The officers just shouted to hold it, but how to hold it?"

"In the fifth hour after the battle started, we could neither see nor hear any orders from any division commander, brigade commander, or regiment commander. We did not get any orders from them - neither to advance nor to retreat. ,nothing!"

"When we had to retreat, no one told us whether we should go left or right, or where to retreat. In the end, we could only turn around and run away in a swarm until we could run no longer!"

The ultimate reason for the final collapse of the British army was the collapse of morale and the instability of the military's morale. Later, the British army conducted its own investigation and found that morale is the decisive factor in modern warfare, because as weapons become more and more powerful, confrontations between the two armies rarely evolve into face-to-face hand-to-hand combat. One party will almost always lose due to panic before the confrontation. And escape.

On the battlefield, the most important thing is military discipline - whether officers can keep soldiers calm and not flee out of fear. Therefore, suppressing fear is the main responsibility of an officer. To achieve this goal, in addition to establishing authority, the key is to let soldiers understand why they are fighting!