The time was approaching when England was to be once more engaged in European war. Just when the nations hoped they had reached an era of universal peace, the clouds collected quickly, and two traditional foes joined hands to attack Russia. The expeditionary force which left these shores for Turkey in 1854, and which ere long won new victories, but at a terrible outlay of men and material, was one of the finest, as regards physique and fighting power, that England has collected. It was well armed, as the time went, and well commanded. Lord Raglan was at its head, and his lieutenants were mostly Peninsular veterans: Sir George Brown, already mentioned for his gallantry at the Coa; Sir De Lacy Evans, who had fought in Spain and America, and at Waterloo; Sir George Cathcart, who had been on Wellington’s staff; Sir Colin Campbell, of whom more directly; and Sir John Burgoyne, a famous engineer officer, who had helped to construct the lines of Torres Vedras, and had served in the great sieges of Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, Burgos, and San Sebastian. But the army was unprovided with the trains, transport services, and means of supply which are of little less importance than valour in the field; and for the want of them, bravery was as nought, victories were wasted, and men’s lives poured out like water. The three principal battles fought in the Crimea by the English were essentially triumphs for the rank and file. At the Alma it was sheer hard slogging, headlong rushes against a strong position, which was carried, in spite of all resistance. The fighting fell mostly to the share of the 1st and 2nd Light Divisions, the Guards, the Highlanders, and the Fusilier and Rifle battalions; and it was done in the famous old formation--the thin red line. At one time the Guards were hard pressed, and they came to Colin Campbell, who commanded the 2nd Brigade, saying the Guards would be destroyed if they did not fall back. “Better that every man of Her Majesty’s Guards should be dead on the field than that they should turn their backs upon the enemy,” replied Campbell, as he hastened with his Highlanders to their support. At Balaclava, when “some one had blundered,” and the gallant Six Hundred went into the jaws of death, the English light cavalry were all but destroyed, but it won imperishable renown. “Magnificent, but not war,” was the French general’s comment on the mad charge: an attack by cavalry on guns in position; but the whole of these reckless horsemen went forward with the same spirit that animated their leader, Lord Cardigan, who, rising in his stirrups, cried, “Here goes the last of the Brudenells!” It was a hopeless enterprise, but it was performed; and all the world wondered.