The French Commander-in-Chief, Saint-Arnaud, received similar injunctions from the Emperor Louis Napoleon, who was as strongly in favour of the project as Palmerston and the Duke of Newcastle; Lord Raglan, therefore, encountered no opposition from him on the score of strategy. After three months of inaction at Varna, during which the troops suffered severely from cholera, the invasion of the Crimea was undertaken; the Allied Forces set sail for Eupatoria, and on September 21 the Duke of Newcastle telegraphed to the Queen that 25,000 English, 25,000 French, and 8,000 Turks had safely disembarked at Kalamita Bay, near the mouth of the River Alma, about eight miles north of Sebastopol, without meeting any resistance. The advance on Sebastopol began on September 19, and on the 20th the Allies encountered the Russian army, under Prince Menschikoff, strongly entrenched on the heights south of the River Alma. Menschikoff of deliberate purpose had allowed them to disembark unmolested; he had chosen what he believed to be an impregnable position, where he intended to keep them in play till the arrival of reinforcements should enable him to leave his entrenchments and overwhelm the invaders with superior numbers; he watched them crossing the stream below his position in full confidence that they were entering the trap prepared for them. But he had underrated the individual prowess of British and French soldiers. They had discipline, individual gallantry, and physique in a high degree, but these are often only so many contributions to the aggregate of disaster unless directed by sagacious generalship, and the tactics of the Allied Forces at the Alma were of the headlong character of a schoolboy's playground. Maréchal Saint-Arnaud was in an agony of illness of approaching death, as it turned out--and there was little cohesion or concert between the English on the left and the French on the right of the attacking line. Only one thing was plain to the men of both armies--there were the Russian batteries, on the heights beyond the river, with heavy columns of infantry hanging like a grey cloud along the crests--the one thing to do was to get at them. Saint-Arnaud, addressing his Generals of Division, Canrobert and Prince Napoleon, said: "With such men as you I have no orders to give; I have but to point to the enemy!" [Illustration: _R. Simkin._} Royal Marine Artillery-- A. Company Sergeant-Major. B. Gunner. C. Officer. Royal Marine Light Infantry-- D. Officer. E. Drummer. F. Sergeant. G. Private. UNIFORMS OF THE ROYAL MARINES, 1897.] [Illustration: _Chevalier L. W. Desanges._} {_In the Victoria Cross Gallery, Crystal Palace._ COL. BELL, OF THE ROYAL WELSH FUSILIERS, Obtained the Victoria Cross for gallantry in the Battle of the Alma, when he seized upon, and captured, a gun which the enemy was carrying off the field.] [Sidenote: The Battle of the Alma.]