Note 232 — Chapter VII · THE INVASION OF THE CRIMEA.

Of the Coldstream, it is written that the Battalion was “drawn up in line with beautiful precision; because of the position of the ground on which it advanced, it had been much less exposed to fire and mishaps than either of the other Battalions of the Brigade, and it had not been pressed forward, as each of the other two Battalions had been, to meet any special emergency occurring on its front. Therefore it was that it fell to the lot of the Coldstream to become an almost prim sample of what our Guards can be in the moment which precedes a close fight. What the best of battalions is, when, in some Royal Park at home, it manœuvres before a great princess, that the Coldstream was now on the banks of the Alma, when it came to show its graces to the enemy. And it was no ignoble pride which caused the Battalion to maintain all this ceremonious exactness; for though it be true that the precision of a line in peace time is only a success in mechanics, the precision of a line on a hill-side with the enemy close in front, is the result and the proof of warlike composure” (Kinglake, ii. 426).