Photo: J. Brown

"The Thin Red Line". This is a painting of an incident during the Crimean War. It shows the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders meeting Russian cavalry at the Battle of Balaclava. What is important about this incident is that the normal way for infantry to receive cavalry was to form square. This way the infantry were less likely to break and the cavalry unlikely to charge home. However it reduced the number of muskets available to fire at the advancing cavalry. Because the officers of the highland battalion were confident of their men's steadiness, they were kept in line thereby making all their muskets available for a volley. They then held their fire until the last moment. We may not like to admit it, but they would have aimed for the horses. The horses in the first Russian line crashed down forcing the following lines of cavalry to stop and bunch up. the highlanders then had time to reload and deliver a further devastating volley. The Russian cavalry withdrew.
Information: Derek Gladding