m reception. It was the 29th of the Redgeb (21st
of December), and from the advanced hour of the day there was no
alternative but to attack, otherwise he must have passed a night upon
the field, without bread, exposed to the action of an intense cold that
would have paralysed the ardour of the troops.

Redchid Pasha made therefore no dispositions for attack, but his order
of battle was best: he drew up his army in four lines, thus rendering
useless a great part of his troops, and when he at length resolved to
alter his dispositions for a more extended order of battle, he did not
reconnoitre the ground to ascertain if it would permit such an extension
of front. His left wing therefore was unable to deploy, and remained
formed in columns of attack, while the enemy's artillery committed
dreadful havoc on their profound masses. He committed also another
fault, that of placing his artillery between the interval of the lines,
so that it did not reach the Egyptians, while theirs on the contrary,
posted in their front, did great execution.

Mehemet Redchid's main plan of battle was to attack with the mass of his
forces, composed chiefly of Albanians, the centre of the enemy's army,
whilst the cavalry should make a demonstration upon the wings. But
Ibrahim, who had foreseen this manoeuvre, leaving only on the point
attacked a sufficient force to make ahead for a short time, turned his
adversary to the gorges of the mountains. On gaining the flanks of the
Ottoman party, he impetuously attacked and routed their cavalry, and
afterwards advanced against the principal Turkish corps, which thus
found itself attacked on both sides. The Albanians, in spite of all the
efforts of the Grand Vizier, broke and fled.

Redchid Pasha then put himself at the head of his guard for a last
effort, but after performing prodigies of valour, he was again repulsed,
and fell, severely wounded, into the hands of the Egyptians. The loss
of the Turks was immense; one regiment alone, the first infantry of the
line, left 3,000 men upon the field of battle.

The battle was decisive. The second army of the Grand Seigneur was
annihilated, and the road to Constantinople again open to Ibrahim; and
the tottering empire of Mahmoud was saved by the intervention of the
Russian Autocrat, who felt that it was his own property that was at
stake rather than that of the unfortunate Sultan. Mehemet Ali is now on
independent sovereign, and it is to the military genius of