At the Battle of Inkerman, Colonel Percy found himself with many men of various regiments who had charged too far, nearly surrounded by the Russians, and without ammunition.

[1]The subalterns in the company which Lieutenant-Colonel Percy commanded at Inkerman were Henry Neville and Sir James Fergusson, Bt.

He survived the very high death rates which were prevalent in the hospitals of Scutari that winter and by mid February 1855 was well enough to be invalided back to England.

He was promoted to full colonel in the summer of 1855, and then held the local rank of brigadier general in command of the British-Italian Legion in Turin, where he arrived in August.

However, the project became mired in bureaucracy, suffered from lack of funds and inadequate resources and was eventually rendered redundant by the fall of Sevastopol in September 1855 and a formal end to hostilities six months later.

[2] After leaving the British-Italian Legion, Colonel Percy was asked by Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, British Ambassador to Turkey, to attempt to relieve the Siege of Kars, Armenia, which was being defended by Brigadier-General Williams.

[3] Colonel Percy was an accomplished linguist and Turkophile, so in January 1856, after the armistice in the Crimea but before the signing of the Treaty of Paris in March 1856, he was ordered by General Codrington, Commander-in-chief of the British Army in the Crimea, to reconnoitre possible landing places in Asia Minor in case of a continuation of hostilities along the Caucasus front.

In spite of the young Prince not being given as much commendation or responsibility in matters of drill as he had hoped, he liked Percy 'very much' – perhaps because the latter, being a strict disciplinarian, insisted on treating him just like any other junior officer.

'The fall' came in the form of initiation in carnal pleasure with the actress Nellie Clifden, as arranged by junior officers at the Curragh.

He had been promoted to be major in 1860, but retired from active service on 3 October 1862 owing to the chronic ill health he had suffered ever since the Crimean War.