'Charge of the Light Brigade', Painting by Richard Caton Woodville (1825-1855)

The Charge of the Light Brigade was an ill-advised cavalry charge, led by Lord Cardigan, which occurred during the Battle of Balaclava on October 25, 1854 during the Crimean War. It is best remembered as the subject of a famous poem entitled The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, whose lines "Theirs not to reason why / Theirs but to do and die" have made the charge a symbol of warfare at its most reckless.

=Events

The charge was made by the Light Brigade of the British cavalry, consisting of the 4th and 13th Light Dragoons, 17th Lancers, and the 8th and 11th Hussars, under the command of Major General the Earl of Cardigan. Together with the Heavy Brigade comprising the 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards, the 5th Dragoon Guards, the 6th Inniskilling Dragoons and the Scots Greys, commanded by Major General J Yorke-Scarlett, himself a past Commanding Officer of the 5th Dragoon Guards, these units were the main British cavalry force at the battle. Overall command of the cavalry resided with the Earl of Lucan.

Lucan received an order from the army commander Lord Raglan stating that "Lord Raglan wishes the cavalry to advance rapidly to the front, follow the enemy, and try to prevent the enemy carrying away the guns. Horse artillery may accompany. French cavalry is on your left. Immediate." The order was drafted by Brigadier Airey and was carried by Captain Louis Edward Nolan, who may have carried further oral instructions, but as he was killed during the charge this remains conjecture.

File:Simpson charge.jpg

The Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava by William Simpson (1855), illustrating the Light Brigade's charge into the "Valley of Death" from the Russian perspective.

In response to the order, Cardigan led 673 (some sources state 661) cavalry men straight into the valley between the Fedyukhin Heights and the Causeway Heights, famously dubbed the "Valley of Death" by the poet Tennyson. The opposing Russian forces were commanded by Pavel Liprandi and included around 20 battalions of infantry supported by over fifty artillery pieces. These forces were deployed on both sides and at the opposite end of the valley.

It appears that the order was understood by Cardigan to refer to the mass of Russian guns in a redoubt at the end of the valley, around a mile away, when Raglan had in fact been referring to a set of redoubts on the reverse slope of the hill forming the left side of the valley (from the point of view of the cavalry). Although these latter redoubts were clearly visible from Raglan's vantage point, they were hidden from the view of the Light Brigade on the floor of the valley.

The Light Brigade was able to engage the Russian forces at the end of the valley and force them back from the redoubt, but suffered heavy casualties and were soon forced to retire. Lucan failed to provide any support for Cardigan, and it is speculated that he was motivated by enmity for his brother-in-law. The troops of the Heavy Brigade entered the mouth of the valley but did not advance further. The French cavalry, the Chasseurs d'Afrique, were more effective in that they broke the Russian line on the Fedyukhin Heights and later provided cover for the remaining elements of the Light Brigade as they withdrew.

Cardigan survived the battle and subsequently described the engagement in a speech delivered at the Mansion House in London, which was quoted in length in the House of Commons afterwards:

"We advanced down a gradual descent of more than three-quarters of a mile, with the batteries vomiting forth upon us shells and shot, round and grape, with one battery on our right flank and another on the left, and all the intermediate ground covered with the Russian riflemen; so that when we came to within a distance of fifty yards from the mouths of the artillery which had been hurling destruction upon us, we were, in fact, surrounded and encircled by a blaze of fire, in addition to the fire of the riflemen upon our flanks.

As we ascended the hill the oblique fire of the artillery poured upon our rear, so that we had thus a strong fire upon our front, our flank, and our rear. We entered the battery - we went through the battery - the two leading regiments cutting down a great number of the Russian gunners in their onset. In the two regiments which I had the honour to lead, every officer, with one exception, was either killed or wounded, or had his horse shot under him or injured. Those regiments proceeded, followed by the second line, consisting of two more regiments of cavalry, which continued to perform the duty of cutting down the Russian gunners.

Then came the third line, formed of another regiment, which endeavoured to complete the duty assigned to our brigade. I believe that this was achieved with great success, and the result was that this body, composed of only about 670 men, succeeded in passing through the mass of Russian cavalry of - as we have since learned - 5,240 strong; and having broken through that mass, they went, according to our technical military expression, "threes about," and retired in the same manner, doing as much execution in their course as they possibly could upon the enemy's cavalry. Upon our returning up the hill which we had descended in the attack, we had to run the same gauntlet and to incur the same risk from the flank fire of the Tirailleurs [riflemen] as we had encountered before. Numbers of our men were shot down - men and horses were killed, and many of the soldiers who had lost their horses were also shot down while endeavouring to escape.

But what, my Lord, was the feeling and what the bearing of those brave men who returned to the position. Of each of these regiments there returned but a small detachment, two-thirds of the men engaged having been destroyed? I think that every man who was engaged in that disastrous affair at Balaklava, and who was fortunate enough to come out of it alive, must feel that it was only by a merciful decree of Almighty Providence that he escaped from the greatest apparent certainty of death which could possibly be conceived." [1]

Aftermath

The brigade was not completely destroyed, but did suffer terribly, with 118 men killed, 127 wounded, and 362 horses lost. After regrouping, only 195 men were still with horses. The futility of the action and its reckless bravery prompted the French Marshal Pierre Bosquet to state "C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre." ("It is magnificent, but it is not war.") The Russian commanders are said to have initially believed that the British soldiers must have been drunk. The reputation of the British cavalry was significantly enhanced as a result of the charge, though the same cannot be said for their commanders.

Slow communications meant that news of the disaster did not reach the British public until three weeks after the action. The British commanders' despatches from the front were published in an extraordinary edition of the London Gazette of 12 November 1854. Raglan blamed Lucan for the charge, claiming that "from some misconception of the order to advance, the Lieutenant-General (Lucan) considered that he was bound to attack at all hazards, and he accordingly ordered Major-General the Earl of Cardigan to move forward with the Light Brigade."

In March 1855, Lucan was recalled to England. The charge of the Light Brigade became a subject of considerable controversy and public dispute on his return. He strongly rejected Raglan's version of events, calling it "an imputation reflecting seriously on my professional character". In an exchange of public correspondence printed in the pages of The Times of London, Lucan blamed Raglan and his deceased aide-de-camp Captain Nolan, who had been the actual deliverer of the disputed order. Lucan subsequently defended himself with a speech in the House of Lords on 19 March.

Lucan evidently escaped blame for the charge, as he was made a member of the Order of the Bath in July of that same year. Although he never again saw active duty he reached the rank of General in 1865 and was made a Field Marshal in the year before his death.

The charge of the Light Brigade continues to be studied by modern military historians and students as an example of what can go wrong when accurate military intelligence is lacking and orders are unclear. Sir Winston Churchill, who was a keen military historian and a former cavalryman, insisted on taking time out during the Yalta Conference in 1945 to see the battlefield for himself.

Tennyson's The Charge of the Heavy Brigade

The rather more successful action of the Heavy Brigade that happened on the same day was also commemorated by Tennyson in The Charge of the Heavy Brigade, a poem written in 1882 at the suggestion of Alexander William Kinglake. It failed to achieve either popularity or lasting fame.

The poem focuses on the "three hundred" of the Heavy Brigade who participated in its charge, namely the Scots Greys and the 2nd squadron of Inniskilling Dragoons. The "Scarlett" referred to in the poem was Sir James Yorke Scarlett, who led the charge. Also on the same day in the Crimea (October 25, 1854) was the action by the 93rd (Highland) Regiment which was immortalised as The Thin Red Line.

Other media

The Charge of the Light Brigade has twice been made the subject of a film. The first, made in 1936 by Michael Curtiz and starring Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland and David Niven, was a Hollywood account inspired by Kipling, blending English public school bravado and a mythical image of British imperialism, The second, deeply critical film was made in 1968, directed by Tony Richardson. It starred John Gielgud and Trevor Howard and aimed to be brutally authentic, based on the research of Cecil Woodham-Smith's The Reason Why (1953). Introductory animations, based on the contemporary style adopted by the satirical Punch Magazine animated in the manner of Monty Python, were designed to acquaint American audiences with unfamiliar politics; they jar with the meticulously accurate art direction of Edward Marshall and cinematography of David Watkin.

The psychedelic folk band Pearls Before Swine recorded an album titled "Balaklava", inspired in the events regarding the Charge of the Light Brigade.

The heavy metal band Iron Maiden has a song about the charge, "The Trooper". Lead singer Bruce Dickinson would often quote the following before the song: "Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Volley’d and thunder’d"

George MacDonald Fraser used the Crimea campaign and the Charge of the Light Brigade in his novel Flashman at the Charge.

A piece of the poem was paraphrased, "The world wonders", in security padding from Admiral Chester Nimitz to Admiral William Halsey, Jr. at the Battle of Leyte Gulf, which occurred on the 90th anniversary of the Charge of the Light Brigade.

Charge of the Light Brigade

=Events

Aftermath

Tennyson's The Charge of the Heavy Brigade

Other media

Further reading

External links

See also