Talk:The Thin Red Line (Battle of Balaclava)

Musical references

Having listened to the utube link given for The Green Hills of Tyrol, I cannot hear any reference to "The thin red line," although the singers voice is very clear. I propose we delete this, since several items in this section are very tenuous. There were probably a lot of songs written during the Crimean War! Dendrotek 09:01, 30 June 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dendrotek (talk • contribs)

Other source of inspiration for SAXON

If you listen to the band's song in question you'll hear a sort of chant at the end of the song that is more likely to be of native african origin than with east european folks. IMHO this song more so refers to the Boer War. If you interprete the song further it seems that those people who the soldiers are deemed to protect are not dislocated far away from the faint frontline. It seems that this TRL is the last line of defense to prevent a massacre under the civilians close by. If this is true the song can not reflect the Crimerian War with the soldier's relatives a thousand miles or so away.

--Infanteriesoldat (talk) 22:01, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

25,000????

This article says a Russian cavalry force of 25,000 attacked the British. That sounds a wee bit high considering that there were 25,000 Russians in total at the battle of Balaklava and I doubt they were all cavalry.

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Response:

You are correct. About 20,000 Russians were present at Balaclava under Liprandi, but most of them were infantrymen stationed on the heights around the battlefield, and they didn't see any action.

Only several thousand Russians actually engaged in the fighting.

Note that it is an open question as to what Liprandi's intentions were: the Russians claim that Balaclava was merely a probing action, not an attempt at a decisive attack. Only in the West is it written that Balaclava was a serious attempt at capturing the Allied position.

Finally, it is wrong to regard the repulse of the Russian cavalry as having had a decisive outcome. After being roughed up by the British, the cavalrymen merely retreated to the safety of their own lines and the battle continued.

Regarding merging this article with the Battle of Balaclava:

Probably it would be better to let this article stand alone, but to eliminate the campaign box so that the reader doesn't mistake it as standing for the entirely of the Battle of Balaclava.

An paragraph could be added to the top explaining that this incident was part of the Battle of Balaclava, and a link to the main battle article should be included.

It sounds like the author's intention was to describe and celebrate the exploits of the 93rd Highlanders during the Crimean War. Perhaps he could round the article out by telling us more about this regiment, its history, and the history of Highlander infantrymen?

Certainly the 93rd Highlanders' performance at Balaclava is very famous, so that alone warrants an independent article about them.

Kenmore 08:04, 8 December 2006 (UTC)kenmore

No of Cavalry

The text says there were 2500 russian cavalry, the info box says 400. which is right? Epeeist smudge 14:43, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

citations

Currently the article says:

Campbell formed the 93rd into a line two deep — the "thin red line". Convention dictated that the line should be four deep, but the line had to be stretched.

Who says that a British line should be four deep (and not two), and who said it should be four deep to receive cavalry had squares been abandoned as a tactical formation by this time? I think these two sentences need citations (WP:PROVEIT). --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 00:32, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Thirty years earlier at Waterloo, Wellington had famously used infantry squares to receive cavalry. What is less well known is that late in the battle he formed infantry lines four deep for the same purpose. So, these formations are not mutually exclusive. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.159.225.183 (talk) 16:33, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

I should have added to my comment above that the 93rd Highlanders had just been equipped with the new rifled muskets for the Crimea, so a line two deep was now adequate to receive cavalry (as events demonstrated). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.159.225.183 (talk) 17:06, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

The 1854 British army infantry manual instructs infantry to meet cavalry in square. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.11.1.18 (talk) 10:27, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi all, I am the one who added the 'two lines deep' sentence in this article. I saw this article in 2008 and thought it was incredibly wrong; the article was pretty much stating how the line of british infantry held out a charge of russian cavalry - this is impossible as a force of 800 hussars would easily overrun any line formation, especially one which is only 2-deep.

I got my information from B. Perrett's book "At All Costs!" which has a passage on The Thin Red Line. Any reader of Perrett's books would identify him as a serious anglophile, and for him to lambash this myth of the thin red line lands more credence to it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.161.202.63 (talk) 05:17, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Since the Russian hussars got nowhere near the position of the 93rd, the point is moot. The 1792 manual advocated infantry forming in four ranks but during the course of the Napoleonic wars it was found that two ranks were sufficient. Four ranks were employed by the British infantry at Waterloo when formed in square because of the weight of cavalry being brought against them, something they had not faced in the Peninsula- although they ha Forming square was not obligatory when facing cavalry but offered greater security than presenting an open flank. The 93rd did not form square at Balaklava, the better to block the enemy's path and present a wider field of fire exploiting the longer range of their rifle muskets. Clearly, it worked.

Location of Robert Gibb's painting

The article says, that the painting is in Stirling. I have just been in Edinburgh castle, and the painting was on display at the British War Museum. I think it was the original one, but I'm not sure. Can anybody confirm? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mp663 (talk • contribs) 11:04, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

It did used to be at Stirling but it might have moved. My father's great uncle was the model used by Gibb in the painting. He appears once in full with the other soldiers being variations on him. Not a lot of people know that! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.201.30.228 (talk) 20:22, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

It's definitely at the National War Museum in Edinburgh Castle and has been since 2000.--JonathanSFerguson (talk) 12:40, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved) Dpmuk (talk) 13:25, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

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The Thin Red Line (1854 battle) → The Thin Red Line — Per WP:DAB, the battle is the primary topic for this phrase. The current disambiguation page (The Thin Red Line) is getting decidedly hypertrophied and collecting substantial content about the battle, which shows that other editors are also getting confused. My proposal is to remove all actual content from the dab page (moving it to the main article if necessary) and return it to a standard list of links, renaming it accordingingly. Tevildo (talk) 13:40, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

• The Thin Red Line → The Thin Red Line (disambiguation)

Survey

• Oppose most of the entries on the dab page refer to the Battle of Guadalcanal (WWII), not the Balaclava battle (Crimean War). 65.94.69.242 (talk) 11:13, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
• Comment. Would there be any objection to me cleaning up the dab page before this discussion is completed? Tevildo (talk) 16:30, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose stats show that the 1998 film gets far more page views (53217 vs 3589). Doesn't meet the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC guidelines. (I don't object to the DAB cleanup.) Tassedethe (talk) 16:39, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose Being the origin of a term does not make something the primary topic (cf Boston, Lincolnshire), and it's certainly not in this case, where the films and novel are so widely known. Kanguole 10:45, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders

The article contains this line "The rest of Rijov's force attacked the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders" This is confusing. Most readers will take this as a reference to the unit created in 1881 by the amalgamation of the 93rd Highland Regiment with the 91st (Princess Louise's) Argyllshire Highlanders. According to at the time of the Crimean War the regiment was designated "93rd (Highland) Regiment of Foot" and formed part of the Highland Brigade (42nd, 79th and 93rd Regiments). The 91st was not in the Crimea. I have not checked beyond this one source but assume its timelines are reliable. The history of designations of the 91st does not seem consistent, so I have some doubts about details and completeness. RabGSutherland (talk) 10:37, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

References

Casualties

I don't see any reference to the Casualties. Does anyone know them? 81.158.49.174 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:11, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

The Thin Red Line was a military action ...

This article entirely misses the point, since it is predicated on a misquoting of Russel's original phrase "a thin red streak tipped with steel" which only merits a passing mention.

However there was no military action 'The Thin Red Line.' The now familiar phrase refers to an episode during the battle of Balaklava, and is quoted in reference to that. It recalls the stand of the 93rd Sutherland Highlanders. Nothing more. It is a catch phrase, not a historical event in itself.

'The Thin Red Line' was the regimental journal of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. It is also the name of a military march. it is not th ename of a battle.

JF42 (talk) 22:30, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Description of of which Russian cavalry attacked 93rd Regt

This does not make sense:

"This original Russian cavalry force divided itself into two smaller groups, and only about 400 of them were involved in the "Thin Red Line" incident. These 400 Russians were the Cossacks and Ingermanlandsky hussars of the 6th Hussar Brigade, commanded by General Rijov. The rest of Rijov's force attacked the 93rd Sutherland Highlanders."

So, which of rijov's men attacked?

JF42 (talk) 13:47, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Argyll and Sutherland battalion

"a single regiment now known as the Argyll and Sutherland battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland."

The 5th Battalion (Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders) Royal Regiment of Scotland having ben reduced to a single company (Balaklava Company) in 2012, this passage needs to be updated. JF42 (talk) 17:39, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

George T. Denison's quote.

In the article, a quote from historian George T. Denison is given which significantly downplays the action: Canadian historian George T. Denison, in his book A History of Cavalry from the Earliest Times, With Lessons for the Future, wrote "... the Russian squadrons had no intention whatever of charging, but were simply at the time making demonstrations to oblige the allied troops to display their arrangements, and that when the 93rd showed their line upon the hill, the object was gained, and the cavalry withdrew. Being curious about this claim, I checked out Denison's book (which is free to read on Google Books). Not only is the citation incorrect (the quote appears on page 429, not 350) but Denison's source is rather dubious. He claims to have been told of this by "An English officer of cavalry of great reputation , who was present on the occasion". In other words, he's relying entirely on the word of one cavalry officer who supposedly was present at the battle, and whom Denison never names. In my view, unless another source can be found to corroborate this claim, I think the quote should be removed from the article because of the questionable source.

The quote needs to be set in context, but I wouldn't remove it. At present it is presented as a bare quote and interrupts the flow; this gives it a trivializing "debunking" feel. Denison's claim is plausible and would explain why the "cavalry charge" was not completed. But, like a lot of 19th-century historians, he is not rigorous about presenting evidence; talking to gentlemen without naming them is deemed sufficient. It is possible that Denison's "English officer of cavalry of great reputation" developed his theory about the Russian movement with the intent (conscious or not) to undermine the fame of the 93rd, maybe because he held a grudge against some officer who had benefited from being part of the Thin Red Line. This is just speculation, and we don't have enough evidence to decide the case. A credible copy of Russian orders on that day might settle it, but until someone finds that evidence and publishes the research result, (and an editor of this article reads it,) we have to make do with what we have.

I'll edit and move the paragraph. — ℜob C. alias ALAROB 01:45, 11 October 2024 (UTC)