"This is not war, this is madness!"


On October 25, 1854, during the Crimean War, near the British supply port of the town of Balaklava...



...a battle.

Part of the Russian troops besieged in Sebastopol broke out of the fortress, joined forces with reserves brought from Russia and are now attacking under the command of General Pavel Liprandi...



... in a strength of 23,000 men the British and their allies under Field Marshall Lord Fitzroy Somerset, 1st Earl of Raglan...



...which are slightly weaker in numbers with a total strength of 20,000 men.

During the battle, the Russians manage to capture some Ottoman cannons...



... on what the British call the Causeway Hills.

This defeat rankles Lord Raglan - in those days, losing cannons to the enemy in battle was almost as ignominious as losing a flag!

Raglan therefore orders the unused British cavalry to be used to recapture the guns from the Russians before they can transport them away as booty.

His order, which is already very unclear in itself, runs through the chain of command of Raglan's chief of staff, General Richard Airey...



... to the aide-de-camp Captain Louis Edward Nolan...



... further who passed it on to George Charles Bingham, 3rd Earl of Lucan...



... hands over the commander of the cavalry division and he in turn hands this over to his brother-in-law James Thomas Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan...



... the commander of the light cavalry brigade.

From passing to passing, the command becomes more and more garbled.

In addition, all three participants, Nolan, Lucan and Cardigan are related to each other, hate each other with fervor and there is no willingness among them to help or even support each other in a comradely manner.

Cardigan, who is now supposed to carry out the matter, is confused - he doesn't know what to recapture.

The guns in question are on the Causeway Hills, which Cardigan cannot see from where he is. He asks Nolan to explain.

But Nolan just waves his saber wildly and snaps at Cardigan with barely concealed contempt:

"There, sir, is the enemy! And there, sir, are your guns!"

As luck would have it, Nolan pointed the point of his saber at another well-fortified Russian Don Cossack gun emplacement at the end of the northern valley.

A frontal cavalry attack on these - wrong! - But position means: The riders have to take almost a one-kilometer route through an uncovered valley, the three surrounding ranges of which are occupied by the enemy and at the end of which an entrenched artillery position awaits...:



When Cardigan Nolan points out the expected slaughter among his riders from crossfire from three sides, he replies something like "Orders are orders!"

**continued next post**

Part II


Cardigan shrugs and lets ride!



When the 673 cavalrymen of the 13th Light Dragoons, 17th Lancers and 11th Hussars...



...start moving in the wrong direction, Nolan seems to notice the misunderstanding and gallops to Lord Cardigan to bring him a correction.

But before Nolan can reach the cavalry commander, he is killed by a direct Russian shell hit...:



The carnage Lord Cardigan anticipated is finally taking place! Only about 200 horsemen (of originally 673) make it - fired upon from three sides - even to the Russian artillery position...:





During the long ride of the attacking British, the Russians had enough time not only to deploy a few regiments of mounted Don Cossacks behind their artillery, but also to add a regiment of dragoons to reinforce them!



When the few surviving British actually manage to penetrate the artillery position, they are immediately attacked by the Russian cavalry and thrown back!



And these last British horsemen would certainly have been completely crushed by the superior Russian cavalry, if they hadn't been helped by French General Morris...



...would have come to the rescue on his own initiative with the 4e Chasseurs d'Afrique...:



Less than 130 unharmed members of the Light Brigade - among them is Lord Cardigan - are able to reach their own lines again...:



I close with the famous words of the French General Pierre Bosquet...



...who had to watch the British attack: "That's great, but that's not war, it's madness!"

I myself have never understood why Britain is so proud of this event that it has been celebrating the anniversary since 1875...

Because they were "good soldiers" following the tried and tested motto "Ours not to reason why; ours but to do and die." (Lord Tennyson)

Illustrative of the generally useless caliber of British officer corp at the time..a dangerous hubris ..for all the celebrations, this isn’t something taught at staff colleges!..of course the whole Crimean mess was nothing to celebrate..totally avoidable disaster…

Victorian Britain loved Tennyson and his poetry: the popularity of "The Charge of the Light Brigade" when it was published in 'The Examiner' on 9th. December 1854 , pandered to the overall sense of "derring-do" that society loved. Nothing quite as spectacular had happened since Waterloo, despite the great number of "Little Wars", most of which were not particularly successful. Tennyson cleverly captured the rhythm of the gathering charge and its aftermath .

As was usual then, not a word of thanks for the Allies who tried to pull the irons out of the fire, so to speak.

Alan