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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Charge of the Light Brigade
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(25 Oct. 1854)
The best-known incident in the Battle of Balaklava, and indeed in the entire *Crimean War. The Russians had captured artillery posts on heights to either side of a valley north of Balaklava. The British army commander, Lord Raglan, sent an order for the Light Brigade (cavalry on nimble horses, lightly armed with sabres or lances) to attack the Russians on one of the isolated heights.
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The order became garbled in the delivery and the commander of the brigade, Lord *Cardigan, led his men down the valley between the heights. In the resulting slaughter, a third (247 of 637) were killed or wounded. The fame of the event is partly due to the speed of communication in the age of the electric telegraph. It was only six weeks later that *Tennyson's poem The Charge of the Light Brigade appeared in London, in the Examiner of 9 December 1854.
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Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them,
Volley'd and thunder'd. His lines include the tell-tale phrase 'someone had blundered' (as had indeed been reported by *Russell of the Times) together with his famously bleak image of a soldier's duty: Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred. Yet the overall theme of the poem was drama and heroism, with a last verse beginning: 'When can their glory fade?'
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