Balaclava*

The Relief of the Light Brigade by Richard Caton Woodville (Source)

While many of the online dictionaries will make reference to it as a woolen knit cap or hat which covers the head and neck with an opening for the face, it's also referred to as "headgear" or a "balaclava helmet." So obviously it's meant to protect the wearer from cold weather. So I wonder, would you also wear a cardigan while wearing a balaclava? And yes, just where am I going with all of this...

The Crimean War.

What, like when Putin took Crimea away from Ukraine? No, not that one. (Which wasn't really a war, but tell that to the folks who lost their lives over there!) I'm talking about the war which began in 100 BS. (Which means 100 years Before Sarge, i.e. 1853.)

Now the Crimean Peninsula ("the" Crimea to some) juts into the northern part of the Black Sea, for those of you deficient in geography and not having a map to hand, here ya go -

(Source)

From the map you may understand why Ukraine thinks they should "own" the peninsula as it's not attached to Russia via land. But see that darkish blue piece of real estate to the upper left on the map? Yeah, that's part of Russia, not attached at all, but in the old Soviet Union days it was. Of course, that also used to be the northern part of East Prussia. In case you didn't know, real estate in Europe tends to switch hands from time to time. In the old days, that happened a lot. But during the time period of the Crimean War, Crimea belonged to the Russian Empire.

Now in those olden times (100 BS) there was a bit of a squabble over the rights of Christian minorities in the Holy Land (plus ça change...). Now the French (then under the nephew of the great Napoléon, known as Napoléon III, yes, I know, there was a Napoléon II but that's not on today's menu and... I digress) supported the rights of the Roman Catholics whereas the Russians supported the rights of the Eastern Orthodox Church (which in my day we called the Russian Orthodox Church to distinguish them from the Greek Orthodox Church, but again, I digress).

Well, at that time the Holy Land was under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, or Ottoman Turks as some might say. (On the map Turkey is that bit along the southern part of the Black Sea.) As you might imagine, the Ottomans were Muslim. So there we have a religious "cause" which in actuality had more to do with the weakening of Ottoman power and the desire of the Russians to have a warm water port which wasn't obstructed by someone else's land. In this case the Ottomans. (Think of the outlet of the Black Sea to the Mediterranean which is the Bosporus, a narrow channel which runs past Constantinople Istanbul and is, as you have no doubt guessed, owned by the Turks. Or Ottomans back then.)

Anyhoo.

The Russians began pushing the Turks around and the French and their plucky British allies leapt to the defense of the poor Turk against the nasty Russian bear. Yes, of course it was much more complicated than that, it always is, but in essence that's what it boiled down to. After all, no one wants a Russian fleet in the Mediterranean. (What's that? We have that now? I know, and that is a much longer story which I won't go into now, perhaps not ever. Who knows?)

So there's Johnny Turk, harassed and harried by those mean Russians, so France and Britain declare war on Russia. No one thought at the time just where they would fight Russia until someone at White Hall broke out a map and said, "Oh look, the Crimea. It's just north of our buddies the Turks and it's right there on the water so the Royal Navy can just drop off the Army there. Bloody good!"

No, it wasn't that simple. Actually the allies initially landed near Varna (in modern day Bulgaria) where the facilities weren't that great and while near Russia, didn't really give any support to the Turks. Then everybody caught cholera and began dying. (Yes, I am exaggerating.) Most unhealthy climate, so they all climbed back aboard their transports and headed towards Crimea. At first they landed at a spot north of Sevastopol. where the Russians had (and still have) a naval base. Advancing south they had a battle (The Battle of the Alma) where they defeated the Russians who then fell back to Sevastopol. Advancing, the allies discovered that the northern approaches to the base were pretty strongly fortified. Far stronger than they cared for. So back to the ships and then down to a place south of Sevastopol.

Down to the little town of Balaclava (Balaklava today) which had a pretty decent harbor and was not far from Sevastopol. Time for another map methinks.

Google Maps

So the army went ashore near Balaclava. They moved cannon and siege equipment up and began to bombard the port. No, the Russians did not like that. Not at all. So they moved troops down to that plain just north of the town of Balaklava. Which brings me to the point of this tale. (I know, took me long enough didn't it?)

How many of you have heard of the Charge of the Light Brigade? You know, the one commemorated by one Alfred Lord Tennyson in his poem of the same name...

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
"Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Yes, that one.

Plucky British cavalrymen charge to the guns and get wiped out. Not quite but near enough, they got battered pretty badly. All due to mismanagement and crappy commanders. There has been a lot of ink spilled over that battle and the charge of the Light Brigade is the only bit people know. Many have no idea that it took place in the larger context of the Crimean War and that two other notable incidents occurred during the same battle. Only one of which was ever commemorated in a way similar to that of the Light Brigade's famous charge. That, dear friends, was the Thin Red Line, commemorated in the following painting which I also used yesterday, though for different purposes.

The Thin Red Line by Robert Gibb (Source)

What I didn't mention yesterday was that that thin red line of Scotsmen (in bonnets and skirts, er, kilts) were equipped with rifled muskets very similar to those used in our own Civil War (which started seven years later). Rather than adopt the standard square formation to present a solid wall of bayonets to advancing Russian cavalry, the commander on the scene (one Sir Colin Campbell) felt that a two deep line and volley fire from those rifled muskets should prove sufficient to stop those mean Russians.

I should also mention that those Scotsmen of the 93rd Highlanders were the only troops (aside from a few assorted Turks) between the Russians and the harbor of Balaclava. Most of the army was off besieging Sevastopol.

Suffice to say, Sir Colin was correct and the Russians had to withdraw, precipitously. Not all of 'em mind you, just the ones who survived the volleys from those Scottish rifles.

(Source)

You can see on the map where the 93rd repulsed the Russian cavalry (B). Now the other incident I alluded to is the charge of the Heavy Brigade (C). Now in that part of the battle, the heavy cavalry accompanying the British army to the Crimea were commanded by a general named Scarlett (his last name, stop that giggling back there) who was notorious for being very near sighted. Now a large mass of Russian cavalry advanced on their position. The Russians were surprised by the presence of British cavalry in front of them, they hadn't seen them because of the vagaries of the rolling terrain. (Which comes into play later as well.)

The Russians halted. General Scarlett ordered his troopers forward. (He allegedly had no idea just how many Russians were facing his unit.) Much has been written of this incident but I have my own theory. Here it is...

The overall commander of the British cavalry was Charles Bingham, 3rd Earl of Lucan. In the parlance of the day, he was called "Lord Lucan." To the army deployed on the plain north of Balaclava, he was known as Lord "Look On." For you see, at an earlier battle there was an opportunity for the cavalry to attack and perhaps do great damage to the Russians. But they did not advance. They sat on their horses and "looked on" as the rest of the army fought. This was primarily because of the orders of FitzRoy Somerset, Baron Raglan (Lord Raglan) who had been on Wellington's staff at the Battle of Waterloo and had lost his right arm there. He had a distressing tendency to refer to the Russian enemy as "the French," being more used to fighting the French than being allied to them.

So at the Battle of the Alma, where the cavalry had wanted (desperately) to advance, Lord Raglan refused to allow it. Well, and you know how soldiers are, the rest of the army mocked the cavalrymen (who were often looked upon as dandies, especially the light cavalry) so when Scarlett ordered an advance, the Heavies pitched into it with rather a will. The Russians, still wondering "Where the Hell did they come from?" now had these pissed off guys with swords attacking them. Uphill. Outnumbered three to one.

The Charge of the Royal Scots Greys, as part of the Heavy Brigade, at Balaclava, 25th October 1854: Engraving by Augustus Butler (Source)

After a short and not very bloody fight the Russians retreated. Not long after that incident, Lord Raglan on the Sapoune Heights had it pointed out to him that the Russians were hauling off some cannon which they had captured from the Turks along the Causeway Heights. It was pointed out that perhaps the Light Brigade (who were cooling their heels in the valley below) might advance and stop those nasty Russians from hauling off those stolen guns. The order was given and a staff wienie volunteered to take the message down to the commander of the Light Brigade, one Thomas Brudenell, 1st Earl of Cardigan.

Now this fellow Cardigan was the brother-in-law of Lord Look On, I mean Lucan and the two heartily despised each other. Cardigan felt himself to be the premier expert on cavalry in the British Army (why no one knows) but was considered by most of the army as a disagreeable ass. He was also rather known to be, shall we say, "not the brightest bulb on the tree."

Now the staff wienie, one Captain Nolan, actually was something of a cavalry expert and he despised both Lucan and Cardigan. When he delivered the message to advance the Light Brigade, Lord Cardigan remarked that he couldn't see which guns he was supposed to prevent being carried off. (The terrain obscured his view of the Causeway heights, which were perfectly clear to Raglan on the Sapoune Heights above the Light Brigade.)

"What guns?" queried Cardigan.

"Attack, sir!" Captain Nolan cried.

"Attack what? What guns, sir?" Cardigan petulantly asked.

"There, my Lord, is your enemy!" Nolan allegedly exclaimed as he pointed vaguely to the other end of the valley, where the bulk of the Russian Army was posted.

And with that the Light Brigade rode into legend. Out of approximately 670 troopers and officers present, 110 were killed, and 161 fell wounded, a loss of 40% of their strength. Many more horses were also lost. (After all, they are bigger targets and a smart gunner will aim for them anyway. Guys on foot with swords aren't half as scary as guys on horseback with swords.)

The allies eventually won the war. However, much was revealed about the maladministration of the British Army and many reforms were undertaken to fix those things. The troops had suffered greatly and for the first time many newspaper correspondents went into the field with the army. And reported on all the stupid things which went on.

Much could also have been learned from the Crimean War which could have been applied in the Great Unpleasantness of 1861 to 1865. But, in an early example of "well, those were Europeans, doesn't apply to us," we had to learn those lessons over again, particularly the deadliness of the rifled musket.

On the bright side we got to read Tennyson's poem in high school (or earlier) and we got the balaclava "hat/helmet/head covering" and the cardigan sweater. Yes, the sweater is named after that Lord Cardigan, commander of the Light Brigade, though he didn't invent it. It was simply a knitted vest popular with British officers in the Crimea. Because of the Charge of the Light Brigade (which Cardigan survived) and due to Tennyson's poem, Lord Cardigan became a celebrated figure in Britain after the war.

Unbeknownst to me prior to doing the research for this post, Rudyard Kipling had also written a poem about the Charge of the Light Brigade. Nothing glorious about it though, in his poem he bemoans the fact that years after the Crimean War, many of the common soldiers of the Light Brigade were living in poverty, and the British public didn't care. His poem, The Last of the Light Brigade, starts like this -

There were thirty million English who talked of England's might,
There were twenty broken troopers who lacked a bed for the night.
They had neither food nor money, they had neither service nor trade;
They were only shiftless soldiers, the last of the Light Brigade.

Seems to me that poem might apply today as well. Just sayin'...

You can read the whole thing here.

And here (or there, if you will) endeth the lesson.

Captain Steve, those hussars in the first painting? They're wearing busbys.

*Not to be confused with baklava, the sweet Turkish pastry. 

I should also mention that Lord Tennyson wrote a poem about the Heavy Brigade as well. That's here.