Someone Had Blundered ...

Charge of the Light Brigade
Richard Caton Woodville Jr.
Source

Throughout the history of warfare there are recorded instances of events taking place for which no good reason can be offered. At the Battle of Balaclava, on the 25th of October 1854, during the Crimean War, such an incident took place. An incident which inspired a great poem by Britain's poet laureate, Sir Alfred Lord Tennyson, a number of films (some good, some not so good) and one book in the Flashman series written by George MacDonald Fraser.

The poem (well, part of it) -

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.

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The field of battle (this is on the Crimea Peninsula, southeast of Sevastopol) -

Source

The incident has come down to us as "The Charge of the Light Brigade."

Now who, or what, was the Light Brigade? Well, they were part of the Cavalry Division deployed with the British Army under Lord Raglan (a rather stuffy man who had lost an arm at Waterloo serving on Wellington's staff, some 49 years earlier). The division was composed of two brigades, the Light and, wait for it, the Heavy.

The Cavalry Division was commanded by Lieutenant-General George Bingham, 3rd Earl of Lucan. Whose own men had nicknamed him "Lord Look On" for his infamous inactivity at the Battle of the Alma. It's also worth noting that Lucan and Cardigan hated each other. 

The Heavy Brigade was made up of three regiments of dragoons and two regiments of dragoon guards (a fancier version of dragoons, but operationally used the same). The Light Brigade, commanded by  Major-General James Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan (yes, the sweater is named after him) was made up of five regiments of light cavalry: two hussar regiments, two light dragoon regiments (pretty much the same as hussars but their uniforms weren't as fancy), and one regiment of lancers.

Yes, chaps on horseback carrying a lance, those are the fellows in the foreground of Woodville's painting above.

Now the battle itself was rather a confused affair, the Heavy Brigade won eternal glory (well, they would have had the light bobs not gotten shot to hell) for attacking a Russian cavalry force a lot larger than them. Which they drove off.

The 93rd Highlanders (see the map above) gained fame as the Thin Red Line, in case you've never heard that expression before, it started at Balaclava. Here's why the phrase was coined -

The Thin Red Line
Robert Gibb
Source

The commander of the 93rd, Sir Colin Campbell, felt that his men were too ill-trained and inexperienced to form a square as a mass of Russian cavalry advanced upon them. So he had them form up in two-deep line.

Two volleys saw the Russians turn around and go back from whence they came.

So two heroic incidents.

Meanwhile, on the Causeway Heights, the Russians were overrunning artillery positions manned by Turkish troops. Someone on Raglan's staff saw the Russians removing the guns after overrunning the Turks. Some wags say that the remark was heard mentioning that the Duke of Wellington had never lost a gun and perhaps someone should prevent this.

A Captain Nolan, superb horseman and a big-time cavalry theorist, was dispatched to order Lord Cardigan's brigade forward to prevent the loss of the artillery on the Causeway Heights.

Now from what I've read, Lord Cardigan was an intensely stupid and vain man, he also despised Captain Nolan. So when said Captain gallops up and gives Cardigan his orders, Cardigan, down in the valley, can't see the guns on the Causeway Heights.

"Guns, Sir? I see no guns." Cardigan allegedly said.

Nolan (whose opinion of Cardigan's intellect was very low) responded by sweeping his arm out across the scene and barked, "There my Lord, there are your guns!"

Rather than seek clarification Cardigan decided to advance down the valley towards the only guns he could see. Perhaps he would have asked Nolan for more details, but that man was struck by a shell fragment and his mount went careening across the front of the brigade.

Not realizing that Nolan was already dead, Cardigan assumed that the man, the effrontery of such a thing, had usurped control of the Light Brigade and intended to lead them down the valley.

He ordered the brigade to advance.

Sometimes soldiers will see a thing, an order, an objective, and know that it likely means their deaths. But they also know that sometimes a unit will be ordered into the fight by a general who knows what he's doing and sees an opportunity for victory, though that unit will pay a dear price.

Cardigan probably should have known better, he viewed Raglan as a fussy old man (which he was) but "orders are orders." Cardigan also had a reputation for being one of the most obstinate (and stupid) men in the British Army.

So that day, the Light Brigade went forward.

Out of a strength of roughly 660 men, 110 were killed and 161 were wounded.

They had run a gauntlet of Russian fire coming from both sides of the valley they were in. They had suffered volley after volley from the Russian guns to their front. And they had the audacity to actually reach the Russian gun line and start sabering the Russian gunners before being driven off by more Russians coming to support their guns.

Back down the valley they went, Cardigan in the lead both ways, untouched by shot and shell, unmoved by the destruction of his brigade before his eyes. He was of no more use to the Brigade than the meanest trooper.

Go forward, fall back. Result? You no longer have a Light Brigade.

While there was no lack of brave men that day, the British Army could have used a few more with tactical smarts.

Balaclava
Elizabeth Thompson, Lady Butler
Source

Theirs not to wonder why ...

When can their glory fade?

O the wild charge they made!

   All the world wondered.

Honour the charge they made!

Honour the Light Brigade,

   Noble six hundred!

Ibid