The Charge of the Light Brigade: a new perspective.

The Charge of the Light Brigade is one of those well documented events from history that we are all fairly familiar with. Summed up in the immortal lines of Tennyson's Poem there resonating line of "Theirs not to reason why" seems to say it all. Six hundred ordinary cavalrymen ordered to charge over a mile of hostile ground into Russian cannon fire from which most never returned. The world has now accepted that these troops were the paragons of unswerving obedience sent to their deaths by blundering senior officers. Recent evidence shows a very different if no less virtuous story.

It was Lord Raglan, the Commander in Chief of the British forces at the battle of Balaclava in 1854, who, under the mistaken impression that the Russian forces were retreating from battle gave the order for the cavalry to attack, even in the face of the overwhelming artillery fire that faced them from the other end of the valley. His subordinate on the field was commander of the Cavalry Division, the Earl of Lucan who passed on the order to Light Brigade commander the Earl of Cardigan, both men were aware of the "uselessness of the attack" to quote Lucan himself, yet they obeyed the order none the less. Blind obedience in keeping with the British military "stiff upper lip", or was there other factors at work here. In later years battlefield communication was revolutionised with the heliograph, but for now battle field orders were vague and confusing being issued over long distances in confusing situations in very brief terms. So why didn't such erroneous orders lead to catastrophic results on a regular basis. The reason lies in our misunderstanding of the way command worked in those times. Far from being the strict and inflexible system we have come to expect, senior officers were expected to exercise wide discretion when implementing any orders that they received. An example of this is the fact that General Cathcart, who was ordered to bring his 4000 infantry to attack along side the Light Brigade, refused point blank, no reprimand was made after the event and the fact that he was allowed to go into action two weeks later shows that no court martial was ever called about the matter.

In recent times little attention has been paid to how the wishes of the men influenced decisions of leadership and if we look there we find a much more interesting story. Lucan and Cardigan knew that their men were not happy. A cholera epidemic had hit the brigade hard killing 4 per cent of the entire brigade. Pensions were paid if troopers were killed or wounded, but not if they died of sickness. Many thought that it would be better to die at the hands of the enemy than to die in bed. This was the age of heroic deeds, especially amongst the cavalry who had a heavy make up of minor gentry and public school attendees. Where was the glory in dying of cholera or sitting around camp burying your comrades, something looking ever more likely now that the war was turning into a series of protracted sieges. The mood was right for the troopers to put pressure on their officers for the chance to prove their worth.

Added to this was the fact that on many occasions when the Light Brigade had been lined up on the field, they had not been deployed and had to leave the field untested, often to the light hearted comments of other elements of their own side. Their opposite number in the Russian army were the Cossacks, light cavalry who were no match for the British troops but who had many chances to jeer the Light Brigade when they were held from being sent into battle. The Brigade felt that they were gaining a shameful reputation because of their senior officers cautious tactics.

On the day of the battle of Balaclava the brigade was at near mutiny, yet again they were held back from battle whilst the Cossack troops butchered fallen Turkish troops, British allies in the war. Now the brigade were deployed at the head of the valley, opposite the enemy artillery, but it was the fact the Cossack troops were taking shelter behind those guns that was probably the major incentive for the charge. As soon as Lucan approved the order, which he was in no way obliged to, the Light Brigade knew that their moment had arrived. This was more than an order, this was their right. It is interesting to note that as the charge was being readied, even troops that had been stood down clamoured to join their unit. One man who had been put under arrest for smoking on duty and stripped on his weapons mounted up and rode unarmed with his comrades to immortality and in his case death.

If men had been merely obeying orders, would there have been such a reaction to the impending charge. Instead of riding at regulation pace, thus allowing them to be redirected if resistance was too heavy, they rode at a mad pace, Cardigan at the head of the Brigade later complained of being in danger of being mown down by his own men. When the Brigade reached the guns, the target of their orders, they rode straight through the line and into the ranks of the Cossacks. The Cossacks in turn had no place to go, hemmed in by their own troops, and many turned their carbines on their own comrades to try and shoot a way through, rather than face the 500 frenzied lancers that were about to impact on them. The whole of the Russian cavalry body, 2000 men in all, was soon fleeing in panic with the Light Brigade at their heels. The order of "capture the guns" may have been the one issued, but the order of "attack the Russian cavalry" was the one that they were responding too. But never again would it be said that the Light Brigade was afraid of Cossacks.

In the aftermath both Lucan and Cardigan admitted that the decision to attack had been driven by the attitude of their men. The London based Commander in Chief, Lord Hardinge stated in the House of Lords "Surely, when the noble Earl talks of possible aspersions, it shows that his decision to attack was taken..upon the fear which he entertained of aspersions from his officers and soldiers"

Lord Hardinge's comments show that there is a long forgotten explanation of why the cavalry generals obeyed an order that they knew to be mistaken: they did so out of respect for the wishes of their men.