Charge of the Light Brigade (1854): Blunder at Balaclava

The Charge of the Light Brigade took place on 25 October 1854 during the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War. Acting on a vague and misunderstood order, about 670 British light cavalrymen rode down a valley more than a mile long into the fire of Russian guns on three sides. They reached the guns at the far end, but close to half were killed, wounded or captured in about twenty minutes, and the episode became the most famous military blunder in British history.

Background: the Battle of Balaclava

In autumn 1854 British and French armies were besieging the Russian naval base of Sevastopol. The British drew their supplies through the small harbour of Balaclava, a few miles to the south. Its defence rested on a line of earthwork redoubts along the low Causeway Heights, garrisoned by Ottoman troops.

At dawn on 25 October a Russian force of around 25,000 men under General Pavel Liprandi attacked. The Ottoman soldiers in the forward redoubts fought hard but were overwhelmed, and the Russians captured several redoubts along with British naval guns placed in them.

Russian cavalry then advanced towards Balaclava itself. They were stopped by the 93rd Highlanders under Sir Colin Campbell, drawn up in a line two deep. The Times correspondent William Howard Russell described them as a thin red streak, the origin of the phrase “the thin red line”.

Soon afterwards the Heavy Brigade of British cavalry, under General James Scarlett, charged a much larger body of Russian horsemen uphill and drove them back. This successful charge is far less famous than the one that followed.

The fatal order

Lord Raglan, the British commander, watched from the Sapoune Heights high above the battlefield. From there he could see Russian troops on the Causeway Heights apparently preparing to drag away the captured guns. Losing guns was a disgrace, and Raglan wanted the cavalry to stop it.

His order, written by General Richard Airey, read that Raglan wished the cavalry “to advance rapidly to the front, follow the enemy and try to prevent the enemy carrying away the guns”. It mentioned that horse artillery could accompany them and that French cavalry was on their left, and ended with the word “Immediate”.

The order was carried by Captain Louis Nolan, an impetuous cavalry officer and a known critic of the cavalry’s commanders. Down on the valley floor, the cavalry division’s commander, Lord Lucan, could not see the redoubts on the Causeway Heights. The only guns visible to him were the Russian battery at the far end of the North Valley.

According to Lucan’s own account, when he asked which guns were meant, Nolan pointed with a sweeping gesture and told him that there was the enemy and there were the guns. Whether Nolan pointed at the wrong target, or Lucan simply misread him, remains disputed.

The charge

Lucan passed the order to the commander of the Light Brigade, his brother-in-law Lord Cardigan. The two men disliked each other intensely. Cardigan pointed out that the valley was covered by Russian artillery and riflemen on the Fedioukine Hills to the north and the Causeway Heights to the south, as well as the battery ahead. Lucan replied that they had no choice but to obey.

At about 11 a.m. the brigade moved off, its five regiments arranged in lines: the 13th Light Dragoons and 17th Lancers in front, followed by the 11th Hussars, then the 4th Light Dragoons and 8th Hussars. Almost at once Nolan galloped across the front of the brigade, waving and shouting, perhaps to redirect it towards the redoubts. A shell fragment struck him and he was the first man killed.

The brigade advanced from a trot to a gallop under fire from three sides. Men and horses fell continuously, but the survivors kept their formation as best they could. Cardigan, riding in front, was among the first to reach the Russian battery of the Don Cossacks.

Riders cut down gunners among the guns and some pressed on to fight Russian cavalry beyond them. With no support arriving, the survivors turned and made their way back up the valley in small groups, again under fire, while some were cut off and captured. Lucan had brought the Heavy Brigade forward a short way but halted it when it began to take losses.

The French helped. The Chasseurs d’Afrique, French light cavalry under General d’Allonville, charged the guns on the Fedioukine Hills and silenced them, reducing the fire on the returning survivors.

Key people

Lord Raglan (1788-1855), Commander-in-Chief of the British army in the East, was a veteran of Wellington’s campaigns who had lost an arm at Waterloo. He was courteous but often vague in his orders. He died of illness in Crimea in June 1855.

Lord Lucan (1800-1888) commanded the cavalry division. He was recalled to Britain in 1855 and spent years defending his conduct, insisting he had obeyed a direct order.

Lord Cardigan (1797-1868) commanded the Light Brigade. Wealthy, arrogant and unpopular with many officers, he nonetheless led the charge with great personal courage. He returned home a hero, and the knitted cardigan jacket was named after him.

Captain Louis Nolan (1818-1854) was an aide-de-camp and a writer on cavalry tactics. His death in the first moments of the charge meant he could never explain his words or gesture.

Aftermath and blame

When the survivors gathered at the head of the valley, only around 195 men were still mounted. Cardigan is said to have told them it was a mad-brained trick, but it was no fault of his. Watching from the heights, the French General Pierre Bosquet is reported to have said “C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre” (“It is magnificent, but it is not war”).

News reached Britain through Russell’s despatch, published in The Times on 14 November 1854. The public was horrified by the losses but thrilled by the courage of the men. Raglan blamed Lucan for misunderstanding the order; Lucan blamed Raglan and Nolan. The quarrel continued in Parliament and in print for years.

Historians still disagree. Some, following Cecil Woodham-Smith’s classic account The Reason Why (1953), stress the class-based system that let wealthy aristocrats buy command of regiments regardless of ability. Others emphasise the confusion of the moment: an order written for a commander who could see the whole field, delivered to one who could not, by a messenger who had no time or patience to explain it.

The Battle of Balaclava itself ended without a clear winner. The Russians kept most of the captured redoubts and cut the main road from Balaclava to the siege lines, but the port remained in British hands. Eleven days later the Russians attacked again at the Battle of Inkerman.

Tennyson’s poem and the legend

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, the Poet Laureate, read Russell’s account and wrote The Charge of the Light Brigade in a few minutes, according to his own recollection. It was published in The Examiner on 9 December 1854. Its rhythm imitates galloping horses, and lines such as “Theirs not to reason why” made the “six hundred” a byword for doomed courage.

The legend lasted. Several survivors’ memoirs were published, and the charge was depicted in paintings, prints and later films, including a 1936 Hollywood version starring Errol Flynn and a satirical British film in 1968. Many survivors, however, fell into poverty. Public appeals for them followed in 1890, after Rudyard Kipling’s poem The Last of the Light Brigade drew attention to their plight.

Myths and facts

Myth: exactly 600 men rode in the charge. Tennyson’s “six hundred” was a poetic round number. Muster rolls suggest around 670 men took part, though counts vary.

Myth: almost everyone was killed. Losses were severe but not total. About 110 men died, while most of the brigade survived, many of them wounded or without horses.

Myth: the charge achieved nothing at all. It achieved no military objective, but the brigade did reach and briefly overrun the battery, which surprised the Russians and earned the admiration of their officers.

By the numbers

Timeline

• 1854, 14 September: British and French armies land in Crimea.
• 1854, 17 October: The first allied bombardment of Sevastopol begins.
• 1854, 25 October, dawn: Russian troops attack the redoubts on the Causeway Heights.
• 1854, 25 October, morning: The 93rd Highlanders hold the “thin red line” and the Heavy Brigade charges.
• 1854, 25 October, about 11 a.m.: The Light Brigade charges down the North Valley.
• 1854, 14 November: Russell’s report of the battle appears in The Times.
• 1854, 9 December: Tennyson’s poem is published in The Examiner.

Why it matters

The Charge of the Light Brigade became a symbol both of extraordinary bravery and of the failures of command and communication in the British army. Public anger over the Crimean War helped bring reforms to officer appointments and army administration, and the charge remains a classic lesson in how a single unclear order can lead to disaster.