The Charge of the Light Brigade was a charge of British light cavalry led by Lord Cardigan against Russian forces during the Battle of Balaclava on 25 October 1854 in the Crimean War. Lord Raglan, overall commander, had intended to send the Light Brigade to pursue and harry a retreating Russian artillery battery near the front line, a task well suited to light cavalry. Due to miscommunication at some level in the chain of command, the sabre-armed Light Brigade was instead sent on a frontal assault into a different artillery battery, one well-prepared with excellent fields of defensive fire. Although reaching the battery under withering direct fire and scattering some of the gunners, the badly mauled brigade was forced to retreat immediately, producing no decisive gains and very high British casualties. It is best remembered as the subject of the poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, published just six weeks after the event, whose lines emphasize the valour of the cavalry in bravely carrying out their orders, regardless of the obvious outcome. Blame for the miscommunication has remained controversial, as the original order from Raglan itself was vague.
Read more about Charge Of The Light Brigade: Background, The Charge, Aftermath, Poems, Media Representations, See Also, Further Reading
Famous quotes containing the words charge of, charge, light and/or brigade:
“It is hereby earnestly proposed that the USA would be much better off if that big, sprawling, incoherent, shapeless, slobbering civic idiot in the family of American communities, the City of Los Angeles, could be declared incompetent and placed in charge of a guardian like any individual mental defective.”
—Westbrook Pegler (1894–1969)
“America does to me what I knew it would do: it just bumps me.... The people charge at you like trucks coming down on you—no awareness. But one tries to dodge aside in time. Bump! bump! go the trucks. And that is human contact.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“the light of a whole life dies
When love is gone.”
—Francis William Bourdillon (1852–1921)
“Rational free spirits are the light brigade who go on ahead and reconnoitre the ground which the heavy brigade of the orthodox will eventually occupy.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)