A Russian cavalry movement is countered soon…
October 1854 CE
This causes a more widespread Russian retreat, including a number of their artillery units.
When the local commanders fails to take advantage of the retreat, Lord Raglan sends out orders to move up and attack some Russian guns located across the valley.
Raglan can see these guns due to his position on the hill; when in the valley, this view is obstructed, leaving the wrong guns in sight.
The local commanders ignore the demands, leading to the British aide-de-camp (Captain Nolan) personally delivering the quickly written and confusing order to attack the artillery.
When Lord Lucan questions which guns the order refers to, the aide-de-camp points to the first Russian battery he can see and allegedly says "There is your enemy, there are your guns"—due to his obstructed view, these are the wrong ones.
Lucan now passes the order to the Earl of Cardigan, resulting in the charge of the Light Brigade.
In this charge, Cardigan forms up his unit and charges the length of the Valley of the Balaclava, under fire from Russian batteries in the hills.
The charge of the Light Brigade causes two hundred and seventy-eight casualties of the seven hundred-man unit.
The Light Brigad will be memorialzed in the famous poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "The Charge of the Light Brigade".
Although traditionally the charge of the Light Brigade has been looked upon as a glorious but wasted sacrifice of good men and horses, recent historians say that the charge of the Light Brigade did succeed in at least some of its objectives.
The aim of any cavalry charge is to scatter the enemy lines and frighten the enemy off the battlefield.
The charge of the Light Brigade so unnerved the Russian cavalry, which had been routed by the Heavy Brigade, that the Russians were set to full-scale flight.
Locations
Groups
Christians, Eastern Orthodox
View →
Austria, Archduchy of
View →
Ottoman Empire
View →
Moldavia (Ottoman vassal), Principality of
View →
Wallachia (Ottoman vassal), Principality of
View →
Prussia, Kingdom of
View →
Russian Empire
View →
Greece, Kingdom of
View →
France, Second Empire of
View →
Britain (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland)
View →
Regions
Northeastern Eurasia
View →Subregions
