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The Reason Why: The Story of the Fatal Charge of the Light Brigade
Nothing in British campaign history has ever equalled the tragic farce that was the Charge of the Light Brigade. In this fascinating study, Cecil Woodham-Smith shows that responsibility for the fatal mismanagement of the affair rested with the Earls of Cardigan and Lucan, brothers-in-law and sworn enemies for more than thirty years. In revealing the combination of pride and obstinacy that was to prove so fatal, the author gives us a picture of a vanished world, in which heroism and military glory guaranteed an immortality impossible in a more cynical age.
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1953
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About the author
Cecil Woodham-Smith
45 books15 followersCecil Blanche Woodham-Smith (née Fitzgerald) was a British historian and biographer. She wrote four popular history books, each dealing with a different aspect of the Victorian era.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 92 reviews
May 7, 2020
I read this book eleven years ago and ran across it again while looking through my shelves. I remembered it fondly and since it is not too long, I decided to re-read it. Glad that I did........my original review (see below) is spot on. Sometimes on second reading, a book may disappoint. This one does not.
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This history puts paid to any misconceptions that one might have about the suicidal charge at Balaclava. The charge has been memorialized in poem and film but here is the real story and it reads like exciting fiction. Through their ineptitude, Lords Cardigan and Lucan sacrificed the men under their command as cannon fodder for the Russian guns and over the years it has somehow become glorious. The author does not gloss over the reasons for the assignment of these incompetent commanders or their childish in-fighting for power with its tragic results.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in military history.............or to anyone who just enjoys a good, well written book. This is the one!!!!!
--------------------------------------------------------
This history puts paid to any misconceptions that one might have about the suicidal charge at Balaclava. The charge has been memorialized in poem and film but here is the real story and it reads like exciting fiction. Through their ineptitude, Lords Cardigan and Lucan sacrificed the men under their command as cannon fodder for the Russian guns and over the years it has somehow become glorious. The author does not gloss over the reasons for the assignment of these incompetent commanders or their childish in-fighting for power with its tragic results.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in military history.............or to anyone who just enjoys a good, well written book. This is the one!!!!!
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January 19, 2019The news of the Charge of the Light Brigade, Cannon to the right of them, Cannon to the left of them filled the newspaper reading public of Victorian Britain with the certainty that Someone had blunder'd in the conduct of the Crimean War.
Cecil Woodham-Smith's clever, insightful account of the Charge of the Light Brigade starts with the backgrounds of Lords Lucan and Cardigan and the rivalry between the two men which came to head during the Crimean war when Lucan was in overall command of the cavalry and Cardigan of the Light Brigade. The story starts out with Lucan trying to drive tenants off his lands in the west of Ireland during the time of the potato famine, Cardigan with his idiosyncratic views on military discipline and uniforms (the tighter the better). The book then takes in their social milieu, the mid-Victorian British army with its mixture of professionalism and amateurism summed up in its practise of allowing the purchase of commissions to officer rank and finally the conduct of the Crimean war including the disastrous charge itself.
A Russian officer asking British cavalrymen who had survived the charge at the guns only to be captured afterwards if they had been given brandy to drink beforehand is quickly put in his place: we wouldn't have stopped until we'd got to Moscow if we had.
Cecil Woodham-Smith's clever, insightful account of the Charge of the Light Brigade starts with the backgrounds of Lords Lucan and Cardigan and the rivalry between the two men which came to head during the Crimean war when Lucan was in overall command of the cavalry and Cardigan of the Light Brigade. The story starts out with Lucan trying to drive tenants off his lands in the west of Ireland during the time of the potato famine, Cardigan with his idiosyncratic views on military discipline and uniforms (the tighter the better). The book then takes in their social milieu, the mid-Victorian British army with its mixture of professionalism and amateurism summed up in its practise of allowing the purchase of commissions to officer rank and finally the conduct of the Crimean war including the disastrous charge itself.
A Russian officer asking British cavalrymen who had survived the charge at the guns only to be captured afterwards if they had been given brandy to drink beforehand is quickly put in his place: we wouldn't have stopped until we'd got to Moscow if we had.
October 2, 2019
If you have any curiosity about the “Charge of the Light Brigade”, you must read "The Reason Why". A 5 Star story, well-written and presents so much fascinating history. Most of us have little knowledge of the Crimean War and this book will give you an excellent background on what it was about and what happened. The author has quite a way with words and her description of martial glory and the aristocracy is priceless:
The Earl of Cardigan and the Earl of Lucan, the two central characters are both despicable human beings. Their responsibility for the death of the Light Brigade is like watching a slow-motion train wreck. Here is an introduction to Cardigan:
The British Army used the purchase system for aristocracy attaining command. Here Cardigan (aka Brudenell) buys his position as a regimental commander over the heads of men who fought Napoleon at Waterloo:
Lucan is just as contemptible, a cruel and heartless landlord. The author brings an extensive account of Lucan’s campaign to remove the Irish from their homes on his huge estates in Ireland during the great famines of the 1840’s.
THE CAVALRY HAVE ALWAYS regarded themselves as socially superior to the remainder of the British Army.
The experience of the British Army on the way to the Crimea was not crowned with glory:
The author certainly knows how to write striking battle sequences. Shortly before the Charge of the Light Brigade, other British Cavalry attempt to take back some redoubts on the right side of the Valley:
The account of that final charge of the Light Brigade is as thrilling as it is terrible. Can’t recommend this book enough!
The Earl of Cardigan and the Earl of Lucan, the two central characters are both despicable human beings. Their responsibility for the death of the Light Brigade is like watching a slow-motion train wreck. Here is an introduction to Cardigan:
The British Army used the purchase system for aristocracy attaining command. Here Cardigan (aka Brudenell) buys his position as a regimental commander over the heads of men who fought Napoleon at Waterloo:
Lucan is just as contemptible, a cruel and heartless landlord. The author brings an extensive account of Lucan’s campaign to remove the Irish from their homes on his huge estates in Ireland during the great famines of the 1840’s.
THE CAVALRY HAVE ALWAYS regarded themselves as socially superior to the remainder of the British Army.
The experience of the British Army on the way to the Crimea was not crowned with glory:
The author certainly knows how to write striking battle sequences. Shortly before the Charge of the Light Brigade, other British Cavalry attempt to take back some redoubts on the right side of the Valley:
The account of that final charge of the Light Brigade is as thrilling as it is terrible. Can’t recommend this book enough!
April 24, 2024
Cecil Woodham-Smith's The Reason Why recounts the infamous Charge of the Light Brigade with unparalleled style. Not a truly objective history, Woodham-Smith's book is an eloquent, sweeping condemnation of the Victorian class system. Using two officers - Lords Cardigan and Lucan - as a prism on British society, she shows the combination of arrogance, bad judgment and miscommunication that led to the sacrifice of the "Noble 600."
James Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan proves singularly representative of aristocratic shortcomings. The only son in a family of daughters, he grew spoiled by parental dotage, generating an egotism mixed with dreams of military glory. By adulthood Cardigan was an almost caricature nobleman: handsome and gallant, but arrogant, snobbish and short-tempered. Woodham-Smith's claim that Cardigan's "glorious golden head had nothing in it" (15) is unfair; biographer Saul David shows that Cardigan was fairly intelligent. However, Cardigan certainly lacked in other areas: common sense, tact and especially temperance.
Commanding first the 15th, and later the 11th Hussars, Cardigan proved harshly exacting. His stringent standards made the 11th Hussars England's premiere cavalry regiment, but they also engendered the loathing of his officers and men. He certainly kept England's press abuzz with sundry scandals. Minor breaches of etiquette sent him into apoplexy: he scandalized the Army by blackballing John Reynolds, a young captain who dared serve Moselle at a champagne dinner (the famous "black bottle" affair), and flogging a soldier on Easter Sunday. Cardigan himself violated societal mores through repeated duels and scandalous love affairs. He was publicly booed at theaters and public gatherings, becoming a perennial headache for his superiors. An exasperated Duke of Wellington proclaimed "he had never known the time of the staff... to be taken up in so useless a manner" (100).
Profiled in parallel is George Bingham, 3rd Earl of Lucan. Lucan easily bested Cardigan in sheer bloody-minded nastiness. He gained infamy for cruelly managing his Mayo estates during the Irish potato famine. Consolidating land holdings and evicting tenants en mass, he caused untold suffering among his subjects and intense hatred: "it is doubtful if he considered the Irish as human beings at all" (113). Like Cardigan, he was also a martinet of the worst sort, a brutal taskmaster "perpetually entangled in trifles" (33) in commanding his troops and often contemptuous of superiors. Lucan found increasingly petty and bizarre ways of exerting authority: at one point, he ordered his cavalry drilled in antiquated Napoleonic tactics against Raglan's express orders.
Not surprisingly, these men loathed each other. Lucan married Cardigan's sister and by all accounts mistreated her, igniting a personal feud. Naturally, when the Crimean War broke out Cardigan (heading the Light Brigade) found himself serving under division commander Lucan. Commanding general Lord Raglan exacerbated things by separating Cardigan from Lucan's main body, thus undermining Lucan's authority. Even in the field, the two men never missed an opportunity to spite or undermine each other, with disastrous results.
Woodham-Smith forcefully attacks the British military that spawned them. The purchase system, by which officers could literally buy a higher rank, had its benefits. It forestalled the establishment of a powerful, Prussian-style military class, and forced officers to take personal responsibility for their regiment's upkeep. In practice however, it populated the Army with dilettantes and adventurers, seeing military service as a stepping stone to easy prestige. Nominally officers could advance by merit; in practice men without experience or qualification leapfrogged over seasoned career soldiers. Lord Palmerston proclaimed that "it was very desirable to connect the higher classes of Society with the Army" (30), whether or not they were fit to lead.
The lack of a major war since 1815 ensured an antiquated senior staff. Commanding the Allied armies was Fitzroy Somerset, Baron Raglan. Wellington's longtime secretary, Raglan's bravery (he had lost an arm at Waterloo), amiability and organizational skills were unquestioned. His greatest achievement was ensuring smooth relations with his French and Turkish allies. Yet Raglan had never led troops in the field, and proved a spectacularly inept tactician. "Without the military trappings... one would never have guessed him to be a soldier," Woodham-Smith says (161). He proved frustratingly absent-minded, constantly confusing his French allies with the Russian enemy. An exasperated junior officer complained that "everything [is] old at the top. This makes everything sluggish."
The Crimean disaster becomes tragically predictable. Horses crowded into transport ships died en route to the Crimea. Raglan botched the Allied attack at the Alma, forcing British troops to take and retake the same ground repeatedly. Over-caution and mis-communicaton prevented a complete victory when Raglan refuses Lucan's request to launch a follow-up attack. Raglan ill-advisedly shifted the Allied supply base to Balaclava, a tiny village ill-suited for supplying two massive armies. Finally, administrative muddle ensures inadequate supplies and medical treatment, causing thousands of troops to die of disease and exposure.
In fairness, most officers shared many misfortunes with their men. Both Raglan and his French counterpart Marshall St. Arnaud ultimately succumbed to dysentery. Lucan was wounded at Balaclava and even his detractors granted him personal bravery. Cardigan however spent evenings on his yacht in Calamita Bay, entertaining civilian friends and distancing himself from his brigade's hardships. Lest this seem unduly extravagant, military buffs may remember American General George McClellan lunching while the Battle of Malvern Hill raged, Boer War commander Charles Warren stopping his division's advance for a bath, or Charles Townshend dining on plum duff at Kut while his troops starved. This mixture of sang froid and self-indulgence seems unfortunately prevalent.
Woodham-Smith hits her rhetorical stride with Balaclava. She recounts the stirring stand of Colin Campbell's "Thin Red Line," and the gallant Charge of the Heavy Brigade, where 300 cavalrymen under James Scarlett defeated 2,000 Cossacks in a wild uphill charge. Woodham-Smith captures the excitement and fleeting glory of these skirmishes. Against all odds, the British seemed poised to win a spectacular victory. Yet Cardigan stood by, using a discretionary order from Lucan as an excuse not to attack the routed Cossacks. Had Cardigan followed up on Scarlett's success, the third phase of the battle might never have occurred.
Instead, a classic example of mismanagement follows. Raglan dictates an unclear order to quartermaster Richard Airey, instructing Lucan to attack Russian troops taking capture guns away from the Causeway Heights. Captain Louis Nolan, Raglan's impulsive aide, delivers the message to an agitated Lucan, emphatically pointing at the nearest guns. Neither man recognizes Nolan's fatal mistake: that Lucan cannot see the Heights from his position. Nolan instead gestures towards a mass of Russians supported by artillery in the valley ahead. Stung by accusations of "looking on" in earlier engagements, Lucan does not ask Nolan to clarify his order, and Cardigan protests halfheartedly. Before anyone realizes it, the Light Brigade initiates its fateful charge.
Historians still dissect the Charge in hope of assigning blame, following the footsteps of Cardigan and Lucan's vicious postwar press feud. Woodham-Smith dodges the issue of individual guilt, viewing Balaclava instead as the logical conclusion of an entire system. For all their gallantry, the British cavalry could not achieve the impossible, and find themselves decimated by well-placed cannon and overwhelming numbers. With so many egotists and incompetents staffing the Army, the Light Brigade's fate seems inevitable. If the British Army was gradually reformed after Crimea, it came at great cost and only grudgingly. The purchase system was not abolished until the Cardwell reforms of 1868-1874, largely at the impetus of Crimean veteran Garnet Wolseley.
If The Reason Why isn't definitive, it's because of its limited portrayal of the Crimea (the book mostly ends at Balaclava) and its editorial tone. More recent works (Terry Brighton's Hell Riders, Saul David's The Homicidal Earl) eschew Woodham-Smith's polemical approach for more balanced analysis. Still, Woodham-Smith's passionate anger and vivid prose make it the most readable account of the Light Brigade's sorry fate, and a classic account of military incompetence.
James Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan proves singularly representative of aristocratic shortcomings. The only son in a family of daughters, he grew spoiled by parental dotage, generating an egotism mixed with dreams of military glory. By adulthood Cardigan was an almost caricature nobleman: handsome and gallant, but arrogant, snobbish and short-tempered. Woodham-Smith's claim that Cardigan's "glorious golden head had nothing in it" (15) is unfair; biographer Saul David shows that Cardigan was fairly intelligent. However, Cardigan certainly lacked in other areas: common sense, tact and especially temperance.
Commanding first the 15th, and later the 11th Hussars, Cardigan proved harshly exacting. His stringent standards made the 11th Hussars England's premiere cavalry regiment, but they also engendered the loathing of his officers and men. He certainly kept England's press abuzz with sundry scandals. Minor breaches of etiquette sent him into apoplexy: he scandalized the Army by blackballing John Reynolds, a young captain who dared serve Moselle at a champagne dinner (the famous "black bottle" affair), and flogging a soldier on Easter Sunday. Cardigan himself violated societal mores through repeated duels and scandalous love affairs. He was publicly booed at theaters and public gatherings, becoming a perennial headache for his superiors. An exasperated Duke of Wellington proclaimed "he had never known the time of the staff... to be taken up in so useless a manner" (100).
Profiled in parallel is George Bingham, 3rd Earl of Lucan. Lucan easily bested Cardigan in sheer bloody-minded nastiness. He gained infamy for cruelly managing his Mayo estates during the Irish potato famine. Consolidating land holdings and evicting tenants en mass, he caused untold suffering among his subjects and intense hatred: "it is doubtful if he considered the Irish as human beings at all" (113). Like Cardigan, he was also a martinet of the worst sort, a brutal taskmaster "perpetually entangled in trifles" (33) in commanding his troops and often contemptuous of superiors. Lucan found increasingly petty and bizarre ways of exerting authority: at one point, he ordered his cavalry drilled in antiquated Napoleonic tactics against Raglan's express orders.
Not surprisingly, these men loathed each other. Lucan married Cardigan's sister and by all accounts mistreated her, igniting a personal feud. Naturally, when the Crimean War broke out Cardigan (heading the Light Brigade) found himself serving under division commander Lucan. Commanding general Lord Raglan exacerbated things by separating Cardigan from Lucan's main body, thus undermining Lucan's authority. Even in the field, the two men never missed an opportunity to spite or undermine each other, with disastrous results.
Woodham-Smith forcefully attacks the British military that spawned them. The purchase system, by which officers could literally buy a higher rank, had its benefits. It forestalled the establishment of a powerful, Prussian-style military class, and forced officers to take personal responsibility for their regiment's upkeep. In practice however, it populated the Army with dilettantes and adventurers, seeing military service as a stepping stone to easy prestige. Nominally officers could advance by merit; in practice men without experience or qualification leapfrogged over seasoned career soldiers. Lord Palmerston proclaimed that "it was very desirable to connect the higher classes of Society with the Army" (30), whether or not they were fit to lead.
The lack of a major war since 1815 ensured an antiquated senior staff. Commanding the Allied armies was Fitzroy Somerset, Baron Raglan. Wellington's longtime secretary, Raglan's bravery (he had lost an arm at Waterloo), amiability and organizational skills were unquestioned. His greatest achievement was ensuring smooth relations with his French and Turkish allies. Yet Raglan had never led troops in the field, and proved a spectacularly inept tactician. "Without the military trappings... one would never have guessed him to be a soldier," Woodham-Smith says (161). He proved frustratingly absent-minded, constantly confusing his French allies with the Russian enemy. An exasperated junior officer complained that "everything [is] old at the top. This makes everything sluggish."
The Crimean disaster becomes tragically predictable. Horses crowded into transport ships died en route to the Crimea. Raglan botched the Allied attack at the Alma, forcing British troops to take and retake the same ground repeatedly. Over-caution and mis-communicaton prevented a complete victory when Raglan refuses Lucan's request to launch a follow-up attack. Raglan ill-advisedly shifted the Allied supply base to Balaclava, a tiny village ill-suited for supplying two massive armies. Finally, administrative muddle ensures inadequate supplies and medical treatment, causing thousands of troops to die of disease and exposure.
In fairness, most officers shared many misfortunes with their men. Both Raglan and his French counterpart Marshall St. Arnaud ultimately succumbed to dysentery. Lucan was wounded at Balaclava and even his detractors granted him personal bravery. Cardigan however spent evenings on his yacht in Calamita Bay, entertaining civilian friends and distancing himself from his brigade's hardships. Lest this seem unduly extravagant, military buffs may remember American General George McClellan lunching while the Battle of Malvern Hill raged, Boer War commander Charles Warren stopping his division's advance for a bath, or Charles Townshend dining on plum duff at Kut while his troops starved. This mixture of sang froid and self-indulgence seems unfortunately prevalent.
Woodham-Smith hits her rhetorical stride with Balaclava. She recounts the stirring stand of Colin Campbell's "Thin Red Line," and the gallant Charge of the Heavy Brigade, where 300 cavalrymen under James Scarlett defeated 2,000 Cossacks in a wild uphill charge. Woodham-Smith captures the excitement and fleeting glory of these skirmishes. Against all odds, the British seemed poised to win a spectacular victory. Yet Cardigan stood by, using a discretionary order from Lucan as an excuse not to attack the routed Cossacks. Had Cardigan followed up on Scarlett's success, the third phase of the battle might never have occurred.
Instead, a classic example of mismanagement follows. Raglan dictates an unclear order to quartermaster Richard Airey, instructing Lucan to attack Russian troops taking capture guns away from the Causeway Heights. Captain Louis Nolan, Raglan's impulsive aide, delivers the message to an agitated Lucan, emphatically pointing at the nearest guns. Neither man recognizes Nolan's fatal mistake: that Lucan cannot see the Heights from his position. Nolan instead gestures towards a mass of Russians supported by artillery in the valley ahead. Stung by accusations of "looking on" in earlier engagements, Lucan does not ask Nolan to clarify his order, and Cardigan protests halfheartedly. Before anyone realizes it, the Light Brigade initiates its fateful charge.
Historians still dissect the Charge in hope of assigning blame, following the footsteps of Cardigan and Lucan's vicious postwar press feud. Woodham-Smith dodges the issue of individual guilt, viewing Balaclava instead as the logical conclusion of an entire system. For all their gallantry, the British cavalry could not achieve the impossible, and find themselves decimated by well-placed cannon and overwhelming numbers. With so many egotists and incompetents staffing the Army, the Light Brigade's fate seems inevitable. If the British Army was gradually reformed after Crimea, it came at great cost and only grudgingly. The purchase system was not abolished until the Cardwell reforms of 1868-1874, largely at the impetus of Crimean veteran Garnet Wolseley.
If The Reason Why isn't definitive, it's because of its limited portrayal of the Crimea (the book mostly ends at Balaclava) and its editorial tone. More recent works (Terry Brighton's Hell Riders, Saul David's The Homicidal Earl) eschew Woodham-Smith's polemical approach for more balanced analysis. Still, Woodham-Smith's passionate anger and vivid prose make it the most readable account of the Light Brigade's sorry fate, and a classic account of military incompetence.
August 23, 2017
The People Behind the Battle
Left to right: Lord Raglan, Lord Lucan, and Lord Cardigan
I seldom read non-fiction books, preferring the creative perspective of a good novelist. Woodham-Smith, though, hooked me immediately with her portrait of the two cavalry commanders in the Battle of Balaclava—Lord Cardigan and his brother-in-law Lord Lucan—whose implacable enmity, badly managed by the commander-in-chief Lord Raglan, would lead to the near destruction of Cardigan's Light Brigade in their heroic but suicidal charge. Both men were aristocrats, both rich, both military commanders totally devoid of field experience, both demanding perfectionists. Cardigan is presented as a martinet, given to publicly demeaning his social inferiors, and totally ignoring the reprimands of his superior officers, even at the expense of public scandals that thrice brought him into court. Militarily, at least, the younger Lord Lucan seems to have done things by the book, but he also presided over the forced eviction of thousands of his tenants on his Irish estates during the potato famine. Woodham-Smith is fascinating in telling the life stories of these two, especially Cardigan. All in service of her larger thesis:
From the 1968 movie, L to R: Lucan (Harry Andrews), Cardigan (Trevor Howard), Raglan (John Gielgud)
Woodham-Smith lost me, I'm afraid, for much of the action in the Crimea itself. I suppose it is incumbent on the historian to give as many details as possible, together with the various letters and memoranda that constitute the factual record. But I soon reached the point of "a plague on both your houses" when I ceased to care about either of the squabbling generals. And while I can applaud the author's account of the logistic mishaps, military difficulties, and occasional successes as the British forces land in the North Crimea and make their way down to its South coast, the last half did not really grip me as the earlier parts had. I yearned for the immediacy of a Tolstoy to take me into the flash, fear, and feel of it. But just occasionally, Woodham-Smith produces some fine writing of her own, as in these two paragraphs showing, respectively, the aftermath of the successful charge by the Heavy Brigade and the debacle of the Light Brigade a few hours later:
Theirs not to reason why,Pursuing a friend's question about the lack of fiction set during the Crimean War (1854–56) I have read Tolstoy's semi-autobiographical Sevastopol Sketches and Beryl Bainbridge's idiosyncratic Master Georgie. In terms of historical drama, I also refreshed my memory of Tony Richardson's 1968 movie, The Charge of the Light Brigade. Lacking any other fiction (except for the satirical Flashman at the Charge ), I thought it was time to turn to some real history. Cecil Woodham-Smith's 1953 study is a classic. It was also the inspiration for the Richardson film, although contractual obligations forced the makers to claim otherwise.
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
— Tennyson.
Left to right: Lord Raglan, Lord Lucan, and Lord Cardigan
I seldom read non-fiction books, preferring the creative perspective of a good novelist. Woodham-Smith, though, hooked me immediately with her portrait of the two cavalry commanders in the Battle of Balaclava—Lord Cardigan and his brother-in-law Lord Lucan—whose implacable enmity, badly managed by the commander-in-chief Lord Raglan, would lead to the near destruction of Cardigan's Light Brigade in their heroic but suicidal charge. Both men were aristocrats, both rich, both military commanders totally devoid of field experience, both demanding perfectionists. Cardigan is presented as a martinet, given to publicly demeaning his social inferiors, and totally ignoring the reprimands of his superior officers, even at the expense of public scandals that thrice brought him into court. Militarily, at least, the younger Lord Lucan seems to have done things by the book, but he also presided over the forced eviction of thousands of his tenants on his Irish estates during the potato famine. Woodham-Smith is fascinating in telling the life stories of these two, especially Cardigan. All in service of her larger thesis:
MILITARY GLORY! […] It was not a dream for the common man. War was an aristocratic trade, and military glory reserved for nobles and princes. Glittering squadrons of cavalry, long lines of infantry, wheeling obediently on the parade ground, ministered to the lust both for power and for display. Courage was esteemed the essential military quality and held to be a virtue exclusive to aristocrats. Were they not educated to courage, trained, as no common man was trained, by years of practice in dangerous sports? They glorified courage, called it valour and worshipped it, believed battles were won by valour, saw war in terms of valour as the supreme adventure.Wellington famously said that Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. Woodham-Smith implies that the Crimea was almost lost there. The war was led by middle-aged aristocrats who had purchased their commissions and promotions, had next to no battle experience, and who looked down on the professional officers who had actually fought in India and elsewhere as social inferiors who let down the tone. Lord Raglan was a slightly different case. As right-hand man to the Duke of Wellington upon his retirement from active command, he had developed fine skills in diplomacy, but had never commanded troops in battle. His personality was that of the ecclesiastic rather than a soldier; benevolent and urbane on the outside, fossilized in his views within, he would do anything to avoid personal conflict, and failed to address the simmering feud between the two brothers-in-law.
From the 1968 movie, L to R: Lucan (Harry Andrews), Cardigan (Trevor Howard), Raglan (John Gielgud)
Woodham-Smith lost me, I'm afraid, for much of the action in the Crimea itself. I suppose it is incumbent on the historian to give as many details as possible, together with the various letters and memoranda that constitute the factual record. But I soon reached the point of "a plague on both your houses" when I ceased to care about either of the squabbling generals. And while I can applaud the author's account of the logistic mishaps, military difficulties, and occasional successes as the British forces land in the North Crimea and make their way down to its South coast, the last half did not really grip me as the earlier parts had. I yearned for the immediacy of a Tolstoy to take me into the flash, fear, and feel of it. But just occasionally, Woodham-Smith produces some fine writing of her own, as in these two paragraphs showing, respectively, the aftermath of the successful charge by the Heavy Brigade and the debacle of the Light Brigade a few hours later:
The great Russian mass swayed, rocked, gave a gigantic heave, broke, and, disintegrating it seemed in a moment, fled. A great shout went up: from the troops fighting the battle, from the Light Brigade looking on, from the heights, where the watchers hurrah-ed, flung their hats into the air, and clapped their hands; and Lord Raglan sent an aide-de-camp galloping down with the message "Well done, Scarlett." So great had been the tension, and so swift the change, that men who only a moment before had been fighting like madmen steeped in blood burst into tears.
[…]
Night fell on the camp—a miserable night. An order had been issued that no fires were to be lit and no noise made, since a further attack by the Russians was feared. The survivors of the Light Brigade stood about in groups talking about their dead comrades and the disasters of the day. The men were exhausted and over-wrought, the night was bitterly cold. Without fires nothing could be cooked, and most of them had still had nothing to eat beyond the dry biscuit in their haversacks and the afternoon dram of rum. They especially mourned their horses. Sergeant-Major Loy Smith of the 11th Hussars was "moved to tears by the thought of my beautiful horse; she was a light bay, nearly thoroughbred; I became her master nearly three years before."
January 22, 2021
As if the Charge of the Light Brigade were not enough as a depiction of senseless suffering of man and beast, Woodham-Smith warms the reader up on the Great Famine in Ireland. I have never had to confront that disaster as closely as this book insists. It would have been enough for me, but that is before she gets to the main event. This is a powerful, dramatic narrative, and ultimately a harrowing read. It is magnificent, but is it history?
It has been described as 'popular history', in contrast I think to 'academic history'. Yet there is no lack of original research in this book. In fact, it is the relentless use of primary sources which make this book so harrowing: first person accounts of the horror of human affairs, and the entrenched ignorance that gave rise to it. If there something unacademic in the book, it is not a lack of research, but rather a lack of detachment from the evidence.
So ultimately I am not persuaded that the reason why this folly occurred was the purchase system of military commissions, or the personal animosity between two particularly pig-headed commanders. There is a lack of judgement here about the nature of military disaster. As General Airey, trying to console Lucan pointed out: "It is nothing to Chilianwallah". That battle, which doesn't warrant a wikipedia page of it's own, had a cavalry misunderstanding that led to far worse consequences than those at Balaclava.
Airey's reference to that Battle in an Indian campaign is revealing because it undermines Woodham-Smith's own insistence that institutional prejudice against professional officers who had served in India had led to the appointment of a lot of inexperienced aristocrats in the Crimea. Perhaps, on the basis of Chilianwallah and other matters, that prejudice seemed eminently more reasonable to Airey and other officers in the British Army. Woodham-Smith also wants to blame the influence of the then defunct Duke of Wellington for the debacle at Balaclava. She argues somewhat perversely that because he was the possibly the greatest military genius in history, the British Army was only able to work while he was alive. Wellington was also a Indian Officer, and Woodham-Smith can't have it both ways. Either Wellington was also prejudiced against Indian officers, and having served there, he might have good reason for this. Or the prejudice against Indian Officers has been overstated.
Cardigan, and to a lesser extent, Lucan come across as unpleasant people, but rooting this history in their biographies doesn't convince me that their personal animosity was to blame for the Charge of the Light Brigade. In the final analysis the disaster was caused by a failure in communication made in the fog of war. Since Lucan and Cardigan were in rare agreement about the interpretation of the order, you have to look at Raglan's and Nolan's role in the formation and transmission of the order. Their characters, though fascinatingly sketched, are not central to Woodham-Smith's story.
Perhaps that analysis makes for a much less dramatic narrative, if there is a narrative there at all. This raises a valid question about History: like Lucan, do we need it to explain to ourselves why such senseless suffering occurs, to attribute blame? Whereas in truth, we should simply accept that shit happens.
It has been described as 'popular history', in contrast I think to 'academic history'. Yet there is no lack of original research in this book. In fact, it is the relentless use of primary sources which make this book so harrowing: first person accounts of the horror of human affairs, and the entrenched ignorance that gave rise to it. If there something unacademic in the book, it is not a lack of research, but rather a lack of detachment from the evidence.
So ultimately I am not persuaded that the reason why this folly occurred was the purchase system of military commissions, or the personal animosity between two particularly pig-headed commanders. There is a lack of judgement here about the nature of military disaster. As General Airey, trying to console Lucan pointed out: "It is nothing to Chilianwallah". That battle, which doesn't warrant a wikipedia page of it's own, had a cavalry misunderstanding that led to far worse consequences than those at Balaclava.
Airey's reference to that Battle in an Indian campaign is revealing because it undermines Woodham-Smith's own insistence that institutional prejudice against professional officers who had served in India had led to the appointment of a lot of inexperienced aristocrats in the Crimea. Perhaps, on the basis of Chilianwallah and other matters, that prejudice seemed eminently more reasonable to Airey and other officers in the British Army. Woodham-Smith also wants to blame the influence of the then defunct Duke of Wellington for the debacle at Balaclava. She argues somewhat perversely that because he was the possibly the greatest military genius in history, the British Army was only able to work while he was alive. Wellington was also a Indian Officer, and Woodham-Smith can't have it both ways. Either Wellington was also prejudiced against Indian officers, and having served there, he might have good reason for this. Or the prejudice against Indian Officers has been overstated.
Cardigan, and to a lesser extent, Lucan come across as unpleasant people, but rooting this history in their biographies doesn't convince me that their personal animosity was to blame for the Charge of the Light Brigade. In the final analysis the disaster was caused by a failure in communication made in the fog of war. Since Lucan and Cardigan were in rare agreement about the interpretation of the order, you have to look at Raglan's and Nolan's role in the formation and transmission of the order. Their characters, though fascinatingly sketched, are not central to Woodham-Smith's story.
Perhaps that analysis makes for a much less dramatic narrative, if there is a narrative there at all. This raises a valid question about History: like Lucan, do we need it to explain to ourselves why such senseless suffering occurs, to attribute blame? Whereas in truth, we should simply accept that shit happens.
July 26, 2021
Ésta es la historia de dos imbéciles. Una historia de su veleidad, su arrogancia, su necedad y su plena y llana incompetencia. Es una historia que por partes es enfurecedora y por partes es fascinante. Es la historia de una tragedia de la vida real. Y es una de mis historias favoritas.
Hace ya unos diez años que me enamoré de la historia de la Carga de la Brigada Ligera. Fueron dos razones: una parte fue por haber descubierto a Tennyson y aprenderme uno de sus dos poemas más famosos. Y otro es por empezar aquellos días a descubrir las delicias de la vida organizacional y el deber ejecutar las prioridades y decisiones de arriba sin cuestionarlas. "Their's not to make reply. Their's not to reason why. Their's but to do and die".
La historia del Reino Unido ha tenido siempre momentos de grandes dichas y momentos absurdos remarcados por la estupidez de algunos miembros de sus élites. Pero creo que es difícil encontrar uno tan ejemplar como éste. Por haber ocurrido después de un largo periodo de paz. Por haber estado ampliamente documentado en la primera guerra asistida por telégrafos y corresponsales noticiosos. Y por legarnos un poema y un tipo de suéter.
La historiadora Cecil Woodham-Smith utiliza este ensayo para contarlos la historia de los dos hombres involucrados en ejecutar la infame carga de caballería. Dos aristócratas llevados por el infame sistema de compra de rangos a lo más alto del ejército británico y ninguno de ellos con experiencia de combate. En general, por haber visto la película tenía mucha más idea de Cárdigan, porque de los dos era el mayor personaje: irascible, autoritario, pelirrojo, audaz e inflexible. Lucan también era un necio y de mecha corta, pero lo que no me imaginaba era que si bien Cárdigan antes del famoso episodio fue culpable de muchos actos de injusticia y sinrazón en sus tropas, no me imaginaba que a Lucan se le podría casi acusar de genocidio por su papel en la gran hambruna de la papa en Irlanda. Por otro lado, también entendí las razones, las relativas ventajas y el racional detrás de un sistema en el que los aristócratas podían comprar rangos militares (era para evitar los riesgos de una dictadura militar bajo un ejército profesional liderado por aventureros).
Woodham-Smith va revelando así la historia con una prosa vívida y expresiva, destinada a convertir este libro en un éxito de no ficción como fue en su momento. Es justa y balanceada en su examen de los dos hombres y reconoce, al igual que el lector, que detrás no hubo dolo ni saña, solamente estupidez. Para que algo así ocurra deben alinearse "todos los hoyos del queso gruyére" como dice una famosa teoría, y creo que vale la pena que todo aquel involucrado en alguna organización entienda por qué es importante una comunicación más clara.
Gracias al increíble verso de Tennyson puede que esta tragedia parezca obra de grandes fuerzas del destino conspirando, pero tristemente es hora de bajarnos de la nube y reconocer que más bien son malos incentivos y malos controles conspirando.
Hace ya unos diez años que me enamoré de la historia de la Carga de la Brigada Ligera. Fueron dos razones: una parte fue por haber descubierto a Tennyson y aprenderme uno de sus dos poemas más famosos. Y otro es por empezar aquellos días a descubrir las delicias de la vida organizacional y el deber ejecutar las prioridades y decisiones de arriba sin cuestionarlas. "Their's not to make reply. Their's not to reason why. Their's but to do and die".
La historia del Reino Unido ha tenido siempre momentos de grandes dichas y momentos absurdos remarcados por la estupidez de algunos miembros de sus élites. Pero creo que es difícil encontrar uno tan ejemplar como éste. Por haber ocurrido después de un largo periodo de paz. Por haber estado ampliamente documentado en la primera guerra asistida por telégrafos y corresponsales noticiosos. Y por legarnos un poema y un tipo de suéter.
La historiadora Cecil Woodham-Smith utiliza este ensayo para contarlos la historia de los dos hombres involucrados en ejecutar la infame carga de caballería. Dos aristócratas llevados por el infame sistema de compra de rangos a lo más alto del ejército británico y ninguno de ellos con experiencia de combate. En general, por haber visto la película tenía mucha más idea de Cárdigan, porque de los dos era el mayor personaje: irascible, autoritario, pelirrojo, audaz e inflexible. Lucan también era un necio y de mecha corta, pero lo que no me imaginaba era que si bien Cárdigan antes del famoso episodio fue culpable de muchos actos de injusticia y sinrazón en sus tropas, no me imaginaba que a Lucan se le podría casi acusar de genocidio por su papel en la gran hambruna de la papa en Irlanda. Por otro lado, también entendí las razones, las relativas ventajas y el racional detrás de un sistema en el que los aristócratas podían comprar rangos militares (era para evitar los riesgos de una dictadura militar bajo un ejército profesional liderado por aventureros).
Woodham-Smith va revelando así la historia con una prosa vívida y expresiva, destinada a convertir este libro en un éxito de no ficción como fue en su momento. Es justa y balanceada en su examen de los dos hombres y reconoce, al igual que el lector, que detrás no hubo dolo ni saña, solamente estupidez. Para que algo así ocurra deben alinearse "todos los hoyos del queso gruyére" como dice una famosa teoría, y creo que vale la pena que todo aquel involucrado en alguna organización entienda por qué es importante una comunicación más clara.
Gracias al increíble verso de Tennyson puede que esta tragedia parezca obra de grandes fuerzas del destino conspirando, pero tristemente es hora de bajarnos de la nube y reconocer que más bien son malos incentivos y malos controles conspirando.
July 17, 2014
Woodham-Smith does the complex topic full justice, without becoming overbearing. This is THE book to read to comprehend what led to this disastrous action.
I've been and still am currently studying the Great War and am dumbfounded by the similarities and the fact that indeed the British general staff had ample proof of its defunct tactics and concepts already in 1853-1856. It was all there: trench warfare, the prototype of machine gun action, grape and canister shot, shelling--alongside with those utterly senseless massive losses that any war of attrition, whether planned for or unplanned, will cause. I suggest that any historian hell-bent on revising WWI history and attempting to prove that Haig and Kitchener were surprised and needed time to devise new responses to industrial warfare had better study the Crimean War. The Light Brigade stands in for all the dead at the Somme--with the sole exception of having been fewer.
I've been and still am currently studying the Great War and am dumbfounded by the similarities and the fact that indeed the British general staff had ample proof of its defunct tactics and concepts already in 1853-1856. It was all there: trench warfare, the prototype of machine gun action, grape and canister shot, shelling--alongside with those utterly senseless massive losses that any war of attrition, whether planned for or unplanned, will cause. I suggest that any historian hell-bent on revising WWI history and attempting to prove that Haig and Kitchener were surprised and needed time to devise new responses to industrial warfare had better study the Crimean War. The Light Brigade stands in for all the dead at the Somme--with the sole exception of having been fewer.
July 27, 2014
This is one of my favorite books about history, and it has become even more relevant with the recent troubles in the Crimean Peninsula. Today's students are less familiar with the poem's famous verses: "Theirs is not to reason why, theirs but to do and die." Woodham-Smith began researching her book about Florence Nightengale and became fascinated by the war which brought the famous nurse to prominence. It tells of the vagaries of the British Army at the time, the egos, and the weird way that wars start (who knew that the Crimean War of the 19th century started over a difference of opinion in Christmas decorations? Well, clearly, there were other issues that pressed, but the spark...) Woodham-Smith's writing style is of the literary period when people took time both to write and to read, and I enjoyed it.
June 26, 2012
This was a very good book and an extremely interesting read. It was also very informative of conditions that existed in the British army after the Napoleonic wars, through the Crimean War. It centers around the personalities of Lord Lucan and Lord Cardigan, and examines the conditions that lead to the Charge of the Light Brigade in Crimea. It was extremely frustrating to read about the systemic incompetence the existed in the British army, at this time. What was even more amazing was that these shortfalls were tolerated by politicians and so-called professional soldiers. The senior leaders of the British army were nothing more than dilettantes, and the conduct of the army during the Crimean War shows that. The waste of life and material was appalling.
August 19, 2014
In the modern era, military blunders abound with such regularity that they hardly draw much interest or surprise anymore. In such an era, a book that considers the most spectacular military blunder of the Victorian era, the Charge of the Light Brigade, might merely seem to be whistling in the wind. However, the maneuver at the crux of the Crimean war continues to be significant today not simply for the scope and nature of the event itself, but for its ramifications. The Charge of the Light Brigade marked the end of an era of amateur, aristocratic military romanticism and ushered in the modern age of more professional, “rational” warfare. Referencing Tennyson’s immortal words, Cecil Woodham-Smith’s The Reason Why, sets out to discover precisely what the infamous six hundred could not: the causes that set in motion the tragic charge on the 25th of October, 1854. Through detailed accounts of two figures, the immediate architects of the charge, the empty-headed and vicious James Thomas Lord Burdenell, Earl of Cardigan and the earnest and ruthless George Charles Lord Bingham, Earl of Lucan, Ms. Woodham-Smith paints a damning portrait of the British military system as it evolved from the time of the Napoleonic Wars to the very threshold of the Crimean War. She observes that, “The British Army was now paying the price for the supreme military genius of the Duke of Wellington.” The system of aristocratic privilege and commission purchasing lay at the heart of the British military’s greatest accomplishments, in the very real person and legacy of the Duke, and yet the same system exacted a terrible cost on the shores of the Black Sea.
Ms. Woodham-Smith draws out an exploratory narrative account with a surprisingly un-jaundiced pen. Her empathetic treatment of Lord Cardigan and Lord Lucan serves not only to reinforce the tragic absurdity of their actions, but also to hint at the darker shadows plaguing the heart of Victorian society: “Like splendid glossy animals they stare boldly at the world, with an arrogance springing not only from pride of birth, but from something deeper and haughtier; consciousness of physical beauty, pride of the flesh.” Ms. Woodham-Smith’s work also, crucially, sheds light on an equally powerful and insidious influence within the British military at the time – the systematic discrimination and debasement of the only officer corps with recent field experience, namely those that served in India. Reflecting aristocratic prejudice and vanity that rejected the notion of a true gentleman ‘getting his hands dirty’ - such a shocking waste of military insight and experience seems incredible even today.
Ms. Woodham-Smith draws out an exploratory narrative account with a surprisingly un-jaundiced pen. Her empathetic treatment of Lord Cardigan and Lord Lucan serves not only to reinforce the tragic absurdity of their actions, but also to hint at the darker shadows plaguing the heart of Victorian society: “Like splendid glossy animals they stare boldly at the world, with an arrogance springing not only from pride of birth, but from something deeper and haughtier; consciousness of physical beauty, pride of the flesh.” Ms. Woodham-Smith’s work also, crucially, sheds light on an equally powerful and insidious influence within the British military at the time – the systematic discrimination and debasement of the only officer corps with recent field experience, namely those that served in India. Reflecting aristocratic prejudice and vanity that rejected the notion of a true gentleman ‘getting his hands dirty’ - such a shocking waste of military insight and experience seems incredible even today.
March 26, 2021
I wanted to rate this higher, really, but the introductory essay and the forward are better reading than the actual book, and that should never be.
More of a dual character study than a history, CWS examines in depth the pair of hereditary scions who purchased their way into positions of power and in the process doomed the men in their charge to suffering and death. The sheer arrogance, the obliviousness to their own faults, the willful and intentional ignorance of even the most basic military tactics and procedures shown by the 'elite' commanders is positively farcical. i.e. The general who's vocabulary is several decades our of date when it comes to delivering orders, to which the obvious solution is: retrain an entire brigade of officers and men in an obsolete system incompatible with the rest of the army rather than admit his own fault.
Combine this with a few to many outlandish and unsupported claims - the Irish diet was 14 POUNDS of potatoes a person DAILY? ? - and you are left with an entertaining if not entirely reliable read.
**This really deserves to be made into a new film not in the action/adventure or period drama genre but as black comedy (see Death of Stalin for the template).
More of a dual character study than a history, CWS examines in depth the pair of hereditary scions who purchased their way into positions of power and in the process doomed the men in their charge to suffering and death. The sheer arrogance, the obliviousness to their own faults, the willful and intentional ignorance of even the most basic military tactics and procedures shown by the 'elite' commanders is positively farcical. i.e. The general who's vocabulary is several decades our of date when it comes to delivering orders, to which the obvious solution is: retrain an entire brigade of officers and men in an obsolete system incompatible with the rest of the army rather than admit his own fault.
Combine this with a few to many outlandish and unsupported claims - the Irish diet was 14 POUNDS of potatoes a person DAILY? ? - and you are left with an entertaining if not entirely reliable read.
**This really deserves to be made into a new film not in the action/adventure or period drama genre but as black comedy (see Death of Stalin for the template).
November 13, 2014
Two men in history, two brutal men in history, this is their story i.e Thomas Lord Brudenell and George Charles Lord Bingham. These two men each singlehandedly caused unimaginable amount of terror on their subordinates for trivialities magnified only by them.
It was the age when wealth and position was favored more as opposed to experience and education. This was the principle that was used when appointing commanding officers in the army.
Now wealth plus ignorance equals pride, arrogance, stupidity and an unimaginable pain to those who have sense enough to acknowledge the consequences. This is the torture the citizens of Britain had to undergo under the brutal leadership of the two men.
Intelligence plus wealth is another recipe for disaster. These two if not tempered with restraint and wisdom can cause unimaginable pain to the people. This was Lord Bingham.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. This was a classic case of corruption of power by individuals who could not control it, let alone control their own impulses.
How can somebody with an umbrella know how hard the rain is beating? That goes to Lord Bingham who evicted tenants from his land during winter and not to mention famine.
These two men also hated each other. Hatred separates men from each other. It blinds them and numbs them against each other. This was the relationship between Brudenell and Bingham. As cold as ice.
Despite their strained relationship, the Commander in Chief appointed them together to lead an army against the Russians who had attacked Turkey. Turkey had been attacked and England was furious. Brudenell was even more furious when he was told to report to Bingham.
He undermined Bungham's authority and led his own Brigade independently. Independently from the authority of his superior. An error in judgment had been made by the Commander in Chief. The men saw that and knew that. Just how did the Commander in Chief make such an error? Not to mention none of the Commanding officers had any military experience. But wealth and position favored them. Wealth and position cannot replace experience in an army.
The army suffered. Suffered from diseases, exhaustion and mismanagement. This led to so many deaths. Unnecessary deaths since the Russians had not at any one time attacked them.
It was the age when wealth and position was favored more as opposed to experience and education. This was the principle that was used when appointing commanding officers in the army.
Now wealth plus ignorance equals pride, arrogance, stupidity and an unimaginable pain to those who have sense enough to acknowledge the consequences. This is the torture the citizens of Britain had to undergo under the brutal leadership of the two men.
Intelligence plus wealth is another recipe for disaster. These two if not tempered with restraint and wisdom can cause unimaginable pain to the people. This was Lord Bingham.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. This was a classic case of corruption of power by individuals who could not control it, let alone control their own impulses.
How can somebody with an umbrella know how hard the rain is beating? That goes to Lord Bingham who evicted tenants from his land during winter and not to mention famine.
These two men also hated each other. Hatred separates men from each other. It blinds them and numbs them against each other. This was the relationship between Brudenell and Bingham. As cold as ice.
Despite their strained relationship, the Commander in Chief appointed them together to lead an army against the Russians who had attacked Turkey. Turkey had been attacked and England was furious. Brudenell was even more furious when he was told to report to Bingham.
He undermined Bungham's authority and led his own Brigade independently. Independently from the authority of his superior. An error in judgment had been made by the Commander in Chief. The men saw that and knew that. Just how did the Commander in Chief make such an error? Not to mention none of the Commanding officers had any military experience. But wealth and position favored them. Wealth and position cannot replace experience in an army.
The army suffered. Suffered from diseases, exhaustion and mismanagement. This led to so many deaths. Unnecessary deaths since the Russians had not at any one time attacked them.
July 18, 2021
The reason I'm only giving this three stars is that 3/5 of the way through this book I realized that I don't enjoy reading about stupid people. Especially when their stupidity leads to the wipe-out of hundreds of men and horses. It is an EXCRUCIATING read. 200 pages of boredom (nothing happens except this one dines on his friend's yacht every evening while his men experience diarrhea in tents) and then a glorious description of men FOLLOWING ORDERS TO CERTAIN DEATH.
It's like one of those samurai epics, the glory of ritual sepukku. Mishima would approve.
In eight minutes, the first line of the British cavalry ceased to exist. I mean, who attacks a battery FROM THE FRONT?
A page later, the French cavalry attempt a rescue, sending "French troopers mounted on Algerian horses," not in line but in "loose formation learned ... in the Atlas mountains of Morocco." And they drive the Russians back.
The two British commanders should have been court-martialed. One, to his credit, became seriously depressed, and was recalled. The other acted like nothing had happened, and was given a hero's welcome.
It's like one of those samurai epics, the glory of ritual sepukku. Mishima would approve.
In eight minutes, the first line of the British cavalry ceased to exist. I mean, who attacks a battery FROM THE FRONT?
A page later, the French cavalry attempt a rescue, sending "French troopers mounted on Algerian horses," not in line but in "loose formation learned ... in the Atlas mountains of Morocco." And they drive the Russians back.
The two British commanders should have been court-martialed. One, to his credit, became seriously depressed, and was recalled. The other acted like nothing had happened, and was given a hero's welcome.
April 30, 2021
Well written and seemingly fair account. I knocked off a star for some discussions being a trifle shallow and inaccurate (such as the description of famine Ireland) and the detail before the Crimean War is a bit extreme by comparison to the coverage of the actual war.
July 25, 2020
Fascinating even if you’re not a military history person.
July 9, 2024
Dear Lord grant me the confidence of a mediocre white man in power
Read
August 25, 2011During the men's European runway shows this summer, I overheard a fashion editor describing a military history book he'd read. "The commanding officers in the British army at the time of the Crimean War were dandy aristocrats who were more concerned with one-upping each other with over-the-top uniforms and military regalia than they were with military strategy," he said.
With the cardinal-red military jacket, blue sash and chest full of medals worn by Prince William during his April nuptials to Kate Middleton fresh in my mind, I was intrigued and inquired further.
The book the editor had referred to is "The Reason Why: The Story of the Fatal Charge of the Light Brigade" by Cecil Woodham-Smith (Constable, 1953), and it focuses on the contentious relationship between the seventh Earl of Cardigan and the third Earl of Lucan, their obsession with the details of their station and the trappings of military regalia rather than with any actual fighting.Their conflict came to a head on the battlefield in the 1854 Battle of Balaclava and the infamous cavalry charge immortalized by in Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade."
Now, while the male wardrobe owes much to the military (trench coats, epaulets, the blazer), one would be hard-pressed to find a single more sartorially significant campaign. The aforementioned Earl of Cardigan is the one in whose honor the coat-type cardigan sweater was named, his commanding general, Lord Raglan, who had lost an arm at the battle of Waterloo, is the namesake of the raglan sleeve, and the knit ski mask-type head gear known as the balaclava takes its name from the battle.
So the notion that a fascination with fashion may have played a part in the famously mismanaged military maneuver (the British casualties were extremely high and the battle didn't do much to advance their position against the Russians) was too intriguing to pass up. I soon tracked down a copy (it's readily available both online and at the Los Angeles Public Library).
One would be hard-pressed to find a work of history crammed with more bed-hopping and bursts of bombast than the dense opening chapters of "The Reason Why." But Woodham-Smith's somewhat labored attempt at fleshing out the main characters — brothers-in-law Lt.-Gen. James Thomas Brudenell (a.k.a. the seventh Earl of Cardigan) and Field Marshal George Charles Bingham (the third Earl of Lucan) — is worth it since their behavior when they head into battle for the first time wouldn't otherwise be the least bit believable — even as fiction.
Foreshadowing anecdotes include an 1833 court-martial involving the issue of new stable jackets, a blow-up over a banned bottle of porter on a banquet table, and a long-simmering animosity that played out through the micromanagement of and obsession over every last detail of training, clothing and preparing the troops.
And what uniforms they were. For example, Woodham-Smith describes the uniforms of the 11th Hussars, a regiment under the command of Lord Cardigan, as follows: "They wore overalls {trousers} of cherry colour, jackets of royal blue edged with gold, furred pelisses, short coats, worn as capes, glittering with bullion braid and gold lace, [and] high fur hats adorned with brilliant plumes."
Apparently, the author was far from alone in her breathless descriptions, and she quotes a newspaper of the day commenting on the same uniforms: "The brevity of their jackets, the irrationality of their headgear, the incredible tightness of their cherry coloured pants altogether defy description; they must be seen to be appreciated."
In the end, the fashion editor I overheard had it partly right — though the fashion fixation was less a root cause of the blunder of a military campaign that takes place in the final chapters and more a symptom of it.
And while it may seem like the battlefield shenanigans of aristocratic dandies more than a century and a half ago would have little relevance, Woodham-Smith closes by positing, more or less, that the look, feel and organization of today's military — in the U.K. and here in the U.S. — follow from the fateful charge of the Light Brigade.
Which, as ourmilitary involvement abroad itself advances toward the decade mark, actually makes it more relevant than ever.
With the cardinal-red military jacket, blue sash and chest full of medals worn by Prince William during his April nuptials to Kate Middleton fresh in my mind, I was intrigued and inquired further.
The book the editor had referred to is "The Reason Why: The Story of the Fatal Charge of the Light Brigade" by Cecil Woodham-Smith (Constable, 1953), and it focuses on the contentious relationship between the seventh Earl of Cardigan and the third Earl of Lucan, their obsession with the details of their station and the trappings of military regalia rather than with any actual fighting.Their conflict came to a head on the battlefield in the 1854 Battle of Balaclava and the infamous cavalry charge immortalized by in Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade."
Now, while the male wardrobe owes much to the military (trench coats, epaulets, the blazer), one would be hard-pressed to find a single more sartorially significant campaign. The aforementioned Earl of Cardigan is the one in whose honor the coat-type cardigan sweater was named, his commanding general, Lord Raglan, who had lost an arm at the battle of Waterloo, is the namesake of the raglan sleeve, and the knit ski mask-type head gear known as the balaclava takes its name from the battle.
So the notion that a fascination with fashion may have played a part in the famously mismanaged military maneuver (the British casualties were extremely high and the battle didn't do much to advance their position against the Russians) was too intriguing to pass up. I soon tracked down a copy (it's readily available both online and at the Los Angeles Public Library).
One would be hard-pressed to find a work of history crammed with more bed-hopping and bursts of bombast than the dense opening chapters of "The Reason Why." But Woodham-Smith's somewhat labored attempt at fleshing out the main characters — brothers-in-law Lt.-Gen. James Thomas Brudenell (a.k.a. the seventh Earl of Cardigan) and Field Marshal George Charles Bingham (the third Earl of Lucan) — is worth it since their behavior when they head into battle for the first time wouldn't otherwise be the least bit believable — even as fiction.
Foreshadowing anecdotes include an 1833 court-martial involving the issue of new stable jackets, a blow-up over a banned bottle of porter on a banquet table, and a long-simmering animosity that played out through the micromanagement of and obsession over every last detail of training, clothing and preparing the troops.
And what uniforms they were. For example, Woodham-Smith describes the uniforms of the 11th Hussars, a regiment under the command of Lord Cardigan, as follows: "They wore overalls {trousers} of cherry colour, jackets of royal blue edged with gold, furred pelisses, short coats, worn as capes, glittering with bullion braid and gold lace, [and] high fur hats adorned with brilliant plumes."
Apparently, the author was far from alone in her breathless descriptions, and she quotes a newspaper of the day commenting on the same uniforms: "The brevity of their jackets, the irrationality of their headgear, the incredible tightness of their cherry coloured pants altogether defy description; they must be seen to be appreciated."
In the end, the fashion editor I overheard had it partly right — though the fashion fixation was less a root cause of the blunder of a military campaign that takes place in the final chapters and more a symptom of it.
And while it may seem like the battlefield shenanigans of aristocratic dandies more than a century and a half ago would have little relevance, Woodham-Smith closes by positing, more or less, that the look, feel and organization of today's military — in the U.K. and here in the U.S. — follow from the fateful charge of the Light Brigade.
Which, as ourmilitary involvement abroad itself advances toward the decade mark, actually makes it more relevant than ever.
July 10, 2022
Women are especially good at writing about the foibles and follies of men. This account of Lord Lucan and Lord Cardigan, two big babies, is the perfect vehicle for exposing the corruption of the nineteenth century British aristocracy. And... many, many horses suffer and die.
June 7, 2021
An absolutely fantastic history of the Battle of Balaclava, a disastrous episode of the Crimean War in 1854. The focus is mainly on the personal background of the personalities involved, mainly the Earl of Cardigan and the Earl of Lucan, neither of whom are portrayed in a flattering way. In the Victorian Era, the British Army had an unbelievable policy where aristocrats could buy their own rank and regiment, whether they were qualified to lead or not. This was called the Purchase System, and the tragedy detailed in this book explains why the system was abolished. If you are not familiar with the Charge of the Light Brigade, I won't detail it in this review because it would spoil the climax of this amazing book.
Lord Cardigan is an arrogant and unlikable snob who bought his way to the top and treats everyone under him extremely poorly. He also excessively complains to the Army command about every time he feels disrespected, a seemingly daily occurrence (they had the good sense to kick him out at one point, but he wormed his way back in thanks to some royal connections). Whether they were above or below him in rank, he made everyone's life miserable.
On the other hand, while Lord Lucan might seem more reasonable by comparison, his actions and policies as a landlord in Ireland during the potato famine are absolutely monstrous (this section of the book is especially appalling). I don't know who is worse, and in the end, there is a lot of blame to go around. You'd have to be really brave to follow either of these guys into battle - they clearly didn't know what they were doing, and were more preoccupied with petty squabbles and matters of decorum.
There were other bunglers involved too, such as Lord Raglan (the giver of vague orders) and Captain Nolan (the messenger and interpreter), who both contributed significantly to a military catastrophe that was entirely preventable.
My only concern is that the reasons for this war were not thoroughly explained. I do not understand why the British wanted to be involved in a war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire at all. Maybe it is impossible to explain that particular "reason why", but it doesn't feel like much of an attempt was made. Other than this minor omission, this book is pretty much perfect. The battles are easy to follow and understand, and it's generally very readable and compelling throughout. If you have any interest in the Victorian era, military tactics, or just history in general, you must read this. There is not much of a happy ending here; this book details several sad and frustrating events in history, but it's so well-written and well-researched that I can't help but recommend it.
Lord Cardigan is an arrogant and unlikable snob who bought his way to the top and treats everyone under him extremely poorly. He also excessively complains to the Army command about every time he feels disrespected, a seemingly daily occurrence (they had the good sense to kick him out at one point, but he wormed his way back in thanks to some royal connections). Whether they were above or below him in rank, he made everyone's life miserable.
On the other hand, while Lord Lucan might seem more reasonable by comparison, his actions and policies as a landlord in Ireland during the potato famine are absolutely monstrous (this section of the book is especially appalling). I don't know who is worse, and in the end, there is a lot of blame to go around. You'd have to be really brave to follow either of these guys into battle - they clearly didn't know what they were doing, and were more preoccupied with petty squabbles and matters of decorum.
There were other bunglers involved too, such as Lord Raglan (the giver of vague orders) and Captain Nolan (the messenger and interpreter), who both contributed significantly to a military catastrophe that was entirely preventable.
My only concern is that the reasons for this war were not thoroughly explained. I do not understand why the British wanted to be involved in a war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire at all. Maybe it is impossible to explain that particular "reason why", but it doesn't feel like much of an attempt was made. Other than this minor omission, this book is pretty much perfect. The battles are easy to follow and understand, and it's generally very readable and compelling throughout. If you have any interest in the Victorian era, military tactics, or just history in general, you must read this. There is not much of a happy ending here; this book details several sad and frustrating events in history, but it's so well-written and well-researched that I can't help but recommend it.
March 29, 2021
The book is a well-written account of the famous charge of the Light Brigade, but it also gives an in-depth biography of the two principal leaders of the Cavalry responsible for this debacle, Lord Lucan and Lord Cardigan. Anyone who’s ever complained of a bad boss has only to remember the sheer incompetence of these two officers in the campaign. They let their personal animosities for each other to derail any common sense or rationale in carrying out their responsibilities as leaders. Their persistent failures in supplying their troops and conducting reconnaissance to effectively plan their attacks, their total lack of knowledge of military strategy and use of the cavalry, their misguided priorities on the battlefield seem incredulous. Except, one learns in the book, that most commanders in the British army at that time purchased their leadership positions and didn’t earn them on the battlefield or by rising in the ranks. Hard to believe also that the Russian army opposing the British in Balaclava were as misled and incompetent as they were. My only dislike of the book is that I thought the author went into too much detail on the backgrounds of both Lord Cardigan and Lord Lucan and their pettiness and the temper tantrums they frequently threw.
June 18, 2017
This is the classic history of the personalities and events leading up to the Charge of the Light Brigade.
It is quite readable and engaging: the author's tone is mostly conversational, and to a modern audience feels like a cross between a war story and Downton Abbey. The book has a couple of deficiencies: it's hard to keep up with the large (and often similarly titled) cast of individuals, and there is a LOT of attention paid to the real and perceived slights between these aristocrats- but their very pettiness is itself something that requires this level of detail to be believed.
It's fascinating to see how much further ahead American military strategy was at approximately the same time - this is merely a few years before the Civil War began, and if there's something that makes the Northern leadership look good, it's these guys.
An interesting nonexistent companion volume would be doing the same thing from the Russian point of view.
I would have liked to see a little more time spent on the denouement- the ending feels much quicker than the rest of the book.
But all in all, a great read.
It is quite readable and engaging: the author's tone is mostly conversational, and to a modern audience feels like a cross between a war story and Downton Abbey. The book has a couple of deficiencies: it's hard to keep up with the large (and often similarly titled) cast of individuals, and there is a LOT of attention paid to the real and perceived slights between these aristocrats- but their very pettiness is itself something that requires this level of detail to be believed.
It's fascinating to see how much further ahead American military strategy was at approximately the same time - this is merely a few years before the Civil War began, and if there's something that makes the Northern leadership look good, it's these guys.
An interesting nonexistent companion volume would be doing the same thing from the Russian point of view.
I would have liked to see a little more time spent on the denouement- the ending feels much quicker than the rest of the book.
But all in all, a great read.
June 4, 2020
This book details the events that led up to the charge of the British light brigade against far more numerous Russian forces in the Crimean War in the mid 1800s. The charge inspired not only the famous Tennyson poem, but also the song “The Trooper” by Iron Maiden. The cardigan even originated here. So why would a cavalry brigade of 700 attack a Russian position of tens of thousands supported by artillery? The answer is rooted in a British system that allowed wealthy aristocrats to purchase military ranks to earn glory in battle. Combined with a personal hatred between two of these high ranking officers, combat inexperience and miscommunication played a key role. Access to the personal papers of the participants and eye-witnesses allowed Woodham-Smith to give a detailed and fascinating account of the root causes and mistakes leading up to the fatal outcome.
December 1, 2020
An exceptional book. Well-researched, full of fascinating insights and carefully written to encompass each of the main characters viewpoints of a situation. It reads like a novel with smooth prose and Cardigan, Lucan and Raglan have been brought to life beautifully.
Recommend to anyone who wants to learn a bit more about the Charge of the Light Brigade and the ridiculous circumstances that led up to it, or to anyone who would enjoy an intriguing story about some people so cariacatured you can hardly think they really existed, and the build up to inevitable tragedy.
Recommend to anyone who wants to learn a bit more about the Charge of the Light Brigade and the ridiculous circumstances that led up to it, or to anyone who would enjoy an intriguing story about some people so cariacatured you can hardly think they really existed, and the build up to inevitable tragedy.
August 15, 2015
A concise history of the Charge of the Light Brigade written like well written fiction in Woodham-Smith's characteristic style. Smith brings to life the brothers in law charged with directing the brigades that met with such abject failure in Balaclava in the Crimean War. I read The Great Hunger for the first time as an undergraduate back in the late 70's and was impressed with the research and writing of the author at the time. I have since re-read it and largely because Woodham-Smith authored this book, I read it. Both were a delight to read and I would recommend them highly.
June 30, 2008
I have to admit I started this book with a bad attitude, planning to skim it--it wasn't the one I wanted to read. In the end, I had to admit it was good popular history--shocking how ridiculous the guys in charge were--sound familiar? Nice to know that if nothing else, at a remove of 150 years people agree how ridiculous and disastrous leaders can be. Bonus: as a knitter, it's always fun to read about Raglans, Cardigans, and Balaclavas.
December 16, 2014
For anybody interested in military science, this book would receive four or five stars. For me, it had more detail than I am interested in.
June 7, 2019
I first read this about ten years ago, so this is a re-read for me, and in the gap I've read a lot more about the Crimean War. I remember on the first read just how utterly flabbergasted I was by the sheer incompetence, the nerve and the arrogance of Lords Raglan, Lucan and Cardigan. I'd read the book because I'd seen the 1960s film and thought it was exaggerating - not.
Lords Lucan and Cardigan are brothers-in-law who can't stand each other. Really, really can't stand each other. They are also soldiers with little or no active service and an outrageously high self-belief in their ability simply because they are aristocrats. Seriously, you cannot imagine the arrogance of either. Between them the survive court martials and reprimands. They hound men out of their regiments and in Lucan's case, hound their starving tenants out of their Ireland, all with not a single trace of conscience - what they say must be right. And then along comes the Crimean War, and Lucan is appointed head of the Light and Heavy brigades over Cardigan. Cardigan has a chat with their ultimate commander, Raglan, and comes away convinced that he can do his own thing. Which he then proceeds to do.
This was a brilliant evocation and explanation of the life and times of the British elite of the army in the run up to the Crimean War. The big question that emerges is why there weren't more disasters! It would be funny - bits of it are, very darkly funny - were it not so tragic, were this trio not responsible for so many deaths and so much suffering - men starving, dying of thirst, dropping like flies of cholera - it doesn't bear thinking of. And those same men, in the heat of battle, responded to the iron rod of discipline that their enemies simply couldn't comprehend, and were forced to admire even while they gazed on gobsmacked.
This isn't just about the debacle that was the Charge of the Light Brigade, it's about the debacle that was a British army system out of date, cruel, and ultimately ineffective. Reform came as a result, huge reform, though too late for too many.
I loved this. A brilliant, evocative read that is for everyone, not just historians. And it's made me want to go back and watch that film again with a fresh eye.
Lords Lucan and Cardigan are brothers-in-law who can't stand each other. Really, really can't stand each other. They are also soldiers with little or no active service and an outrageously high self-belief in their ability simply because they are aristocrats. Seriously, you cannot imagine the arrogance of either. Between them the survive court martials and reprimands. They hound men out of their regiments and in Lucan's case, hound their starving tenants out of their Ireland, all with not a single trace of conscience - what they say must be right. And then along comes the Crimean War, and Lucan is appointed head of the Light and Heavy brigades over Cardigan. Cardigan has a chat with their ultimate commander, Raglan, and comes away convinced that he can do his own thing. Which he then proceeds to do.
This was a brilliant evocation and explanation of the life and times of the British elite of the army in the run up to the Crimean War. The big question that emerges is why there weren't more disasters! It would be funny - bits of it are, very darkly funny - were it not so tragic, were this trio not responsible for so many deaths and so much suffering - men starving, dying of thirst, dropping like flies of cholera - it doesn't bear thinking of. And those same men, in the heat of battle, responded to the iron rod of discipline that their enemies simply couldn't comprehend, and were forced to admire even while they gazed on gobsmacked.
This isn't just about the debacle that was the Charge of the Light Brigade, it's about the debacle that was a British army system out of date, cruel, and ultimately ineffective. Reform came as a result, huge reform, though too late for too many.
I loved this. A brilliant, evocative read that is for everyone, not just historians. And it's made me want to go back and watch that film again with a fresh eye.
November 17, 2023
Have you heard of the 'Charge of the Light Brigade' without really knowing what this was all about? Or even what a light brigade is?
With my curiosity piqued when I stumbled on this title in a reading list, I one-clicked on Cecil Woodham Smith's 1953 examination of the full story, the historical context to the massacre of the allies' Light Brigade during the Crimean War.
Woodham-Smith starts out in a distillation of the political context that defines the decades before the Crimean War from the perspective of the holy matrimony of the political, military and aristocratic classes. At the root of this is the 'purchase system' that allowed buying roles of military leadership, over paid civilian armies, to ensure military stability and control (doesn't this sound nuts, nowadays?). And so the whole book is a reminder of how most things human can be analyzed through a lens of status games and incentives.
Along the way, Woodham-Smith goes deep too on the Irish famine and the nuances of English control of Ireland in the 19th century and the grimness of battles in those days. The reader even learns the origins of the clothing style the Cardigan, after protagonist Lord Cardigan. Having spent weeks over childhood summers visiting Mayo in Western Ireland, this aspect was particularly curious for me and I smiled as I closed the book with Lord Lucan of Castlerock emerging as the moral hero, in the closing paragraphs.
Worth its repute and has me curious to add Cecil Woodham-Smith's biography of Florence Nightingale to the list.
With my curiosity piqued when I stumbled on this title in a reading list, I one-clicked on Cecil Woodham Smith's 1953 examination of the full story, the historical context to the massacre of the allies' Light Brigade during the Crimean War.
Woodham-Smith starts out in a distillation of the political context that defines the decades before the Crimean War from the perspective of the holy matrimony of the political, military and aristocratic classes. At the root of this is the 'purchase system' that allowed buying roles of military leadership, over paid civilian armies, to ensure military stability and control (doesn't this sound nuts, nowadays?). And so the whole book is a reminder of how most things human can be analyzed through a lens of status games and incentives.
Along the way, Woodham-Smith goes deep too on the Irish famine and the nuances of English control of Ireland in the 19th century and the grimness of battles in those days. The reader even learns the origins of the clothing style the Cardigan, after protagonist Lord Cardigan. Having spent weeks over childhood summers visiting Mayo in Western Ireland, this aspect was particularly curious for me and I smiled as I closed the book with Lord Lucan of Castlerock emerging as the moral hero, in the closing paragraphs.
Worth its repute and has me curious to add Cecil Woodham-Smith's biography of Florence Nightingale to the list.
February 21, 2025
The last few chapters had some good research and effort put into them, but the first 3 chapters felt absolutely horrendous to read, just a cheap misandristic rhetoric presented as a clichéd social critique. The book’s tone feels so skewed that it gets in the way of the story, it’s hard to push through, no matter how good the research is. It came off as more of a character assassination than an objective historical analysis, I wouldn’t blame anyone for dropping it halfway through.
If the author is too intellectually stunted to grasp that others can hold principles and covenants with conviction, that is her failure, not theirs. Her inability to comprehend integrity does not grant her the right to mock it—rather, it exposes her own deficiency, a mind so feeble it mistakes honor for naivety, conviction for foolishness, and righteousness for arrogance.
And if the reader is interested in the Charge of the Light Brigade but want something that sticks to the military and strategic aspects without the heavy-handed societal criticism, I would suggest alternatives like: Terry Brighton's Hell Riders (2004) or The Charge for Mark Adkin (1996).
If the author is too intellectually stunted to grasp that others can hold principles and covenants with conviction, that is her failure, not theirs. Her inability to comprehend integrity does not grant her the right to mock it—rather, it exposes her own deficiency, a mind so feeble it mistakes honor for naivety, conviction for foolishness, and righteousness for arrogance.
And if the reader is interested in the Charge of the Light Brigade but want something that sticks to the military and strategic aspects without the heavy-handed societal criticism, I would suggest alternatives like: Terry Brighton's Hell Riders (2004) or The Charge for Mark Adkin (1996).
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