It’s 25^th Octo­ber 1854, and the Bat­tle of Bal­a­cla­va, one of the piv­otal bat­tles of the Crimean War, is in full flow. Lord Raglan, com­man­der of the British forces, has sent a mes­sage order­ing the approx­i­mate­ly 600 horse­men of the British light cav­al­ry (the “Light Brigade”) to pur­sue and har­ry a retreat­ing Russ­ian artillery bat­tery. Dis­as­trous­ly, how­ev­er, due to a mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion in the chain of com­mand, the Light Brigade is instead sent on a frontal assault against a dif­fer­ent artillery bat­tery, one very much well-pre­pared and defend­ed.

The Light Brigade comes under with­er­ing fire from three sides, is bad­ly mauled, and is forced to retreat in chaos. The assault ends with very high British casu­al­ties, no deci­sive gains, and the event goes down in his­to­ry as one of the most woe­ful of mil­i­tary blun­ders…

Just six weeks after the event, Alfred, Lord Ten­nyson pub­lished his nar­ra­tive poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade”. Its lines empha­sise the val­our of the cav­al­ry in brave­ly car­ry­ing out their orders, regard­less of the obvi­ous out­come. The poem bequeaths to us the famous phrase:

Theirs not to rea­son why,
Theirs but to do and die

Nowa­days, we casu­al­ly use the phrase “ours not to rea­son why” to shrug away a dubi­ous man­age­r­i­al deci­sion. In the poem, how­ev­er, we are left in no doubt as to what the sol­diers were com­mit­ting them­selves to:

Can­non to the right of them,
Can­non to the left of them,
Can­non in front of them
Vol­ley’d and thun­der’d;
Stor­m’d at with shot and shell,
Bold­ly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hun­dred

The met­ri­cal scheme of the poem lends itself to the des­per­ate charge of the horse­men, the breath­less­ly short lines, drummed out like hoof-beats, cre­at­ing a dra­mat­ic imme­di­a­cy. Phras­es like “jaws of Death” and “mouth of Hell” vivid­ly depict the hope­less­ness of the assault.

Read it in full (as you lis­ten to it here)

 

The Charge of the Light Brigade

I
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the val­ley of Death
Rode the six hun­dred.
‘For­ward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!’ he said:
Into the val­ley of Death
Rode the six hun­dred.

II
’For­ward, the Light Brigade!‘
Was there a man dis­may’d?
Not tho’ the sol­dier knew
Some­one had blun­der’d:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to rea­son why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the val­ley of Death
Rode the six hun­dred.

III
Can­non to the right of them,
Can­non to the left of them,
Can­non in front of them
Vol­ley’d and thun­der’d;
Stor­m’d at with shot and shell,
Bold­ly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hun­dred.

IV
Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air
Sabring the gun­ners there,
Charg­ing an army, while
All the world won­der’d:
Plunged in the bat­tery-smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Cos­sack and Russ­ian
Reel’d from the sabre-stroke
Shat­ter’d and sun­der’d.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hun­dred.

V
Can­non to right of them,
Can­non to left of them,
Can­non behind them
Vol­ley’d and thun­der’d;
Stor­m’d at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro’ the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of the six hun­dred.

VI
When can their glo­ry fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world won­der’d.
Hon­our the charge they made!
Hon­our the Light Brigade,
Noble six hun­dred!