It’s 25th 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 military history as one of the most woeful of 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 right of them,
Cannon to 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 and go with the dramatic force as it gallops to its conclusion:
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 right of them,
Cannon to 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!