And now for something a bit different. One of the most famous poems in the English language is The Charge of the Light Brigade. It includes the famous line, "some one had blundered." I just finished reading a pretty good book on the subject, The Gallant Six Hundred. Most people writing about the charge, such as the book The Reason Why, seem to assume the people most like to have been "some one" were Lord Lucan, commander of the cavalry division, and Lord Cardigan, commander of the light brigade. This book though seems to focue more on the relationship that Lord Raglan, commander in chief of British forces had with Lucan.

So here is a list of the suspects in this case.

Lord Raglan, commander in chief who actually gave the fatal order.
Gen Airey, (sp?), Raglan's chief of staff who wrote the order.
Captain Nolan, an aide de camp who actually delivered the order.
Lord Lucan, commander of the cavalry.
Lord Cardigan, commander of the light brigade.

For those who have read about the charge which of these men were most responsible?

As an aside, isn't the internet wonderful? Before writing this post I wanted to double check I had the line from the poem correctly. I found this link, Tennyson Blundered? In it they say that an original draft of the poem has been found where Lord Tennyson was possibly going to delete both the line, "someone had blundered" and "there's not to reason why" two of the most famous lines in the poem.

I haven't read much on the subject lately, but from memory, I'd say that while all of the suspects were partially to blame, Nolan probably deserves most of it for his arrogance and ineptitude when asked to clarify the order.

As another aside, and a bit I know, but has anyone read Kipling's "The Last of the Light Brigade"? I find it as powerful as Tennyson:

There are thirty million English who talked of England's might
There are twenty broken troopers who lacked a bed for the night.
They had neither food nor money, they had neither service nor trade,
They were only shiftless soldiers, the last of the light Brigade.

They felt that life was fleeting, they knew not that art was long,
That though they were dying of famine, they lived in deathless song.
They asked for a little money to keep the wolf from the door
And the thirty million English sent twenty pounds and four.

They laid their heads together that were scarred and lined and grey;
Keen were the Russian sabres, but want was keener than they;
And an old troop sergeant muttered, "Let us go to the man who writes
The things on Balaclava the kiddies at school recites".

They went without bands or colours, a regiment ten-file strong;
To look for the Master-singer who had crowned them all in song.
And waiting his servant's order, by the garden gate they stayed,
A desolate little cluster, the last of the Light Brigade.

They strove to stand to attention, to straighten the toil-bowed back;
They drilled on an empty stomach, the loose-knit files fell slack.
With stooping of weary shoulders, in garments tattered and frayed,
They stumbled into his presence, the last of the Light Brigade.

The old troop sergeant was spokesman and "beggin' yer pardon" he said
"You wrote of the Light Brigade, Sir, here's all that isn't dead;
And it's all come true what you wrote, Sir, regarding the mouth of Hell
For we're all of us nigh to the workhouse, an' we thought we'd call and tell".

"No, thank you, we don't want food, Sir, but couldn't you take and write
A sort of 'to be continued' and 'see next page of the fight'?
We think that someone had blundered, and couldn't you tell 'em how?
You wrote we were heroes once, Sir, please write we're starving now."

The poor little army departed, limping and lean and forlon,
And the heart of the Master-singer grew hot with the "scorn of scorn"
And he wrote for them wonderful verses that swept the land like flame
Till the fatted souls of the English were scourged with the thing called shame.

O thirty million English who babble of England's might,
Behold there are twenty heroes who lack their food tonight;
Our children's children are lisping to honour the charge they made
And we leave to the streets and workhouse the Charge of the Light Brigade.

I think the guy who either didn't assign good enough recon or didn't believe what he was told. I've never read the book or seen the movie, but from what I remember was they rode into a well entrenched enemy who had the high ground, good artillery and excellent mutually supporting fields of fire and a cannalized entry into their "killing zone" In short all those nifty little things they trained me about setting up in 1977 for opposing "the threat" in a defensiveposition

Probably the most sensible book on the subject that I have read is Terry Brighton's 'Hell riders'

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0805077227/102-3442202-0094510?v=glance&n=283155

The last part of the book is attempt to work out who in particular blundered. Cardigan came out of it reasonably well, despite his lack of real soldiering (as opposed to Rotten Row), as the one who questioned Raglan's orders. But in the end 'orders is orders' and he did what he was told.

Raglan is to blame to some extent, but the blame if it needs to be apportioned should probably go to Lucan, who failed to take the time to consider the order to advance, or to request clarification. Matters not helped by his mutual hatred with his brother-in-law Lord Cardigan. Nolan was guilty to a small extent, of over-enthusiasm in passing on the order, born of frustration with the mis-use of the Light Brigade earlier in the war, but he wasn't really the cause of what followed.

On a personal note, Captain Geoffrey Morgan, later Lord Tredegar lived just outside Newport at Tredegar House. Used to go there in the 70s just after Newport Council took the house over. There is a large painting of his part of the battle in the entrance hall, and in the pet cemetery in the garden, his horse Sir Briggs is buried. So at least one of the Light Brigade's equine survivors had a happy retirement.

EDIT: one of my great great (not sure how many) uncles was in the Crimea, serving in the Coldstream Guards.

The usual "culprit" for the Charge of the Light Brigade is the ground!
Raglan's order was ambiguously worded, what he failed to take into account was that what he could see happening quite clearly from his vantage point was invisible to Lucan & Cardigan from their positions in the valley. The guns being removed from the Turkish redoubts by the Russians were effectively on a reverse slope to them, as they were approached by a parallel runout. The only guns visible to them were the main Russian batteries at the end of the main valley.
Raglan was known to be somewhat vague. Having lost his arm at Waterloo, he sometimes became confused referring to the French as the enemy rather than the Russians! His conduct of the Battle of the Alma lacked direction, it was allowed to develop piecemeal, with consequent heavy casualties to the British infantry involved.
Many of the senior British officers in the Crimea didn't get on, & the chain of command reinforced these prejudices. For example Cardigan & Lucan were brothers-in-law, who hated each other intensely. Cardigan questioned Lucan's orders not simply from a military point of view, but also to bait him. Neither man would want to appear to be lacking in competence or warlike spirit in front of the other. Under the circumstances Lucan would have been quick to stamp on any supposed insubordination.
Captain Nolan was one of the most militarily experienced cavalry officers in the Crimea - indeed he had written a manual on the subject that was widely read. To officers like Cardigan he was doubly a threat - firstly because he "getting above himself", and secondly because his obvious competence was a threat to less efficient officers ike himself. Moreover, Nolan had served in India, & Indian army officers were looked down on by the British establishment.
While Cardigan was a military duffer, there was no doubting his bravery. He led from the front & the Charge was performed in absolutely textbook fashion, beginning at the walk, then steadily working up to the final charge for the last few yards. Attempts by other officers to hurry him were rebuked, the result being that despite their losses along the route, the Light Brigade arrived at the Russian guns in good order & with the maximum impact.
During the Charge, Nolan realised that the Brigade was going the wrong way, & pulling out of the ranks of the 17th Lancers (where he was riding alongside his great friend Captain Morris, temporarily commanding the regiment) attempted to change the direction of the advance. Unfortunately he was killed outright by the first Russian shell, the reflexes of a fine rider meant his legs continued to grip the horses flanks, and his dead body was carried upright through the ranks for some distance, until the muscles relaxed.
Despite the losses suffered by the Brigade, it could be argued that the Charge was tactically a great success. The Russian army, which greatly outnumbered the available Allies was disrupted by the attack, & failed to press it's advantage & capture Balaklava. In fact it withdrew (other factors were involved, the successful charge of the Heavy Brigade shortly before, and the amazing stand of the "Thin Red Line"- 93rd Foot, late Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders). Actual losses of 195 killed, from a Brigade of only 673 while statistically heavy, were actually a small price to pay to safeguard the Allied supply centre & main port.
The actual text of the order is my User Signature.

A few points.

Yes David, I have a book of all of Kipling's verse, along with that poem. I really do like it. Kipling has a number of poems with a military subject.

Steve, Blaster76, you're right, like the other the other Stever says, the lack of knowlege about the terrain was a big factor. It wasn't so much that the cavalry leaders didn't know that they shouldn't attack down the valley, as much as they couldn't see the guns that Raglan was telling them to prevent from being carried off.

David. Lucan quite often gets a great deal of the blame. The book I mentioned, The Gallant Six Hundred, tried very hard to exonerate Lucan. It mentioned that Raglan basically gave Lucan no power to act independently. Because of this Lucan had an attitude of "cover my own butt" every time he got an order from Raglan. He did question the order, but was told by Nolan where to attack.

Steve, the second Steve, the book also went into the whole business of Nolan trying to warn the brigade from attacking down the valley. According to this author the account of Nolan swerving across the brigade came from one civilian who was at the scene, who was proven wrong in a number of ways but that many historians rely on for their accounts. Other eye witness accounts say that Nolan was hit by a shell first, and then swerved, so it is unlikely he was trying to change the direction of the charge.

You are absoultely right that the ground caused the major blunders. Raglan never could grasp the fact that the people down below couldn't see everything going on like he could from his position on some heights. When he ordered the cavalry was to "to advance rapidly to the front, follow the enemy, and try to prevent the enemy carrying away the guns" he didn't know they couldn't SEE the guns he was talking about.

Admittedly, I'm relying on my memory of a book I read a while ago, but I'm sure there is more than one eye-witness account which mentions Nolan moving ahead of the 17th just before he was killed.

Having read the other posts, it would seem to me that Raglan has to carry the blame if anyone.
Both Lucan & Cardigan queried the order, & it is possible, though no one has mentioned this, that the order carried by Nolan was a "repeat" because the cavalry had not moved. This would help to explain Nolan's extreme agitation. As an ADC to the C-in-C, Nolan carried Raglan's authority, but as a junior officer, he can not be held responsible. There is also the possiblity that he did make some attempt to redirect the charge. The only way Lucan could have done more, would have been to approach Raglan himself in person, in which case the situation would have been immediately clarified. However, this would have meant leaving his command while it was facing a visible enemy. Also it would be unheard of for a divisional commander to directly question the C-in-C.
Raglan is responsible:
(a) Because as C-in-C, the buck stops with him anyway.
(b) The order was ambiguously worded, in fact the guns concerned were to Lucan & Cardigans right front, the only guns visible to their immediate front were the main Russian batteries. The order should have directed them clearly in the correct direction, as it is unlikely, from their position, that they were even aware the Turkish emplacements existed. Neither the artillery nor the French cavalry support were visible to Lucan & Cardigan.
(c) Raglan had kept a firm rein on the cavalry up until this moment. They were not committed at the Alma at all, which led to a lot of bad feeling from the embattled infantry. Raglan tended towards the thinking of his old chief, Wellington, that unless watched carefully, British cavalry tended to charge aimlessly about getting itself into trouble. Under the circumstances, the cavalry leaders were not allowed any leeway in the interpretation of their orders.
(d) It is probably unreasonable to blame Airey, whose name was on the message, as he was merely the Chief of Staff, copying down the dictated message. It could be argued that as CoS he should have tried to get Raglan to clarify it, but since he shared Raglans vantage point, it probably didn't occur to him that the order was in any way ambiguous.

What I find interesting, from both the book and this discussion, is that Cardigan, who is normally shown as being the worst commander on the field that day, with the possible exception of Raglan, is probably least responsible for what happened. Other than outright refusing the order to advance, and notice the order doesn't say anything about attacking, just advancing, he couldn't have done anything to stop what was happening.

You're right Rodger. Cardigan mainly comes in for some stick for his conduct AFTER the Charge. Having ridden through the gun lines, he then turned round & trotted back up the valley, evading the Russian cavalry, rather than staying to rally his men, & lead them back.
Lucan was just a transmitter for orders. He had taken no part in the successful action involving the Heavy Brigade earlier. In fact the Heavy Brigade did follow the Light Brigade for some distance in support, but were pulled up by Lucan who could see the destruction of the entire British cavalry in the offing.

If my memory doesn't fail me, Nolan initially doesn't seem to have fully understood the order he was conveying either. When Lucan asked something to the effect of "which enemy?", Nolan spurred his horse up the valley, pointed his sabre at the Russian guns at the end and said something like "There, sir, is your enemy" which seemed clear to Lucan.




Well, as a CoS, he wasn't just a secretary, and should have made sure the written order "could be understood and could not be misunderstood".