Lord Raglan is utterly incompetent to lead an army
through any arduous task. He is a brave good soldier, I am sure, and a polished
gentleman, but he is no more fit than I am to cope with any leader of strategic
skill.
WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL
We are commanded by one of the greatest old women in the
British Army, called the Earl of Cardigan. He has as much brains as my boot. He
is only to be equalled in want of intellect by his relation the Earl of Lucan .
. . two such fools could not be picked out of the British Army to take command.
CAPTAIN PORTAL, 4TH LIGHT DRAGOONS
‘You have lost the Light Brigade!’ It was thus that Lord
Raglan bitterly reproached Lord Lucan on the evening of 25 October 1854. As a
simple statement of fact the words were not unfounded. Before the charge,
according to Captain Portal who rode in it, the Light Cavalry Brigade had
mustered on parade some 700men; after it they numbered a mere 180. But was it
Lucan who lost it? Controversy as to who was to blame has featured in many an
analysis of the battle. The truth is, of course, that many people were to
blame, Lucan among them. It was a combination of personal ill-feeling, general
mismanagement and peculiarly bad orders which led to so great, yet glorious, a
blunder. Given the circumstances which prevailed, however – a Commander-in-Chief
who had no clear idea of how to conduct a battle, and who, unlike his former
chief, Wellington, was in the habit of expressing himself with ambiguity rather
than precision; a Commander of the cavalry, Lucan, who was at odds with
Raglan’s handling of the campaign and with his subordinate, Cardigan, in charge
of the Light Brigade; and given too that the aide-de-camp who delivered the
fatally misconstrued order was half insane with impatience and injured pride,
so much so that he actually seemed to indicate the wrong objective – then it was
perhaps not so remarkable that things went awry, although why General Airey,
Raglan’s Chief of Staff, should have pronounced the Light Brigade’s charge as
‘nothing to Chilianwala’ may still puzzle us. It was after all a feat of arms
recalled for courage and discipline rather than for foolhardiness and waste.
But if by chance Raglan had shown the same sort of drive and
initiative at the first battle of the campaign as Wellington did at Salamanca,
then the charge of the Light Brigade, indeed the entire affair at Balaklava,
need never have taken place at all. And even if he had behaved as he did during
that first encounter and the British army had still found itself at Balaklava
in October 1854, it only required the Light Brigade’s commander, Cardigan, to display
some spark of military daring, some inkling of the cavalry spirit, even some
modicum of tactical know-how for the charge of his brigade, to have been a very
different matter with a possibly decisive outcome. We must go back to the start
of the campaign to see how things might have developed.
In spite of all the fuss about custody of the Holy Places,5
the Crimean War came about because Czar Nicholas I believed the time had come
to expel the Turks from Europe and divide up the property of ‘the sick man’. At
the same time Emperor Napoleon III of France was possessed of an ardent desire
to cut a figure in the world and add to the military glory attained by his
uncle. Moreover, Britain was determined to maintain Turkey’s integrity and put
a stop to the extension of Russian power in the East. Thus a relatively trivial
dispute was used to justify a struggle for supremacy in the East.
The Czar could hardly have chosen an envoy more likely to
provoke Turkey’s ire than Prince Menschikoff, who went to Constantinople in
March 1853 and demanded that the Sultan should recognize both the Greek
Church’s claim to custody of the Holy Places and – much more significantly –
Russia’s right to protect the Sultan’s Greek Orthodox subjects. Menschikoff was
both tactless and insolent, but these disagreeable qualities were largely
offset by the diplomatic skills of the highly regarded British Ambassador at
the Sublime Porte, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, who had been there for ten
years, had encouraged reform and who, in spite of his hostility to the Czar,
persuaded the Sultan to satisfy the Greek Church with regard to the Holy
Places, at the same time lending his support to the Sultan in rejecting
Russia’s claim to be protector of Turkey’s Greek Christians. Whereupon in June
1853 Russia invaded the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, and after the
failure of the Great Powers to reach some compromise, Turkey declared war in
October. An extension of the war swiftly followed. Turkey defeated a Russian
army at Oltenitza, the Russian fleet destroyed a Turkish squadron at Sinope,
the French and British fleets passed the Dardanelles and entered the Black Sea
in January 1854. Two months later France and Britain declared war on Russia.
Thus France, Great Britain and Turkey were Allies. For
centuries in the past the British had been fighting the French. With the
exception of the Vichy episodes in the Second World War, they were never to do
so again. Yet Lord Raglan could not get out of his head that the enemy – even
when in this particular war they were fighting side by side with him – were the
French, and would frequently refer to them as such during the campaign. This
was not the only difficulty encountered by the Allies.
It was all very well to declare war on Russia, but where was
it to be waged? The Allies wished to ensure that the Russian armies evacuated
the principalities and did not reach Constantinople. But what strategy should
they adopt to realize these aims? By the end of May 1854 both the French and
British armies had arrived at Gallipoli and Scutari, and the striking
difference between their administrative arrangements was at once evident. The
French were properly equipped with tents, medical services and a transport
corps. The British were hopelessly ill prepared in all these respects, although
Raglan had requested proper transport, only to be refused by the War Office.
When the two armies made their way to Varna in order to deal with the Russians
in the principalities, they found they had gone. It was now August and both
malaria and cholera devastated the Allied soldiers. But at least some strategic
idea emerged, and it was decided that the Allies would attack and take
Sebastopol, thus removing this base of Russian power in the Black Sea and its
threat to Turkey. This decision was made, not by commanders on the spot, who
opposed it, but by the Allied Governments, hardly an auspicious beginning. None
the less, in September the British and French armies – composed respectively of
26,000 men, 66 guns and 30,000 men, 70 guns – landed in the bay of Eupatoria,
north of Sebastopol, and began their advance.
We have already observed that Lord Raglan was not
distinguished for either his fitness to command or the clarity of his
direction. His counterpart, General St Arnaud, was gravely ill – he was shortly
to die – and was in no condition to provide bold leadership or offensive
spirit. Moreover, Raglan’s subordinate commanders hardly inspired confidence.
Lucan and Cardigan, leaving aside their sheer incompetence, were at
loggerheads, and were soon to demonstrate their absolute inability to handle
the cavalry properly. The two infantry divisional commanders, Sir George
Cathcart and the Duke of Cambridge, were not as useless as the cavalrymen – no
one could have been – but they had none of the experience or dash of men like
Craufurd, Picton, Pakenham and Hill who had served under Wellington. Raglan’s
Chief of Staff was General Airey, who should have been aware that apart from
giving sound advice, his main purpose was to ensure the clarity of his
Commander-in-Chief’s orders, which he singularly failed to do.
Happily for the British army this weakness of leadership at
the top was more than counterbalanced by the strength of the regimental system.
It was Humphrey Ward who praised Kipling for discovering Tommy Atkins as a hero
of realistic romance. No army, said Ward, had so strong a sense of regimental
unity and loyalty as our own. Arthur Bryant too was eloquent in emphasizing
regimental pride:
the personal individual loyalty which each private felt
towards his corps gave to the British soldier a moral strength which enabled
him to stand firm and fight forward when men without it, however brave, would
have failed. To let down the regiment, to be unworthy of the men of old who had
marched under the same colours, to be untrue to the comrades who had shared the
same loyalties, hardships and perils were things that the least-tutored,
humblest soldier would not do.
Raglan was fortunate therefore in having under his command
regiments of the Light Division, the Highlanders and the Brigade of Guards when
it came to tackling the enemy. What would these famous regiments have to fight?
Opposing the Allied advance towards Sebastopol was a force
of some 40,000 Russian soldiers under the command of Prince Menschikoff, who
had positioned his men and about a hundred guns on the high ground overlooking
the river Alma, fifteen miles north of Sebastopol. The battle of Alma was
fought on 20 September and was characteristic of most Crimean encounters as far
as the Allies were concerned. There was no proper reconnaissance, no clear
plan, no thought about exploitation of success, no coordination between armies,
no control or direction by Raglan, and the outcome was determined by the sheer
courage and endurance of the British infantry. This dereliction of duty by
those who were supposed to be directing the battle may be gauged by the fact
that the Great Redoubt, key to the whole Russian defence, had to be taken
twice, first by the Light Division and 2nd Division, and then again – because
the reserve divisions were not moved forward quickly enough to consolidate its
capture, thus allowing the Russians to reoccupy it – by the Guards and
Highlanders. Its initial capture shows us the mettle of the British infantry:
The first line of the British army, the Light Infantry
Division and the 2nd Division, rose to its feet with a cheer, and, dressing in
a line two miles wide, though only two men deep, marched towards the river.
Under terrific fire – forty guns were trained on the river, and rifle bullets
whipped the surface of the water into a bloody foam – the first British troops
began to struggle across the Alma, the men so parched with thirst that even at
this moment they stopped to drink . . . During the terrible crossing of the
river formation was lost and it was a horde which surged up the bank and,
formed by shouting, cursing officers into some ragged semblance of a line,
pressed on up the deadly natural glacis towards the Great Redoubt. It seemed impossible
that the slender, straggling line could survive . . . Again and again large
gaps were torn in the line, the slopes became littered with bodies and sloppy
with blood, but the survivors closed up and pressed on, their officers urging,
swearing, yelling like demons.
The men’s blood was up. The Light Division, heroes of a
dozen stubborn and bloody battles in the Peninsula, advanced through the smoke,
swearing most horribly as their comrades fell . . . suddenly, unbelievably the
guns ceased to fire . . . the British troops gave a great shout, and in a last
frantic rush a mob of mixed battalions tumbled into the earthwork. The Great
Redoubt had been stormed.
But, alas, the Duke of Cambridge’s division with a brigade
of Guards and the Highland Brigade, which should have been following up, had
not moved from its position north of the river, allowing large numbers of
Russians to take advantage of their own artillery bombardment, move forward and
reoccupy the Great Redoubt. Thereupon the Guards and Highlanders, under
terrible fire from cannon and rifles, advanced with the same steadiness as if
taking part in a Hyde Park review. So heavy were the casualties suffered by the
Grenadier and Coldstream Guards that one officer suggested to Sir Colin
Campbell that they should retire or risk destruction. He received the
magnificent reply that it would be better for every man of Her Majesty’s Guards
to lie dead on the field than for them to turn their backs on the enemy.
Neither course of action was necessary, however, for not only did the Guards
and Highlanders retake the Great Redoubt, they successfully repelled a further
Russian infantry attack. As they charged forward the enemy fled, leaving the
Allies in triumphant possession of the battlefield.
Now we come to the first great If of the Crimean campaign.
If at this point the British cavalry, who were poised ready for pursuit, had
been launched against the fleeing enemy, they could have inflicted frightful
loss. Lucan and Cardigan were aching to do so. It was one of those rare
opportunities which when seized lead on to triumphant success, but when
neglected deliver only frustration and guilt. Yet Raglan positively forbade the
pursuit. There could be but one reason for his doing so – the French refused to
go further and Raglan dared not go on alone. Had he been more forceful or
decided to act with British troops only, he might have ended the campaign there
and then, by capturing Sebastopol. As it was, the defeated Russians, totally
unmolested, streamed into the city.
When we consider that the whole purpose of the Crimean
campaign, as directed by the Allied Governments, was to take Sebastopol – and
here as a result of the very first battle of the campaign, an absolutely
heaven-sent chance of doing so presented itself, yet was not taken – we may
perhaps sympathize with the outraged sentiments of Captain Nolan, 15th Hussars.
A passionate advocate of cavalry’s proper and aggressive use, Nolan burst into
William Howard Russell’s tent and gave vent to his sense of outrage – a thousand
British cavalry contemplating a beaten, retreating army, complete with guns and
colours, with nothing but a few wretched, cowardly Cossacks, ready to gallop
away at the mere sound of a trumpet call, to dispute their passage, and nothing
done: ‘It is enough to drive one mad! It is too disgraceful, too infamous.’ The
generals should be damned. We shall meet Captain Nolan again when another great
chance, another great If, and another gross mishandling of cavalry occurred.
Having omitted to take this tide at the flood, Lord Raglan
was obliged to put up with the shallows and the miseries of what was left of
his life’s voyage. It would not be for long and would lead to his humiliation
and death. Instead of seizing Sebastopol the Allied armies made their ponderous
way to the east and then the south of the city, giving the Russians time both
to reinforce its defences and indeed to pour more troops into the Crimea. This
new deployment of the British army emphasized the strategic importance of
Balaklava, through whose port all the sinews of war had to come. It was the
Russian attempt to capture it that resulted in the battle of Balaklava. On the
morning of 25 October the British army was singularly ill deployed to meet and
defeat this Russian attack. Apart from the 93rd Highlanders and about 1,000
Turks, the only troops between the port and General Liprandi’s advancing force
of 25,000 horse, foot and guns were the two brigades of the Cavalry Division,
positioned some two miles north of Balaklava at the foot of the Fedioukine
Heights.
The idea that chaos is a good umpire and chance a well-known
governor of battles was well illustrated at Balaklava, for nothing could have
been more chaotic or chancy. During the action of 25 October, Lord Lucan
received four orders from Lord Raglan. Not one of them was either clear or
properly understood. Each one was either too late to be executed as intended,
violently resented by Lucan, ignored or so misinterpreted that the outcome was
calamitous. We may perhaps comfort ourselves with the reflection that there was
nothing unusual about this. Even today, with superlative communications when
orders are transmitted from one level of command to another, their purpose and
emphasis are subject to very different translation into action, for each
commander has his own view of a battlefield, broad or narrow. Each has his own
intention. No wonder they seldom coincide.
Raglan’s first order to Lucan was: ‘Cavalry to take ground
to left of second line of Redoubts occupied by the Turks.’ To execute the
order, although he did so, was not merely distasteful to Lucan, for the very
last thing cavalry was designed for was to take or hold ground, but, much more
important, it was tactically dangerous, since moving to the Redoubts on the
Causeway Heights, the cavalry would further isolate Sir Colin Campbell’s small
force of 500 Highlanders, the final defence of Balaklava itself. Thus at the
very beginning of the action, we find Lucan totally unable to comprehend what
his Commander-in-Chief had in mind. Indeed, from his point of view Raglan was
guilty of a gross tactical error. We may perhaps discover the reason for this
absolute discord when we remember that being in very different positions on the
ground, the two men had very different conceptions of what was taking place.
This perilous disparity of view was magnified by what happened next.
To those coolly sitting on their horses with Lord Raglan on
the Sapouné Heights, the incident must at first have appeared to be an instance
of that insolent indifference to danger which characterized many a British
military operation in the nineteenth century. Later, it must have seemed more
like culpable inactivity, and indeed it was only comprehensible when the
contours of the ground beneath these onlookers were properly appreciated. A
substantial body of Russian cavalry advancing to attack the Highlanders had
seemed to pass within a few hundred yards of the British cavalry, now stationed
where Raglan had ordered them, to the left of the second line of Redoubts. Yet
although the Russian cavalry passed so close to Lucan’s division, the two
formations could not see each other, were not in fact aware of each other’s
proximity, simply because of the high ground between them, screening each from
the other’s view. Yet to Raglan and his staff looking down upon them, this
mutual unawareness was not apparent. When the Russian cavalry then set about
attacking the 93rd Highlanders, ‘the slender red line’ proved more than a match
for the enemy squadrons. Three times the Russians came at then; three times
they were repulsed by the disciplined steadiness and accurate fire-power of the
93rd. At one point Campbell had to quell his men’s eagerness to charge with
some fitting oath, but they had done the trick. The enemy withdrew.
Yet these half-dozen or so squadrons were but the vanguard
of a much larger body of Russian cavalry which had followed them across the
Causeway Heights. Perceiving this further threat, Raglan had issued his second
order – indeed, had done so before the Highlanders’ gallant action had been
fought – and this order, ‘Eight squadrons of Heavy Dragoons to be detached
towards Balaklava to support the Turks who are wavering,’ arrived too late to
be executed in the way that Raglan had intended. In command of these Dragoon
squadrons was Brigadier-General Scarlett, whose face was as red as his tunic, a
brave and competent cavalryman who had won the respect and affection of his men
for his unassuming and good-natured ways. He was now about to bring off ‘one of
the great feats of cavalry against cavalry in the history of Europe’. As he led
his eight squadrons, two each from 5th Dragoon Guards, Scots Greys,
Inniskillings and 4th Dragoon Guards, towards Balaklava, with the Causeway
Heights on their left, he observed on the slopes of these heights a huge mass
of Russian horsemen. There were three or four thousand of them. Yet Scarlett
with his mere 500 or so Dragoons was quite undismayed and coolly ordered his
squadrons to wheel into line. It was at this point that Lucan arrived on the
scene and ordered Scarlett to do what he was about to do anyway – charge the
enemy. It was fortunate that the Russian cavalry came to a halt with the
intention of throwing out two wings on their flanks in order to engulf and
overwhelm Scarlett’s force. Thereupon Scarlett ordered his trumpeter to sound
the charge.
Although the Light Brigade’s action at Balaklava is more
renowned, it was the Heavy Brigade’s charge which was truly remarkable as a
feat of arms. In spite of the appalling disparity of numbers, the British
cavalry enjoyed one great advantage. The Russian hordes were stationary, and it
is an absolute maxim that cavalry should never be halted when receiving a
charge but should be in motion. By remaining stationary, the Russians would
sustain far more devastating a shock. For those surveying from the heights,
what now transpired was breathtaking. Scarlett and his first line of three
squadrons seemed to be positively swallowed up by the mass of grey-coated
Russian cavalry, and although this enemy mass heaved and swayed, it did not
break. Indeed, their two wings, in motion again now, began to wheel inwards to
enclose and crush the three squadrons. But now Scarlett’s second line took a
hand in the game. The second squadrons of the Inniskillings and 5th Dragoon
Guards flung themselves wildly into the fray on the left, while the Royals, who
had not received orders to do so, but rightly acted with timely initiative,
charged in on the right. There was further heaving and swaying by the Russians,
but no sign yet of breaking.
No such initiative as that of the Royals was displayed by
Lord Cardigan, who was about to be presented with the chance of a lifetime. He
and his Brigade were a mere few hundred yards from the flank of the Russian
cavalry, observing the action, most of them consumed with impatience, yet no
thought of joining in the fray even occurred to Cardigan. The best he could do
was to declare that ‘These damned Heavies will have the laugh of us this day.’
Any commander possessed of the real cavalry spirit would have been longing for
the moment to arrive when his intervention would have been decisive. And this
moment was about to come. Despite his dislike and contempt for his superior
commander, Lord Lucan, Cardigan took refuge in his contention that he had been
ordered to remain in position and to defend it against any enemy advance. It
would have been far more in keeping with his custom to have ignored Lucan’s
order. Indeed, Lucan himself maintained that his instructions had included a
positive direction that the Light Brigade was to attack ‘anything and
everything that shall come within reach of you’. There could be no gainsaying
that the Russian cavalry, already reeling from the Heavy Brigade’s assault,
came within this category.
