General Sir Evelyn Wood says: “It was a glorious failure, as the charge of the Heavy Dragoons was an astounding success, but Lord Tennyson’s enthusiastic pen blinded the public to the military value of the two exploits, and thus the determined gallantry shown in the attack of the three squadrons of the heavy brigade has remained comparatively unappreciated.”
Of course a controversy followed and it lasted for many years in the war office, in the newspapers, in the clubs, in parliament, and wherever men and women talked of the war. Cardigan showed a manly spirit in the controversy as he had shown unparalleled bravery in leading the charge. He had never been under fire before. He had never had the responsibility of actual command under serious conditions of any kind; he did not have the slightest knowledge of military tactics, and he admitted frankly that it did not occur to him that an unsupported movement of cavalry across an open field, a mile and a quarter, exposed from two lines of the enemy, and in the face of a battery of twelve guns, was a feat absolutely impossible of performance. He said he understood that his orders were to take that battery and he took it. His reckless Irish courage saw no reason why he should not do so.
Lord Lucan, in command of the cavalry, and who, as I have said, was Cardigan’s brother-in-law, was utterly astounded when he saw how his orders had been interpreted, and Lord Raglan, the commander-in-chief, was paralyzed. The movement could be seen from start to finish by the entire army and the scarlet uniforms of the Light Brigade made it possible to watch man by man, as they plunged into the ranks of the Russians whose uniforms were gray.
Sifting the single grain of truth from the volume of argument and opinion, the charge of the Light Brigade was a blunder committed by an impetuous Irishman who misunderstood his orders and whose inexperience did not permit him to suspect a mistake.
General Bosquet, commander of the French contingent, who witnessed the charge from the beginning to the end, turned to Colonel Layard of the British army and remarked:
“C’est magnifique; mais ce n’est pas la guerre.” (It is magnificent; but it is not war.)
Lord Tennyson and time have sanctified the blunder and, notwithstanding the folly of the act and the awful wastage of heroic blood, the charge of the Light Brigade stands unparalleled as an exhibition of soldierly discipline and daring. Not a man faltered in the ranks, not a man hesitated to enter “the jaws of death” and “the mouth of hell,” as ordered, although every experienced private in the ranks must have realized that “some one had blundered.” But it was a case of “Theirs not to reason why; theirs but to do and die,” and they rode down the long valley with the same coolness and alignment that they would have kept on the parade ground.
“When can their glory fade?
Oh the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder’d.