Balaclava was the second major confrontation of the
war in the Crimea (
October 25,
1854) – when a large contingent of Russian
cavalry,
infantry and
artillery pieces encircled the hills overlooking the plain around the small port, which the allied French, British and Turk forces were using as a re-supply station before they proceeded with the siege of their objective, the naval port of
Sevastopol. Balaclava had been already fought for at the river
Alma (September 21), where grievous loss has been inflicted by the rifles and shelling of both sides – the valley grass had been slippery with blood by one account as late in the day 10, 000 Scots infantry advanced grim & silent up the smoky hillside, directly into the path of the entrenched Russians, until they
fixed their bayonets and plunged into the fortifications. The Russians had fled in terror and the armies had secured Balaclava a day and half later. The stage for an even larger battle, to defend her, was set.
Mind you, The Battle of Balaclava was encircled in dispute and controversy, even before the village itself was secured.
Earl of Cardigan and the
Earl of Lucan of the English Cavalry had been furious that
Field Commander Raglan, a cautious and methodical leader, had refused to allow them to pursue the enemy. The French commander,
Saint-Arnaud had made explicitly clear to Raglan however, even before the battle, he would not support some pointless horseback pursuit, however much the British
gentry officers felt like donning their hunting caps – this was a war zone, he argued, and there were too many sick with
cholera or dying on the field to warrant such inane
bravado. Raglan took this to heart – much preferring caution to chance – and had ordered his cavalry to protect the supply trains moving into their new position in Balaclava. The officers sputtered in rage.
Balaclava was also, by now, infamous in London, through the editorials and reports from the field which ran daily in
The Times. These articles in particular detailed the British
commissariat's neglect, and failure to provide any winter clothes or boots, or even half-way working ambulance wagons, gauze or anesthetic - despite almost a year of planning. Most of the
stretcher bearers they’d sent were pensioners, drunks, or both. As a result, descriptions of the wounded and the general state of affairs in Balaclava (see www.rcpsglasg.ac.uk/Buchanan.pdf for eyewitness account) enraged the readers of The Times – despite their strong support for the war itself (this was, after all, the first war in history to be covered live by journalists on the
battlefield).
By
October 25th, the position of the allied troops, while favorable, was being hampered by the growing cold and poor supplies (as you can see from this image – http://www.florence-nightingale-avenging-angel.co.uk/Coldstreams.jpg - the all the ports on the Black Sea were very busy, but coordination of supplies for the
Expeditionary Force was apparently awful). So, on that morning, at 6am, the allies discovered the Russians had returned to take advantage of their disarray, hoping to knock them back into the sea. Artillery fire began to rain down from the Russian held-cliffs, smashing into the Tunisian infantry, ripping their tents to shreads even before they were clothed. The Turkish flank almost immediately began to break under this sudden onslaught, and Russian cavalry trampled down the hill to advance through the breach. Only the
93rd Scots Highlanders, in their
Gaelic reds and tartans were between this tide of 400 charging horsemen – but as
Alfred Lord Tennyson immortalized in his phrase the ‘
thin red line’ – the Highlanders refused to budge before the tide. The Cavalry charge advanced to within 150 yards, but buckled at the last minute from the steady stream of rifle blasts. French riflemen and artillery then advanced on the hillsides to the right of the Russians as their horsemen staggered back from the British line – sending the Russian encampment into chaos and forcing them to begin a staggered retreat back towards the city walls.
However, even from this advantageous thrust, with the battle clearly going in the allies favor, tragedy was to enfold the English – as the stage was set for
the Charge of the Light Brigade. As at Alma, Raglan was pressured by his subordinates to take advantage of the Russian flight to take prisoners and weaken the defenders overall strength. At 10:15, four hours after the battle had begun, he ordered preparations for a two-pronged advance with heavy cavalry supported by French infantry to move on the breaking
Cossack lines. It took Cardigan and Lucan over an hour to get their horses in
formation, and still the promised French infantry were only just trickling in. As Raglan surveyed the Russian’s receding from their positions on the cliffs above, word came that they were also making off with the cannons of the Turkish line, essentially making a clean getaway. For a field marshal in the
Victorian era, this was a wholly unacceptable outcome to an otherwise encouraging battle – and he now dispatched a second order (contradicting the first) to Lucan:
Lord Raglan wishes the cavalry to advance rapidly to the front – follow the enemy and prevent them from carrying off the guns - troop Horse Artillery may accompany – French cavalry is on your left. Immediate.
Needless to say, this struck Lucan as confusing in light of the first order, nor did he have any idea from the valley floor which guns Raglan might be referring to, but Raglan’s officer, who delivered the order simply pointed to the valley ahead in frustration and screamed
‘There! There is your enemy! There are the guns!’ Lucan was disgusted, and reportedly replied, in essence, ‘Fine! Cardigan – take the Light Brigade and execute Raglan’s order immediately!’ Cardigan recognized immediately riding into the valley with his six hundred men, they were going into a confined
crossfire and storming defended artillery positions. They’d seen what the Russian guns had done to the Turks that morning – but it was still an order. In the twenty-five minutes the charge lasted, 107 men and 397 horses were cut to ribbons as they stormed uphill against the surrounding guns (which they reached and disabled), and were then pelted with
sniper fire as they galloped back the way they’d come.
Sources: Trevor Royle’s
Crimea (St.Martin’s, 2001) pp. 215 – 275, “The Crimean War” – and for pictures and maps see http://www.batteryb.com/Crimean_War/march_sebastopol.jpg & www.batteryb.com/Crimean_War/crimea_part2.htm.