The Reason Why: The Story of the Fatal Charge of the Light Brigade

Rating:
Summary: Arrogance and stupidity...
Review: Cecil Woodham-Smith's story of the Charge of the Light Brigade is the biography of two men: Lords Lucan and Cardigan; brothers-in-law whose hatred for each other was surpassed only by arrogance and ineptitude as officers. Woodham-Smith's book is the story of two men cradled by an absurd system of rank and class, who came together as two of the highest-ranking officers in one of the worst-run campaigns in British military history, which resulted in one of the most legendary blunders in all of military history.

In the lifetimes of Lucan and Cardigan (the late eighteenth and early nineteeth century), the best way to get ahead in the British Army was to purchase your rank. The purchase system, as it was called, was basically a way for England's wealthy classes to keep the most powerful positions in the army for themselves, and exclude those individuals who were not of the same social stratum. This system was supported by Britain's greatest military mind, the Duke of Wellington, who, it is explained, somehow managed to hide the deficiencies of the system behind his military brilliance. However, by the time Lucan and Cardigan came into a position of authority, Wellington had long since passed away, none of the high officers involved in the Crimean campaign had heard a shot fired in anger, and the only combat-experienced officers in the British Army (those who had served in India) were unwanted.

The biography portion of the book gets a little bit cumbersome at times, especially for those of us who aren't entirely familiar with the British nobility system, but it provides an interesting backstory to the disaster in the Crimea. How two men so completely arrogant and inept came to a position of power in the British Army is shocking, especially when one considers that it was widely known that neither man was fit to command cavalry squadrons, let alone brigades and divisions.

Ultimately, Woodham-Smith's argument is effective: the purchase system, coupled with the British class system, was ripe for a disaster. By allowing incompetency to buy its way up the ranks while more competent solders were bypassed and more experienced soldiers were shunned, it was only a matter of time until the British experienced a debacle such as Balaclava and the entire Crimean Campaign. Unfortunately for the British, it took two spectaculary arrogant and stupid men to breed such a disaster, and when it finally happened, it happened in spectacular fashion.

Rating:
Summary: A Classic Study in Mismanagement
Review: Cecil Woodham-Smith, no relation. I've read this again and again, and Harry Flashman told me about it once. A true story of these chaps at Balaclava in the Crimea ( I think thats near Detroit). September 20, 1854, a day before my birthday, and ord Cardigan of sweater fame, and Lord Lucan ( no sweater) sent/lead 500 fine young men to their death, needlessly (?) Cardigan was so cruel to his troops, I'll never wear another of his sweaters. And you should read what he tried with Harry Flashman's wife. Good ol' Lord Lucan was famous for evicting hundreds of tenents during the Irish famine. A real *#@*pot. By the way, the two of them were Brother-in-Laws. This is the kind of book you just must read again and again. It does always come out the same, but it's still great read over and over. It's a Smitty favorate.

Rating:
Summary: Too long "intro" to the subject but still a very good read!
Review: In some ways it is a bit dissapointing to need 180 pages to stress the assinity of "the last of the Brudenells" and why it was very difficult for his brother in law to deal with a subordinate like him...
But that's not all... I do think "The Charge of the Light Brigade" did happen for more reasons then the specified in the book. Raglan was responsable too!, and Airey!, and even probably Nolan in a lesser part!... BUT DEFINITLY NOT LUCAN AND CARDIGAN ALONE!... specially not Cardigan! (wich was probably correctly described as an ass (valiant thought!), a martinet, and jelaous of his "independent" command thanks to Raglan absurd politeness in the first place... BUT I STILL THINK THE BIG MISTAKE CARDIGAN DID ON THAT DAY WAS NOT RIDING TO THE HELP OF THE HEAVIES (or better still did not exploit the oportunity when presented on a plate... see/read what Captain Morris of the 17th lancers asked for...
The book is a very good read and entertaining even if it goes to much back (from birth! of both Earls!...) the tapestry of early victorian England. the purchase sistem of commissions by aristocrats etc are very well described and even the potato famine in Ireland (you can be as nonplussed as me! what that has to do with the Crimea in the first place!).
If you enjoy this book try too "The Charge" by Mark Adkin, it deals exclusively with the Charge itself and I think I agree more with his point of view... (mind, it also it is said "sotto voce" in this book that topography was also a case for confusion, but it is said "en passant"...).
VERY GOOD PROSE HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.


Rating:
Summary: A good read - but......
Review: Overall I am recommending this book if you want to understand what happened at Balaclava and you know little or nothing about the Crimean campaign. But I have serious reservations about this book that may be useful for you to be aware of. Let me be clear first of all - I think this is a good book, I recommend it, but with the following provisios.

1. There is an over emphasis early on in the book on the lives and experiences of Lords Cardigan and Lucan, their private lives, childhood experience and record of marriages. As an Irish man I found Lucan's actions during the great potato famine to be of interest, but it was entirely off the point. The Irish Potato famine has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the Charge of the Light Brigade. A lot of this could be cut out.

2. There is no good explanation of the tactics of troops and in particular of Cavalry in this period. The author fails to make it clear how cavalry should operate and how this differs from the way Raglan insisted upon the cavalry staying close to the troops.

3. The book is light on statistics. There is a lot of commentary on the Cholera epidemic, but how serious was it? What percentage of troops died of Cholera? How many died in battle? This kind of information puts events in perspective.

4. The book is written almost exclusively from the British Point of View. At times you can forget that the French were even there. It would be useful to have analysed the reasons for the Crimean conflict from the perspective of Britain, France, Russia and Turkey. Did the Sultan invite the English and French to act on his behalf???

5. For me Raglan is the culpabale party. He was commander in the field. He allowed a brigade commander to believe he was independent of his divisional commander. He removed the divisional commander from his division. He interfered with the management of the command. He restricted the actions of cavalry to behaving like infantry. In battle he put himself in positions where he could not communicate with his troops. This was particularly acute in Alma, when he got onto the Russian side, over a mile from the main advance, and could not order supporting actions.

6. The book stops after the charge, without fully explaining the final outcome of the campaign or its consequences.

Overall I feel this is a book with too many holes in it. I am itching to have a go at improving upon it myself. Were I the authors teacher in school I would probably have written something like "good effort, well written lots of hard work, but you need to stick to the point and draw clear conclusions."

Rating:
Summary: An excellent introduction to a fascinating topic.
Review: The Charge of the Light Brigade on the 25th October 1854 was one of the three famous engagements that formed the Battle of Balaklava. The Charge, the most famous of all military blunders, was barely over before the process of transforming it into myth began. Accusations, counter-accusations, legal actions and patriotic poetry created more obscuring smoke and dust than the infamous Russian guns. Cecil Woodham Smith traces the careers of two of the major players: Lords Lucan and Cardigan, the brothers-in-law from hell, whose vanity, arrogance and (at least in the case of Cardigan) incompetence, inexperience and crass stupidity, contributed to the fatal Charge. Almost 40 years of peace, and the reactionary influence of the Duke of Wellington, had left the British army in a parlous state of unreadiness and bureaucratic confusion when the call came to defend Turkey against the Russians. The choice of the aged, gentle, inexperienced and unassertive Raglan, as leader of the expeditionary army, only made a bad situation worse. (For a rather more sympathetic portrayal of Raglan, as victim of an inefficient military system, criminally disorganised commissariat and unreasonable government, see "The Destruction of Lord Raglan" by Christopher Hibbert.) A more recent study, "The Charge" by Mark Adkin, provides a detailed and well-illustrated account of the events leading to the Charge of the Light Brigade. Adkin challenges traditional views , including parts of Cecil Woodham Smith's account. Particular attention is given to the role played by Captain Nolan (the messenger). Adkin suggests that Nolan may have deliberately misled Lucan and Cardigan as to Raglan's real intention. Whatever the truth, which is of course unknowable, "The Reason Why" is a genuine classic and an excellent introduction to a fascinating subject.

Rating:
Summary: Still the best account of the Charge of the Light Brigade
Review: The Reason Why remains the classic study of the intriguing and sadly ludicrous episode in military history known as the Charge of the Light Brigade. The author, coming from an Army family and relying heavily on the writings of officers, largely neglects the experience of the private soldier and concentrates on the main characters in the drama. The story is dominated by these extraordinary personalities, serving as a reminder that war is an inherently human drama. On a second level, it is a criticism of the privilege system of the British Army of the mid-nineteenth century. In retrospect, one is hard pressed to believe such a purchase system could have ever won a victory at Waterloo. Intolerant aristocrats with no experience in battle, paltry leadership skills, and maddening unconcern for the soldiers under their command, bought their commissions. The Charge of the Light Brigade illuminated all of the faults of the system and proved that bravery alone was insufficient for victory. While human blunders led to the debacle that was the Charge of the Light Brigade, the British military system was intrinsically to blame.

The heart of this book concerns the relationship between society at large and the military. Military leaders feared nothing so much as public scrutiny, for widespread discontent could lead to political interference and, indeed, political control of the army. Whether in dealing with the incorrigible personalities of Lords Lucan and Cardigan or in covering up the series of blunders that resulted in the sacrificial ride of the Light Brigade, the military leadership acted with the overriding principle of preserving the Army from governmental control.

The embarrassments of the Crimean campaign proved uncontainable. A great source of difficulty was the incompetence of the Army staff; rank and privilege were held to be superior to actual experience. When these difficulties led to humiliation and defeat, the commanders' concern was not with the men they had lost nor the future of the war effort; to the exclusion of these, their main concern was that bad publicity would appear in Britain, that the public would hear of the lack of success, that the House would begin to ask questions of the military leadership, that the press would begin to criticize the Army. This great fear of political interference was realized in the aftermath of the Crimean War. The author portrays this as the one positive effect engendered by the War effort. A new era of military reform was born in Britain, Europe, and America. Experience now became a prerequisite for command, and officers were trained in staff colleges. The author's final point is that, above all, the treatment of the private soldier changed as the military system was humanized to some degree. Her assertion that at the end of the Crimean War the private soldier was regarded as a hero seems rather bold, but it is clear that he was no longer seen as a nonhuman tool of his commanders' designs.

Rating:
Summary: The Price of Aristocratic Obsession
Review: Woodham-Smith presents, in minute detail, the wages of placing social rank over experience, and even competence. British military history follows a disturbing trend. War starts, Brits get trounced upon, influx of fresh talent and new ideas comes (along with, sometimes, timely intercession by allies), British return to triumph. Woodham-Smith attributes this pattern to the notion in the higher ranks of the army (a notion espoused by the Duke of Wellington himself, pip pip!), that nobility ensures, if not competence, at least loyalty.

The price of this notion, is, of course, massive death, but because the massive death does not happen to the nobility, nobody important really minds. This is one reason the Charge of the Light Brigade, with which _the Reason Why_ primarily deals, was so different, and worthy of eulogizing in prose and song (Alfred, Lord Tennyson, by the way, appears absolutely nowhere in this text)--those dying, those paying the price for the Army's obsession with aristocracy, were aristocrats themselves.

Woodham-Smith manages to trace the careers of two utterly unsympathetic characters--Cardigan and Lucan--in a fascinating manner. This is no small feat, considering the reader will probably want, by the end of _the Reason Why_ to reach back in time and shake both of them, and maybe smack them around a bit.

Again, Cecil Woodham-Smith proves herself a master of the historian's craft, and produces a well-researched, thorough and driving account of what is probably the stupidest incident in modern military history.

The Crimean War changed so much about how war is waged--the treatment of prisoners and wounded being tops on the list of reforms brought about in the wake of the debacle. _The Reason Why_ is an excellent account, and should be required reading for anybody with even a remote interest in military history, or European history in general.

Rating:
Summary: The Price of Aristocratic Obsession
Review: Woodham-Smith presents, in minute detail, the wages of placing social rank over experience, and even competence. British military history follows a disturbing trend. War starts, Brits get trounced upon, influx of fresh talent and new ideas comes (along with, sometimes, timely intercession by allies), British return to triumph. Woodham-Smith attributes this pattern to the notion in the higher ranks of the army (a notion espoused by the Duke of Wellington himself, pip pip!), that nobility ensures, if not competence, at least loyalty.

The price of this notion, is, of course, massive death, but because the massive death does not happen to the nobility, nobody important really minds. This is one reason the Charge of the Light Brigade, with which _the Reason Why_ primarily deals, was so different, and worthy of eulogizing in prose and song (Alfred, Lord Tennyson, by the way, appears absolutely nowhere in this text)--those dying, those paying the price for the Army's obsession with aristocracy, were aristocrats themselves.

Woodham-Smith manages to trace the careers of two utterly unsympathetic characters--Cardigan and Lucan--in a fascinating manner. This is no small feat, considering the reader will probably want, by the end of _the Reason Why_ to reach back in time and shake both of them, and maybe smack them around a bit.

Again, Cecil Woodham-Smith proves herself a master of the historian's craft, and produces a well-researched, thorough and driving account of what is probably the stupidest incident in modern military history.

The Crimean War changed so much about how war is waged--the treatment of prisoners and wounded being tops on the list of reforms brought about in the wake of the debacle. _The Reason Why_ is an excellent account, and should be required reading for anybody with even a remote interest in military history, or European history in general.