Julian Farrance presents the order that launched the Charge of the Light Brigade (25 October 1854).
Charge of the Light Brigade (video)
Transcript
Voiceover:
Now, in 'A small piece of history', Julian Farrance of the National Army Museum presents a favourite object from the Collection.
Julian Farrance:
This is the order that launched the Light Brigade. This is the piece of paper that came off of General Airey, the quartermaster-general's, sabretache after he'd had it dictated to him by Lord Raglan. It went from his hand into Captain Nolan's hand, Captain Nolan took it down to Lord Lucan, Lord Lucan showed it to Lord Cardigan, who was the man who led the charge, and from that point the chaps were off down the "valley of death" and nothing was going to bring them back.
"Lord Raglan wishes the cavalry to advance rapidly to the front. Follow the enemy and prevent the enemy carrying away the guns. Troop Horse Artillery may accompany. French cavalry is on your left. Immediate. R Airey"
As an iconic thing obviously it's very important, it's one of the most famous pieces of paper that we have in the Museum. As an order it's not very good. It talks a lot about things like left and right rather than north, south... Obviously if you're talking about left and right and you're facing one way, and you give it to somebody who's facing the other way, that doesn't make any sense to them. So that's part of the confusion.
This order is actually quite confused. It countermands a lot of the other orders that had been sent previously to that, and generally it just doesn't help the guy on the ground work out what he's supposed to be doing. And it's contributory into the disaster where the Light Brigade were lost.
Of course the fact that the Light Brigade were lost, and the fact that Britain loves to celebrate our great military cock-ups, leads to the fact that this piece of paper is quite so important.
I picked this piece because it really does speak to me. I'm very interested in Victorian military things and as an iconic Victorian military thing this is the sort of stuff that really got me interested in working in the Museum in the first place, cos I'd read about this piece of paper all my life.
14 June 2011, 2.27pm
Dear Sir Only a small point
Dear Sir
Only a small point but having read a few books on the charge, like you, I find it rather interesting. May I suggest that it actually finishes, not ' Imidiate - R Airey' but the positioning of 'Imidiate' and the dashes after 'French cavalry is on your left', and also after imidiate, suggests that it reads ' - R Airey - Imidiate'. Trivial perhaps, but it suggests that Lord Raglan had Airey add it as an after thought, possibly in frustration that Lucan had not enacted the previous orders, effectively Raglan was making it up as he went along. It is possible that he also gave Capt Nolan verbal instructions as well. My belief also is that when Nolan pointed out the enemy and the guns to Lord Lucan, he was not directly telling him his objectives, but pointing out visible battlefield features, especially as this was not the first order, and Nolan might have believed that Lucan was aware of our guns being taken off. As a senior commander Lucan would be expected to be keeping tabs on events and the locations of friendly and enemy forces ?
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