Saturday, March 1, 2014

Balaklava - 160 Years Later

Reports of Russian Occupation of Crimea describe columns of Russian military vehicles passing by a customs check point at Balaklava near Sevastopol. A hundred and sixty years earlier, during the Crimean War, Balaklava was the main encampment of the British forces. The war, which pitted French, British and Ottoman forces against Tsarist Russia, ended in Russian defeat.

Russia under Tsar Alexander III recognized the need for reform of the Russian military. Great Britain, whose military forces competed with Russia for the incompetence prize, was victorious and therefore did no serious rethinking of military tactics and strategy until 1914.

The most famous account of the war was Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem, "Charge of the Light Brigade," which celebrated a glorious, courageous cavalry charge that accomplished nothing except the loss of most of the brigade. Tennyson's highly romantic poem is worth rereading:

The Charge of the Light Brigade
Half a league, half a league,
  Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death,
  Rode the six hundred.
'Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns' he said:
Into the valley of Death
  Rode the six hundred.

'Forward, the Light Brigade!'
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldiers knew
  Some one had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
  Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
  Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
  Rode the six hundred.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turned in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army while
  All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel'd from the sabre-stroke
Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
  Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
  Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
  All the world wonder'd.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
  Noble six hundred!



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