The Charge of the Light Brigade

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.6 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 10 January 2008

⏱️ 43 minutes

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Charge of the Light - an event of no military significance that has become iconic in the British historical imagination. On November 14th 1854 The Times newspaper reported on a minor cavalry skirmish in the Crimean War: “They swept proudly past, glittering in the morning sun in all the pride and splendour of war... At the distance of 1200 yards the whole line of the enemy belched forth, from thirty iron mouths, a flood of smoke and flame through which hissed the deadly balls. Their flight was marked by instant gaps in our ranks, by dead men and horses, by steeds flying wounded or riderless across the plain”.This is the debacle of the Charge of the Light Brigade, which made little difference to the Crimean War yet has become deeply embedded in British culture. It helped to provoke the resignation of a Prime Minister and it profoundly changed British attitudes to war and to the soldiers who fought in them. It also brought censorship to bear on previously uncensored war reporting and inspired Alfred, Lord Tennyson to sit down and write “All in the Valley of Death rode the six hundred”.With Mike Broers, Lecturer in Modern History at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall; Trudi Tate, Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge; Saul David, Visiting Professor of Military History at the University of Hull

Transcript

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0:35.4	Sounds.
0:36.4	Hello, on November the 14th, 1854, W.H Russell in the Times newspaper reported on a minor cavalry skirmish in the Crimean War.
0:46.0	They swept proudly past, glittering in the morning sun in all the pride and
0:51.2	splendour of war. We could hardly believe the evidence of our senses.
0:55.6	Surely that handful of men were not going to charge an army in position.
1:00.4	At the distance of 1,200 yards the whole line of the enemy belched forth from 30 iron mouths,
1:06.2	a flood of smoke and flame through which hissed the deadly balls.
1:10.4	Their flight was marked by instant gaps in our ranks by dead men and horses by steeds flying
1:15.7	wounded or riderless across the plane.
1:18.6	This is the charge of the Light Brigade, an event of no military significance that's become iconic in the British imagination
1:24.6	because of its aristocratic courage, its glorious failure and its spectacular
1:29.1	incompetence. It helped to provoke the resignation of a Prime Minister, it changed British attitudes to war and the soldiers who fought in them,
1:36.5	and it inspired Alfred Tennyson to write,
1:39.5	All in the Valley of Death, rode the 600.
1:42.0	With me to discuss the charge of a Light Brigade, I saw Valley of Death Road the 600.
1:42.5	With me to discuss the Charge of a Light Brigade are Saul David, visiting professor
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