Devil Doc
When Death smiles, Corpsmen smile back
It was on this day in 1854 that a British light brigade attempted to charge the Russian troops during the Battle of Balaclava, but the order for the charge was misunderstood. The army commander wanted the troops to storm up the hill to take out the cannons at that position, but the cavalry commander thought they were supposed to storm down the hill into the valley. And so he led more than 600 men into the worst possible position. They were surrounded and roundly defeated. But though it was a failure, it wasn't even that great a disaster. Fewer than 200 of the almost 700 men died.
The defeat might have been forgotten, but a journalist named William Howard Russell witnessed the charge, and he wrote a dramatic story about it for the London Times, emphasizing the bravery of the soldiers thrown into a hopeless situation. He left out the fact that their hopeless situation was caused by an error.
The poet Alfred Tennyson read the article in his house on the Isle of Wight about three weeks later, and he immediately decided to write a poem, which became "The Charge of the Light Brigade," which begins, "Half a league, half a league, / Half a league onward, / All in the valley of Death / Rode the six hundred." It also contains the famous lines, "Theirs not to reason why, / Theirs but to do and die."
Copies of the poem were rushed into print and distributed among the soldiers on the battlefield. And even though the Crimean War was unpopular at the time, the poem became a kind of national anthem about self-sacrifice and duty.
One of the only recordings we have of Tennyson's voice is a wax cylinder recording of him reading "The Charge of the Light Brigade" in 1890, two years before his death. His funeral, in 1892, was a huge state affair, and the aisles were full of veteran survivors of that famous charge.
Doc.
The defeat might have been forgotten, but a journalist named William Howard Russell witnessed the charge, and he wrote a dramatic story about it for the London Times, emphasizing the bravery of the soldiers thrown into a hopeless situation. He left out the fact that their hopeless situation was caused by an error.
The poet Alfred Tennyson read the article in his house on the Isle of Wight about three weeks later, and he immediately decided to write a poem, which became "The Charge of the Light Brigade," which begins, "Half a league, half a league, / Half a league onward, / All in the valley of Death / Rode the six hundred." It also contains the famous lines, "Theirs not to reason why, / Theirs but to do and die."
Copies of the poem were rushed into print and distributed among the soldiers on the battlefield. And even though the Crimean War was unpopular at the time, the poem became a kind of national anthem about self-sacrifice and duty.
One of the only recordings we have of Tennyson's voice is a wax cylinder recording of him reading "The Charge of the Light Brigade" in 1890, two years before his death. His funeral, in 1892, was a huge state affair, and the aisles were full of veteran survivors of that famous charge.
Doc.