AC GRAYLING
On Wednesday 25th October 1854, the 4th and 13th Light Dragoons, 17th Lancers and 8th and 11th Hussars combined to create a cavalry unit known as the Light Brigade. Led by James Brudenell, the seventh Earl of Cardigan, they undertook an action so disastrous that it entered the annals of heroism and— courtesy of Alfred Tennyson—poetry. A series of mistakes made the Light Brigade, with the earl galloping at its head, charge the length of a valley directly into the mouths of more than 50 cannon and 20 battalions of Russian infantry. It is a part of the Crimean War just as memorable as Florence Nightingale walking the wards of Scutari Hospital, shedding the beams of her lamp into the painful nights.
The Light Brigade was shot to pieces; there were 278 dead, missing and wounded; 335 horses were killed; only 195 men survived with their mounts—less than half the force. Cardigan, who miraculously survived despite galloping the length of the “Valley of Death” in both directions, hacking at Russian troops as he went, afterwards took himself aboard his yacht in Balaclava harbour and had a champagne dinner.
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June 2017
 
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