The Charge of the Light Brigade - IOT

The Crimean war was fought between Russia on one side and an alliance on the other side with among others the Turks and the Brits. Most of the fighting took place on the Crimean peninsula and this was where the British experience their historic Charge of the Light Brigade, October 25th 1854. BBC's In Our Time had the Charge of the Light Brigade as its subject in the last show.

Melvyn Bragg, more stubbornly than in other shows where a historic event was discussed, put in a huge effort to get all the facts straight of how the charge went, who were involved and so on. Only when we have the complete picture on the table, we make a move on to how this event was received back in England.

It was received pretty quickly and rather effectively as the Times had a reporter on the scene of the war and there was no censorship - yet. Even though the war was won, this particular scrimmage was lost and took on a huge meaning as it was perceived as exemplary of what was wrong with how the war was fought, how the army was organized and in a way, how England was organized and developing from an aristocratic power into a modern industrialized liberal democracy. Lord Tennyson writes a famous poem about the charge and its effects are lasting, not on England alone.

More In Our Time
Albert Camus,
The Nicene Creed,
Four humor medicine,
The Sassanian Empire,
Mutations.