The Charge of the Light Brigade – How one blunder birthed two immortal poems
On 25 October 1854, under a bleak Crimean sky, the British Light Brigade rode into legend—and into catastrophe. Six hundred and seventy-three cavalrymen, sabres flashing and hearts pounding, galloped down the Valley of Death at Balaklava. Their orders were confused, their fate sealed. Russian cannon fire thundered from three sides, cutting them down in ranks. Within twenty minutes, more than a third were dead or wounded.
The “blunder” that sent them charging the wrong guns became one of history’s most famous acts of military miscommunication. Yet out of that senseless carnage, two of the greatest Victorian poets—Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Rudyard Kipling—forged very different odes to courage, duty, and the shadow of command.
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Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade”
Tennyson was Poet Laureate when the news broke in The Times. Stirred by the dispatches describing the doomed heroism, he wrote “The Charge of the Light Brigade” almost immediately—within six weeks of the battle.
The poem, with its galloping rhythm and refrain “Half a league, half a league, half a league onward,” mirrors the pounding hooves and heartbeat of the charge itself.
He did not question command; he glorified obedience:
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
Tennyson’s verses transformed tragedy into anthem. In Victorian parlours, schoolrooms, and barracks, his words beat like a drum of patriotism—celebrating the valor of ordinary soldiers who followed orders into hell. It was both propaganda and poetry, comforting a nation that had begun to doubt its leaders.
The Charge of the Light Brigade
Lord Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson
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 dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Someone had blundered.
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
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of hell
Rode the six hundred.
Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered.
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right through the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reeled from the sabre stroke
Shattered and sundered.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell.
They that had fought so well
Came through 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 wondered.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!
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Kipling’s “The Last of the Light Brigade”
Forty years later, Rudyard Kipling picked up the story again—but this time, the horses had stopped galloping. Many of the surviving veterans of Balaklava were living in poverty, forgotten by the same public that once cheered them. Kipling’s 1891 poem, “The Last of the Light Brigade,” is not a hymn but a rebuke.
Where Tennyson’s verses thundered, Kipling’s stung:
“There were thirty million English who talked of England’s might,
There were twenty broken troopers who lacked a bed for the night.“
He directly invoked Tennyson—calling on the old laureate to use his fame to shame the nation into action. The poem worked; public sympathy surged, and Parliament grudgingly increased pensions for veterans. It was a rare case where poetry actually changed policy.
The Last of the Light Brigade by Rudyard Kipling
There were thirty million English who talked of England’s might,
There were twenty broken troopers who lacked a bed for the night.
They had neither food nor money, they had neither service nor trade;
They were only shiftless soldiers, the last of the Light Brigade.
They felt that life was fleeting; they knew not that art was long,
That though they were dying of famine, they lived in deathless song.
They asked for a little money to keep the wolf from the door;
And the thirty million English sent twenty pounds and four!
They laid their heads together that were scarred and lined and grey;
Keen were the Russian sabres, but want was keener than they;
And an old Troop-Sergeant muttered, “Let us go to the man who writes
The things on Balaclava the kiddies at school recites.”
They went without bands or colours, a regiment ten-file strong,
To look for the Master-singer who had crowned them all in his song;
And, waiting his servant’s order, by the garden gate they stayed,
A desolate little cluster, the last of the Light Brigade.
They strove to stand to attention, to straighten the toil-bowed back;
They drilled on an empty stomach, the loose-knit files fell slack;
With stooping of weary shoulders, in garments tattered and frayed,
They shambled into his presence, the last of the Light Brigade.
The old Troop-Sergeant was spokesman, and “Beggin’ your pardon,” he said,
“You wrote o’ the Light Brigade, sir. Here’s all that isn’t dead.
An’ it’s all come true what you wrote, sir, regardin’ the mouth of hell;
For we’re all of us nigh to the workhouse, an’ we thought we’d call an’ tell.
“No, thank you, we don’t want food, sir; but couldn’t you take an’ write
A sort of ‘to be continued’ and ‘see next page’ o’ the fight?
We think that someone has blundered, an’ couldn’t you tell ’em how?
You wrote we were heroes once, sir. Please, write we are starving now.”
The poor little army departed, limping and lean and forlorn.
And the heart of the Master-singer grew hot with “the scorn of scorn.”
And he wrote for them wonderful verses that swept the land like flame,
Till the fatted souls of the English were scourged with the thing called Shame.
They sent a cheque to the felon that sprang from an Irish bog;
They healed the spavined cab-horse; they housed the homeless dog;
And they sent (you may call me a liar), when felon and beast were paid,
A cheque, for enough to live on, to the last of the Light Brigade.
O thirty million English that babble of England’s might,
Behold there are twenty heroes who lack their food to-night;
Our children’s children are lisping to “honour the charge they made–”
And we leave to the streets and the workhouse the charge of the Light Brigade!
The italicised penultimate verse was included in the first publication in the St James’ Gazette but was omitted from the collected versions.
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The Last of the Light Brigade
The 13th Light Dragoons were among the most storied regiments in the British cavalry, remembered forever for their role in the Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaklava on 25 October 1854.
Positioned on the right flank of the first line, the Dragoons rode headlong into Russian artillery, sabres drawn, under a hail of cannon fire. Against impossible odds, they broke through the Russian guns and scattered enemy cavalry, but their numbers were too few to hold the ground they had taken. Forced to retreat under renewed attack, the regiment suffered heavy losses—three officers and 38 men killed.
Among the survivors was Lance-Sergeant Joseph Malone of E Troop, whose courage under fire earned him the Victoria Cross, Britain’s highest military honour. Those who returned to camp—tattered, smoke-stained, and exhausted—became living symbols of Victorian bravery, celebrated in verse and memorialised in early photography.
The Two Riders of Empire
Tennyson and Kipling shared the same empire but rode in opposite directions. Tennyson’s horse charged toward glory; Kipling’s limped toward guilt. Together, their poems map the moral journey of Britain’s 19th century—from proud expansion to uneasy conscience.
In “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” the heroism lies in obedience. In “The Last of the Light Brigade,” it lies in survival—and in the poet’s willingness to challenge power.
Between them stands that fateful valley in the Crimea, where brave men followed impossible orders into fire. They were immortalized not because they won, but because they rode anyway.
As Kipling reminds us, memory can be as fleeting as the smoke from a cannon—unless someone keeps writing.
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