Hello, on November the 14th 1854, WHO Russell, in the Times newspaper, reported on a minor

cavalry skirmish in the Crimean War.

Quote, they swept proudly past, glittering in the morning sun, in all the pride and splendor

of war.

We could hardly believe the evidence of our senses, surely that handful of men were not going

to charge an army in position.

A distance of 1200 yards, a whole line of the enemy belched forth from 30 iron mouths,

a flood of smoke and flame through which hissed the deadly balls.

Their flight was marked by instant gaps gaps in our ranks by dead men and horses by steeds

flying wounded or riderless across the plane.

This is the charge of the Light Brigade, an event of no military significance that's

become iconic in the British imagination, because of its aristocratic courage, its glorious

failure and its spectacular incompetence.

It helped to provoke the resignation of a Prime Minister, it changed British attitudes

to war and the soldiers who fought in them, and it inspired Alfred Tennyson to write

all in the Valley of Death Road the 600.

With me to discuss the charge of the Light Brigade, I'll solve David, visiting Professor

of Military History at the University of Hull, true detail, fellow in English literature

at Clare Hall Cambridge, and Mike Brurs, lecturer in modern history at the University of

Oxford and a fellow of Lady Margaret Hall.

Mike Brurs, the Crimean War is not that well known, it was the only major war in Europe

between Waterloo and the First World War, and it was played for big stakes.

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