Charge Of The Light Brigade Essay

“The Charge of the Light Brigade” is a poem to celebrate the bravery and honor of the heroic soldiers who surrendered themselves to a greater cause. Throughout the poem Tennyson draws the reader to notice their courage, discipline, and willingness to trust in their commanders. The soldiers of the light brigade, knowing that their lives are in danger and might end soon, nevertheless follow their commander’s orders and charge at the enemy at the end of the valley. The mission is important and necessary for the success of the British campaign and these men take on all the artillery fire from all sides to follow through with their commander’s orders. Tennyson states clearly that this behavior deserves honor, and that the fame of these soldiers

deserves continuous veneration. This poem is the ample opportunity to display honor and bravery of the men that fought in this war. “Embracing courage without honor leads to a lost life and dread; but searching for honor with courage leads to a fulfilled life and purpose.”
According to Mark Connelly, “The Crimean War was a major upheaval in mid-Victorian Britain. It was, at first, supported vigorously by the British public and men flocked to the colours. The industrial revolution ensured that the war not only reflected developments in weapons, but was also reported as never before. Photography allowed the British public to see the actual battlefield and the electric telegraph allowed press men to wire home their reports, giving a much greater immediacy to information.”
To give a brief history of this war, also known as the Eastern War of 1853-1856, was when Russia was beaten by the team of France, the Ottoman Empire, the United Kingdom, and Sardinia.

Russia was expanding into the Danube region, which is now today Romania. The Danube region was under the Turkish control. Therefore, Turkey declared war on Russia in 1853. The French and the British entered in March 1854 due to the fear of the Russian expansion. They feared Russia would soon begin continuing pushing down, and then eventually try to expand into British India through Afghanistan. During the upcoming years to the war, France, Russia, and Britain were all fighting for the influence in the Middle East, but mostly with Turkey. Religious differences definitely played the biggest role in the Crimean War. The access to religious sites in the Holy Land caused most of the tension between Catholic France and Orthodox Russia for many years. Russia made an issue of the fact that the holy sites of Christianity such as The Crimean War was one of the first battles to use modern explosive naval shells, railroads, and telegraphs. The war was one of the first to be documented extensively in written reports and photographs. As the legend of the "Charge of the Light Brigade" demonstrates, the war quickly became an iconic symbol of logistical, medical and tactical failures and

mismanagement.
The prompt cause of this war was the denial of the Turks to acquire and obey Russian demands to protect Christians inside the Ottoman Empire. At the same time the French were supporting the rights of the Catholic Church over access to the Holy Places in Palestine, which created tension with the Russian championing of the Orthodox monks in the region. On the wider stage Britain was fearful of Russian expansion in Eastern Europe and any possible push towards the eastern Mediterranean. The Turks then declared war on September 23rd. On November 30th, the Russians demolished the Turkish fleet at Sinope. This caused the British and French to send warships to the area to fend off a possible Russian invasion. War between Russia and the British and French followed in March 1854. In September, the allies landed in the Crimea and besieged Sebastopol for a year. Before Sebastopol could be invested, the allies fought in a series of battles: Alma, Balaclava and Inkerman. The Charge of the Light Brigade was part of the Battle of Balaclava. Of the 600 cavalry men sent to attack the Russian positions, 247 were killed or wounded and over 500 horses died. The action was the result of a poorly-worded order from the British commander, Lord Raglan, and the vicious, and long-standing, quarrel between the British cavalry commander, Lord Lucan, and his subordinate in charge of the Light Brigade, Lord Cardigan. These threads combined to send the men charging down the wrong valley against the wrong objectives, thus incurring disastrous losses. The war then settled into a long siege of the Russia naval base at Sebastopol. As it dragged on, appalling administrative blunders were exposed in the British army. The reaction in the UK was a demand for professionalization, most famously achieved by Florence Nightingale, who gained worldwide attention for pioneering modern nursing while treating the wounded.
“Courage is a hard thing to figure. You can have courage based on a dumb idea or a mistake but you're not suppose to question adults, or your coach or your teacher because they make the rules. Maybe they know best, but maybe they don't. It all depends on who you are, where you come from. Didn't at least one of the 600 guys think about giving up and joining with the other side (Michael Oher is that one guy.) All his buddies area dead. I mean, valley of Death that's pretty salty stuff. That's why courage is tricky. Should you always do what others tell you to do? Sometimes you might not even know why you're doing something. I mean any fool can have courage. But honor, that's the real reason you either do something or you don't. It's who you are and maybe who you want to be. If you die trying for something important, then you have both honor and courage, and that's pretty good. I think that's what the writer was saying. That you should hope for courage and try for honor. And maybe even pray that the people telling you want to do have some too.”