Customer Reviews

The Reason Why: The Story of the Fatal Charge of the Light Brigade (Penguin Classic Military History)

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The Reason Why remains the classic study of the intriguing and sadly ludicrous episode in military history known as the Charge of the Light Brigade. The author, coming from an Army family and relying heavily on the writings of officers, largely neglects the experience of the private soldier and concentrates on the main characters in the drama. The story is dominated by these extraordinary personalities, serving as a reminder that war is an inherently human drama. On a second level, it is a criticism of the privilege system of the British Army of the mid-nineteenth century. In retrospect, one is hard pressed to believe such a purchase system could have ever won a victory at Waterloo. Intolerant aristocrats with no experience in battle, paltry leadership skills, and maddening unconcern for the soldiers under their command, bought their commissions. The Charge of the Light Brigade illuminated all of the faults of the system and proved that bravery alone was insufficient for victory. While human blunders led to the debacle that was the Charge of the Light Brigade, the British military system was intrinsically to blame.

The heart of this book concerns the relationship between society at large and the military. Military leaders feared nothing so much as public scrutiny, for widespread discontent could lead to political interference and, indeed, political control of the army. Whether in dealing with the incorrigible personalities of Lords Lucan and Cardigan or in covering up the series of blunders that resulted in the sacrificial ride of the Light Brigade, the military leadership acted with the overriding principle of preserving the Army from governmental control.

The embarrassments of the Crimean campaign proved uncontainable. A great source of difficulty was the incompetence of the Army staff; rank and privilege were held to be superior to actual experience. When these difficulties led to humiliation and defeat, the commanders' concern was not with the men they had lost nor the future of the war effort; to the exclusion of these, their main concern was that bad publicity would appear in Britain, that the public would hear of the lack of success, that the House would begin to ask questions of the military leadership, that the press would begin to criticize the Army. This great fear of political interference was realized in the aftermath of the Crimean War. The author portrays this as the one positive effect engendered by the War effort. A new era of military reform was born in Britain, Europe, and America. Experience now became a prerequisite for command, and officers were trained in staff colleges. The author's final point is that, above all, the treatment of the private soldier changed as the military system was humanized to some degree. Her assertion that at the end of the Crimean War the private soldier was regarded as a hero seems rather bold, but it is clear that he was no longer seen as a nonhuman tool of his commanders' designs.

Woodham-Smith presents, in minute detail, the wages of placing social rank over experience, and even competence. British military history follows a disturbing trend. War starts, Brits get trounced upon, influx of fresh talent and new ideas comes (along with, sometimes, timely intercession by allies), British return to triumph. Woodham-Smith attributes this pattern to the notion in the higher ranks of the army (a notion espoused by the Duke of Wellington himself, pip pip!), that nobility ensures, if not competence, at least loyalty.

The price of this notion, is, of course, massive death, but because the massive death does not happen to the nobility, nobody important really minds. This is one reason the Charge of the Light Brigade, with which _the Reason Why_ primarily deals, was so different, and worthy of eulogizing in prose and song (Alfred, Lord Tennyson, by the way, appears absolutely nowhere in this text)--those dying, those paying the price for the Army's obsession with aristocracy, were aristocrats themselves.

Woodham-Smith manages to trace the careers of two utterly unsympathetic characters--Cardigan and Lucan--in a fascinating manner. This is no small feat, considering the reader will probably want, by the end of _the Reason Why_ to reach back in time and shake both of them, and maybe smack them around a bit.

Again, Cecil Woodham-Smith proves herself a master of the historian's craft, and produces a well-researched, thorough and driving account of what is probably the stupidest incident in modern military history.

The Crimean War changed so much about how war is waged--the treatment of prisoners and wounded being tops on the list of reforms brought about in the wake of the debacle. _The Reason Why_ is an excellent account, and should be required reading for anybody with even a remote interest in military history, or European history in general.

The Charge of the Light Brigade on the 25th October 1854 was one of the three famous engagements that formed the Battle of Balaklava. The Charge, the most famous of all military blunders, was barely over before the process of transforming it into myth began. Accusations, counter-accusations, legal actions and patriotic poetry created more obscuring smoke and dust than the infamous Russian guns. Cecil Woodham Smith traces the careers of two of the major players: Lords Lucan and Cardigan, the brothers-in-law from hell, whose vanity, arrogance and (at least in the case of Cardigan) incompetence, inexperience and crass stupidity, contributed to the fatal Charge. Almost 40 years of peace, and the reactionary influence of the Duke of Wellington, had left the British army in a parlous state of unreadiness and bureaucratic confusion when the call came to defend Turkey against the Russians. The choice of the aged, gentle, inexperienced and unassertive Raglan, as leader of the expeditionary army, only made a bad situation worse. (For a rather more sympathetic portrayal of Raglan, as victim of an inefficient military system, criminally disorganised commissariat and unreasonable government, see "The Destruction of Lord Raglan" by Christopher Hibbert.) A more recent study, "The Charge" by Mark Adkin, provides a detailed and well-illustrated account of the events leading to the Charge of the Light Brigade. Adkin challenges traditional views , including parts of Cecil Woodham Smith's account. Particular attention is given to the role played by Captain Nolan (the messenger). Adkin suggests that Nolan may have deliberately misled Lucan and Cardigan as to Raglan's real intention. Whatever the truth, which is of course unknowable, "The Reason Why" is a genuine classic and an excellent introduction to a fascinating subject.

I have vivid memories of business-major friends spending hours memorizing The Art of War as a philosophical basis for their future careers. I suppose there's something to be said for that, but I always felt they'd have been better served by reading real military history. Without minimizing the ordeals of those who have been in battle, I think military history can very easilly be viewed as a study of management under extreme circumstances with extraordinarilly high stakes.

The Reason Why is a perfect case in point. Probably no war was ever more mismanaged than the Crimean War, and here, we are able to view this in detail.

The personalities described in this book, and their relationships amongst one another read like a case study from an advanced Human Resources textbook. The hideous communication gaps in the field, which ultimately led to the charge of the light brigade, were a result of volatile temperments, assumptions, and poorly worded instructions.

When you read this book, do not fail to notice how the circumstances of the charge are similar to what you see in any workplace you've ever seen. Do not fail to learn the lessons of the charge when you go to work to manage your department.

At the battle of Balaclava during the Crimean war, two incompetent, megalomaniacal aristocrats led a brigade of cavalry into a deadly gauntlet of Russian artillery. The charge of the Light Brigade has been immortalized by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Cecil Woodham-Smith seeks to explain how such a tragedy occured.

Lord Lucan and Lord Cardigan were brothers-in-law who detested each other. Each possessed deep character flaws. To make matters worse, neither had led as much as a single soldier in battle and were completely unfit for command. Yet, British army command was based on social rank, not experience, thus these two supercilious fools were to attain positions of power that inevitably led to slaughter.

Lucan was appointed divisional command of calvary while Cardigan received command of the light brigade. Two people completely incapable of working together would comprise a superior/subordinate relationship. Woodham-Smith provides interwoven biographies of both which culminate on that fateful day of 1854.

The Reason Why: The Story of the Fatal Charge of the Light Brigade is an excellent book. Swiftly-paced, well-written, and suspenseful, Woodham-Smith's effort contains that quintessential British literary charm found in historical works of mid-20th century and earlier. It's a charm which lends itself to extended and pleasurable reading. As a history buff, I can't get enough of it and appreciate the abundance I found here. 5+ stars.

Cecil Woodham-Smith's story of the Charge of the Light Brigade is the biography of two men: Lords Lucan and Cardigan; brothers-in-law whose hatred for each other was surpassed only by arrogance and ineptitude as officers. Woodham-Smith's book is the story of two men cradled by an absurd system of rank and class, who came together as two of the highest-ranking officers in one of the worst-run campaigns in British military history, which resulted in one of the most legendary blunders in all of military history.

In the lifetimes of Lucan and Cardigan (the late eighteenth and early nineteeth century), the best way to get ahead in the British Army was to purchase your rank. The purchase system, as it was called, was basically a way for England's wealthy classes to keep the most powerful positions in the army for themselves, and exclude those individuals who were not of the same social stratum. This system was supported by Britain's greatest military mind, the Duke of Wellington, who, it is explained, somehow managed to hide the deficiencies of the system behind his military brilliance. However, by the time Lucan and Cardigan came into a position of authority, Wellington had long since passed away, none of the high officers involved in the Crimean campaign had heard a shot fired in anger, and the only combat-experienced officers in the British Army (those who had served in India) were unwanted.

The biography portion of the book gets a little bit cumbersome at times, especially for those of us who aren't entirely familiar with the British nobility system, but it provides an interesting backstory to the disaster in the Crimea. How two men so completely arrogant and inept came to a position of power in the British Army is shocking, especially when one considers that it was widely known that neither man was fit to command cavalry squadrons, let alone brigades and divisions.

Ultimately, Woodham-Smith's argument is effective: the purchase system, coupled with the British class system, was ripe for a disaster. By allowing incompetency to buy its way up the ranks while more competent solders were bypassed and more experienced soldiers were shunned, it was only a matter of time until the British experienced a debacle such as Balaclava and the entire Crimean Campaign. Unfortunately for the British, it took two spectaculary arrogant and stupid men to breed such a disaster, and when it finally happened, it happened in spectacular fashion.

Cecil Woodham-Smith has done a remarkable job of explaining the events that led up to one of military history's most celebrated bungles. The biggest culprit was Britain's "purchase" system of advancement, whereby, wealthy, inexperienced, and even incompetent men could rise to the head of a regiment ahead of seasoned, more qualified men. (The chief advocate of this system was the Duke of Wellington himself.) The reader will be introduced to two of the products of this system, Lord Lucan and Lord Cardigan (the man the sweater was named after), brothers-in-law that despised authority and each other, both of whom played significant roles on the fatal day. You will even learn some facts about the Irish potato famine of the 1840s. All in all, this is an enlightening and entertaining book.

I read Woodham-Smith's objective (and thoroughly appalling) account of the Potato Famine, "The Great Hunger," many years ago, and promptly read everything else of hers that I could get my hands on. I think this is her best book: by focussing on the people involved, their relationships, and how they found themselves in a situation they were pathetically incapable of dealing with, she's put together a thorough but lively account of what led up to the Light Brigade cataclysm. Not only is it an admirable piece of historical research and writing, but the book has considerable resonance today: stupidity, arrogance, and personal feuds in high places led to a disaster, and they could do so again -- but now the stakes are potentially much higher.

"The Reason Why" by Cecil Woodham-Smith and written in 1954 came as a recommendation through a friend of mine who is currently a major in the British Army. My familiarity with the Charge of the Light Brigade, which occurred during the British, French, and Turkish campaign against the Russians during the Crimean War up until reading this book was lifted from visual snippets from my childhood when my dad would watch the 1936 Hollywood production with Errol Flynn, by the same name, but taking place during the wrong war for the wrong reasons with all the wrong characters, and the often quoted Tennyson poem from which the title originates.

"Their's not to make reply,
Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred"

I'm glad I read this book and straightened out my truly twisted sense of British history on this one. I also learned a great deal more. This book is a masterpiece and I will feebly attempt to explain why. To understand what really happened during the Battle of Balaclava, Woodham-Smith starts to illustrate the political and military culture within Britain starting just after the turn of the Century and then directly after the British victory over Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815. It is very important to understand that British officers did not attend formal professional military schools nor did they move up through the ranks, they bought their commissions and either learned in the field, engaged in self-study if they were interested in subjects such as warfare, or they lead and managed men based on instinct. Officership was entrusted to and required of only the upper social strata -- those who had a stake in the country were those best fit to lead the military, and more importantly were those less likely to turn the military against the social elite, themselves. This was how the stability of the British aristocracy was balanced and maintained -- in peacetime it works -- the military is not going to over-throw the country. During times of war -- it also works since the military with it's sabre now unsheathed, is typically sent abroad. When sound military leaders emerge and victories are secured, the system is self ratifying. When defeats occur abroad, however, the facts can be easily distorted to hide the incompetence of the officer elite and then too the system ratifies itself, or the aristocracy quietly takes care of it's own. The reason why, not the title but the reason the Light Brigade trotted ceremoniously, not galloped, into the valley of death had everything to do with why the British system of officership was a failure and must be changed.

The book is a masterpiece because it combines the domestic sagas of a Jane Austen novel complete with social circles, sex-scandals, and racial prejudices into a great discription of the reality of a military campaign in progress. Not just from the tactical descriptions of the battles as they were set-up and ensued but the logistics of supporting the infantry and the cavalry to get to those battles. After she describes in great detail the unlikely British victory at the Battle of Alma she quotes the Duke of Wellington who said, "Next to a battle lost, there is nothing more dreadful than a battle won", and from her descriptions of the pain and human suffering inflicted on both sides, the Duke was right. Yet Woodham-Smith adds even more to this book, the pure high drama of military incompetence at it's highest as Lord Raglan unwitting observes a battle unfold from his perch deep behind Russian, the enemy, lines. And of Lord Lucan, who want's to be in charge but is never in the right place at the right time. And to the Charge itself, when Captain Edward Nolan, who carried the charge order to Lord Cardigan, and who in a moment of his own clarity, the coup d'oeil that he himself had written about in the calvary manuals he had penned, gallops to the front of the charge to correct Cardigan's fatal misinterpretation of the charge and is ironically cut down by canon fire just before being able to divert the Light Brigade's direction away from the valley of death. High drama, ferocious battle, scandal, intrigue, incompetence, and an outcome that would forever change the way we train our military officers. A must read for every member of the military -- grunt to general officer, for every history buff, and for those who just like to poke fun at the British way of doing business or to understand why it is they do business their way.

Theirs not to reason why
Theirs but to do an die.
Into the valley of death
Rode the 600.
------------- Alfred Lord Tennyson

So went Tennyson's heroic poem "Charge of the Light Brigade". Every School boy used to know it. But few know who ordered and led the light brigade of cavalry to slaughter in the Crimea in 1854.

It was in fact a British aristocrat named James Thomas Brudenell, the duke of Cardigan (yes, the sweater's named after him). The story goes he fell off his horse as a child and injured his brain but not his birthright nor bank account with which he bought command of the light brigade.

The charge into the Russian cannon was a mistake. His sail to the crimea was so ill-prepared that his horses arrived half starved and his men sick and hungry. Of the 600 who rode out, Cardigan included, only 200 returned, all wounded except for Cardigan who strode his horse in lordly style up the defile and back to return unscathed to his yacht in the harbor.

Real history here? Likely mostly. Brudenell was a stupid martinet, much despised, bitterly ridiculed in the press. He was relieved of his command and the British policy of buying commands changed. Other versions of the event can be had, too. Read both sides with skepticism