IN THE NEWS
Today is the anniversary of the publication of Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem, The Charge of the Light Brigade. It struck me that this anniversary has more resonance than it did in previous years.
The Crimean War was Great Britain's great imperial sideshow. The issues were obscure, confused, and in short, peripheral to British interests. Of course, it started with the same patriotism and optimism that swell before every war, followed by clamor and alarm that can obscure how well the war effort is proceeding. Like our own current war, the Crimean campaign had its dramatic but unproductive siege, Sevastapol. More importantly for drawing contemporary parallels, the war started as a dispute between a Christian power, Russia, and a Muslim one, the Ottoman Empire. Religion and Realpolitik were entangled, and the conflict drew in outside powers, Britain in France, to defend the gates of Christian Europe.
Tennyson's poem had a privileged place in Victorian culture. It took a profoundly stupid military action, the charge at the battle of Balaclava, in a extremely questionable war, and turned it into a moment of romantic heroism. (Once again, as today, you have to always have to acknowledge the difference between the valor and skill of individual soldiers and the questionable judgment of those who command them.) Great Britain faced all the attendant surprises, setbacks, and mistakes that any world power suffers, plus an depeening responsibility for the administration of a growing number of colonies. The Charge of the Light Brigade, therefore, was the palliative for treating many of the anxieties and doubts Britons had about their imperial mission. However confused, bloody, or pointless today's struggle seemed, the 600 at Balaclava showed that there was a point to it all, even if was honorable slaughter in the face of impossible odds. Later generations would adopt a far more jaundiced view of Balaclava and the whole Crimean venture (as brilliantly lampooned in George Macdonald Fraser's Flashman At the Charge). At the time, however, few wanted to admit to themselves that, maybe, Crimea and other ventures were a bad idea, badly executed by buffoons and blowhards like Lord Cardigan.
Today, you might want to raise a glass in remembrance for the 600, the brutal fate they suffered, the orders they carried out in spite of the odds, and the good fortune we have of learning from the mistakes of others.
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