The Charge of the Light Brigade
Reviewed by Dr Saul David, a freelance military historian. He is the author of five books, including the critically acclaimed The Homicidal Earl: The life of Lord Cardigan (1997) and Military Blunders (1997). His latest book, The Indian Mutiny, is published this September.
RATING: 6
UK, 1969
Director Tony Richardson
Screenwriters Charles Wood
Cinematographer David Watkin and Peter Suschitzky
Music John Addison
Cast Trevor Howard (Lord Cardigan), John Gielgud (Lord Raglan), David Hemmings (Captain Nolan), Harry Andrews (Lord Lucan), Jill Bennett (Fanny Duberly), Vanessa Redgrave (Clarissa Morris), Peter Bowles (Paymaster Captain Henry Duberly), Mark Burns (Captain William Morris)
Unlike Michael Curtiz's 1936 epic of the most famous cavalry charge in British military history (identically titled and starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland), Tony Richardson's superior offering never entirely crosses the boundary between fact and fiction. But, to keep the story bowling along, it is prepared to compress the chronology and accord the deeds of one historical figure to another.
Overbred nincompoops
Largely based on Cecil Woodham-Smith's bestselling book The Reason
Why, which put much of the blame for the ill-fated charge on the two
feuding brothers-in-law, Lords Lucan and Cardigan, the film takes a similar
anti-privilege line. It is no surprise that the director Tony Richardson,
one of the 1960s' original 'Angry Young Men', portrays almost all army
officers of the mid-Victorian period as lisping, overbred nincompoops
who had more money than sense. The exception to the rule – the film's
hero – is Captain Louis Nolan, a dedicated professional who had risen
through talent, not connection.
Much of the early part of the film concerns Nolan's bitter pre-war clashes with his commanding officer, Lord Cardigan. In fact, Nolan never served with the 11th Hussars, and the incidents actually took place between Cardigan and a number of other subordinates – the ludicrous 'Black Bottle Affair', for example, when Cardigan arrested a Captain Reynolds for drinking from an undecanted bottle of Moselle during a mess dinner.
Accurate and overdone
But, in general, Trevor Howard's portrayal of Cardigan as a snobbish
martinet who despised officers who, like Nolan, had served in India – usually because they were short of cash – is remarkably accurate. He could
easily have abused one officer, as he does in this film, with the words:
'Paymaster? That's not a rank it's a trade!'
Yet Gielgud's Lord Raglan, the commander of the British forces in the Crimea, is overdone. Yes, he did have a habit of referring to his allies, the French, as 'the enemy' (a legacy of the Napoleonic wars). And yes, he was prone to procrastination and a lack of clarity in his orders (the real cause of the disaster). But he was not the semi-senile blunderer that Gielgud so brilliantly, but mistakenly, depicts.
Crimean episode
The outbreak and early stages of the Crimean War are inevitably simplified.
There is no serious attempt to explain the strategic calculations that
prompted Britain to defend Turkey from Russian aggression (chiefly a desire
to prevent Russia from gaining access to the Mediterranean). Nor is the
first phase of the war – when the British and French armies landed in
Bulgaria – even mentioned.
The Crimean episode, however, is mostly well done. Soldiers did collapse from cholera and the effects of the sun during the first day's march. Mrs Fanny Duberly, the wife of the paymaster and an admirer of Cardigan, did accompany her husband on campaign. And Raglan did miss an opportunity to exploit his victory at the Alma by not unleashing his cavalry on the fleeing Russians.
'Attack what?'
The events leading up to the charge itself are also condensed. There
is no room for the two successful British actions that day: the charge
of the Heavy Brigade and the 'Thin Red Line'. But Raglan's two fatal orders
that precipitated the charge – the infamous Nos. 3 and 4 Orders – are
included verbatim.
The latter – 'The cavalry is to advance rapidly to the front to follow the enemy and try to prevent the enemy from carrying away the guns' – was particularly misleading. It made no mention of the Causeway Heights, the true target of the attack, and it is easy to see why Lucan (the cavalry commander) was confused.
'Attack what?' he asked Nolan, who had delivered the order. 'There, my lord, is your enemy,' replied an exasperated Nolan, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the heights. 'There are your guns.' The only guns that Lucan could see were down a Russian-infested valley to the north of the heights and, from that moment, the fate of the Light Brigade was sealed.
Errors and half-truths
All this is faithfully retold, as is the round of mutual recriminations
and blame-shifting that followed. But errors and half-truths are evident.
Raglan's intention was not, as the film suggests, for the Light Brigade
to outflank the guns by advancing up the south valley. Cardigan was not
actually present during the fatal exchange between Nolan and Lucan. And
Raglan did not tell his senior staff officer, 'Airey, you have lost the
Light Brigade!'
More easily forgivable are minor anomalies such as the presence of only two regiments during the charge (there were five) and the kitting-out of the 17th Lancers in scarlet breeches (only the 11th Hussars wore 'cherrybum' overalls).
Image: Vinmag Archive
