Cecil Woodham-Smith - The Reason Why

This is a cracking history read. Cecil Woodham-Smith mined the archives, unpublished memoirs and long forgotten correspondence to retell the story of the Charge of the Light Brigade. What she brings to the story is context - and by this I don't mean the grand historical narrative of the clash of nation states and nineteenth century empires, but the context of the aristocratic world within which the Crimean War was fought and the Charge took place. It is a startlingly strange world. One where unbelievably wealthy aristocrats can do know wrong and bear no criticism. One where personal feuds are far more important than military success and Generals can lead their men to doom, but not fight with them. 

The Charge has often been discussed, and its principle figures are well known. All of them are odious, and all of them were terrible soldiers. Lord Cardigan, who commanded the Brigade and led the Charge is perhaps the most odious - that's certainly how Woodham-Smith portrays him. Vain, mean and prejudiced, its actually hard not to wish he had died under the Russian guns, or at least shot in a dark tent by his own men. But the latter would not have happened as Cardigan spent much of the War in luxury on his private yacht, missing important battles because of over-sleeping. 

Lord Lucan and Lord Raglan, are perhaps slightly less odious, though only just. Woodham-Smith would write an excellent history of the Irish Famine, but this earlier book also gives a brief account, not least because during Lucan's role as Lord Lieutenant of Mayo he evicted thousands of people during the Famine, surly condemning most of them to death. Lucan and Raglan are only slightly less awful than Cardigan, but they were also incompetent as were many of those in their class around them during the Crimea. Woodham-Smith's focus is on the Charge and the individuals in command, I'd have liked more on the British Army leadership's collective incompetence towards the whole force during the War, though perhaps Woodham-Smith's earlier book on Florence Nightingale rectifies this.

Woodham-Smith strongly implies that the communication failures that led to the Charge lie primarily in the personal hatreds at the heart of the aristocratic leadership. With her portrayal of Lord Cardigan as an incompetent buffoon she perhaps leads the reader to overly blame him as an individual for the disaster. Had the British Army got rid of Cardigan when they should have it is likely the disastrous Charge would not have taken place and we'd have all been spared that terrible patriotic poem. But the wider failures of the Army would likely still have happened, not least the failure to follow up the successes at Alma. 

That said, this is not really a book about the Crimean War, but the personalities and events that led to the Charge. As such there's surprisingly little about the ordinary soldier here. They usually appear as a victim of Cardigan's bullying and it would be interesting to read more on the War from their angle. Woodham-Smith also makes no attempt to explore the imperialist context of the war, or its consequences. But that was not her ambition. That said, this is great read - no matter how much you dislike the aristocracy and the ruling class they represented, you'll be shocked by Woodham-Smith's expose of their lives and behaviour here. Given the sort of people who ran the British Army, its seems unbelievable that the British ever had an Empire at all. As such this is an entertaining and infuriating read. But if you're looking for a deeper analysis you will have to go elsewhere.

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