CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE.

Bush Advocate, Volume XXIV, Issue 25, 19 April 1912, Page 7

CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE.

NEW LIGHT ON HEROIC BLUNDER. Press Assn—By telegraph— Copyright LONDON, March 6. An extremely important memorandum by Lord Cardigan, the leader of the Light Brigade, has just been published. Lord Cardigan's account of the famous charge was written for Mrs Norton, an authoress, .and a copy was given to Major-General Alfred Light, who died last year. The document throws an entirely new light on the circumstances which led up to famous charge. ]x>rd Cardigan says : "The Brigade was suddenly ordered to mount, upon which I sent one of my aides-de-camp to reconnoitre the ground. Lord Luean then came in front of my Brigade, and said: 'Lord Cardigan, you will attack the Russians in the battery.' I said: 'Certainly, my lord; but allow me to point out to you that there is a battery in front, a battery on each flank, and that the ground is covered with Russian riflemen.' Lord Lucan answered: 'I cannot help that; it is Lord Uaglan's positive order that the Light Brigade is to attack the enemy,' upon which he ordered the 11th Hussars back to support the 17th Lancers. After advancing about eighty yards, a shell fell within reach of my horse's feet, and' Captain Nolan, who was riding across the front, returned with his arm up, through the intervals of the Brigade. I led straight down to the battery without seeing anybody else in front of me. 1 had to restrain some of my officers, who got very much excited within eighty yards of the battery by the heavy fire. "I led into the battery .and through the Russian guns, limber carriages, and ammunition waggons in the rear.; I rode within twenty yards of the line of Russian cavalry,'was attacked by two Cossacks, slightly wounded 'by their lances, a.nd with difficulty got away from them, they trying to surround me. On arriving at the (battery, through which I had led, I. found no part of the Brigade. "I rode slowly up the hill .and met General Scarlett. I said to him, 'What do you think, General, of after such a.n order being brought to us which 'has destroyed the Light Brigade, the officer riding to the rea.r and screaming like a woman?' Sir John Scarlett replied, 'Do not say any more, for 1 have ridden over his body.' 'iLord Lucan was present at the conversation. 1 then rode to the place from which we had turned off, and found all my Brigade there, and upon having them counted, that there were 193 mounted men out of 670. ' I immediately rode to Lord Raglan to make my report, who said in a very angry way, 'What do you mean, sir,

by attacking a battery in front, contrary to' all the usages of warfare and the custom of the Service?' Upon which [ said, 'My lord, I hope you will not blame me, for I received my orders to attack from my superior in front of the troops. I then narrated ■what I had dome as described above. The Charge of the Light Brigade on]y lasted twenty minutes." <, The account materially differs from that generally accepted. There has not previously been given any account of a personal interview between Lord Luoan, the Commander of the Cavalry Division, and Loird Cardigan before the charge. The commonly-accepted version is as follows: —That Captain Nolan, Lord Lucan's aide-de-camp, came to Lord Cardigan with a message, "The Light Brigade will advaaice." Lord Cardigan asked what was to be his objective, and Captain Nolan, pointing with his sword to the Russian battery in front, said, in the presence of the troops, "My lord, there are your enemy." The soldierly honor of Lord Cardigan was stung, and he immediately ordered the advance of the Brigade "into the valley of death." Captain Nolan, «, hot-headed Irishman, seeing that a disastrous misunderstanding had occurred, rode across the front of the brigade, and, with gestures of his sword, endeavored to divert them to their true objective, which was the right flank of the Russians. Me w/as, however, inistantaaieously killed; but the stiffened muscles kept him on his horse, and he rode, a dead man, through the ranks .of the brigade, with his sword-arm uplifted, as Lord Cardigan describes. Lord Cardigan's words, that he rode "screaming like a woman," however, seems to show that life, though not consciousness, remained for a season. The new version vindicates the memory of Captain Nolan. If it ds accepted, it shows that the blame for the blunder rests on Lord Luean himself. Nolan's share was confined to the attempt to direct the brigade to its true objective.