Stuff You Should Know - The Charge of the Light Brigade

Episode Date: January 27, 2026

The Charge of the Light Brigade is a famous poem about a lesser famous military action during the Crimean War. Tune in today for a rare SYSK walk through wartime history.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hey, everybody, it's Michelle Williams, host of Checking In on the Black of Fetka, Podcast Network. And on my podcast, we talk mental health, healing, growth, and everything you need to step into your next season, whole and empowered. New Year, Real You. Listen to checking in with Michelle Williams from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Saturday, May 2nd, country's biggest stars will be in Austin, Texas. Presented by Capital One. Tickets are on sale now. Get yours before they sell out at Ticketmaster.com. That's Ticketmaster.com. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of IHeart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and Jerry's here, too, just cracking us up. And this is Stuff You Should Know.

That's right. Kind of a rare, detailed war battle episode. Yeah, we don't do a lot of war stuff. Yeah, a little bit here and there. A little here or there, yeah. But usually it's like some crazy commando story like... You're right. And usually where the Nazis are getting beat up because we love that narrative. Yeah, we usually don't like say, hey, let's dive into some specific battles of the Crimean War.

Right. But for all of you fans of the Crimean War who didn't look at the title, you're like, oh, I know what this one's about. Of course, it's about the charge of the Light Brigade. And if you were an English student, sorry, an English student, and you studied poetry, you're probably familiar with the poem The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred Kama Lord Tennyson. I think you're supposed to say the comma out loud from what I understand. Yeah, like the colon. But that was a real deal. That really happened.

And it's a really complicated, complex story that's also extremely fascinating and totally fascinating and totally. nuts at the end. Yeah. So I guess we should probably set up a little bit about just what the Crimean War was. Yeah. Yeah. So the Crimean War was over the course of a few years from 1853 to 56. It was in Europe, fought between Russia and Britain, France, and Turkey, which was part of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey was, that is. And it was known for a lot of things. There were some, you know, interesting people that came out of this, ended up being super famous. and a lot of lives lost, but notably, most of the half a million lives lost, like maybe as many as 75% died from disease and things like that instead of on the battlefield.

Yeah, which is terrible. That was a reason that two now famous women showed up to help. One was Florence Nightingale, who's very well known as the Lady with the Lamp. She showed up and started using like evidence-based treatments, and apparently the mortality rate at these horrible field hospitals went from 41% when she showed up down to 2% at the end of the war. It's pretty impressive. And then there's a less well-known woman named Mary Seacole who was born in Jamaica. She was mixed race. And she appealed to be sent to the Crimean Front like Florence Nightingale was turned down.

So she went herself and showed up and made huge gains in saving lives there as well. Yeah, and it was the first big war covered by the press. Notably, Tolstoy got his start there, you know, writing about the dispatches from the front, basically. Right. It's also, weirdly, where the balak lava comes from that, you know, what we in America might call a ski mask. Or a scary mask. or a scary mask or a cat burglar mask. It comes from here.

So lots of sort of little weird things. And obviously, like you mentioned, the charge of the Light Brigade, the very famous poem. Right. But the whole thing started over a religious argument, basically in the Ottoman Empire, wherein for several years the French Catholics were battling it out

with a Russian Orthodox church over who controlled the holy sites, the Christian holy sites within the Ottoman Empire, which really ticked off. Zard Nicholas I first. Yeah. So he also, we should say the Ottoman Empire was very powerful for a while, but we're joining them at the, at the twilight, maybe even the end of their empire, which I think broke up in World War I, and this was about 60 years before that. So the Ottoman Empire was not in a very good position to defend itself against Zard Nicholas I, who's like, oh yeah, well, I'm going to invade part of your Ottoman Empire. And I'm going to invade what's in.

modern-day Romania, Moldavia and Wallachia, which is where Dracula's from. And he invaded, and again, the Ottoman Empire, I think they were known as the Sick Man of Europe, there was not a lot they can do about it. So France and Britain came to their aid, and not for any necessarily altruistic reason, but because they were not happy with the idea of Russian expanding itself into Europe, and in particular, getting a foothold in the Mediterranean. And when they set up shop in Wallachia and Moldavia, they were on the Danube, which would take them straight to the Mediterranean. So France and Britain became concerned,

and they're like, we'll back you up, Ottoman Empire. Yeah, boy, the more things change, the more they say the same, huh? Yeah, it's true, man. It's crazy when you see this stuff that happened back in the 1850s, and you can draw sort of a straight line to things that happened today. in Russian expansion. It's just, it's really interesting stuff. Yeah. But all that to say is that what is now, like you said, modern day Romania, he now occupied. France and Britain got their hackles up. They sent warships to the Black Sea in 1853, declared war on Russia in 1854. And the first big,

you know, this could have ended at all. The first big major defeat against that English and French Alliance was at Odessa there in the Black Sea. And Tsar Nicholas withdrew, basically that land he had occupied, he pulled back out in July of 1854. And that could have been the end of it. But the Frenches and the Brits said, you know what? Now we want to punish them for their aggression. So we're going to go on the offensive. And that turned out to be a bit of a boondoggle. It did. Nations do that kind of thing, though, especially when they soundly defeat an expansionist nation, they often want to make an example to be like, don't try that again. This is not like completely out of left field, but yeah, the way it turned out was not great. And they chose to invade Russia

by landing on the Crimean Peninsula. And they chose Crimea for a couple of reasons. One, it's where Russia's naval ships were stationed that they would use to take over the Mediterranean if they could get a foothold there. And then two, they couldn't make it to mainland Russia because Germany was neutral at the time. They were the Austro-Prussian, I guess, kingdom. They're like, you can't send your troops through here to get to Russia. They're like, okay, we'll go attack Crimea. And then there was one other thing about Crimea, Chuck. It offered a way to attack navely, which is what the Brits favored. And it also offered at the same time a way to attack on land, which is what the French preferred. And so...

Surf and turf. Exactly. It was the surf and turf strategy. And, yeah, the Crimean Peninsula served all of those purposes. Yeah, which was mainland Ukraine, by the way. So I guess the first battle, or, well, not the first battle, I guess this would be the second battle we're talking about. And the one that really sets up the story of the charge of the light brigade is the siege of,

you know, in California, there's a town called Sebastopol with a B. Yeah, my aunt lives there. In Sebastopol? Mm-hmm. It's quite nice. It is. Lovely wooded northern California. Yes.

I've been there myself. Okay. But this is with a V, and I don't know if it's probably not pronounced Sevastopol. It's probably Sebastopol, would be my guess. Oh, you know what? I've never heard anybody say it like that, but I'll bet you're right. I'll bet a bunch of Ukrainians just stood up and went, yeah. I wonder if there's any connection there, too.

I was going to look that up. Surely. That'd be what heck of a coincidence. I agree. Somebody just put a bunch of letters together. They're like, Sebastopol. Also, the name of a good solo album by J. Ferrar of Uncle Tuplo and Sunbolt is Sebastopol. Nice.

With a B or a V? With a B. Okay. Wait, did you say B or V because they rhyme? B as in, boy, do we need to get back to the topic at hand. V as in V? V as in boy? All right.

It's September 1854. we've got a little over 60,000 troops total from this alliance, 30,000 from the French, about 26,000 British troops and about 4,500 Turks. They land on the coast of Crimea and start to hike inland for the turf section, 30 miles in, and that port city of Sevastopol is where they're headed. Yeah. So I think that's where the Russians had their, they're, that navy that they would invade the Mediterranean with.

And the Russian commander was a guy named Prince Alexander Sergeyevich Menshikov. Great name. Russians have great names. Right. There was, I think, an initial skirmish after they landed at Kalamita Bay. But it didn't really count as the first battle. First battle was the Battle of the Alma River. And that's where Menshikov decided like, okay, this is where we're going to start to take on this alliance force.

and it was a pretty serious battle. I think both sides lost many thousands of men, but the Brits and the French were not turned back. The Russians retreated instead. That's right. And this is when a really interesting decision comes about. They were worried that there were more Russian armies coming in to that port city to help defend their Navy, I guess. And so they said, all right, here's what we're going to do.

we're going to do the old hook and ladder and we're going to take a wide path around the city so we can attack from the south. What they didn't know was that at that time it was very poorly defended there so if they would have if they would have just kept charging forward it probably would have

been over pretty quickly. But since they took the long way around which they thought was a decent strategy, that gave the Russians the chance to re-fortify basically and stock up with men and supplies. Yeah. And they couldn't have known that that the city wasn't very well defended,

but everybody had fled, and apparently they sunk a bunch of ships in the harbor to keep the British Navy from being able to land there. Yeah, but isn't part of war trying to know that stuff? Yes. And ironically, you would use the light brigade for that kind of stuff to scout and spy and report back. Okay.

So when you said they couldn't have known what you really meant was they didn't know because they didn't do it good. That's, yes. Okay. You're right. So for the siege of Sevastopol, not just the Russians set up and re-fortified the city, the British basically regrouped and they settled at a port town called Balaclava.

And it's about 10 miles south of Sevastopol. And like you said, that's where the headgear comes from or the name of it, because it actually doesn't just come from that town. It comes from this actual battle that happened there. So there's a road between Balaclava and Sevastopol, and they are, because they're connected, both sides need that for supplies, right? Yeah. So it's a really strategically important road. And before the Brits could try to take the road or secure it, the Russians decided to.

And they made a really risky move. They took some of their troops who were battling, because by this time the Brits and the French were now laying siege to. to Sevastopol, and the Russians were fighting them off, and the Russians took some of their troops and moved them around the siegers and put them squarely between the alliance forces sieging Sevastopol and the alliance forces at Balaclava on the road to try to take the road. It was a risky move, but it was also what they had to do to kind of cut the Brits off, the sieging Brits off from supplies 10 miles south at Balaclava.

That's right. So they attack these artillery positions of the Allies on the hills outside of Balaclava. It turned into a pretty chaotic battle scene there. And the Russians did pretty good at first. They had a lot of cavalry. They had a pretty substantial infantry there. And they captured these gun positions, these Turkish and British gun positions on that hilltop. And this is a place called Causeway Heights.

They tried next to take another town called Catecoy, and that was basically the last stop before you got to Bala Cava. But this is where the Scots come in, the legendary 93rd Sutherland Highlanders, wearing kilts with swords and rifles. In no underwear. Yeah, I mean, that's the most, you know, intimidating part of all of this. Sure. They were led by Major General Sir Colin Campbell, and he had a pretty good idea to do. defeat these guys and it worked. Yeah, normally the Highlanders would form a square of four rows, right?

And you're able to defend your flank a lot easier. There's less men exposed. Instead, Campbell said, we're going to form two lines. And they were like, this is mind-blowing. So there were more men exposed, but they were able to shoot further across, right? Yeah. Just more bullets, basically. Yeah, exactly.

And it turned out that the Highlanders were successful in attacking the Russian cavalry. I'm sorry, the Highlanders were standing the ground to defend Katakoi, and it was the Russian cavalry that was rushing at them. The Highlanders fired on them. There was a volley of musket, or bullets, I guess, and the Russians were like, oh, no. And they turned left, and when they turned left, they exposed their flank, and the Highlanders fired again and really just messed the Russian cavalry up

and just caused disarray, and they had to retreat. So it was a really good stand so much so that like these guys, like you said, they're legendary now, in part because of this battle. And I guess I should probably say, I think I'm, am I saying cavalry? Calvary? I think you're probably accidentally saying Calvary, which I do all the time too. But that's where Jesus was crucified, right? Right. So Cavalry is the horseback troops.

They should really have named those things two completely different sounding words. Yes, exactly. It's very confusing. And the only reason I even know is because there's a lot of old hymns, church hymns that I sang that you sing about Calvary. Oh, yeah, I know all about that. Yeah. Did you sing hymns? Not about Calvary.

The Catholics don't pay attention to that for some reason. I just didn't know how much Catholics sang in church. Oh, dude. I don't even know if you can call it singing unless it's kind of like a reformist 70s hippie church. it's chanting. Okay. And it scares the bejesus out of non-Catholics who like go with a friend to a Catholic Mass. It freaks people out.

I got you. Because in Baptist churches, it was just the big bombastic sort of, you know, hymnal songs. Sure. Sure. Yeah. Maybe more fun, but I don't know. Than chanting? Yeah, but I never chanted.

Well, you should try it sometime. All right. I'll give it a shot. Where do we leave? The Scots, the Highlanders won, and did you say that that's where we got the term, the thin red line? No, no, I didn't mention that. Yeah, so, you know, we talked about this being one of the first major wars where there was journalism going on. And there was a guy named William Howard Russell.

Was he Irish, I think? Yeah, he was an Irish correspondent. Yeah, so he was writing from the front lines. And in The Times, he described the line of men that, you know, those two lines of men in their brick red coats is the thin, a thin red streak tipped with steel, and that eventually morphed into the thin red line, which is another weird sort of thing that came out of this war. Yeah, and another really hardcore war movie, too. Good one.

Or no, no, I'm thinking of Big Red One. No, no, no. The Thin Red Line was Terrence Malick. They're both war movies. Okay, but I was thinking of the, is it Big Red One? Yeah, that was good, too. Mark Hamill and the guy from Revenge of the Nerd. Yeah, I think Mark Hamill gets his testicles blown off by a grenade.

Somebody does. I think I said before that was the first R-rated movie I saw in a theater. And, yeah, was it Mark Hamill's testicles? I believe it was, but I could just be making that part up. I got you. Hey, so one more thing before we go to break, because I can sense that coming on. This is the first war, as far as I know, where some soldier's wives traveled with them to the front. and basically like set up a household there.

It was a very bizarre setup and they were very unhappy there because it was not a fun place to be. Yeah. But they were there to support their husbands. A lot of them were. Wow, man, cry me and work. Who knew? Yeah. All right. Well, we'll be right back, right? Yes.

All right. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone? to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you?

I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. NLP, aka neurolinguistic programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology. Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain. It's about engineering consciousness. Mind Games is the story of NLP. It's crazy cast of disciples and the fake doctor who invented it at a new age commune and sold it to guys in suits.

He stood trial for murder and got acquitted. The biggest mind game of all, NLP might actually work. This is wild. Listen to Mind Games on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. New Year, new goals, and in this economy, a better money plan is more necessary. than ever. I am Matt and I'm Joel. We are from the how to money podcast and every week we help you to spend smarter, save more, and make sense of what's going on out there. If you want 2026 to be the year you finally feel in control of your money, we're here to give you the tools and advice to

help you make it happen. Listen to how to money on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And the winner of the iHeart Podcast Award is you can decide who takes home the 26, IHeart Podcast Awards, podcast of the year by voting at iHeartpodcastawards.com now through February 22nd. See all the nominees and place your vote at iHeartpodcastawards.com.

Audible is a proud sponsor of the Audible Audio Pioneer Award. Explore the best selection of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals all in one easy app. Audible. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free trial at audible.com. All right, so I feel like we've kind of been dancing around this whole light brigade thing.

And for a long time until I started researching this for this episode, I just assumed light as in like a bright light or something like that. Oh, interesting. Okay. It makes way more sense now that what you're talking about is a light brigade, right? Like weight-wise, sort of? Yeah, rather than as opposed to a heavy brigade, both of which are part of the cavalry that the Brits and the French used at the time. Yeah, and when I said weight-wise, I meant, you know, lighter horses, faster horses, presumably lighter men on those horses.

I imagine it was just a bunch of people that were fleet of foot and horses that were fleet of hoof. Their job, if you were a light brigade, was to ride very quickly across a battlefield to move places with great speed, sometimes to deliver battle orders with great speed. the heavy brigade is exactly what you would think. Bigger horses, bigger men, close combat, breaking through enemy lines, kind of kicking butt and taking names. Yeah, and so like when the heavy brigade broke up the enemy line

is like the enemy was retreating, you'd send in the light brigade who would chase the enemy down and slash them with their swords and stuff, right? Yeah, they probably had better hair in the light brigade. They probably did. You know, like the handsome, like, all right, now all the rough stuff's done. Get us in here on a little...

Fleet horses. With their Hapsburg chins. Oh, totally. So there was, in addition to the charge of the Light Brigade at this, so we're at the Battle of Balaclava still. This is where all of this happens, right? Remember that the Highlanders already turned back the Russian cavalry once. Now the Heavy Brigade is actually sent in. Their charge of the Heavy Brigade came before the charge of the Light Brigade.

And I think it was pretty effective when they hit up the Russians. I think there were 800 horsemen in the heavy brigade running into 3,000 Russians in the Russian line. Yeah, but it's the heavy brigade. So they did a lot of damage. The Russian cavalry, now it's in my head. They kind of scrambled to get out of there. And here's where we get to a point where there's sort of a fateful, confused. order that brings us to the actual

Light Brigade story. And we're going to introduce some people here, none of whom seem to be very competent at warring. So basically people like you and I would have been. Yeah, imagine if we were rich and said,

I want to be a lieutenant. I'm going to pay to be a lieutenant in the army and command soldiers. That was a thing. That's exactly what these men had done. With the exception of Lord Ragland, he had battle experience. He had fought Napoleon at Waterloo. He lost an arm in that battle. So he was a war hero. But he was 25 when that happened. And by this time he was 65. A little dotty maybe. He apparently, remember, there was a French English alliance that was battling the Russians. But when he would refer to the French, say strategically they were talking about what the French were doing, he'd refer to them as the enemy. That was very confusing.

And this battle, the battle of Balaclava, was the first time that he had ever led, like commanded men in battle. Yeah. Up to that point, he'd been subordinate. This was the first time he was the one calling the shots for the battle. So he had the most experience,

and this was the first time he was doing that. Yeah, for sure. So he gets up on this high, about a 600 foot high ridge. So he's got a great view of the battlefield. field. The guys down there don't have any kind of view at all. So the orders are going to be getting maybe a little bit confusing because they can't really see what's going on like Raglan can. He's also pretty far away. So it takes 20 minutes to get, even with the light horse brigade

or the light runner who will meet in a minute too, who hates everybody that's involved here, as it turns out. It takes him about 20 minutes to get there and deliver an order and, you know, presumably a little bit of time to sort of suss that out and then another 20 minutes to come back. Right. So it's probably like 40 minutes to an hour for this whole exchange of information to take place. And what Raglan is trying to do is trying to stop the enemy from taking away these heavy guns that they had captured at that Causeway Heights battle.

Right. And so he sends the following order. Lord Raglan wishes the cavalry to advance rapidly to the front, follow the enemy, and try to prevent the enemy carrying away. the guns. Troop horse artillery may accompany. French cavalry is on your left. Immediate. Okay. A little vague. That's the message. A little bit vague. Yeah. So that's problem one. It's vague. Problem two is, like you said, Ragland's up 600 feet with a bird's eye view of everything going on. And the two men who received this order, the Earl of Lucan, George Bingham, and the Earl of Cardigan, James Brudanel.

they're down in one of the valleys. So they can't see these captured guns that Raglan's talking about. And when this man, who you said hated everybody, showed up, Captain Lewis Nolan, they're like, wait, what's going on? What are you talking about? And before we get into that, we should probably talk a little bit about Bingham and Brutonnell because we kind of disparaged them a little bit. I think we should explain why. Yeah, I mean, you mentioned being able to pay for a position. that's what both of these guys did.

They paid for this position of leading these men. They were both wealthy gentlemen. I believe Brudanel, the Earl of Cardigan, was described at one point as brave, handsome, bad-tempered, and brainless. And these guys were brothers-in-law who hated each other's guts. So Cardigan was a subordinate to Lucan and didn't like being under his command. And like you said, this guy, Nolan, didn't like either one of them. He said, and these are quotes, he said, we call Lucan the cautious ass and Lord Cardigan the dangerous ass. And Lord Cardigan has as much brains as his boot.

So no respect seemingly is happening for these dudes down there leading these charges. No, one other thing, the Balaclava had gear came out of this battle. So did the Cardigan sweater. Now, I don't know whether or not at this point in your 18 to believe you. Totally get that. I totally get that. This is one of those things where it's like, no, I'm joking. This is true. It's named after James Brudanel, the Earl of Cardigan. I think the seventh Earl of Cardigan.

Because I almost looked that up, but I just ran out of time because we're recording early. And I had a hunch, but I didn't get to it. So you're not pulling my ski rope. No, no. Your rope trauma, rope trauma. My rope trauma. All right. Well, another little Crimean War fact. I like that. And one other thing about George Bingham, the Earl of Lucan, he made his money by, as a landlord for poor Irish tenant, farmers and then would evict them and send them to the poor house when they couldn't pay rent. He was not a good guy at all, but that's how he became wealthy enough to buy his position as a commander of the brigade, the cavalry, I guess. Right. All right.

So Nolan delivers this order. He's like we said, a pretty fast rider on that horse. He gets there pretty quickly. We don't know. This is where things get a little confusing. We don't know if he had other motives because he didn't like these guys. He also was in the Light Brigade and he wanted to see some action

and at that Battle of the Alma River didn't get any action and I think he was even frustrated because Lucan had orders to dispatch the Light Brigade and didn't take it. These guys wanted to see action. They wanted to be heroes on the battlefield.

So he gets down there to deliver this message. They're looking around going a light, what guns are you talking about? And he basically just says over there, he points at the end of the valley and said, there my lord is your enemy. These, there are your guns, which was not the correct direction to point.

No, he was pointing at a heavily fortified Russian gun position, right? There were apparently like 30 or 40 cannons there. And what, again, Raglan was talking about were some poorly defended, captured artillery guns elsewhere, right? I think they were on one of the sides. So when he pointed, he was pointing to the center. of three heavily fortified Russian positions on, I think, a ridge overlooking a valley, and basically said Raglan is telling you to charge the Leip Brigade.

This isn't even a job for a Light Brigade, but you and the Light Brigade are supposed to charge straight to those Russian guns in the middle of this horribly dangerous place for you guys to be, let's go. That's right. And we don't know why he did that. We don't know if he was confused. We didn't know if he was doing it on purpose because he hated these guys. We don't know if he was doing it on purpose because he wanted that action. We don't know all this stuff because the guy who got the message wrong was one of the first people killed during this charge.

Right. Which is not funny. I'm not laughing. But it's just, I mean, this was known as sort of a war folly by the end of it, even though, as we'll see, it didn't turn out to be a complete loss. No. I know we haven't gotten to the light brigade the actual charge yet, but should we take a break now? Yeah, I think it fits the act structure. Sorry, everybody.

We'll be right back. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult?

NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. NLP, aka neurolinguistic programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology. Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain. It's about engineering consciousness. Mind games is the story of NLP. It's crazy cast of disciples, and the fake doctor who invented it at a new age commune,

and sold it to guys in suits. He stood trial for murder and got acquitted. The biggest mind game of all, NLP, might actually work. This is wild. Listen to Mind Games on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. New Year, new goals, and in this economy, a better money plan is more necessary than ever. I am Matt, and I'm Joel. We are from the How to Money podcast, and every week we help you to spend smarter, save more, and make sense.

of what's going on out there. If you want 2026 to be the year you finally feel in control of your money, we're here to give you the tools and advice to help you make it happen. Listen to How to Money on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And the winner of the IHeart Podcast Award is, you can decide who takes home the 26 IHeart Podcast Awards Podcast of the year by voting at iHeartPodcastawards.com now through February 22nd. See all the nominees and place your vote at IHeart Podcast Awards.

Podcastawards.com. Audible is a proud sponsor of the Audible Audio Pioneer Award. Explore the best selection of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals all in one easy app. Audible. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free trial at audible.com. All right. So now we're finally at the Light Brigade Charge.

It was not supposed to happen that way. Again, it was a misunderstood or misdelivered. at least order. And Lucan and Cardigan didn't know. They had 670

cavalry men in this light brigade, one of the most famous blunders in military history. They said,

basically, all right, let's do this thing, and they went charging through what was known as the Valley

of Death. Yeah, and there was no one there who was like, oh, okay, this is a good

idea, let's do this, but they didn't question the the orders. So when they entered this valley,

of death, that's what I think Tennyson called it later, right? Yeah. They were, again, charging right for Russian cannons straight ahead. And then there were Russian artillery positions on either side, and they're running right through this. And right when they start riding through this valley of death, they just start getting fired upon. They're fired upon from all three directions, although apparently not all at the same time.

but still like this was a it was essentially a suicide mission that they'd just been sent on and it just went badly immediately yeah they were people that survived it and uh they said that limbs were being shot off heads were being shot off uh horses were running around without people on them or with just bodies on them without heads uh there was so much smoke apparently one soldier said it was like riding into the mouth of a volcano know, the heavy brigade, it was going so badly, the heavy brigade was supposed to follow. It was kind of reversed, I guess. And Lucan said, no, he pulled those orders back and pulled back the heavy brigade even. He said, they have sacrificed the light brigade that shall not have the heavy if I can help it.

Yeah. So what's crazy about this is these 675 riders riding into 3,000-ish Russians and their cannons, most of them, the majority of them made it. They made it to these Russian lines and they broke them up. They actually, at least the Russian artillery position that they were charging toward in the center. Yeah. They captured that. They actually managed to force the Russian soldiers to retreat from that.

So they captured those guns. That's insane that that happened. Like there should have been no one a lot. and yet they actually fulfilled this nuts-so mission that should have never happened in the first place because it was a miscommunication. Yeah, and they ended up getting all three of those positions because they went back into position.

The Light Brigade took out one of those positions, which, by the way, I don't know if we made it clear, but one of those positions was the original order, which I guess they eventually got to. They just did it out of order. And then the other one was destroyed by a French light cavalry unit called the African hunters or the, how would you pronounce that? Chasseur da Frick.

Very nice. Thanks. I took three years of French in high school. Hey, it's been paying off for 18 years for us. Little French from you, little German for me, and everything else mispronounced. Oh, well, don't forget your Italian accent, though. Well, sure. We have the whole of Europe covered.

Yeah, most of it. So when the Light Brigade charged through this valley of death and broke up the Russian artillery and the French broke up another one. I think there was actually one left still. They had to ride back and were being fired upon by that remaining one too. So they had to ride back from the valley to get to where they started back, you know, to safety again. And when they got back, they found that of the 670 members of the Libergate who undertook this charge, 110 were killed, 160 were wounded. 375 horses were killed. So 600. And 70 of the members, more than half of them lost their horse.

And apparently, some of the men told Cardigan that they were ready to go again. Yeah. I guess it was, you know, they felt like they did good work. They wanted to do more. I mean, I can't imagine. If you thought you were going on a suicide mission and it actually worked out and you made it back alive, I'm sure you were invigorated as probably underselling it. Yeah, but guys like you and I would have said, how about we don't do that again?

We would have been like, wait, are you sure that's what he said? Because this doesn't make any sense. Let's talk this through. All right. So William Howard Russell is writing about this thing like we talked about. He is the one that ends up, and he did some beautiful writing as far as that kind of stuff goes. But he is the one who ended up inspiring Tennyson's poem. Maybe I'll read this last line, at least.

It's a pretty good example. At the distance of 1,200 yards, the whole line of the enemy belched forth. from 30 iron mouths, a flood of smoke and flame, through which hissed the deadly balls. Their flight was marked by instant gaps in our ranks, by dead men and horses, by steeds, flying wounded or riderless across the plane. That's pretty good reporting. Yeah, pretty good stuff. So I think you mentioned before that the charge of the Light Brigade is viewed as an enormous military blunder.

It's still very much taught in schools as, like, what not to do. I think it's also shorthand among military people as like for any senseless waste of soldiers' lives by higher-ups calling bad shots. But it's also revered as an incredibly brave, courageous act. And that's what celebrated, not the fact that they even were successful. That's not the most celebrated fact. It was that these men just basically put

their nose down and did what they had to do. However you feel about that, that's essentially what the poem celebrates most of all. Yeah, which was when he was Poet Laureate of England in 1850, I think I think it was about six weeks after that battle

was when he published the charge of the Light Brigade and the examiner initially. Should we read this last, the second stanza? Yeah, that's the most famous of all of them. Why don't you take this one? I think you should. Okay. Forward the Light Brigade.

Was there a man dismayed? Not though the soldier knew someone had blundered. There's not to make reply. There's not to reason why. There's but to do and die into the valley of death rode the 600. Yeah. And apparently Tennyson recorded himself reading this on a wax cylinder. There's places on the internet.

Including YouTube, I believe, where you can hear it. And it bears an uncanny resemblance to that, remember that doll in the Dolls episode, the old-timey talking doll from the 19th century. It sounds a little bit like that. But even getting past that, he, I don't think he does a very good job reading it. It's the worst reading I've heard of that ever. So you're saying my reading is better than Tennyson's own? I am. It is.

Oh, wow. Yeah. So way to go. I appreciate that. Maybe I should be Poet Laureate Reader of England. I've been secretly lobbying for you to be named Poet Laureate

of the U.S. for years now. My high school had a poet laureate. Who was it? Natasha Trethaway, if I'm not mistaken. Wow. She was there when I was there. Pretty cool stuff.

That's impressive. You remember that. Yeah. I think she might have been in my grade. So, yeah. She was... Who knows? I might have had English class with her

for all I know. So there was also from Tennyson, the charge of the heavy brigade at Balaklava. It was years after the war, though, and this is kind of where we end the story is, British war veterans had a very hard time after this in a lot of cases. And there were many efforts to try and raise money and raise awareness for that, that a lot of them went to poorhouses and weren't cared for. And this poem was written years later to try and raise money for these war veterans, along with Kipling, right?

Kipling wrote another one, the last of the Lai Brigade, that actually commemorates the charge of the heavy brigade at Balaclava in Tennyson's writing of it. And Tennyson actually makes an appearance in this Kipling poem. But both of them were basically, for the same reason,

to call attention to the fact that these Crimean War veterans had just been totally abandoned by their nations and were living in total poverty in a lot of cases. And what's really sad is, that a fundraising effort that Tennyson led, thanks to his poem and his fame too. I mean, like he was a very famous person at this time.

They were only able to collect 24 pounds. That can't have been too much, even back then. No. There were a couple of movies. There was one from 1936, the Charge of the Light Brigade with Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. And Olivia de Havillin had her breakthrough role in Airport 77 years later. Yeah, that's what she's known for. There was a love triangle movie about British soldiers that takes place, you know, sort of around this fatal charge.

And then another one from 68, right? Yeah. It's called The Charge of the Light Brigade. But this one is a satire. It's satirizing the British aristocracy, especially in the Victorian age, essentially just hungering for war so they could get their own glory. Again, buying offices or ranks in the military. And it was John Gilgud as Lord Cardigan. And yeah, I haven't seen it.

Vanessa Redgrave, what a cast. Yeah, it's quite a cast. Every time I see John Gilgood or hear his name, I replace his name with Dr. Fieldgood, the Motley Crew song. He's the one they call John Gilgood. Sir John Gilgood. You have to add the sir. He's the one they call Sir John Gilgood.

There it is. He's one that makes you feel all right. That's right. If you're watching Arthur, that is. Was he in that? Was he the butler? Yeah. I think he won an Oscar for that role.

For the butler? Yeah, I mean... I mean, that's impressive. He was great. This is one of my favorite movies growing up. Still is. Awesome. Well, that's the charge of the light brigade, everybody.

That's right. Chuck said that's right. So it's time for listener mail. Hey, guys. I've been listening for four plus years, and as many others say, you two have no idea how much appreciation your fan base has for you. Writing this, I was scouring through old episodes that came across and up where you two disagreed on the subject.

I can't remember what it was, but you kept the animated conversation going for a few minutes. It was a subtle reminder that the two of you, just like anybody else, are friends and can totally have disagreements or differing opinions, but let's have a little fun. Can you share an example of when you disagreed with the other, but rather than voice it on the air, you kept it to your son? or are there any topics where you had a disagreement and you cut it out? That is warmly from Warner Finn, P.S. Mom and Dad. I'll go ahead and answer for my part in that I don't think we've ever had a disagreement

that we've like cut off, cut out of the episode that I can think of. No, we almost, yeah, we leave those in. I can't think of one either. Yeah, and I can't think of, I mean, there's the famous, you know, watering the lawns and things like from past episodes, but I mean, I'm sure there's lots of little things I might disagree on in the moment that I keep to myself that just aren't a big deal. And I don't bring them up because it's just not worth mentioning in a show episode. Yeah, you want to keep the show going. Plus also, I mean, you can only correct one another so often before you start seeming like a know-it-all or whatever, or just is interruptive. Most of the time it just doesn't matter.

Like chassis. You remember you're saying chassis? And I didn't correct it. Oh, man. It just didn't matter, you know? Yeah, exactly. And, yeah, I think that sums it up best. And on just big stuff philosophically, we're pretty much aligned as humans and friends.

So, like, that's why there's never any big stuff is because we both kind of park our cars in the same garage. It would be a much different podcast if we didn't see eye to eye generally on the big stuff, I think. Yeah. And, I mean, I think most of the disagreements are like, You didn't like that movie? That kind of stuff. Right. And who cares about that, you know?

Or you've never had pizza rolls? Yeah. Like I don't like pickles and mustard, and even though you're determined to convince me there's a pickle and a mustard I might like. Yeah, no, I finally accepted both. Oh, okay. I've accepted it that you don't like pickles. It's okay.

Well, that's recent because last week you tried to feed me a pickle mustard sandwich. It's just from yesterday. I really gave a lot of thought to it in the sauna. Okay, good. And, yeah, I'm like, you just didn't like pickles. I wonder what you were thinking about that day. That was it. All right.

All right. Who was that from? That was from Warner Fen in Los Angeles. Oh, I thought you're going to see something else. Thanks a lot, Warner. I was, but I stopped myself. See how that happens? Were you going to correct me or something?

No, not at all. I'll tell you after. Okay. Thanks a lot, Warner. That was a really great email. It reminds me of the kind of questions we get at the Q&A we do at our live. live shows, which we have coming up. I think we're probably in the middle of them right now when this comes out.

That's right. But we're going to be other places, too, so you can find out where we're going to be by going to Stuff You Should Know.com and clicking on the on-tour button. And in the meantime, if you want to send us an email like Warner did, you can send it to Stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio.com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of IHeartRadio. For more podcasts to My Heart Radio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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