Charge of the Light Brigade [on PBS now]

RM PBS ^ | 22 Oct. 07 | PBS

[indcons]

It went down in history as one of the greatest military blunders of all time, but what really happened at the Charge of the Light Brigade?This film revises the accepted wisdom and provides new answers to the key questions. Blending CGI graphics with dramatic reconstruction and giving a fresh interpretation of the facts, this high-budget production sheds new light on the military reasons behind the orders and examines the four main characters responsible for the infamous charge.

[indcons]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge_of_the_Light_Brigade

[indcons]

The Charge of the Light Brigade is on PBS now (at least on Rocky Mountain PBS}. For a military history primer, please read Charge of the Light Brigade [Wikipedia]

To all: please ping me to threads that are relevant to the MilHist list (and/or) please add the keyword "MilHist" to the appropriate thread. Thanks in advance.

Please FREEPMAIL indcons if you want on or off the "Military History (MilHist)" ping list.

[Verginius Rufus]

So are they blaming the neo-cons, or GWB’s great-great-grandfather?

[indcons]

The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred Tennyson

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
“Charge for the guns!” he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

2.

“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Someone had blunder’d:
Their’s not to make reply,
Their’s not to reason why,
Their’s but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

3.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

4.

Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder’d:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel’d from the sabre stroke
Shatter’d and sunder’d.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

5.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro’ the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

6.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made,
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred.

Copied from Poems of Alfred Tennyson,
J. E. Tilton and Company, Boston, 1870

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Or you can read the book THE REASON WHY by Cecil Woodham-Smith, or see the 1968 movie, CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE, which is very accurate, not like the 1936 version.
The 1936 version is more enjoyable but, except for the charge, almost all fiction.

[maine-iac7]

About the only channel I can't get is PBS - but I don't know's I could watch it anyway -even tho' the movie wasn't, i don't think, filmed in what used to be part of India - the Khyber Pass...which is on the border between eastern Pakistan and Afghanistan - some of the world's most remote and treacherous mountains - the Hindu Kush region.

Bin Laden and his minions on one side, my grandson and his little Task Force band on the other -

the Khyber Pass today:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:KhyberPassPakistan.jpg

and where some of our troops are, a hop, skip and porous border from the Pass...in the Korengal and Pech Valleys. You can't see them in the aerial photo, but there are little villages in the valleys - and Pakistan is on the other side of the white line. ...and Taliban are shooting almost daily at our troops - mortaring at night, planting IEDs on the twisting dirt road out troops patrol...

Pray for our troops.

[PerConPat]

The 1936 version is more enjoyable but, except for the charge, almost all fiction.

And to think that I've been blaming that rascal Errol Flynn all of these years! [:-)

Thanks for the heads up, indcon.

[indcons]

You’re welcome. Interesting how this documentary blamed the then media for a lot of the misinformation following the charge. Isn’t it ironic that PBS and their fellow leftist goons are doing the same thing re: the WOT in Afghanistan and Iraq?

[PerConPat]

Isn’t it ironic that PBS and their fellow leftist goons are doing the same thing re: the WOT in Afghanistan and Iraq?

Great point!

INDCON, sorry I confused you with indcons in my post #7 on this thread.

[mass55th]

Every time I read that piece, I can’t help but think of Alfalfa in The Little Rascals episode, where he’s reciting The Charge of the Light Brigade and Porky is training the magnifying glass on the firecrackers in Alfalfa’s pants pocket.

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

[Sans-Culotte]

Or you can read the book THE REASON WHY by Cecil Woodham-Smith, or see the 1968 movie, CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE, which is very accurate, not like the 1936 version. The 1936 version is more enjoyable but, except for the charge, almost all fiction.

I have both films on DVD, but far prefer the Flynn film as entertainment. It certainly is not accurate as history, but it does give a good sense of the period, and has a spectacular charge. The major events are actually depicted fairly accurately (the Charge, the Chukoti Massacre standing in for Cawnpore, etc). They simply changed the sequence of events and put the Sepoy Mutiny ahead of the Crimean War.

A viewer will have absolutely no idea as to why the Charge took place after seeing the Flynn film, but it is rousing entertainment.

I wish I had logged on last night as I would have liked to have seen the PBS offering.

[Old North State]

I would endorse the Woodham-Smith book for its treatment of the post Napoleonic British Army and it’s examination of conditions in Ireland during the famines of the 1840’s as much as for its examination of the Crimean War. It is a concise example of well written history.

[curmudgeonII]

I assume that most of the readers know that Tennyson, after having written the Charge of the Light Brigade. was apprised of the true facts of the charge and then wrote The Charge of the Heavy Brigade - the heavy brigade being the troops that rescued the 200 or so survivors of the original charge. This poem was not nearly as popular as the Charge of the Light Brigade mainly because it was not nearly as good a poem.