[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.