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[email protected]/trih. That's all, lower case. And you'll get 20 pounds after the first time that you've spent. 18 plus. End date and promotion, T's and C's apply. And Rev Points T's and C's apply. Cannon to right of them. Cannon to left of them. Cannon in front of them, voiled and thundered. Stormed at with shot and shell. Boldly they rode and well into the jaws of death. Into the mouth of hell, rode the 600. So that was Alfredo Tennyson's famous poem, The Charge of the Light Brigade. Written as we heard last time in 1854 to commemorate the most glorious and heroic daybark in British history. I don't think any other country talks of a glorious daybark than with the relish that we do. Because so much winning, Tom. So much winning. So we are building up in this mighty series to The Charge of the Light Brigade. We've been talking about some of the personalities involved in the buildup to this moment on the 25th of October, 1854, when the cream of the British light cavalry launched the suicideal assault on an entire battery of Russian guns, the jaws of death. Tom, in the first episode we were talking about the steps by which Britain and France advanced to war with Russia, so they declared war on the 28th of March, 1854. And just remind us what this is all about. What's the goal here? So the goal of the British and French is to prevent Russia from dismembering the Ottoman Empire and capturing Constantinople, because both countries feel that this would threaten their vital interests in the East. The Tsar thinks that he can co-opt Britain into the project of dismembering the Ottoman Empire. So early in 1854, he'd talk to the British ambassador about this and dismiss the Ottoman Empire as the sick man of Europe. And he wants to put the sick man out of his misery. But the British and the French don't want this at all because they would much rather have a sick man in charge of Constantinople than the Jean-Dame of Europe, which is the nickname that Nicholas has. He's seen as a much more effective, efficient figure. And so therefore they want to keep him at bay. And Britain, even before the declaration of war on the 28th of March, 1854, the government had been preparing for the outbreak of full hostilities. So as early as September 1853, as we heard in the previous episode, the Royal Navy had sent a flotilla to Constantinople into the boss for us. And it's commander was a chap called Vice Admiral James Dundes, which is a tremendous name for Royal Navy Admiral. He's very old school. So he is a veteran of the Napoleonic Wars. He's tremendously grand. He's tremendously bald. So kind of red-linked at the age of Nelson. But the flotilla that he commands is definitely not old school. This is an absolutely bristling display of naval strength, 16 warships, 645 guns, very intimidating. And by January, Dundes' squadron is operating openly in the Black Sea, which the Russians for understandable reasons see as their own lake. And so they demand that the British withdraw and Dundes refuses. And he's able to do that because he's confident that they massively outgun the Russians. So in a sense, although it's not been officially declared the naval war between Britain and Russia has begun in the Crimea, and it is increasingly clear to the British government that there is going to be a war by land as well. And if this land war breaks out, then that will be the responsibility of someone we met at the end of the last episode. And this was a chap called bycount Harding, who had recently been appointed as commander chief of the army in succession to the Duke of Wellington, who had died in 1852. And just to give him a shout out, he is probably the ablest man we will be meeting in the series. I mean, that's not a huge compliment, but I mean it's better than nothing. And this is a guy who his entire career has seen the functioning of British greatness up close. He knows what it is that makes British geopolitical muscle what it is. So he's a hero of the peninsula war, the war fought by Arthur Wellesley as he was before he became the Duke of Wellington in Iberia against Napoleon's armies. Then in 1815 he'd served as the liaison officer with the Prussians in the war against Napoleon the Waterloo campaign, and he'd fought at the Battle of Nini at which he'd lost a hand. And there's a lot of kind of bodily dismemberment in this series. Wellington had fought a duel in 1829, a bit like the Al-Qadgan did, and Harding had been his second in that duel. So that was good. And then he'd been appointed governor general of India, and he'd served there 1844 to 1848. And so he shares in this widespread anxiety that you were talking about in the previous episode Dominic worries that the movement of Russian power into central Asia might come to threaten the British position in India. So he is anxious about the claws of the Russian bear reaching southwards towards the Kaiba pass. And in by the standards of the mid-19th century of the Touran army, Harding is something of a moderniser isn't he? So he's getting them to do something unheard of which is field maneuvers. So people have never done this before. Well they'd done it in the Napoleon at wars, but they hadn't done it since, and this takes place in the summer of 1853, so you know, summer before the Declaration of War. And he'd arranged for 10,000 men from different regiments to meet up on this field in Surrey. And it's the first field maneuvers that the British army have staged since the Napoleon Wars. And I think it is an indication that with Wellington dead, it is time for a new age. And Harding is absolutely happy to step up to the plate and try and introduce this. And the other thing that he does, which will prove to have considerable consequences in the Crimean War, is that he has been pushing for the wholesale adoption by the army of a lethal new rifle, the Minier, which as its name suggests, isn't actually British, but French. It's been invented in 1849, so only four years previously by a captain in the French army. So this guy was called Minier, so hence the name of the rifle. And it's a much longer range than a musket, it's much more accurate and it has much greater precision. And it's Harding who spotted its potential when the French military high command haven't. So the French won't end up adopting it until 1857. And Harding is saying, yeah, we've got to have this, it's brilliant. And so throughout the summer of 1853 and into 1854, British regiments are starting to be issued with this rifle. So yeah, I mean, he's a clear sighted proactive man and exactly the kind of man who prior to the official declaration of war is absolutely making preparations for the conflict. Right. He's the commander in chief. So he's not going to command the army in the Crimea. He needs to send, you know, somebody in his stead. And this, so clearly he's not going to choose somebody who's earned it through his own efforts. I mean, that would be absolutely ridiculous. No, that would be ludicrous. It wouldn't be ludicrous. So he's going to choose somebody, well, let's not put it too far and unfortunately, he's going to choose Lord Waglan, isn't he? Yes. So I think it will stun listeners to know that the person appointed to the command of British army in Crimea is going to be another Lord. I mean, who would have seen that coming? Yes. So this is the first Bowen Waglan Fitzwoy's Somerset, the first Lord Bowen Waglan. But actually, Waglan, you know, he's, he's actually very much Harding's kind of chap. He's cut from very similar cloth. So Light Harding, Waglan had fought it to a Wellington side in the Peninsula War. And Light Harding, he had lost a bodily appendage in the Waterloo campaign. And he had lost his appendage actually at the Battle of Waterloo itself, where he was serving on Wellington's staff. He'd been shot in the arm. The arm needed to be amputated and this was performed without anesthetic. Waglan gave barely a peep. So he is incredibly tough, incredibly stoical. And after his arm had been sawn off, he, and it was about to be thrown away. He demanded indignantly. "Here, I don't take that arm away until I have taken the wing off the finger."
ring had been a gift from his wife, and so he wanted to make sure that that wasn't lost. Oh, that's a nice story. So he's very stoical. He's a very brave man and he's seen a lot of action. So you'd think he'd be ideally suited to this. The problem is that for pretty much the entirety of his career, so from 1808, when he'd first gone out to serve on the staff of Arthur Welsley, as the Duke of Wellington was originally, in Portugal, right up to the death of Wellington in 1852, he'd basically always been the deputy to Wellington. He'd always been the number two. And so his talents reflect this. His talents are less those of a commander than of a diplomat. He's a man who hates conflict, who has incredible resources of charm, which he is always deploying. He's like a kind of the kind of benignant capitalist who at the end of a dickens novel solves everyone's problems. All right, sort of Mr. Chearable kind of person or something. Yes, he exudes a kind of jovial sense of benignity, and people instinctively like him. And I think if you had met him in civilian costume, you would never have you'd never put him down as a military man. So to quote Cecil Woodham Smith, who's a wonderful book on the charge of Light Brigade, I read when I was very young, and it gave me a devotion to the whole story. She said of Raglan. His beautiful face looked like the face of an ecclesiastic, a cardinal of the Renaissance, perhaps, a bane, subtle, diplomatic, ruthlessness, determination. Well, wanting. And in the 1968 film, I don't know if you've seen it. Have you seen it? Yes, years ago. Trevor Howard plays Cardigan, and Raglan is played by John Gilgud, and that is perfect casting. Absolutely perfect cast. Charming, but perhaps a little ineffectual. That's the decision that has to be made. Is he qualified to take on command? Is he ready to step out from the shadow of the iron duke? And actually, when Harding first proposes Raglan as commander for the Eastern expedition to the Duke of Newcastle, who is the Secretary for War in the British Cabinet, Newcastle says, "Oh, really? Isn't he a bit of a number two? He has no experience as a field commander. Are you absolutely certain?" But a week pass is then another. It's obvious that they've been discussing it. And they think, "Yeah, actually, probably he is the man." And on the 21st of February, Raglan is duly appointed by the British government, General Officer, commanding the forces east of Malta. So why? Why has Newcastle changed his mind? Why is Harding keen to see Raglan take up the post? I think undoubtedly there is a lack of imagination there. So Harding is, you know, I mean, he's a product of his class. He's not immune to snobbery himself. And although there are definitely officers in the British army who have the requisite experience, who have fought battles, who know what it's like to command an army under gunfire, it never crosses Harding's mind to consider these officers. And the ableist of them is a man called Sircolon Campbell, who is 61 years old by this point. So pretty elderly, he's very grizzled. He's a battle hard and scot. And he'd had decades of experience in India in particular, and he'd won a brilliant name for himself in the conquest of the Punjab. But the problem is, and this is a problem for Harding, as for everyone else in the upper echelons of the British army and the British government, he's the son of a Guaz-Gau Carpenter. You can't have the son of a Guaz-Gau Carpenter in charge of the army. And he'd spent most of his career in India, as we've said, and he doesn't have the money, he doesn't have the patrons, you know, he just doesn't have the breeding or the class. So there's no way that even though he's obviously the ideal man for the job, he's incredibly, you know, as we will see, a brilliant, brilliant commander. You can't have that class of chap in charge. And so Campbell, by this point, is still only a Colonel, and it's unthinkable that he could be promoted over his military and social superiors. And so instead, he is given a command in the expedition. He's given command of three Highland units, so the Highland Brigade. And as we will see, Campbell in the Crimea will cover himself with glory, but not as Commander of Chief. But to be fair to the British High Command and to Harding and to Newcastle, I think there is a second reason why the British Cabinet decides that Raglan, after all, is their man. Firstly, they're not 100% sure, at this point, that there is going to be a war. I mean, it's still possible that there won't be. And even if there is a war, actually, Raglan's talents as a diplomat are going to prove incredibly useful. Because obviously, he's going to have to go out to the east to Constantinople, and there he will have to liaise with the Turk. Yeah. I mean, everyone likes to liaise with the Turk, don't they? The foreign secretary has taken Raglan to one side and has warned him that in his dealings with the Turk, he should be warned that the Turk has been, and I quote, infeebled by abominations. And what do these abominations are? No, no one actually says. But it's something to bear in mind. So it's important, you know, Raglan needs to go out and deal with all this. But even more than the Turk, his prime responsibility is an even more stressful one. And that is to coordinate with the French. I mean, this is a prey problem for British armies from this point onwards, isn't it? That ultimately, they would much rather be fighting against French. But because of unfortunate diplomatic circumstances, they have to fight alongside them. Yeah. So if you remember in 1914, they had, you know, in the British soldiers arrived, British expeditionary force. Some of them had to be restrained from attacking their allies. Fourth with. But it's the same is true of Raglan. Well, Raglan's been fighting the French all his life, presumably. His whole life. He's either been fighting them or preparing to fight them. And actually, we mentioned in the previous episode how when Napoleon sees his power, there's a massive war scare in Britain, and they start kind of preparing for a French attack. The guy put in charge of that was Raglan. He'd spent the summer of 1852. You know, I mean, that is the year before the French and British ascending their flattillas to Constantinople. He'd been spending preparing, readying the defenses of London against the suspected attack by the French. So for Raglan, the French are the natural enemy. And he will sometimes forget who he's meant to be fighting and confuse his staff by referring to the enemy, not as the Russians, but as the French. So he will say, send troops up and attack the French. And there's, you know, it causes embarrassment and it becomes notorious. And this is often used to suggest that Raglan was either seen aisle or hopelessly out of his depth. And actually, you know, this is not the case, because we've said that Raglan is a natural diplomat. He also has perfect French. So he had served Wellington after Waterloo had been there. British ambassador in Paris and Raglan had been with him. So he'd had years in Paris and New France, well, speaks French very well. He's not an idiot. You know, I mean, it's understandable. And in fact, on the 11th of April, he arrives in Paris and he meets with Napoleon III and he's greeted with immense enthusiasm. There is one voice that sees him. And you know, you lost your arm at Waterloo. Ha, ha, ha. But that's the only negative comment. Everyone asks him shouting, "Vieve longue la Terre." It's all great. And he has, he has, he has fruitful meetings with, with his French opposite number. So the commander-in-chief of the French army. And this is a chap called Le Roi de Saint-Arno. Raglan and his staff are not entirely convinced by him. So one of them describes him as a strange, flighty fellow. And one, it will not do to take it his word. Well, if they don't like a Glasgow carpenter's son, this guy is, it's something else, right? Well, the snobbery is not surprising because as a young man, Saint-Arno had worked in London. So it's all David and his biography of Cardigan says that he lived among the prostitutes and imps of Drury Lane. Oh, no. And Edward Shawcross, who appeared on our show about Emperor Max Million in Mexico, he's got a fantastic biography of Napoleon III out. And he talks about Saint-Arno in some, in some detail, and says that in London, he'd worked as a fencing coach, dance instructor, poet, violinist, singer, and billions hustler. No, my god, how common. Not the kind of curriculum vitae to impress a British aristocrat. Although the positive is that he does speak English. So you've got Raglan speaking French, you've got Saint-Arno speaking English. So actually that's, that's quite good. Now, Saint-Arno is a very hard core military figure because he'd spent years with the foreign Legion in Algeria. You know, he knows what it is to massacre an innocent village full of civilians. He's been there and done the hard yards. He's got experience that. But he's not only a pretty brutal man, I think. He's also very slippery and very difficult. He loves the scam. He's massively corrupt. Lots on the British high staff suspect here that he would, for instance, sell secrets to the Russians. I mean, this is not the case, but he does have a pretty duck reputation as a kind of an operator. And basically, the reason that he's got the command is that he hit back Napoleon's coup, and so he's Napoleon's placement. And also, he wants the supreme command over the British as well as the French, which is not something that Raglan is prepared to see him. There's one other thing about Saint-Arno that Raglan
finds unsettling and this is that he doesn't seem particularly well, man. He has very violent intestinal complaints, so they'll be chatting about gun emplacements or something and then he'll say, "Oh!" and cramp up and bend over. So that's just something for the listener to bear in mind that is kind of bad stomach. So how does Raglan handle him? Well, Raglan is an actually courteous man, he's got flawless French blah, blah, blah, and he proves more than capable of handling this former dancing teacher in the streets of Drury Lane. So Raglan managed it to dead bat, a Santa knows demands that he be made come under in chief. He hasn't said that he won't recognise a Santa know as C and C. But as he said that he will, he hasn't said that he will, exactly, exactly. But basically, what he has agreed is that Britain will supply the majority of the fleet. I mean, that's the Navy is Britain's strength and France will supply the majority of the land forces. There is one provider to that. The British will supply the cavalry and the reason for this is that the British have much better transport ships than the French do. So you need to take horses and so on. And this, of course, does place a premium on the quality of the cavalry commanders, because if the British are the only ones with cavalry and the Balkans are, you know, natural cavalry country, then it matters that you have competent commanders in charge of them. So last time we met the bloke who said was going to be given the overall command of the cavalry, and that was Lord Lucan, who's an erascible, charmless, a difficult, unlovable man, isn't he Lord Lucan? Yes, but he is brave and conscientious and contemptuous of his own comforts. And he had served on the staff of a Russian general in a campaign against the Turks and the Balkans. So it's no Balkan hand? He's an old Balkan hand like you. But as you say, people don't warm to him, and he works really, really hard, but to kind of fruitless effect. And people find him fractious, and arrogant, and unable to see the big picture for the details. He's the kind of the kind of the kindle Roy of the British army. He aspires, but he never quite gets there. He never quite pulls it off. But this is the guy who's been appointed a head of the British cavalry on the 21st of February, and now who are going to be his deputies? These are appointed on the 1st of April, April fullstay. So you know, is this a joke or is it not? We will see. So the cavalry are divided into two brigades, each one consisting of five regiments. And these regiments in turn comprise some 300 men. And the 1st brigade consists of heavy cavalry, so large horses, large recruits, heavy savers, brass helmets. They're a shock force. They can be used to break enemy formations, cavalry, or infantry. And at Waterloo, three of the five regiments who are constituting the heavy brigade had been a part of the famous Union Brigade, which we mentioned in the previous episode. Union Brigade, because it consists of an English, a Scottish, and an Irish regiment. And it had broken a French infantry attack and taken two eagles at Waterloo. And these three regiments were the first royal tribunes, the second tribunes who were the Scots' graze. So there's the famous painting by Lady Butler in the 1880s. I think it was done. And the sixth tribunes who were the inner skillings, so they're the Irish. So they have this glorious history. You know, they know their regimental history, they are looking forward, after four decades, to reprise that history and enjoying a heroic charge and seeing off the enemy. So that's the heavy brigade. And the man in charge of the heavy brigade, who's that? He is Jackal Brigadier General Sir James Scarlett. And he's Scarlett by name and Scarlett by nature, because he has a bright red face. He's very stout. He has tremendously white whiskers. He has no experience for combat. So he's a chap who's bought his own commission again. But unlike other commanders on the expedition, he is aware of the fact that this isn't perhaps ideal preparation. And so he's made a point of surrounding himself by Indian officers, people who who have had combat experience. And he's a very jolly and unassuming man. And over the course of the war, he will come to be greatly loved by the men in the heavy brigade. And they kind of describe him as a good kind old fellow. Oh, he sounds great. Now that's the heavy brigade. Good kind old fellow is the man in charge of the light brigade, equally well-loved as sort of an avuncular and charming and father Christmas like. Well, we'll come to whether he's loved, but he's not he's certainly not popular and he's certainly not a folklore and he's certainly nothing like father Christmas. And this is someone that we met in the previous episode and this is Lord Cardigan. So he is a man who's perpetually falling out with his own officers, court-martialing them, you know, fighting duels with them, shooting them in the back, having rouse over black bottles. I was about to say, you take a black bottle to the Crimea and you're in massive trouble. And on top of that, Cardigan and Luke and as we also mentioned in the previous episode, detest each other. Luke and his married to Cardigan's younger sister and they fall in that badly. And so Cardigan is taking his sister's side. And so the big question is, how will Cardigan take to having Lord Luke and as his commanding officer? And of course, how will Luke and manage having a subordinate as tricky and pig-headed as Cardigan? These are questions that concern pretty much everyone in the army. Yeah, I mean, absolutely mad to appoint these two men, by the way. A typical response is given by an officer in the Fourth Light Tribune. So one of the regiments in the Light Brigade, this is a chap called Captain Henry Portal. And Portal, I wrote two bigger fools could not be pulled out of the British army. So that's the view from the officer class. And even Raglin, who is actually a family friend of Cardigans, they know each other quite well. I mean, even he writes to Harding and says, Cardigan and Luke and together, you really show, I mean, you know, trouble. But Harding says, no, no. Cardigan is the man of the job. So people are doing, you know, if Harding is this kind of competent figure that we've been portraying, how on earth has he ever appointed Cardigan to this post? And I think the simple truth is that he actually rates Carding pretty highly as a commander. Now, it is true. In the previous episode, we dwelt on his tendency to fall out with his officers. Yes, resting them for wearing the wrong shoes or whatever it is completely. But I think that Harding feels that the reason for this is because Cardigan's standards of smartness and discipline are very, very high. And it is absolutely the case that the regiment that Cardigan had been commanding the 11th of his hours, they are the most brilliant in the whole British cavalry. They're the best dressed. They're the best equipped. They're the best and most exactly the train. And you asked, was he loved? I mean, he's definitely not loved by his officers. But he does seem to have been, if not loved, then kind of admired by the troopers, by the men who, you know, are from much poorer background than the officers and are being lavished with these pink pants and fine tailoring from Savile Row and stuff. So they actually seem to have thought Cardigan was a great man to have in charge of them. Well, they love a plunger, don't they? Yeah. They admire a bit of dash and swagger. So Cardigan, I think, is, I mean, he is a very high Tory. So on his estate, the estate workers love him. He looks out for them. The people who don't love him are the, you know, the rector or the, the local lawyer or whatever, who Cardigan treats with utter contempt. But as a high Tory, Cardigan despises Indian officers, but the common man, the common British trooper. We love the British trooper. Yeah, I can feel it. So in 1840, when it was kind of the eye of the storm, the black bottle and all of that, wrote to the naval and military gazette to condemn Cardigan's treatment by the press and praised him as one of the best colonels in the British army ever alive to the interests and a clah of his regiment. And the letter went on to praise Cardigan for his hard work, for his attention to detail and the lavish spending on the regiment. And it finished for he is deservedly respected, a good man who, not a soldier under him, would follow into action with confidence, nor hesitate a moment to shield from danger by his own body in the battlefield. And you might think, oh, is this, is this something that Cardigan himself wrote? But I don't think it is because, as Saul David in his tremendous biography of Cardigan, which has the brilliant title of the homicidal earl, he says, the proof of this final remark would be shown 14 years later at Balaklava. Cardigan will lead the light brigade into the valley of death. And all his men will follow him. And that is witness to the fact that he is actually, you know, he's got his men on side with him. And so this I think is why Cardigan is appointed to the command of the light brigade. And, you know, he's got this feud with Lucan, you know, there are massive reservations among the officers who are, you know, in his regiment and in the light brigade more generally. And he has this incredible notoriety among the British public. But who is to say Dominic that, out east, he will not prove himself worthy of his command. Yeah, I'm confident. I'm mastery confident. So you are confident. And I tell you someone else who's confident is Lord Cardigan himself. He's absolutely confident that he's going to do brilliantly. He leaves London for the Eastern theatre on the 8th of May. And it's in absolute certainty that he's going to have a glorious campaign and win an immortal name for himself. And time I guess will tell if he's right.
on that note we will take a break and we will return to find out what happens next with the library guide. This episode is brought to you by Anthropic, the team behind Claude. Has there ever been an occasion where you've watched something in episode perhaps and you just wish that you could know more about it? Tom, the genuine he has. As you know it was recently half-term and nothing says a half-term holiday than a trip to the Baltic States. I went to a Sambrut junior to Vilnius and Riga and I became completely obsessed with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania, for people who don't know, it covered what's now Lithuania, Belarus, Western Ukraine and I was really interested to read more about it because they know nothing about the history of this exotic and glamorous part of the world and so I went and I asked Claude tell me everything that I need to know about the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and it did was brilliant. Incredible. So if you want to know more about Lithuania or if you want to know about anything at all go to Claude. It's a thinking partner you know it has the cumulative wisdom of the whole of humanity. Like a podcast host. Exactly like a podcast like you and me Dominik and you can discover more about Claude at Claude.ai/restedhistory We assess Prime Minister with high confidence it was Russian. Holden DeRussian's accountable is world war. They took down a British passenger jerk containing 350 people. Man in the Kremlin is playing Alex. Got to ask yourself you want to play or not. You're the Prime Minister. If done, nothing! We would need to understand the policy context. All the relevant context will be structured as a framework today and disseminated into an operation order or frago. And a frago that says to kill the president of Russia. Yes. New from Goldhanger. Who is going to be able to pull this off. Dominik, Goldhanger, are you Sergeant Tome Duff? Duffy! An audio drama journey like no other. Men like Duffy, they are our most valuable weapons. Devised as a technically rigorous geopolitical action forever. You have to take friendly care. We're Britain plays its strongest arm against its strongest foe. Don't do it, Duffy! Bear hunt. Available now wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to The Restless History. The Light Brigade are embarking for war and the mood is one of giddy excitement. So to quote a lieutenant in the eighth hazas, "Our men are splendid fellows. It's a privilege to fight with them. If we were to meet an army two or three times our size, we should lick them." And surely they will, Tom, I'm like Lord Cardigan. I'm brimming with confidence. I mean, this year, first of all, of course, I've got to get to the theatre of war. And this is quite challenging because I've got to take their horses with them. And there are terrible storms in the Bay of Biscay. Bay of Biscay, notorious for them, of course. And then they get into the Mediterranean and then the weather proves unseasonably hot. And this is awful for the horses. So there's a description of how they coped in the gales in the Bay of Biscay. They were absolutely frantic. The stamping of their feet on the boards. Their screams together with the shouts of the men trying to pacify them was something awful. And then in the Mediterranean with this blazing heat, some of the horses go mad with heat stroke and have to be shot. It takes them over a month to get there. And most of the horses do survive the trip, but they arrive kind of weak and pretty out of condition. So that's unfortunate. One horse has had particular VIP treatment. So he's very much travelled first class. And this is Cardigan's prize steed Ronald. It's horse. It's called Ronald. And he is a magnificent steed, big and strong. And Cardigan doesn't have children. You know, he's got this loveless marriage. He regards Ronald Ronald with almost paternal deviation, I think. No, it's great to have Ronald on the show. What about Cardigan? Cardigan hasn't got him on a transport ship, surely. Of course he's not. Gone by the Orient Express or something. Cardigan's not going on a transport ship. No, he's gone by a Paris. Right. So he arrives in Paris. While his men are vomiting in the Bay of Biscay, he is hosting a dinner party at the cafe de Paris. And he goes to meet Napoleon III. And Napoleon III reveals that Cardigan had actually been the Empress of landlord while Napoleon was an exile in London. So Napoleon had stayed at 17 Carlton Terrace, which had been owned by Cardigan. So Napoleon III revealed himself to be massively common as well. He has definitely had to buy his own furniture. Well, then the Bonaparte are arivists, aren't they? I mean, they're parvinies. I mean, the effect of this on Cardigan is to confirm him in his own massive sense of self-superiority. So it's an absolute result for him. So that's tremendous. So he then continues in leisurely fashion down to Marseille where he takes a steamer, he stops off in Athens, does a little bit of sightseeing. And then finally he arrives in the boss for us on the 24th of May. And whereas it takes the transport ships over a month to get to Constantinople, it has taken Cardigan just over a fortnight. So that's very nice for him. Yeah, I mean, he's moved with haste. Whereas they're, they're dallying on the high seas. So he lands at what's now Uskadar, which is then Scutari. So this is, I mean, now it's kind of Asian Istanbul. But in those days, this was basically a big military barracks. And it's across the bossress on the Asian side from Constantinople. And that's where the British are going to be based at Scutari. Is that right? Yes. And Luke and has already arrived there. You know, he's always a teacher's pet. He's always first to get to work. And Cardigan reports to him and one of Luke and Zade sees him arrive and says that he looked as usual highly important. So I'm sure he did. And Cardigan goes for dinner with with Luke and and it's relatively amicable. But Cardigan has no intention of staying in Scutari for long. And this is partly because it's an absolute dump. It's very dilapidated. It stinks of sewage and it's rife with fleas and rats and so on. And this isn't Cardigan's fiber tool. It's not the Cafe de Paris. It's certainly not. But of course the other reason he doesn't understand Scutari is Luke and Zade. And Cardigan can't bear to be in the same military barracks as Luke and and Luke and is being a complete pain. So Cardigan is not a man for an early start. Luke and is very performatively getting up at four o'clock every morning to sort out the cavalry. He's issuing constant stream of kind of mad orders. So one of them he's nagging officers to wear their gold sword knots as prescribed by regulations. He's saying whiskers are not to be worn more forward on the chin than the corner of the mouth. He's even having a go at the wash women who are told not to use troughs next to fountains. So it's a kind of insane level of micro managing. And there is no way that Cardigan can put up with this for more than a couple of days and not go completely mad. So that's another reason why he wants to get out to Scutari. But I think probably the main reason is that he wants to have a crack at the Russians. He wants to see active service. And he's not going to get that at the boss for us because things have been moving while Cardigan has been dining at the Cafe de Paris. So let's give people a sense of the sort of strategic geography. So you've got Constantinople, which commands the Bosphorus, which links Europe and Asia. Above that you've got the Black Sea and then above that obviously the Russian Empire. So the Crimea jutting out into the Black Sea. And what the Allies are worried about on there are Russian, the Russians taking Constantinople. If the Russians took Constantinople, they would command the hinge between Europe and Asia. They would command the traffic between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. The Russians must never, ever allow to get it. And that's why the British are in Scutari on the other side of the Bosphorus from Constantinople. And the French are just further down the coast at a peninsula called Gallipoli. And I think just to emphasize that it's the weakness of the Turks that makes the British and the French their allies because they don't have to fear the Turks. So they'd rather have someone weak in Constantinople than someone aggressive like the Tsar. So that's the point. Now the Tsar obviously he wants to get Constantinople. That's his dream. He wants to take possession of the great city of Constantin and reclaim it for the Orthodox Christian faith. He wants to see Hagia Sophia once again proclaimed as a great cathedral. And so with this objective in mind in the summer of 1853, the Russians had crossed the border into the Ottoman Empire and occupied it's two most northerly provinces, the principalities of Moldova and Wallachia, so the future Romania. And these lie north of the Great River Danube. The Tsar's plan was to use these as a launch pad for an advance on Constantinople. And sure enough, in the spring of 1854, so this is as the British and French are preparing for war. And Lord Cardigan is settling down to dine at the cafe de Paris. The Russian advance southwards begins. And ahead of the most, as we have said,
the Danube, particularly the lower reaches of the Danube, cross which the Russians have to cross, are surrounded by Pestiferous marshlands. And so as always happens when a Russian army advances into a Pestiferous marshland, they start succumbing to hunger and disease, there's nothing to eat, and their enormous swarms of mosquitoes and dysentery is highly prevalent. So even before they reach their target, which is a great fortress on the south bank of the Danube, situated on a curve in the river called Silistria, their numbers are becoming depleted. And they settle down in front of Silistria, they cross the Danube and get ready to storm it, they can't really move forward until they've taken it. And the siege begins on the 11th of May, even as the first British and French transport ships are arriving off Glippoli. And so the Russian high command know that it's a race against time, against disease, which is decimating their troop, their army, but also against the prospect of the British and the French reinforcements arriving and buttressing the Turkish defence. So they've got to capture Silistria as soon as possible because otherwise the whole advance will be doomed. And it has to be said that despite the kind of the disease and the hunger of flicking their army, the Russian high command are confident of victory. So they've started off with 100,000 men. So even if they lose 10,000 men to disease, you know, they still got 90,000. And among these men is a young lieutenant named Count Leo Tolstoy, who will also in due course fight at Crimea and his experience of these battles and wars are what is going to inform his portrayal of Napoleon's invasion in war and peace. So why are the Russians confident? Basically they're confident because they always beat the Turks. They think the Turks are useless and Silistria only has at most 18,000 defenders and these consists of Turks and Egyptians and the Russians just despise the Turks and the Egyptians. They think, you know, we can easily defeat them. However, they are going to be proven overconfident because to the consternation of the Russians, the Turks and Egyptians put up an absolutely ferocious resistance. And their commander, who's a tremendous chap called Musa Pasha, summons them to defend Silistria as becomes the descendants of the prophet. And they fight with an almost religious seal and with great ferocity. So great piles of Russian heads start to appear by the gates of Silistria, you know, harvested from the Russian dead. And there's a British officer who's in command of the key Turkish artillery post. He's been there several years and has been responsible for training the Turkish artillery. He hangs out with Musa Pasha quite a lot and he records sitting with Musa Pasha when a ruffian came out and threw at his feet a pair of ears, which he had cut from a Russian soldier. Another boasted to us that a Russian officer had begged him for mercy in the name of the prophet, but that he had drawn his knife and in cold blood had cut his throat. So the siege is pretty brutal. And the Turks are definitely giving as good as they get, but that doesn't mean that they're not desperate to see the Allies move from their base around Constantinople. They want the Allies to come to their defence. And so they're saying, yeah, you know, don't hang out in Glippoli, don't hang out in Scutori, come north. And the man who is particularly pushing Raglan and Santa I know the French commander to do this is the Ottoman commander in Ramelli as it's called, the European part of the Ottoman Empire. And this is a remarkable character called Omar Pasha. So he's a crow out and had actually been baptized the Christian and had gone on to serve in the Austrian army, but he'd then been accused of embezzlement and had fled to Ottoman Bosnia. And he'd ended up in Constantinople and he'd realised that the way to get ahead was to convert to Islam and so he does that. And he ends up, you know, as we said, the commander of the Ottoman forces in Ramelli. And he's very jolly, very chatty and he loves his life as a wealthy Pasha. It's obviously much better than being a, you know, a sergeant in the Austrian army or whatever. So Orlando Faijis in his book on the Crimean War describes him as a man dressed in a uniform decorated with gold braid and precious stones. He kept a private haram and employed an orchestra of Germans to accompany his troops. He says like he's having a great time. He's absolutely living his best life. He really is. And so he is trying to work his magic on the French and British commanders. And Santa, I know he's not really very keen. He's happier hanging out in Glippoli. That was kind of wheeling and dealing and engaging in scams. But Raglan, he's much more accommodating. He's a gentleman, you know, this is what I host once than we must do as requested. And so already by the time that Cardigan arrives in Skutari, it's clear that its days as the main active British base are numbered, that the British are definitely going to be moving northwards up the Black Sea coast. And specifically to a place called Varna, which is a very small, picturesque port in Bulgaria, some 100 miles south of Silestria. And I know about Varna because Simon, my beloved Bulgarian personal trainer, to whom I owe so much. So you're from Varna? His wife Mina is from Varna. And they love it. And they're always going there. They've got a little house there and they go to the beach and everything. I've been to Varna. Did you like it? It's very nice. I think, but Varna, I seem to remember an aquarium. You can go down to this beautiful kind of Byzantine kind of Black Sea resort. It's actually lovely. It's a Bulgarian coast. I recommend it. The Bulgarian tourist board, by the way, should be sponsoring this episode. Right. And so it's to Varna that the ships carrying the cavalry, as they start arriving, are directed. And Cardigan, four days after he's arrived in Skutari, thinks, okay, well, I'm going to, you know, if that's where the cavalry are going, I'm going to go with them. And so he takes ship. And his permission to do this has come directly from Lord Raglan, his family friend. And the point of this is that contrary to all military regulations, he has not applied for permission to head to Varna from Skutari, from his immediate commanding officer, Lord Lucan, but has gone over Lord Lucan's head. I so his cut Lucan out of the equation. His cut Lucan out of the equation has gone to Raglan. Right. And Lucan presumably is not happy. He is furious. I mean, he thinks Cardigan's been insubordinate. What else would he expect? But he's very indignant and upset that Raglan hasn't backed him. And he's humiliated that the British cavalry of which he is the commander are now all in Varna. And he's stuck in Skutari, kind of worrying about washerwomen doing their washing next to fountains and things. But he's a man who does his duty and he feels that he's been commanded with making sure that Skutari is ship shape and it's very smelly and rundown. So he wants to make it ready to receive further British reinforcements and he does that. And it's not until the 15th of June that he finally arrives in Varna. And when he gets to Varna, he is appalled to discover that there is no trace of Cardigan at all and that most of the cavalry seem to have vanished into thin air. And as the result, there's very little for Lucan to do. And so he contends himself with firing off complaints to Raglan saying Cardigan's behaved appallingly. I hate him, get rid of him, whatever. It's not fair. And drilling such members of the cavalry as are present in Varna kind of relentlessly. But even this goes wrong because Lucan hasn't drilled cavalry for years and all the words of command have changed and predictably rather than learning the new drills, Lucan requires the cavalry to learn all the old drills and the result is complete chaos. They keep marching into each other and turning left and going into trees and things. And one hostile observer, someone who despises Lucan observes, it was as if one of the cavalry commanders of the 30 years war had risen from his grave to take command after the fashion of the day. Oh my word. That doesn't bode well. Now while Lucan is drilling them in the fashions of the 30 years war, where are Cardigan and the Light Brigade and all this? So where have they gone to, first of all? Cardigan has evacuated them from Varna to a delightful spot called Devna which Woodham Smith in her book describes as a beautiful valley like an English park with tree streams, banks of wildflowers and a profusion of wild grapes. And actually Cardigan amazingly has been very sensible here because we said what a picturesque charming spot Varna is. It is no longer a picturesque and charming spot after huge ship loads carrying British and French soldiers have arrived there because these soldiers start putting an impossible strain on Varna's single drain. Okay, are you in the world of dysentery? Are our friend dysentery joining us on the show? So great to have dysentery back on the show. A dysentery is very soon raging in Varna. So it's the kind of worst kind of tourist to arrive, you know, thousands, tens of thousands of British and French soldiers. They're not just dysentery but cholera, right? Cholera, the cholera as well. So cholera appears first in the French camp, then in the British camp. There's a hot wind blowing in from across the Balkans and it covers everyone in Varna. We're told in white dust and dead flies, just a horrible detail. And soon thousands of British and French soldiers are dying and the dead have to be wrapped up in blankets and buried in a mass grave. And even the mass grave is then dug up by the locals who want the blankets for themselves. So it's a hideous, hideous scene. Meanwhile, up in Devna, Cardigan is relaxing in his farmhouse and willing his men. He's had a slight chest infection so he's recovering from that. But he's, you know, he's gearing up to have a crack at the Russians. Very excited about this. This is what he's come for. This is what everyone is looking forward to. This is the sport.
that they've been looking forward to. But then Dominic, on the 25th of June, devastating news. The Russians have raised the siege of Cylistria. Well, they've given up. They've given up. Obviously, on one level, this isn't devastating at all. This is what's, this is great news. The British and French have come here to ward the Russians off, and now they've gone back. So basically, they've won, but on another level, for someone like Cardigan, for someone like his men, it's devastating because they want, you know, they've come here to fight, and now that it looks like they're going to be denied it. So Raglan, I think, also shares his sense of disappointment, and he orders Cardigan to make a reconnaissance to head north and discover, and I quote Raglan's orders, "If the Russian army was still on this side of the Danube, a Cardigan couldn't be happier." You know, this is his chance. At last, he's been, you know, he's been given orders to go and possibly have a crack at the Russians. So he leaves at the head of 121 troopers, and by the 29th of June, they have reached the Danube, and they are able to confirm that yes, the Russians have withdrawn, that they have, they've gone back across the river, and they have pulled out from the region altogether. And when Cardigan returns with this report, he's immensely pleased with himself. And he, he boasts about it to his, to his peers, that he had actually slept in a tent, and he'd eaten almost the same food as his men, and only once over the entire 17-day course of his mission, had he changed his clothes, so he'd really been woofing it, like the men. And Raglan is so impressed by this that on the 20th July, he promotes Cardigan to major general. So Hazar, Cardigan, has covered himself in glory, or Dominic, as he has Cardigan really proven himself a military genius. What, are you telling me that this reconnaissance expedition to the Danube didn't go quite as well as Cardigan is making out? I can't believe that. I fear so. Okay. So the reconnaissance to the Danube had actually been incredibly brutal. Cardigan had massively exceeded his orders. He got to the Danube, and then he'd gone gallovanting all over the place. Very like Custer, actually, something of Custer, about Cardigan, and they, Cardigan obviously had no maps. He had no local knowledge. He didn't know anything about it. So they'd headed off into places where there was no water, no food or anything. And on their return to Devna, you know, his reconnaissance troop presented a really shocking site. So they would describe, you know, men on foot, driving and going on their wretched, wretched horses, three or four of which could hardly stir. Actually this reconnaissance mission ends up putting about a hundred horses out of action. And his critics refer to it as the sore back reconnaissance. And it's actually a bit of a disaster because it leaves the light brigade very short of the horses and without horses effectively, you don't have cavalry. But you know, Cardigan's major general, and he's incredibly pleased to himself. So at least there's that. Yeah. So meanwhile, back at the camps, which they're ravaged by cholera, there's also a fire, isn't there, at the beginning of August, which destroys one of their big supply depots. So you've got 16,000 boots go up and in smoke and loads of rations, and actually interestingly, you mentioned in the first episode, I think it was how this is often perceived as the first modern war. And clearly, lots of things must have gotten wrong in the peninsula war, let's say, or in the Napoleonic Wars. But you know, that's the sort of more of a pre-newspaper age, pre-war correspondent age. So news of that that isn't disseminated, whereas in this case, you know, everyone is writing the memoirs, there are war correspondents reporting on the whole thing. So it's sort of the comical blunders of the French and British commanders are being held up, you know, studied under a microscope, as it were, in a way that they just simply weren't in previous wars. Well, there's one correspondent in particular, William Howard Russell, would come to him in our next episode, who's there for the times. And he is the kind of the key source for this, who will come to him. But yes, you're absolutely right, that people back in Britain reading their newspapers are being told that things are going badly. And it's very, you know, it's very like the sports pages during a World Cup. England has gone out full of hope. And then they're being told that they've all got, you know, diarrhea or whatever. Right. They've got a stroke or, you know, there are too many wags or whatever. Things are going badly. And the manager is reduced to saying, well, you know, our results will do the talking. The problem for the British military now and for the fans back home waiting to read about tales of daring do, is that it looks like the World Cup's been cancelled, that there isn't going to be a war. The Russians have withdrawn. So there aren't actually going to be any matches. Yeah, well, this is the thing, right? They could stop. They could stop now. They could just go home and say, come on, stand tonight, but it's safe. Of course they could, because it's not a sport. I mean, that's the whole point. It's not a World Cup. It's a serious, serious business. I mean, don't do it. Yeah, never do that. Yes, you know, the war aims have been met. The Russians have retreated from the Balkans, Constantinople is saved. So that's on the military level. I think politically, though, it is really, really difficult. And a huge part of this is what you were alluding to. People are reading about this in their newspapers. And so they want action. And that generates massive pressure on the British government, which in turn generates pressure on the British army. The British public want stirring tales of daring do, news of glorious victories, and neither the British nor the French governments want to put up with the consequent loss of face. And even Karl Marx, even Karl Marx is laughing at them back in London. He's just arrived there. There they are. The French doing nothing. And the British helping some as fast as they can. Great, great. So when you've got Karl Marx laughing at you, things are bad. So what to do? So where would you strike? You know, you're there. You're in the Balkans, I suppose. I mean, you could advance through, I don't know, Romania, Bessarabia, you know, into what is now Ukraine. But land wars aren't really the British thing anyway. A naval campaign would be the fun thing to do. Would it not? And of course, you look across the Black Sea. And what do you see? The main headquarters of the Russian Black Sea fleet. And where is that? It's in the Crimea. And it is, of course, the mighty port of Sebastopol. And the first order of the Admiralty had pointed this out, that, you know, in December, they'd been working out, you know, should we just focus on the Balkans or should we look further afield? And the first order of the Admiralty had written the eye tooth of the bear must be drawn. While his fleet and naval arsenal in the Black Sea are destroyed, there is no safety for Constantinople, no security for the peace of Europe. So you make peace by making war. This is the principle. If you knock out Sebastopol, then you knock out the home of the Russian Black Sea fleet, and everything we brilliant in Constantinople will be secure, long term. And so Hawks in the British government, in the popular press, Hawks at the breakfast table in, you know, homes across Britain, they're all agitating for an attack on Sebastopol. They want to see it captured. They want to see the destruction of Russia's Black Sea fleet. The French, it has to be said, are less convinced. Sant'Anneau, you know, he says, well, I mean, I can understand why the British are keen on this, because they're in naval power. What's in it for us? Well, Napoleon III cares about La Glouare. He wants to emulate his uncle, doesn't he? He does. And also he wants to maintain the alliance with Britain. You know, he doesn't want to go against Britain. And actually by late August, things are so bad in Varna that Sant'Anneau himself is thinking, well, actually, we'd probably lose fewer men if we invade Crimea and attack Sebastopol than if we stay in Varna, because we've run out of supplies and everyone's dying of cholera and dysentery. Right. So it is agreed that the British and French, you know, their war aim now is to attack Sebastopol. I mean, it's a kind of ludicrous war aim. They really have just kind of rustled it up, you know, they're stuck there, twiddling their thumbs otherwise. But on the 24th of August, orders for the embarkation are given. And on the 7th of September, the Allied flitilla sets sail from Varna, and it is a really spectacular sight. Sant'Anneau's doctor, remember Paul Sant'Anneau has terrible intestinal problems, massive stomach aches. So he has a doctor on hand. This doctor describes the fleet as looking like a vast industrial city on the waters. And it is led by HMS Agamemnon, which is the Royal Navy's first screw propelled steamship. So a portent of what is to come in the field of naval technology. And behind it, there are some 400 ships, there are men of war, transport ships, tugs, all kinds of, you know, the absolute works. And despite the cholera, despite the dysentery, confidence on board is high, morale is good. There is excitement, there is anticipation. But the big question is, is this sense of excitement and anticipation justified? Because as we've said, the decision to attack Sebastopol is above all a political one. And the view of the Crimea that you have in London is not necessarily the one that the Black Sea affords. And in our next episode, we will see how the invasion goes and whether the confidence of the British and the French in their military capabilities is justified. So next time the Allies will have their first taste of battle, there will be glorious feats of our
and there will be ludicrous and spectacular blunders and the food between Lord Lucan and Lord Cardigan will reach a highly entertaining, you-level of intensity. Now if you remember the Rested History Club of Averyone, well-dressed library guide, then you can hear that and the final episode galloping into the jaws of death. You can hear those right now. If you are not a club member, you might want to listen to them so you can just go to the restedishistory.com and sign up. Now, don't just sign up for yourself because Christmas is coming and there is no better gift for the loved ones in your life than Restedishistory Club membership. And to remind you, that would be a whole year for your loved ones of ad-free listening. They'd get bonus episodes. They'd get access to full series without waiting weeks and weeks and weeks. They'd get our newsletter. They'd get all kinds of treats. It would be the best Christmas ever and I'd produce a column would not forgive me if I didn't tell you that the way to find these gifts is to go to the restedishistory.com website and to click where it says "gifts" because column knows that you would be incapable of doing that, where he not to offer you this important advice. So go to "gifts" at the website and you'll be able to get these tremendous gifts for the loved ones in your life. And on that, exciting bombshell, I say goodbye and we will see you. If you remember the club, we'll see you just a few minutes and we will be advancing on Sebastopol and it will be absolutely brilliant. Goodbye. Bye-bye.
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