forced the Russians to scuttle their ships in order to use
the cannons against the allies, whom they met at the
Alma River on the route to Sebastopol. The Battle of the
Alma (20 September 1854) was a victory for the British
and French that left the Sebastopol base open to the al-
lies and could, if taken, have ended the war. Neverthe-
less, because of lack of agreement on strategy between
the British and French, the Russians were able to hold
off the allied forces. A second encounter led to the Rus-
sians’ retreat to Sebastopol. Whether it was poor plan-
ning or negligence by Raglan, the allies did not follow
up the victory at the Alma, and the Russians were able
to turn a horrific loss into a draw. Raglan’s mistakes lost
the chance to take Sebastopol quickly, and further blun-
ders made the situation worse. On 25 October 1854
at Balaklava, Raglan, on a hilltop, sent an order to his
main field officer, Lord lucan, to attack a small Rus-
sian force taking away some guns in front of one flank
of the British forces. From Lucan’s position in the valley,
these guns were hidden behind a rise in the grounds.
He therefore ordered his men to attack the only guns he
could see—in the middle of the main Russian force in
front of him. The Light Brigade, commanded by James
Thomas Brudenell, Lord Cardigan, charged straight
down the valley under fire from three sides. Of the 700
men sent, only 195 came back. The horrific carnage led
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, then England’s poet laureate, to
pen “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” recording their
slaughter in heroic and picturesque poetry.
The problems for the English troops in the Crimea
were not limited to poor leadership. The government
had failed to supply them with sufficient food, clothing,
or medical support, and the sufferings of the soldiers
were publicized by reporters such as The Times’s Wil-
liam Howard Russell, who used the pages of his paper
to criticize and expose the conditions under which the
English troops were fighting. Historians believe that
Raglan had tried to address these concerns before the
war but had been rebuffed by the government of Lord
Aberdeen. Nonetheless, the press accounts blamed him
for what had happened, and he was bitterly denounced.
In January 1855, an investigation was launched in the
House of Commons to demand a full enquiry into the
war. Unable to stop the criticism, Aberdeen resigned on
1 February 1855 and was replaced by Lord Palmerston,
who appointed Lord Panmure as secretary for war and
ordered him to immediately send additional supplies to
the Crimea. In the meantime, Raglan had continued
to fight, including the important battle of Inkerman (5
November 1854), following which he was promoted to
the rank of field marshal.
The war and the continued criticism in the British
press took a toll on the aging Raglan, breaking his spirit.
Suffering from dysentery, he followed Palmerston’s order
to take Sebastopol. On 18 June 1855—the 40th an-
niversary of the Battle of Waterloo—the attack began.
Disastrously, Raglan allowed the French commander to
talk him out of breaking the Russian lines with cannon
fire, instead sending waves of soldiers against the Rus-
sian guns. The result was pure carnage. This final affront
to Raglan’s military sense was his end; he succumbed to
his illnesses on 28 June 1855 at the age of 66. His body
was returned to England by ship, and he was buried in
Badminton with full military honors.
In 1857, an anonymous writer wrote, “Does any
body know who Lord Raglan was? Was he a general
under Cornwallis in the Revolutionary war? Or did
he fight Napoleon in Spain? Or who was he? It is so
long since one heard of him, that perhaps none but very
learned persons ought to be expected to remember his
history. It is actually twenty months since he died; and
twenty months in the present age are as long as twenty
years—bah! Two hundred years of olden time.” Raglan’s
troops did not have kind things to say about him: A
Captain Cuninghame of the 95th Rifles wrote in a letter
home, 19 January 1855:How bitterly The Times and other papers are
beginning to abuse poor old Raglan. Man is a
regular contrary animal and I suppose it is for
that reason that I who abused him myself a little
time ago begin to think that he is a little hardly
used or at least the newspapers should not be al-
lowed to write in such terms of any man holding
the position of Commander-in-Chief especially
in the field. There is however a great deal of truth
in what they say. He is no doubt a shocking old
muff and also very sensitive to the weight of
newspaper censure. Since the Article in The Times
about the invisible Commander-in-Chief he had
been riding about the lines in a most frantic way
making himself obnoxious in every direction.Lord Raglan had long served as an efficient staff
officer to Wellington and was a master tactician. Un-
fortunately, by the time of the Crimean War he had notRAglAn, loRD FitzRoy JAmeS henRy SomeRSet, FiRSt bARon