Lessons in leadership: the Battle of Balaklava, 1854

Military Review,  March-April, 2008  by Anna Maria Brudenell

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THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE took place on 25 October 1854, during the Battle of Balaklava in the Crimean War. The action has become a byword for stubborn heroism, devotion to duty, and steadfastness in the face of overwhelming odds--but also futility, waste, incompetence, and poor communication. We will examine the battle, the charge, and the behaviour of senior commanders as a study in leadership, using the criteria of "eight Points of Good Leadership" from the Defence Leadership Management Centre based at the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom at Shrivenham. Those points are--

1. Inspire confidence.

2. Motivate others to follow.

3. Raise the goals of others (at personal risk).

4. Build a team.

5. Provide a personal example of physical/or moral bravery, or both.

6. Achieve the task.

7. Instill and maintain discipline.

8. Delegate authority.

If the horses, colourful uniforms, swords, and lances of the Light Brigade seem far removed, it is worth remembering that the Crimean War marks the boundary between Napoleonic and modern warfare. The Crimean War saw the first use of military telecommunications, percussion rifles, railroads, and war correspondents. It was expeditionary warfare mounted by what might be termed, with only the slightest hint of irony, a "coalition of the willing."

Background

In September 1854, a force of 51,000 British, French, and Turkish infantry, 1,000 British cavalry, and 128 guns came ashore at Calamita Bay, 30 miles north of Sevastopol in the Crimean Peninsula. The operation was a response by the great imperial powers, Britain and France, to a change in the balance of power in the region. Russia, seeking to expand its empire, had used the Orthodox religion of Ottoman subjects in the Balkans as a pretext to install a protectorate over them. After failed attempts at diplomacy, Russia and Turkey went to war, with the Russian Navy inflicting a serious defeat on a Turkish flotilla at Sinope (November 1853), raising the possibility that Russia would overrun the declining Ottoman empire and gain unchallenged access through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles into the Mediterranean Sea. The prospect of the Russian Black Sea fleet sailing into the Mediterranean and disrupting their global trade routes was sufficiently alarming for Britain and France to set aside their ongoing enmity and support another former enemy, the Ottoman Turks.

Following the joint British and French declaration of war on Russia (28 March 1854), an allied expeditionary force landed at Varna to oppose the Russians in the Balkans. The Russians withdrew, and in September 1854 the allied force embarked for the Crimea. The allies' aim was to deliver "a blow that would cripple Russian naval power ... for a generation." (1) hence, they would lay siege to (and in due course capture) the Russian naval base at Sevastopol.

Leaders

Overall command of the allied force rested jointly with the British commander-in-chief, field Marshal Lord Raglan, and the French commander-in-chief, General Francois Canrobert. Prince Aleksandr Menshikov led the Russian army, with General Pavel Liprandi as his second in command. The British cavalry division, the focus of this article, consisted of two units, the Heavy Brigade and the Light Brigade. The divisional commander was Lieutenant General George Bingham, the Earl of Lucan. Lucan's Heavy Brigade was commanded by Brigadier General Sir James Scarlett, while the Light Brigade was commanded by Lucan's brother-in-law, Major General James Brudenell, the Earl of Cardigan. Cardigan and Lucan loathed each other, and their mutual hatred was common knowledge. (2) They were not Generally on speaking terms. This bar to effective communication would later prevent Raglan's intentions for the Light Brigade from being conveyed accurately through Lucan to Cardigan and the Light Brigade.

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All the key British leaders were from the same social group: wealthy aristocrats, they were born to lead, ferociously proud, tough, and brave. Their job was to lead their men from the front. The men would follow their officers into the very jaws of hell, unquestioningly, out of discipline and loyalty to their regiment and their leaders.

The Battle of Balaklava

The Battle of Balaklava was a Russian attempt to break the siege of Sevastopol. The battlefield consists of two valleys divided by low hills. The south valley is almost four miles in length and one mile wide. It is bordered by the Causeway Heights (300 feet high), along which runs the Vorontsov Road. The north valley runs from the Sapoune Ridge in the west to the River Chernaya in the east. It is 4.5 miles long and 1.5 miles wide. Lord Raglan and his staff were on the Sapoune Ridge with a good view of both valleys. From his vantage point, the two valleys looked like one broad plain made up of shallow valleys with low hills bordering either side. The Causeway Heights would have seemed to blend into the higher range of hills at the eastern end of the "plain." The Fedioukine Hills on the left and Causeway Heights on the right appeared to rise so gradually that they would not have seemed to be hills. Straight ahead of Raglan, at a distance of about 4.5 miles, was a distinctive round-topped hill about 700 feet above sea level. Raglan was able to view the panorama of the battlefield, but he was unaware that this hill hampered the cavalry's view on the valley floor.