Charge of the Light Brigade

If you're a custodial supervisor at a local high school, you know that cleanliness is key and that the best place to get cleaning supplies is from Granger.

Granger helps you stay fully stocked on the products you trust, from paper towels and disinfectants to floor scrubbers.

Plus, you can rely on Granger for easy reordering so you never run out of what you need.

Call 1-800-GRANGER, clickgranger.com, or just stop by.

Granger for the ones who get it done.

If you thought goldenly breaded McDonald's chicken couldn't get more golden, think golder, because new sweet and smoky special edition gold sauce is here.

Made for your chicken favorites.

I participating McDonald's for a limited time.

Hello and welcome.

Citation Needed, a podcast where we choose a subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia, and pretend we're experts.

Because this is the internet and that's how it works now.

I'm Heath, and I'll be the idiot leading the charge today.

And I'm joined by four guys who are going to follow the idiot leading the charge.

Cecil, Noah, Tom, and Edema.

Well, you're the easiest to follow, Keith, Heath, because you're tall.

It's true.

It's very true.

Idiot leading the charge.

I think you misspelled Commander-in-Chief, Keith.

That's very nice.

Thank you.

Okay.

So, Noah, what person, place, thing, concept, phenomenon, or event are we going to be talking about today?

The charge of the light brigade.

All right.

And what does that evoke for you, like, mentally?

Right?

Right.

Good question.

So when I think of the charge of the light brigade, I think of a time time during the Crimean War when a bunch of horsemen were told, hey, horse passed all them cannons to them other cannons and take them out.

And the horseman said, are you sure you mean us?

And they said, not really.

And then the horseman died.

Right.

And then Alfred Lord Tennyson said, well, hey, that's the kind of commitment to courage and country that a guy could.

really make a buck on.

So I never thought of it as something we could write an entire citation needed essay from, but it turns out that there's actually a lot more to this story.

Yeah, what's stopping us from making a free on it, Noah?

Right, exactly.

So, yeah, so let's start with the Crimean War itself, because let's be honest, it's entirely possible that some situation could arise in the near future where a war in Ukraine between Russia and a bunch of Western allies about controlling the Crimean Peninsula would be topical.

So this was a war waged with Russia on one side, and the other side is the UK, France, and the Ottoman Empire.

And ostensibly, it's about keys to a church.

So back in the 1800s, there was actually a lot of religious strife in the Holy Land.

There was a bunch of different religious claimants all fighting over the same religious landmarks.

So of course, one of those disputed landmarks is the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

This was sacred to both the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, but the Orthodox were the ones that had the keys.

Or actually, sorry, both groups had keys to the church, but the Orthodox had the good keys.

They had the keys to the front door, whereas the Catholic priest, the system.

The back door is also delightful.

Well, right.

If the Catholics had had the back door, maybe they'd be happy with that.

But they had to suffer for the side door.

Right?

That's like an ear job.

I don't even know what that is.

And they considered it a great affront.

We're not living in our mom's basement.

We have a separate private entrance.

It's our own place, technically.

Assholes.

At this time, the area is

under the control of the Ottoman Empire.

So in his capacity as protector of the Catholic faith, the Emperor of France, that's Napoleon III, not the good Napoleon, he goes to the Ottoman Sultan, Abdul Mesed I, and he's like,

How about you hook my guys up with a copy of those front door keys?

And the Sultan is like, Sure, why not?

And then the Russian Tsar, Nicholas I, in his capacity as the protector of the Orthodox faith, was like, Oh, hell no.

And the debate quickly escalated to war.

You would think the Ottomans would just put up their feet and relax.

Yeah, wouldn't you, though?

Now, you may have wondered, oh, you got to eat for that one.

Now,

you may have suspicions that the real reason they went to war had nothing to do with who got the lucky red ball.

And you would be right.

The real reason was that the Ottoman Empire was huge and decrepit, and everybody figured they were like one good war away from falling apart.

And if you happen to be the person that won that war, you might get a lot of real sweet real estate out of the deal.

Same reason World War I started, as it turns out.

So Russia's trying to push the Ottoman Empire over the brink, and France and the UK are trying to to prop it up.

And honestly, I think it's kind of wild how overshadowed the Crimean War ends up being by World War I.

It's a fascinating conflict.

It's been called the first modern war, but it's actually also the last pre-modern war.

So it's just this, it's got this crazy mix of shit.

It's also, it's the first war that used railways and trench warfare, or at least the first ones to do that extensively.

It was the first European war that was photographed, and it was the first war to be reported by telegraph.

And of course, it's the war that gave us both Florence Nightingale and War and Peace.

So like,

what's a war got to do?

All those people had to stand real still during that charge to make sure the picture came out.

Because you all looked at the camera.

Everybody go back and run it again.

Don't look at the camera.

God, being an influencer used to be really tough work.

Right?

So again.

You get a ring light.

Hostilities between the various nations broke out in October of 1853.

And in October of the following year, those those hostilities culminated in the siege of Sevastopol.

So, Sevastopol is a strategically important port city in Crimea that the English have high hopes of triumphantly marching 50,000 men into, but it's also where the Russians keep their Black Sea fleet.

So, they hunkered down into what would be an 11-month siege, a siege that Wikipedia describes as, quote, one of the last classic sieges in history, end quote, which seems optimistic.

Who's going to siege Noah?

The roaches?

With their tiny little ladders?

What's a non-classic siege?

Like, what's a postmodern siege?

What do they mean by classic siege?

I think

January 6th.

So, okay, so

we're talking about this long, protracted, brutal siege, and it contains multiple individual battles along the way.

The Brits gain an early victory in the Battle of the Alma, but it doesn't, it's like not decisive.

They don't have enough men to really capitalize on it.

So both them and the French decide that they're going to settle in and they're going to starve the Russians out.

And that's a bad deal for the Russians, but it's even worse in a lot of ways for the Brits because due to a lack of sanitation, fully 90% of the losses that the British would suffer during this siege would come from disease.

A dude wakes up in three inches of human waste.

Hey, guys,

maybe inventing these trenches before antibiotics and the germ theory wasn't our best idea.

But this slip and slide is dope.

That's all I'm saying.

And it's only about as dangerous as a normal slip and slide.

Let's make a jump.

So about a week after the siege starts, the Russians launch an attack against a few Ottoman redoubts that are protecting British supply lines.

British Highlanders would halt the Russian advance and therein become immortalized as the thin red line.

But this attack, which would successfully wrest these important strategic positions, would mark the opening volleys of the Battle of Balaklava, which is where the famed charge takes place.

Who knew that walnuts and honey would make such fantastic defenses?

Am I right?

I think we all would have suspected.

It's okay.

Balaclava sounds like Baklava.

Was that?

Yep.

Yep, we got you.

Well, I guess we didn't all get you, so it's probably good that you did explain that.

Speedy's over there busting up.

I'm guessing he's just busting up too hard.

I'm guessing he's just busting up.

Oh, it's Eli.

Sorry, I'm muted.

I was laughing so hard.

Bro, what happened?

You probably hit mute.

I hit mute.

I don't know why I would

move my mouse over to a different and hit mute on a different window, but I did.

I did.

The heart wants what it wants.

So, before we get to the battle itself, Eli must dry his tears.

But there are also a couple of important players that I want to introduce you to, most notably the Commander-in-Chief, Field Marshal Fitzroy James Henry, Somerset, 1st Baron Raglan.

Yeah, here and just referred to as Raglan because fuck, man, pick a name.

Anyway, so he's a veteran of the Napoleonic Wars.

He picked them all.

Yeah, right, yeah.

So he's a veteran of the Napoleonic Wars and he even lost an arm to him.

But, and this is going to turn out to be important, he's never actually overseen combat operations.

So he's one of these people where he's too experienced for anybody to tell him what to do, despite having no experience.

That feels like the tagline for this show right there.

Nice.

Right?

Okay, I feel like we're going to find out later that lots of people knew about Raglan's cognitive deficiency the whole time.

I can beat these guys single-handedly, which is pretty much my only option.

So, in addition to Raglan, you've also got George Charles Bingham, 3rd Earl of Lucan, who's in charge of the cavalry forces.

And they consist of two brigades, which are known to history as the heavy and light brigades, the latter of which is commanded by a guy named James Thomas Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan.

And those two, Lucan and Cardigan, fucking hate each other.

Both of the sources that I use for this say they hated each other despite the fact that Lucan married Cardigan's sister.

But given my relationship with all three of my brothers-in-law, I don't know what the word despite is doing there.

I mean, not using that word right.

Okay, it's hard to be mad at Cardigan, though.

Like, he's just so cozy.

Hey, pin in that.

Which, by the way, don't put a pin pin in your cardigan, a little stickulator.

So cardigan, by the way,

he's one of these people that buys all the way into the blue blood concept.

And he's kind of the reason I want to do this essay.

He's a horseshoe crab.

No, he's a piece of shit, though.

So he's one of these people who buys all the way into the blue blood thing and expects everybody else to buy into it as well.

And that doesn't go very far towards endearing him to his men.

Like, I shit you not, during this whole fucking thing, he had a personal yacht that he kept anchored near the place where his soldiers were encamped.

You know, the ones that are dying from disease, and he slept there.

And he even brought along a poster up on his ceiling right now.

Yeah, right, right.

Oh, wait until you tell you about this person.

This guy bending over his yacht.

He brought along a French chef to take care of dinners for him.

And he was such a prick.

This is a real story.

He had a subordinate officer arrested once for ordering wine when he asked for champagne.

And And there's just one other guy that I have to introduce you to set the stage.

His name is Lewis Nolan, and he's not quite the highfalutin aristocrat that those other guys are, but he's still a prick.

He's pompous, hot-tempered, and pretty damn sure that he could win this whole fucking war if somebody would just let him be in charge for an afternoon.

And he's going to be A, the only one of the guys that I just introduced that dies in the charge of the light brigade, and B, the only guy who dies in the charge of the light brigade who kind of has it coming.

All right.

People do not like making copies of their keys.

They hate it.

We'll see how the charge goes after a quick break or some apropos of nothing.

All right, men, gather round, gather round.

Now, as you know, today is the day of glorious battle.

It is on your red-blooded courage and nobility that the very fate of the realm sits.

Tomorrow, we ride to victory!

Hooray!

Um, sir, where are you going?

Oh, I'm going back to my yacht.

Your your yacht?

You're not gonna...

You're not gonna stay with us and, like, tell stories around the fire?

Catch a wink of sleep by fire's last ember and ready for battle?

Oh,

I would love to, but you see, I have a terrible back.

And if I sleep on a bedroll, that's just

my whole week, you know?

Sure, yeah.

Uh-huh.

Plus, yeah, plus, Francois is doing a lavender creme brulee tonight.

And I know what you're thinking.

I know what you're thinking.

Does lavender taste good?

Does it have a taste?

It doesn't.

It barely has a taste, but the aroma lends something to the burned sugar that is genuinely indescribable.

oh yeah i bet i bet oh

look at me blathering on anyways i'm gonna let you get to it any questions before i go

yeah just uh just the one what is the uh land version of a mutiny called oh um

it's actually still called a mutiny oh is it yeah a lot of people associate it with the the movie but it it just means like intramilitary insurrection yeah it's insurrection.

That's the word I was looking for.

That word works too.

That works in the middle.

And notes.

Yep.

So I will see you guys tomorrow.

Yep.

See you tomorrow.

Yep, tomorrow.

I'm going to shoot you in the head.

What?

I said I'm going to shoot you in the head.

Dude.

The clock is ticking to get the most of your summer behind the wheel of the upscale all-electric Jeep Wagoner S and innovative Chrysler Pacifica plug-in hybrid.

And right now, get 0% financing for 72 months on the 2025 Chrysler Pacifica plug-in hybrid and the 2025 Jeep Widener S.

Plus, you may qualify for up to a $7,500 federal tax credit.

See your California Jeep brand dealer and California Chrysler dealer today.

Finance offer not compatible with any other offer.

0% APR financing for 72 months equals $1,389 per month per $1,000 financed for well-qualified buyers through Stellantis Financial, regardless of down payment.

Not all customers will qualify.

Contact dealer for details.

The federal tax credit is offered by a third party and is subject to change without notice.

Please confirm this information to ensure its accuracy and availability.

Consult the tax professional for details and eligibility requirements.

Income and other restrictions may apply.

Purchases Purchases are not eligible if the customer exceeds adjusted gross income limitations, $300,000 for married filing jointly taxpayers, $225,000 for head of household filers, and $150,000 for single-filers.

Offers end September 30th.

Chrysler and Cheap are registered trademarks.

Ready for a great night out?

Top concerts are headed to Shoreline Amphitheater this September.

Don't miss the chance to see your favorite artists like Neil Young, The Who, Thomas Rhett, Conan Gray, Above and Beyond, and many more.

Nothing beats a great night of live music with your friends.

Tickets are going fast, so don't wait.

Head to live nation.com to see the full list of shows and get your tickets today.

That's live nation.com.

You want your master's degree.

You know you can earn it, but life gets busy.

The packed schedule, the late nights, and then there's the unexpected.

American Public University was built for all of it.

With monthly starts starts and no set login times, APU's 40-plus flexible online master's programs are designed to move at the speed of life.

You bring the fire, we'll fuel the journey.

Get started today at apu.apus.edu.

Okay, well, there's supposed to be a little bit of a bend towards the tip.

No, there's not, man.

Yeah, there is.

Thank you.

You guys both need to go to a hospital.

Aha!

There they are, Cecil.

Get them!

Hey, guys.

Cecil, why is Tom

in a cage?

Yeah, is he metaphorizing his mental health again?

No, he's mad at this week's sponsor, Fireflies AI.

What's fireflies.ai?

It's a robot.

That's what it is.

It's a gosh darn robot.

Tom, fireflies.ai is the number one AI teammate that transcribes, summarizes, and analyzes your conversation so you can get the most out of every meeting.

Yeah, how does it do that?

By stealing your blood?

Not by stealing your blood.

No, it's the smarter way to work.

Helping you understand what was said, generating personalized notes, finding information, taking action on next steps, and developing workflow workflow to create internal efficiencies.

Plus, Fireflies now provides tailored summaries that are personalized to fit you and your role across many different industries, whether that's in sales, marketing, engineering, recruiting, management, and more, even podcast production.

No, you're handing it our livelihoods.

No, it's going to tell everyone our podcast secrets now.

Got it.

Tom, Fireflies was designed with security in mind, giving you the ability to control who can view, share meeting notes, and even choose where to store your meeting information.

Plus, it seamlessly integrates with the tools that you and your team already rely on with integrations across more than 60 different apps like Zoom, Google Meet, Slack, Asana, Zapier, and your CRM.

And right now, when you sign up for a yearly Firefly subscription, you can get your first two months for free.

Just go to fireflies.ai/slash citation.

That's right.

Two months free when you go to fireflies.ai/slash citation.

That's fireflies.ai/slash citation.

I see.

Okay, so you feel a little better?

No, I see that you've already been incorporated into the hive mind.

You will never take me alive.

Honestly, he reacted better to that than I thought he would.

Right?

I was going to say, yeah.

He's doing good.

And we're back.

When we left off, we finished the opening credits, I'm pretty sure, and the title of the episode was just about to happen.

That's next.

I think that's actually a little bit optimistic.

Okay.

But it's going to happen.

It's just not about to happen.

Okay.

We're getting there.

So these redoubts that the Russians have captured, they're up on a ridgeline called the Causeway Heights.

And Raglan wants them back, damn it, but he doesn't have enough infantry to mount an attack.

All he really has at his disposal are two cavalry brigades that Lucan is commanding, right?

Um, and the whole time he's waiting for like infantry supposed to show up.

The whole time he's waiting, the Russians are fortifying their gains and they're putting cannons all over the place.

The cavalry forces are at the mouth of these two valleys, which are now basically being turned into cannon-lined dead ends that lead to the redoubts.

Redoubts.

I'm still on my first doubts.

Thank you.

So,

so eventually,

Tom, if you're committed to the bit, you'll make that that sound for the rest of your lives.

So eventually, Radko will power away.

And he decides that he's going to send the cavalry to retake the readouts without any infantry support.

That is not how it's usually done, but given the size of the cavalry force compared to the small number of Russians holding the readouts, it's not a crazy idea.

So he sends a message to Lucan that says, quote, Cavalry to advance and take advantage of any opportunity to recover the heights.

They will be supported by infantry, which have been ordered.

Advance on two fronts.

End quote.

Oh, yeah, we're going to go ahead and order the DoorDash now.

We'll meet the driver there.

Sure, yes.

Right, right.

We put it on the fly.

It's, you're good.

You're good.

It's going to be so fast.

So Luca takes a look at the order, specifically the part where it says that he's going to be supported by infantry, and he assumes that he's supposed to just move his units into position and wait for this support infantry to materialize, right?

It's been ordered after all.

raglan meanwhile he sees that the troops that he ordered to move out aren't moving and he's livid he assumes that there's some kind of cowardice or insubordination behind all of it okay you know you ordered that sandwich and there's nobody else in line and you're looking into the kitchen definitely not making your sandwich

yes

i've been in this moment so to make matters worse the same as war my deal exactly i'm not doing a sandwich place and i'm not getting a sandwich it's like war yeah so to make matters worse raglan hears a rumor and obviously those are exact kind of things that you want to put your trust in during an active battle that you're commanding

specifically an aide tells him a rumor that the russians are carrying away cannons from the readouts which to be clear they're not right they're using all the cannons they've got to defend the position that they just took But the whole idea of having one's cannons carted off is considered a military humiliation.

And Raglan wasn't having any of that shit.

So he sent an even angrier and even less concise follow-up message.

After a bunch of broken feet, they stopped dropping the cannons like a mic.

They didn't do that anymore.

Right.

Yeah, carry it back instead.

So, so, okay, so we need to spend a second on this message because it's the heart of the matter, really.

More than anything, the charge of the light brigade is a cautionary tale about miscommunication, and this is the communication that missed the hardest.

So, here's the message: quote: Lord Raglan wishes the cavalry to advance rapidly to the front, follow the enemy, and try to prevent the enemy carrying away the guns.

Troop horse artillery may accompany.

End quote.

That's the whole of the message.

Hey, you keep putting like vague disclaimers at the end of your military messages.

It says like infantry ordered may be on the way.

Artillery may accompany fatal events may occur.

But go ahead.

Hey, no time for clarifying our draft messages.

We need to stop the enemy from carting away those weapons immediately.

Be very embarrassing if they didn't have anything to shoot at us with.

Yeah.

Stop that right away.

So consider what all this message is missing, right?

So first of all, he doesn't know when he receives this message that he doesn't directly connect it to the previous message, right?

There's no per-arcast communication or anything, right?

So Lucan doesn't immediately realize that he's supposed to backfill the holes in the second message with the targets from the first one, right?

Keep in mind, this is not the only military message that he's gotten the whole fucking day, the ones that I'm telling you about.

He just knows he's supposed to advance to the front and attack the enemies so they can't carry away the guns, right?

There are three different fronts that this could be talking about at this point, right?

Because they're fortifying in three different places, and all of those places have both enemies and guns.

The front of a circle?

What the fuck is the front of a circle?

I don't know what to do.

And again, like, I feel like nobody should object to the enemy leaving with the guns.

I feel like that's okay if they want to do that.

That's huge.

Yeah, okay.

So now there are procedures in place to try to keep messages that are this vague from determining war plans.

Specifically, the British standard was to brief the person carrying the message thoroughly on what the fuck the message meant.

So that courier is supposed to act on behalf of whoever the message is being delivered to, and their job is to predict what kind of clarifications that recipient might need, ask those questions, and get that info to supplement the written orders.

That actually did happen in this instance.

They had that briefing.

But after the courier was briefed in detail, but before he left, Raglan changed his mind and decided he wanted to send a different guy because that guy was faster on a horse.

And when they were like, do you want us to brief a whole nother guy?

They're like, no, that would defeat the purpose of using the faster horseman.

Just don't do that.

So they sent a guy who didn't know what the fuck the message was about.

That guy is Lewis Nolan, the hot-tempered, ill-fated aide-de-camp that I mentioned.

before the break.

And his briefing is so insignificant that as he's riding away with the message, Raglan is literally yelling after him to say, quote, tell Lord Lucan Lucan the cavalry is to attack immediately.

Attacky mid-Edily.

Got it.

So off rides Nolan with his cryptic message to tell Lucan what to do.

And when he gets there and he hands over the message, Lucan has a number of questions, most notably, de fuck.

But Nolan doesn't know what the fuck was any better than Lucan, so he just repeats the shouted instruction to attack immediately.

And Lucan's like, attack what?

And Lucan's like, attack what?

Adding, because the message told him to stop the enemy from carrying away the guns, quote, what guns, sir?

To which Nolan famously responded, quote, there, my lord, is your enemy.

There are your guns, end quote.

And when he's saying that, he just sort of like vaguely pointed towards the readouts.

It's like a Whole Foods for Italian.

Okay, bye.

And thus began the great battle of her my last email gestures vaguely.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

And so I should probably point out here that the argument of whose fault all this shit is has raged ever since it happened to the point where it's spilled quite significantly onto the Wikipedia page.

But Nolan's flippant response, combined with the fact that he dies during the charge and won't be around later to defend himself, ensures that he always gets a generous helping of the blame.

That being said, There's a solid argument to be made that Lucan should have pieced together the fact that the second message was a continuation of the first, especially when his alternative explanation turned out to be insane.

I would give you this message in plain English, but I have to deliver it like it's a complicated third act of a rom-com.

It's like a whole thing.

Everybody's talking past each other.

Maybe something in that official handbook about just always assuming a linear time dimension.

Unless otherwise noted, that feels reasonable.

You know, after, right?

So, okay, so here's where Lucan landed.

The only guns that he could see from his position was a Russian battery at the far end of the valley.

He assumed the orders were talking about those guns, not the captured British guns, which, to be clear, had been spiked, these cannons, right?

So they'd been sabotaged to the point where they wouldn't have been usable anyway.

So there is no reason to prevent the enemy from carrying those ones off, except Raglan's pride.

So he thought they meant the enemy's guns.

And so did all the staff that witnessed the exchange.

Or at the very least, they backed up their commanding officer later and said that's what they thought.

Yeah.

And also, sir, we also hated your ex.

He was the worst.

We hated him the whole time,

sir.

But, okay, so but Lucan takes these insane orders to Cardigan.

Uh, the heavy brigade is already engaged in a different action, so it, so the orders fall to them.

And the orders amount to: How about you march your 600 horsemen a mile through a fully exposed valley with cannon batteries set up on both sides of it, charge a third cannon battery, and make sure they don't carry their own guns away from the field of battle?

That's the order that Cardigan is handed by the brother-in-law that he already hates.

And when he points out that the order amounts to suicide and pointless suicide, Lucan's like, yeah, well, what are you going to do, right?

Maybe you get a sweet poem out of the deal.

Just to hold down B, it's like thwamps with the cannonballs.

Yeah, you just run

through.

This all feels stupid.

Can't we just go back to the trenches and shit ourselves to death with dignity, sir?

All right, so the light brigade forms up in two lines and begins their advance.

There are a total of 666 men known to have participated in the charge, one of whom was Nolan.

He was actually supposed to return to Raglan after the message was delivered, but he knew a fucking poem-worthy charge when he saw one.

So he attached himself to the light brigade, and he even rode out in front of the rest of the company, which made him a real easy target to pick off.

He would become the light brigade's first casualty when shrapnel from a cannonball ripped through his chest and killed him.

Now, so there are two theories as to why he was charging out in front of everybody else when he got killed.

The first is he was a hot-headed chauvinist who wanted to soak up as much glory as possible, and that actually fits pretty well with his personality.

But the other theory is that he realized partway through the march that they were going the suicidal way instead of towards the redoubts they were supposed to be going to, and he was trying to redirect the brigade.

Either way, it doesn't matter because he got killed right away.

Oh no, guys, I died, and I can't be held responsible for how this goes.

So now, if you're like me, you probably, if you if you've ever thought about this before, you probably imagined a bunch of guys just hauling ass through this cannon fire at top speed, but it's a full mile over uneven ground.

You can't gallop 600 horses across that shit at full speed while maintaining anything like a military formation.

So instead, as long as there's not like a gap of more than one brick, the holding B tails.

No, but so what they have to do is walk, like basically move it up just over a walking pace.

Jesus, right?

Yeah,

while they're being

cannonaded on either fucking side,

they can only actually charge for the last 50 yards or so.

The whole time, they've got lines of cannons just unloading on them on both sides and from the front, right?

And of course, this is still back in the days of like bright red uniforms that might as well have targets painted on them.

Guys, I don't think the bullet time slow-mo thing is working.

I'm pretty sure it's just us going slow.

We're just walking.

Everything else is regular fast.

My dearest Martha, I knew something was going to go wrong when I was assigned to follow General Fodder.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So this might have been the time that they coined that phrase.

So in all, the charge took about seven minutes, except for the people who died who were done much quicker.

But the survivors do manage to actually form up for a charge.

And at this point, Cardigan figures his job is done.

So hand-to-hand combat, he sees that as beneath the aristocratic status that his blue blood affords him.

And his fucking French staff probably had lunch already out.

So, he turns around at this point and leaves.

He was like, Hey, look, my orders were to march them to the guns.

They're at the guns.

I don't have any orders to stick around.

So, he leaves and leaves it to the junior officers to handle the actual charging part.

Guys, I skipped lunch and I haven't gone on break yet.

So,

he just walks back through Cannonball Valley.

This is a timeout.

It's a

lunch timeout.

It's foie gras.

It's lavender.

Have you heard?

It's the aroma is the important part.

So essentially, abandoned mid-fight, the brigade charges the Russian soldiers, and they fought them off with like swords and spears and shit, which are actually very effective in this case, since cannons are crappy, short-range weapons.

But then the Russian cavalry shows up, not fresh from a narrow valley of death, and chases them off.

That is, chases them back into the valley of death that they just had to advance.

Okay, well, at least we know the way now.

Am I right, everybody?

It's always shorter on the way back.

Always feel shorter.

So out of the 666 men that started out, 110 were killed, 129 more wounded, and 32 taken prisoner.

And for their efforts, they gained literally nothing.

Which is actually a pretty solid microcosm for the entire fucking war.

The only thing the battle gained was notoriety when England's poet laureate decided to write a poem about how brave the stupidity of the whole endeavor was.

I need a poet to immortalize my bad decisions too.

Just the charge of the card that was already maxed out.

You know, I feel like it's about that.

And of course, while this battle is mostly remembered for that poem and for being a ready example of how you kind of want specificity when you're telling people who to kill, you could make an argument that its most significant long-term impact was on the world of fashion.

Because as we're going through this story, you may have been struck by how many different articles of clothing kept sneaking in.

And it turns out their names actually do come from this battle.

So you might be familiar with the Raglan or the Raglan coat, sort of like a droopy overcoat.

That is named after Lord Raglan.

You might also be familiar with the Balaclava, which is the name for the head stocking thing that kind of covers your whole head, but leaves your face out as a hole there.

That earned its popular name in association with the Battle of Balaclava.

And most notably, the one that made you think of the fucking sweater every time I said his name, yes, the cardigan sweater was popularized by Lord Cardigan when he wasn't leading people off to die and abandoning them like a coward to go sleep in his fucking yacht.

All right, if you had to summarize what you've learned in one sentence, what would it be?

We really need to rename those sweaters the Fred Rogers sweaters.

And are you ready for the quiz?

Sure, why not?

Okay, Noah, what is the American politician's contribution to fashion?

A

Donald Trump's good jeans.

B,

John Kerry's flip-flops.

C,

G.W.

Bush's mitten accomplished.

Or D,

Mitch McConnell's turtleneck.

All right, that turtleneck's not going to be a good thing.

It really does.

I'm going to go with C,

George W.'s mitten accomplished.

That's too cute.

That sounds adorable.

Adorable.

Yes, you won the adorable prize.

Awesome.

All right, Noah, this kind of communication nightmare would never happen to the U.S.

in a modern battle.

Why?

We would never telegraph our movements.

B, we always know WhatsApp.

C,

we always make sure to use the right signal.

Disaster.

So the whole time I'm reading about this, Tom, I'm thinking, man, if Hagseth was in charge here,

the Russians would have been going, you're going the wrong way, guys.

You're

supposed to attack the readouts over there.

So I have to go with B, though.

We always know WhatsApp whatsapp is

he actually just stopped making that noise podcast listener you didn't hear it but he did hit the whole show

we've been awfully hard on lord cardigan this week but what key historical detail did you leave out of the story no illusions hey

dying hurts

Oh, I did.

All right.

So here's the awkward part is that you didn't, you only have one answer, and I have to get it wrong so that you can win.

So I'm going to go with B, all of the above.

You stupid, stupid Eli, you guys.

Jesus.

Eli wins.

I win.

And

I would like.

Wait, no, it says you announce next week's essayist.

You do an impression of me announcing next week's essay.

I want to see some essay.

It won't be.

Because I'll be gone.

So someone will do it.

Someone's going to do it.

I don't know.

The next schedule.

Elijah is falling apart.

It's me.

It's Eli, probably.

I don't know.

It's not me.

That can't.

That's

a good idea.

Nope.

Do you guys really think that's a good idea?

No essay next week, guys.

It's just going to be

shooting the shit.

Just like a good idea.

Maybe we can watch an episode of Show Rise.

Somebody's going to do something.

I don't know.

For Tom Noah, Cecil Eli.

I'm Heath.

Thank you for hanging out with us.

We'll be back next week, and somebody's going to be an expert on something sort of.

Maybe, I don't know.

Between now and then, you can listen to Cognitive Dissonance, The No Rogan Experience, Dear Old Dad's Godolph Movies, The Scathing Atheist, The Skeptic, and DD Minus.

And if you'd like to join the ranks of our beloved patrons, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com/slash citation pod.

And if you'd like to get in touch with us, listen to past episodes, connect with us on social media, or take a look at the show notes, check out citationpod.com.

Men, you return from battle.

Indeed, we have, sir.

And from the looks of it, it did not go well.

No, it did not.

I understand.

For the record, my lunch was absolutely awful.

So, you know, bad day all around.

Sorry to hear that, sir.

Thank you.

Want to stop engine problems before they start?

Pick up a can of C-Foam Motor Treatment.

SeaFoam helps engines start easier, run smoother, and last longer.

Trusted by millions every day, C-Foam is safe and easy to use in any engine.

Just pour it in your fuel tank.

Make the proven choice with C-Foam.

Available everywhere, automotive products are sold.

At Azure Standard, we believe healthy food shouldn't be complicated.

That's why we've spent 30 years delivering clean organic groceries and earth-friendly products to families who care about what goes on their plates and into into their lives.

From pantry staples to wellness essentials and garden-ready seeds, everything we offer is rooted in real nutrition, transparency, and trust.

Join a community that believes in better naturally.

Visit Azure Standard.com today and discover a simpler, healthier way to shop for the things that matter most.