Charge of the Heavy Brigade (1897)

Many of us are familiar with the Charge of the Light Brigade, at least with its name if not its reality. It referred to a disastrous British cavalry charge which horrified Victorian Britain, and whose memory Tennyson preserved in verse. Lesser known is the Charge of the Heavy Brigade at the battle of Balaklava, 25 October, 1854. Its dramatic depiction above and below is by Godfrey Douglas Giles (1897) and which now hangs in the British Army Museum at Chelsea.

When the road to the British position at Balaklava was threatened by 3,000 Russian cavalrymen, the British Heavy Brigade - about 800-strong - charged uphill sending the Russians into retreat. The pace of the Heavy Brigade's attack likely sent their larger opponent to flee in panic and confusion. 

It is said that the British, and we English in particular, remember well our victories but not our defeats. From the Crimean War, however, it seems to be the other way around. Reviewing our Christian lives and the temptations to which we have yielded, the compromises enacted and the opportunities lost, we may pronounce some gloomy assessments. Yet it is Christ Himself who is our victory, and in whom we are more than conquerors.