The Charge of the Light Brigade: a disaster you are ordered to admire

If your job is to make the country proud of its army, do you mention that someone in charge made a mistake? The safe answer seems to be no: quietly leave it out. In late eighteen fifty-four, Alfred Tennyson was Poet Laureate, the poet appointed to write for the nation. He read a newspaper report: a brigade of British cavalry had charged the wrong guns after a muddled order, and many of the men were killed. His poem says the order was a mistake, out loud, in its second verse. Then it tells you to honour the men who followed it. How one poem can say both is the puzzle, and it begins with the rhythm.

The poem is about a real cavalry charge, soldiers on horseback, in a war against Russia. Listen to how it opens. "Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred." A league is about three miles. Hear the stress: HALF a league, one strong syllable and two light ones, over and over. That pattern is the sound of hooves, so the poem starts moving before it starts thinking. Now the whole first verse, with the order inside it: "Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. 'Forward, the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns!' he said: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred." The order arrives as a voice. The poem names the man who gives it only as he, so whoever gave it stays out of sight. The verse ends on "Rode the six hundred", and so do the next two verses. And the men are a number, the six hundred, in every verse. Not one of them is ever named. In plain words: an order comes to charge. Every man knows the order is wrong, and every man obeys. They ride into cannon fire, fight at the guns, and the survivors ride back. The last verse asks you to honour them. Back to that number. Here are three reasons a student might give for it. The first: Tennyson did not know their names. The second: six hundred fits the hoofbeat rhythm. The third: a number is how an army sees its men. Which of those three reasons is strongest, and why? The third. A number is what an army sends out and what it counts coming back. Keeping the men as the six hundred shows them the way the state sees them, and the last verse asks you to honour the number, not a name.

Now the line that admits the mistake, in the second verse: "Some one had blunder'd". Blunder'd means made a careless, stupid mistake. The poet appointed to make the nation proud says, in plain words, that somebody in command got it wrong. Here is the blunder inside its whole verse: "'Forward, the Light Brigade!' Was there a man dismay'd? Not tho' the soldier knew Some one had blunder'd: Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred." Dismay'd means alarmed and losing heart. Theirs not to make reply means they may not even answer back. And the verse asks if any man lost heart, then answers no: "Not tho' the soldier knew Some one had blunder'd". If this poem were simply propaganda, what would it do with that line? Cut it. Propaganda hides the mistake. Tennyson keeps it, so the poem cannot be read as simply cheering the war on. And straight after the blunder comes the rule the men live by: "Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die". Questioning is ruled out in their world, and only doing and dying are left. Then the form closes in on them: "Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them". The repetition shuts the space on three sides, so the verse itself does the trapping. The whole third verse runs like this: "Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them Volley'd and thunder'd; Storm'd at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of Hell Rode the six hundred" Volley'd means fired all together. Shot and shell are solid cannonballs and exploding ones. Storm'd at puts the men on the receiving end, until one line of praise sits in the middle of it: "Boldly they rode and well". The fourth verse takes the men to the guns. "Flash'd all their sabres bare, Flash'd as they turn'd in air Sabring the gunners there, Charging an army, while All the world wonder'd:" "Plunged in the battery-smoke Right thro' the line they broke; Cossack and Russian Reel'd from the sabre-stroke Shatter'd and sunder'd. Then they rode back, but not Not the six hundred." A sabre is a curved cavalry sword. A battery is a row of big guns. For once the verbs belong to the brigade: flash'd, charging, plunged, broke. Reel'd means staggered back, and sunder'd means split apart. Why does that verse end by saying not twice? The sentence stops at the end of a line and has to start again: not the six hundred. Fewer rode back than rode in. The verse stumbles on the word, and the stumble is where the dead are. The fifth verse brings them back through the guns. "Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon behind them Volley'd and thunder'd; Storm'd at with shot and shell, While horse and hero fell," "They that had fought so well Came thro' the jaws of Death, Back from the mouth of Hell, All that was left of them, Left of six hundred." This is the third verse played in reverse. In front of them becomes behind them, and into the mouth of Hell becomes back from the mouth of Hell. "While horse and hero fell" is the first time the poem shows its own men falling. And six hundred is now a measure of loss: it counts what is left. And the poem ends with an instruction to you, the reader: "Honour the Light Brigade, Noble six hundred!" Here is that last verse whole: "When can their glory fade? O the wild charge they made! All the world wonder'd. Honour the charge they made! Honour the Light Brigade, Noble six hundred!" It opens on a rhetorical question, one asked for effect. The answer it expects is never. Wild can mean brave and fierce. It can also mean reckless, out of control. Then the order to honour comes twice, once for the charge and once for the brigade. The blunder is not mentioned again. Here are two sentences a student might write. The first: Tennyson glorifies war. The second: Tennyson honours the men's obedience while admitting the order that killed them was a blunder. Which of those two is stronger, and why? Sentence two. It holds both readings at once, honour and blunder, so it never contradicts the poem halfway through an answer.

So both things are the poem. Some one had blunder'd and Honour the Light Brigade sit in the same short poem, and an answer that only sees one of them has only read half of it.

Six lines carry the poem into an exam, and each has its own job. "Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward" is the hoofbeat. The rhythm moves the men forward before any reason is given. "Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred" counts them and never names them, which is how the state sees them. "Some one had blunder'd" is the admission: the poem says the order was wrong, and then praises the men for obeying it anyway. "Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die" turns obedience into a rule of grammar. "Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them" is the form closing in, the verse trapping them as the guns did. And the order to the reader, "Honour the Light Brigade, Noble six hundred", is the Laureate's job in one line: telling the public how to feel about a disaster. The war itself, in Crimea, is worth one clause in an answer. Context earns its place through what the poem does with the blunder, not through the battle's history. In the cluster, the Light Brigade answers the reality of conflict, and the order from above and the call to remember let it reach power and what conflict leaves behind as well.

Three quick gaps, one word each, then one bigger question. "Half a league, half a league, Half a league" what? Onward. Half a league onward, the hooves before the reasons. Now the admission: some one had what? Blunder'd. Some one in charge made a stupid mistake, and the poem says so. Try the rule: "Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and" what? Die. Reasoning is ruled out, so only doing and dying are left to them. One more, never unpacked: "Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of Hell". What is the valley turned into? A creature's mouth, swallowing the men. The valley becomes a monster they are fed to, and the poem still calls them noble. The opening asked whether you would mention the mistake. Tennyson did, and then told the whole country to honour the men anyway.

Hold honour and blunder together in one sentence and you're comfortable with it, so the thumb goes up and the job is finished. If the two readings still clash, keep it saved and write that single sentence out on paper.

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