An Essay in Aristocracy
The Reason Why. By Cecil Woodham-Smith. (Constable. 15s.) THAT the charge of the Light Brigade was a glorious feat of British arms is one of the first pieces of history we learn, and that it was the outcome of error is one of the second. Thus are we introduced to that pattern of myth, disillusionment, and new insight which pleases the amateur, and obsesses the professional, historian. Mrs. Woodham- Smith lies somewhere between the two. Professional in her combina- tion of zest and restraint, her width of study and her management of complicated affairs, she is amateur in her willingness to tell a good story without seeking to provide these new, sudden, often startling ' insights into the structure and movement of a political society which are the real business of the professional. The story behind the charge of the Light Brigade might have taken the form of a profound study of an aristocratic society. Instead Mrs. Woodham-Smith has written an exceedingly interesting, brilliantly readable essay in aristocracy.
The protagonists are George Charles Bingham, third Earl of Lucan, and James Thomas Brudenell, seventh Earl of Cardigan, " the two handsomest men in Europe." They had more in common than good looks and their position as the heirs (and in due course heads) of great families. They were much of an age, Cardigan having been born in 1797 and Lucan in 1800. Cardigan was immensely rich ; Lucan normally so. They were brothers-in-law, for Lucan was married to Cardigan's sister. Finally they were both soldiers, both cavalrymen, devoted from an early age to dreams of military glory. They were ambitious rivals, in whom rivalry turned to dislike, open contempt, and smouldering hatred. At the time of Balaclava Lucan was commanding the Cavalry Division and Cardigan was commanding the Light Brigade which was one of its two principal components. Not only were they notoriously upon the worst of terms, but—though there were plenty of officers with active-service experience to hand —neither Lucan nor Cardigan had any. How had this situation come about ?
It was not due to accident or muddle. Lucan and Cardigan, the one a suspicious tyrant and the other a most disagreeable kind of complete ass, were where they were for deeply-considered reasons of state, bound up with ideas which have played a wise and decent part in forming the character of English life. Quite simply they had bought their positions, and they had been permitted to buy them
because, under that system of government of which the Great Duke was the exemplar, it was considered wise that men like Lucan and Cardigan should command the Army. At the age of twenty-six Lucan had bought the command of the 17th Lancers for £25,000 ; Cardigan had paid between £35,000 and £40,000 for the 15th Hussars. Both had, as a matter of habit, moved over the heads of experienced Peninsular and " Indian " officers. But then these experienced officers were dangerous men ; possible Prussian junkers, or worse.
" If the connection "—Mrs. Woodham-Smith quotes Lord Palmerston's words of 1856—" between the Army and the higher class of society were dissolved, then the Army would present a dangerous and unconstitutional appearance. It was only when the Army was unconnected with those whose property gave them an interest in the country, and was commanded by unprincipled military adventurers, that it ever became formidable to the liberties of the nation."
Aristocracy in fact was a defence against tyranny, and we had Lucan and Cardigan because they were the best insurance against the possibility of our special British nightmare : " a thinking Army." Indeed a thinking Army in which a Cardigan could rise to high command is a contradiction in terms. As well as being a defence against tyranny, aristocracy had one further advantage : it produced reckless courage and maintained iron discipline. Lord Cardigan felt about danger as he felt about " Indian " officers—the most utter indifference and contempt. It is unfortunate that he had so many occasions to display these feelings for his brother officers and only one to display them towards the enemy.
But that occasion was a supreme one. Mrs. Woodham-Smith's picture of the famous charge itself—the climax of the events she describes—is moving as well as exciting. The splendid disciplined troops, with their mixture of panache and doggedness which terrified the Russians ; the ageing dandy at their head, the vacant-minded sybarite who was still leading the gallant remnants when they plunged in to slaughter the enemy gunners—it all has a curious, antique incomprehensible dignity. Cardigan especially seems a long way away from us. He lived before it became a tradition of the British Army that officers should share the hardships of their men, and during the Crimean campaign remained in luxury upon his yacht. Lucan lived in discomfort on shore, but more from cross-grainedness than from any thought of fostering democratic notions which he despised and feared as much as did Cardigan, Raglan or Wellington. It seems unlikely that Lucan or Cardigan thought of the troops as fellow human beings, and the chummy army of Lens and Stans that fought at Alamein would have been as appalling to them as the Russian Revolution.
To look at Mrs. Woodham-Smith's lively and fascinating picture is indeed to look at a lost world, a saurian world with Lucan and Cardigan as its dinosaurs, impressive creatures whose brains were not big enough to deal with an Ice Age.
J. D. SCOTT
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