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-BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
S.A. Bent, comp. Familiar Short Sayings of Great Men. 1887.
Pierre Bosquet
[A French general, born at Pau, 1810; a general of division in the Crimean war; marshal of France, 1856; died 1862.]
It is magnificent, but it is not war (C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre.)
Of the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava, Oct. 28, 1854. About twelve thousand Russians had taken some feebly defended redoubts, and then attacked the British, by whom they were obliged to retire. After this, from an unfortunate misconception of the order of the commander-in-chief, Lord Raglan, Lord Lucan, commanding the cavalry, ordered the Earl of Cardigan, with the light cavalry, to charge the Russian army, which had reformed on its own ground with its artillery in front. The order was gallantly obeyed, and great havoc was made with the enemy; but of six hundred and seventy British cavalrymen, only one hundred and ninety-eight returned. Tennyson immortalized the action in “The Charge of the Light Brigade;” and Disraeli called it in the House of Commons, on a motion for a vote of thanks to the allied army, Dec. 15, 1855, “a feat of chivalry, fiery with consummate courage, and bright with flashing valor.”
