Sketched on the spot.] [Sidenote: Balaklava.] [Sidenote: Cavalry Charges by the Heavy and Light Brigades.] On October 25 General Liprandi attacked the English camp at Balaklava with 20,000 or 30,000 men. It is a day to be much remembered in British war annals with profound but melancholy pride, because of the blunder which cost the British Army the loss of two-thirds of its Light Cavalry. The action began by the capture by the Russians of four redoubts held by the Turks. Then took place a cavalry encounter which, though it has been eclipsed in memory by the subsequent exploit of the Light Brigade, was, in truth, not less splendid and far more fruitful. The Russian horse, numbering some 3,000 sabres advanced against the British Heavy Cavalry Brigade under General Scarlett. Immensely outnumbered as they were, and hampered by tent ropes and enclosed ground, the Scots Greys and Enniskillens charged them impetuously. For a minute or two it seemed as if these fine regiments must be swallowed up in the dense columns of the enemy, but the Royals and 4th Dragoon Guards moving up on the left, and the 5th Dragoon Guards on the right, charged the enemy on either flank, and forced them to give way and fly. The whole affair was over in less than five minutes. Lord Raglan, who was anxiously waiting for infantry reinforcements, seeing the Russians preparing to move the guns from the captured redoubts, sent an order to Lord Lucan to prevent them doing so. "Try to prevent the enemy carrying away the guns." What guns? Captain Nolan, who carried the order, pointed to a battery of eight Russian guns at the end of the valley, supported by artillery on either flank. "There, my lord, is our enemy," said he, "and there are our guns." Lord Lucan hesitated at first, but the order seemed explicit, and he directed Lord Cardigan to form his Light Brigade into two lines. In the first line were four squadrons of the 13th Light Dragoons and 17th Lancers; in the second were four squadrons of the 4th Light Dragoons and 11th Hussars, with one squadron of the 8th Hussars as a kind of reserve. The command was given, and it was obeyed. Six hundred and seventy-three men rode down that valley of death straight for the guns, on a venture as hopeless and devoted as that of Sir Giles de Argentine at Bannockburn, and hardly less futile. Only one hundred and ninety-five returned. [Illustration: _Stanley Berkeley._} {_By permission of the publishers, Messrs. S. Hildesheimer & Co., of London and Manchester._ THE CHARGE OF THE HEAVY BRIGADE AT BALAKLAVA.] [Sidenote: Breakdown of Transport and Commissariat.]