Hell Riders: The Truth About the Charge of the Light Brigade: nobody blundered?
The Victorian Web:
The army's problems were made public by the first real war correspondent, William Russell of the London Times. (Other outrages included the inability of the supply corps to get food to starving soldiers six miles away.) The exposure lead to reform. As the enemy killed fewer British soldiers than starvation and cholera, so the gallantry of the Light Brigade was less consequential than the actions of Florence Nightingale, who reformed the way the hospitals were being run and invented the nursing profession.
I'm wondering how much Tennyson's poem (manuscript
here) had to do with any reforms that came out of the Crimean War. Was it just a reaction to the news or did it help to make the news? Any guesses? (I'm thinking about political poems and whether they're worth a damn politically.)
This entry was posted by eeksypeeksy
on Monday, November 08, 2004 at 10:07 AM.
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