The Reason Why

First published in 1953, this history explains the Charge of the Light Brigade by tracing two aristocratic families, the Lucans and the Cardigans, and the British army's purchase system that put them in command in the Crimea. Woodham-Smith follows childhood rivalry, unhappy marriages, and regimental tyranny in peace, then the 1854 campaign: the Alma, the siege of Sevastopol, and the confused orders that sent the Light Brigade down the wrong valley at Balaclava. Raglan, Nolan, and the cavalrymen appear beside the two earls. The book is a study of one disaster and its social roots, not a full history of the war.

Bound in red buckram, cover blocked in black and gilt with a pictorial design by Neil Gower. Dark red endpapers. Black slipcase.