''The Destruction of Lord Raglan: A tragedy of the Crimean War, 1854–55'' is a non-fiction historical work by
Christopher Hibbert
Christopher Hibbert MC (born Arthur Raymond Hibbert; 5 March 1924 – 21 December 2008) was an English author, historian and biographer. He has been called "a pearl of biographers" (''New Statesman'') and "probably the most widely-read popular ...
, originally published by
Longman in 1961. The work is a portrait of
Lord Raglan, commander-in-chief of British forces during the
Crimean War.
Raglan was sent to the Crimea in 1854, with the first aim of defending
Constantinople. He was ordered to
besiege the
Russian naval base of
Sevastopol and won the
Battle of Alma, but Raglan’s confused orders caused the fateful
Charge of the Light Brigade
The Charge of the Light Brigade was a failed military action involving the British light cavalry led by Lord Cardigan against Russian forces during the Battle of Balaclava on 25 October 1854 in the Crimean War. Lord Raglan had intended to se ...
at the
Battle of Balaclava
The Battle of Balaclava, fought on 25 October 1854 during the Crimean War, was part of the Siege of Sevastopol (1854–55), an Allied attempt to capture the port and fortress of Sevastopol, Russian Empire, Russia's principal naval base on the Bl ...
. The
Battle of Inkerman went better, but Raglan was blamed by the press and the government for the sufferings of the British soldiers in the terrible Crimean winter during the Siege of Sevastopol, owing to shortages of food and clothing. A badly planned allied assault on Sevastopol on 18 June 1855 was a complete failure, and Raglan died on 28 June, after suffering from
dysentery and
depression.
Drawing on contemporary letters, papers, and diaries, Hibbert re-assesses both Raglan and the war, suggesting that the chaos of the conflict was the tragic result, not of one man's neglect, but of the whole nation's folly.
References
*Hibbert, Christopher (1963). ''The Destruction of Lord Raglan: A tragedy of the Crimean War 1854–55''. Pelican Books
Non-fiction books about war
Books by Christopher Hibbert
1961 non-fiction books
Little, Brown and Company books
{{mil-hist-book-stub