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Glen Yeo _lenyeo — At the time of the Crimean War in 1853, the British army was run by incompetent aristocrats who had purchased their commissions. Not only were the officers with actual battle experience on the Indian subcontinent not promoted according to their ability, they were openly despised by many of the upper echelon. It was thought that keeping the military in the hands of the propertied classes would prevent revolutionary fervor from spreading through the ranks, as it had in other countries. Because the Duke of Wellington had been both a duke and one of the finest soldiers in the history of the world, the system had seemed to work just fine. The Reason Why relates the stories of the two main players who led the famous Light Brigade’s charge at Balaclava. Lord Cardigan, who commanded the brigade, and Lord Lucan, the division commander. Cardigan was a disciplinarian, undeniably brave but prone to ridiculous squabbles with his men over the most mundane details of uniforms and protocol. Lord Cardigan had no sense of proportion or distance. Every minor grievance was of terrible import, even years after. Even less impressive: on campaign in the Crimea, he anchored his private yacht nearby and spent his evenings away from his men, sleeping in his bed and being attended to by his servants. Lord Lucan, on the other hand, was unpleasant in an entirely different way: a landlord in Ireland during the Great Potato Famine, he showed an extraordinary lack of kindness and sometimes outright cruelty, such as literally pulling apart the houses of starving people who had not paid their rent. It is worth noting this was nasty even by the standards of other nobles; his behavior was specifically challenged in The House of Lords. The first two-thirds or so of Ms. Woodham-Smith’s masterpiece sketches the lives of this not-so-delightful pair. They couldn’t stand each other either and quarreled constantly while on campaign--their squabbles handled about as poorly as possible by the Commander-in-Chief Lord Raglan. The Crimean War itself was a strange business. Supposedly at issue was mistreatment of Orthodox Christians in the Holy Land but probably more to the point was the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the Russian desire for a warm water port. From an operational standpoint, the British expedition was a disaster: not enough food, not enough water, not enough room on the ships, bad reconnaissance (when there was any at all), and rampant disease. The successes the British did enjoy, such as forcing a crossing of the Alma, were due entirely to the courage and fighting ability of the soldiers themselves. The last third of the book details the campaign leading up to the famous charge. It’s one of the finer battle narratives I’ve ever read. Someone had blunder'd indeed. When captured British guns were in danger of being pulled off the battlefield, Lord Raglan ordered an attack to a re-take them. His order was so purely worded however as to invite disaster, and disaster accepted. Raglan didn’t specify which guns to attack and Captain Nolan, who delivered the order, indicated the cannon at the far end of what Tennyson aptly called the “Valley of Death.” The nearer guns were obscured by the terrain—something Raglan didn’t know because he was observing the battle from a heights nearly 600 feet above the battlefield. In his order, Raglan also failed to give his commanders any discretion at all. General Lee is still sometimes criticized for adding “if practicable” to his attack order at Gettysburg nine years later, but Lee often add that prepositional phrase, specifically to avoid the sort of debacle, Lords Lucan and Cardigan found themselves in: galloping into the mouths of cannon with enfilade fire pouring into both flanks. I used to have a strange prejudice against older works of history, feeling that newer books had more complete evidence and access to more scholarship on the subject, etc. etc. I’ve long ago dropped this silly idea--contemporary histories have their own biases, their own prejudices. It’s depressing to consider if I hadn’t and I would’ve spent my life missing out on books like these.

Leonardo Morva leonardomorva — It was a very dark and disturbing book. However, I feel that the end was not as strong as it should have been. I would recommend it to anyone who likes stephen king. Also anyone who loves violence will love it.

Lewis Copland _ewis_opland — good story, however it was just too similar to Jonathan Saffran Foer for me, and having read Foer first his work is my true love.

Saskia Whitfield saskia_arts — I love books in the genre of women traveling (whether in cars, on foot, etc), so I expected to love this book, as well. Parts were good, but there were a lot of characters to keep track of and as a result some where not explored in depth enough. It's got a great premise, but I expected more.