CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE

a famous attack by British cavalry (= soldiers on horses) during the Crimean War in 1854. An order was understood wrongly, and the soldiers, armed only with swords, were sent in the wrong direction. They went into a valley with heavy guns on both sides of them and 247 out of 637 men were killed. The courage of the men is celebrated in Tennyson’s poem, The Charge of the Light Brigade .