Battle of Balaclava (Crimean War) war movies

Battle of Balaclava 25 October 1854

Part of the Anglo-French-Turkish campaign to capture the port and fortress of Sevastopol, Russia’s major naval base on the Black Sea. Instead of frontal assault on Sevastopol British forces prepared the siege of the city, but the forces present near Balaclava were insufficient to keep the Russians surrounded. Russian general Liprandi prepared attack on the Ottoman lines and pushed the enemy out of the first line of defence. During the push towards second line of defence, that included Scottish 93rd Highland Regiment, known as "thin red line". Second line of defence repelled the enemy and British cavalry prepared a counter-attack on the Russians.

The battle is mostly remembered for that counter-attack, the famous The Charge of the Light Brigade - hopeless charge that was doomed from the start. The order of British general Raglan was misinterpreted and instead of attacking the artillery positions recently taken over by Russians commander of Light Brigade, Lord Lucan, attacked the main forces of Russian, which meant that his charge was through open space under constant fire from Russian artillery. Out of about 670 soldiers taking part in the charge 110 were killed and about 160 wounded. The legend that grew around the charge was praising the bravery of Light Brigade - they attacked the Russian even though the orders were unclear and the whole charge hopeless.

The Charge of the Light Brigade 1968

Based on real events of suicidal charge of the British cavalry.