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I have before me a copy of a letter dated 12 May, 1814, written by certain Lieutenant-Colonel William Fuller of the King's Dragoon Guards to a British Lord, in which is advised that a commission for His Lordship's son would cost £735. Further on in this article I shall state the prices as they were at the time of the' Crimean War. Only recently did I read a book by a very well-known British author who claims that the British army of the 1850's was small, and that the Crimean War was to prove that it was shockingly organised, but he speaks only well of the navy of that period. I ask that my readers please bear in mind that in earlier days there was no such rank as second-lieutenant nor sub-lieutenant in the British army. The most junior commissioned rank in the infantry was that of ensign. In the cavalry, it was cornet until 1871, when it became sub-lieutenant.

The story of the cavalry charge which I shall relate might have been forgotten by now had it not been immortalized by Alfred Lord Tennyson in his poem, 'The Charge of the Light Brigade.' Two stanzas from that work appear in this article.The Crimean War (1853-1856) was so named because nearly all the fighting took place in the Crimea, a peninsula north of the Black Sea. Russia was a large country with few seaports. The Black Sea lies to the south of Russia, but part of the shores of the Black Sea belonged to Turkey and the Turks could keep the ships of other nations away from their shores. For this reason Russia planned to take possession of Turkey and offered to divide it, when conquered, with Britain. But Britain was not interested, and also did not want Russia to gain too much power. In the Crimean War the Allies consisted of Turkey, France, Sardinia, and Britain. The war was ended by the Treaty of Paris in 1856.