Charge at Aliwal

The 16th Lancers was part of a British force fighting the Sikhs of the Punjab in 1846 when the armies met at Aliwal on 28th January. Major Rowland Smyth, commanding the 16th, was ordered to take the Sikh artillery, and led a headlong charge against guns that kept up a continuous fire. Behind the guns stood squares of Sikh infantry. He spurred his horse and led the 16th through them. Sergeant Gould wrote: ' At them we went, bullets flying like a hailstorm. Despite a bayonet wound, Smyth reformed his men and charged back, and the enemy withdrew.

The Charge of the Light Brigade

In 1854 during the Crimean war, during a Russian attack on the British base at Balaklava, a misunderstood order led the Light Brigade to charge down a mile-long Valley of Death at a line of Russian cannons. The 17th Lancers, commanded by Captain William Morris, rode in the front line and suffered badly throughout the seven minute ride, and took a terrible revenge when they reached the gun line. Private Wightman wrote: 'The smoke was so dense I could not see my arm before me. In this gloom we cut and thrust and hacked like demons.'