Anywhere else in the world he would probably be remembered as William Wallace, Hereward, and Crazy Horse are remembered, but not in modern Russia. In Tashkent recently I asked an educated Russian what kind of place Yakub Beg occupied in local history: his name was not even known. (See D. C. Boulger's Yakoob Beg, 1878.)
Izzat Kutebar, brigand, rebel, and guerrilla leader, was a Kirgiz, born probably in 1800. He first robbed the Bokhara caravan in 1822, and was at his height as a raider and scourge of the Russians in the 1840s. They eventually persuaded him to suspend his bandit activities, and rewarded him with a gold medal (see page 268), but he cut loose again in the early fifties, was captured in 1854, escaped or was released, raised a revolt, and lived as a rebel in the Ust-Yurt until 1858, when he finally surrendered to Count Ignatieff and made his peace with Russia.
NOTES
[1]Possibly because of the war scare, as Flashman suggests, there was a craze for growing moustaches, in addition to beards and whiskers, in the early months of 1854. Another fashion among the young men was for brilliantly-coloured shirts with grotesque designs, skulls, snakes, flowers, and the like. Both fads bore an interesting resemblance to modern 'hippy' fashions, not least in the reactions they provoked: Bank of England clerks were expressly forbidden to join 'the moustache movement', as it was called.
[2]The 'eunuchs'. The open-range musketry target in use at this time consisted of the usual concentric circles, but with a naked human figure in the centre; the bull was a black disc discreetly placed below the figure's waist-line.
[3]Although Britain was not formally at war until March 28, 1854, the preparations for conflict had been going on for many weeks amid growing popular determination for a showdown with Russia. The Scots (3rd) Guards had embarked a month earlier, and Palmerston, the Home Secretary, and Sir James Graham, First Lord of the Admiralty, made their jingoistic Reform Club speeches on March 7. These were brilliantly parodied by Punch ('Shomeshay we're norrawar. Norrawar! Hash-ha! No! Norrawar! Noshexactly awar. But …') But while the war fever was strong in Britain it was not as universal as Flashman suggests; there was an active peace movement, and anti-war sentiments could be passionate. For an extreme but interesting view, see J. McQueen's The War: who's to blame? (1854).
[4]The play was almost certainly Balzac's 'The Married Unmarried', which caused a minor controversy.
[5]Shell-out, skittle pool, go-back, etc. The rules of these early variations on pool (and forerunners of snooker) are to be found in 'Captain Crawley's' standard Victorian work, Billiards, which is a mine of practical information and billiards lore, and contains much information on pool-room sharks and swindles. Joe Bennet was a champion player of the time. A jenny is a difficult in-off shot to the middle pocket, usually with the object ball close to the side-cushion; a pair of breeches is a simultaneous in-off and pot red in the top pockets.
[6]Sir William Molesworth's Commons committee met in March, 1854, to consider small arms production. Lord Paget was among the members, and Lt-Col. Sam Colt, the American inventor of the Colt revolver, was among those who gave evidence.
[7]Quite apart from the popular criticism he had been receiving for allegedly meddling in State affairs, Prince Albert's zeal for designing military clothing attracted considerable ridicule in the spring of 1854. In fact, judging from contemporary sketches, the so-called 'Albert Bonnet' for the Guards was a sensible, if ugly, multi-purpose forage cap. But there was growing controversy at this time about British uniforms—the traditional tight stocks and collars being a principal target—and any suggestions from H.R.H. were, as usual, unwelcome.
[8]The main bombardment of Odessa by British ships took place on April 22, but without doing great damage.
[9] Villikins and his Dinah' was the hit song of 1854.
[10]From this, and one later reference, it seems obvious that Flashman was particularly impressed by a Punch cartoon, published shortly after Balaclava, showing a stout British father brandishing a poker with patriotic zeal in the morning-room as he reads news of the Charge of the Light Brigade.
[11]The Cabinet did meet at Pembroke Lodge, Richmond, on the evening of June 28, 1854, and agreed on important orders to be sent to Lord Raglan for the invasion of the Crimea. 'Agreed' may be too strong a word, since most of the Cabinet were asleep during the meeting, and were not fully aware of what orders were being sent; they woke up once, when someone knocked over a chair, and then dozed off again. The authority for this is no less than A. W. Kinglake, the great Crimea historian, who devotes a separate appendix to the incident in his massive history of the war, The Invasion of the Crimea. Kinglake was obviously uneasy about disclosing that the Cabinet had taken the vital decision of the war while in a state of torpor, and speculated about the possibility 'of a narcotic substance having been taken by some mischance' in their food. He was too tactful or charitable to mention the obvious conclusion, which is that they had had too much to drink.
[12]Flashman's account of this important meeting between Raglan and Sir George Brown is largely corroborated by Brown's own version in Kinglake. Both Newcastle's despatch and his personal note to Raglan were definite on the need to besiege Sevastopol, while leaving' the final responsibility with Raglan and his French colleagues.
[13]Mrs Duberly, wife of an officer of the 8th Hussars, and an old friend of Flashman's (see Flash for Freedom!), left a vivid journal of her experiences in the Crimea, including the incident described here, when she boarded a transport 'wrapped up in an old hat and shawl … an extraordinary figure' to avoid detection by Lord Lucan. (See E. E. P. Tisdall's Mrs Duberly's Campaigns.)
[14]'The policeman at Herne Bay'. This mythical policeman was a humorous by-word of the time.
[15]It is interesting to note that William Howard Russell, in his original despatch to The Times, made the mistake of reporting that the Highlanders were involved in the attack on the Redoubt, but corrected this in later despatches. His histories of the Crimea are the work of a brilliant newspaperman, and even those who question his criticism of Raglan and other British leaders (see Colonel Adye's The Crimean War) acknowledge the quality of his reporting. Anyone interested in verifying Flashman's statements cannot do better than refer to Russell, or to Kinglake, who was also an eye-witness. Incidentally, Flashman's account of the Alma action is extremely accurate, especially where Lord Raglan's movements are concerned, but his memory has surely played him false in a slightly earlier passage when he suggests that the Russian gunners fired on the army at the start of its march down the Crimea coast: this took place some hours later.
[16]For an account of this incident, see Russell's The War from the landing at Gallipoli to the death of Lord Raglan (1855).
[17]Generally Flashman disagrees with other eye-witnesses no more than they disagree among themselves, and these discrepancies are minor ones. For example, some authorities suggest that the Highlanders fired three volleys against the Russian cavalry, not two, and at fairly long range (E. H. Nolan actually says that there was properly speaking 'no cavalry charge upon the Highlanders', but this is not borne out by others). Again, as to casualties in the Heavy Brigade charge, Flashman saw comparatively few, but Trooper Farquharson of the 4th Light Dragoons, who rode over the ground immediately afterwards, 'saw dozens … with the ugliest gashes about their heads and faces.' (See R. S. Farquharson, Reminiscences of Crimean Campaigning.)
[18]The original pencilled order, scribbled by Airey, is still preserved. It reads: 'Lord Raglan wishes the Cavalry to advance rapidly to the front, follow the Enemy event the Enemy carrying away the guns. Troop Horse Attily may accompany. French Cavalry is on yr left. Immediate.' As to what verbal instructions may have been added, there is no certainty, but one of the rumours which later arose (see H. Moyse-Bartlett's Louis Edward Nolan) was that Nolan had been told to tell Lucan to act on the defensive, but had passed on the vital word as offensive.
[19]It is one of the true curiosities of the charge of the Light Brigade that Lord George Paget rode into action smoking a cheroot—obviously the one which Flashman gave him—and did not actually draw his sabre until the moment of entering the battery, when his orderly, Parkes, advised him to do so. Paget's coolness, which as much as anything saved the remnants of the Light Brigade, was notorious: Trooper Farquharson, who rode with him in the charge, recalled how earlier in the battle Paget was hit by a shell splinter, and reacted only by telling his orderly to collect it as a souvenir.
[20]The recklessness of the British cavalry charge so amazed the Russians that Liprandi's immediate
