Crimean War: The ill-fated Charge of the Light Brigade (pictured) was decisively repelled by Russian forces during the Battle of Balaclava.

The Crimean War was fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, the Second French Empire, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont from October 1853 to February 1856. Geopolitical causes of the war included the "Eastern question", expansion of Imperial Russia in the preceding Russo-Turkish wars, and the British and French preference to preserve the Ottoman Empire to maintain the balance of power in the Concert of Europe.

The Charge of the Light Brigade was a military action undertaken by British light cavalry against Russian forces during the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War, resulting in many casualties to the cavalry. On 25 October 1854, the Light Brigade, led by Lord Cardigan, mounted a frontal assault against a Russian artillery battery which was well-prepared with excellent fields of defensive fire. The charge was the result of a misunderstood order from the commander-in-chief, Lord Raglan, who had intended the Light Brigade to attack a different objective for which light cavalry was better suited, to prevent the Russians from removing captured guns from overrun Turkish positions. The Light Brigade made its charge under withering direct fire and reached its target, scattering some of the gunners, but was forced to retreat immediately.

The Battle of Balaclava, fought on 25 October 1854 during the Crimean War, was part of the Siege of Sevastopol (1854–55), an Allied attempt to capture the port and fortress of Sevastopol, Russia's principal naval base on the Black Sea. The engagement followed the earlier Allied victory in September at the Battle of the Alma, where the Russian General Menshikov had positioned his army in an attempt to stop the Allies progressing south towards their strategic goal. Alma was the first major encounter fought in the Crimean Peninsula since the Allied landings at Kalamita Bay on 14 September, and was a clear battlefield success; but a tardy pursuit by the Allies failed to gain a decisive victory, allowing the Russians to regroup, recover and prepare their defence.