First, the loss that led to the situation that would go so deadly sour: the British and French, fighting the Russians, were forced back from the Causeway Heights, fleeing four fortifications filled with recently installed artillery. The Russian forces were repelled only a short distance later, but Lord Fitzroy Somerset Raglan decided he would really like all those guns they just left back. So he issued an order to try to take back those four fortifications to prevent the Russians from acquiring all that sweet, sweet, weaponry. Except that he didn’t say “Please go retake the four fortifications we just abandoned, to retrieve our guns.” He said instead, “advance rapidly to the front … and try to prevent the enemy carrying away the guns.”
The guns he was talking about were the guns in the Causeway Heights. The cavalry he issued this order to, unfortunately, was not in sight of the Causeway Heights. What they were in sight of was a fully entrenched, absolute shit ton of Russian artillery, at the end of an open valley. For some reason, instead of maybe questioning the wisdom of an order that was basically “run down a hallway at a mounted gatling gun,” George Bingham and James Brudenell, the Earls of Lucan and Cardigan, respectively, shrugged their shoulders and basically went, “seems weird but ok.” They then charged their men into the valley, at which point they were shot at from THREE SEPARATE DIRECTIONS by Russian gunners. It was basically a horrific, deadly, real-life version of Tower Defense flash game. 670 men participated in the charge. 110 died, 160 were wounded, and 375 horses were killed. They did not win.