Whistle-World visits...

THE CRIMEAN WAR

with

Mrs. Duberly & Captain Nolan

When I was about 13, in the '70s of the last century, a family friend gave me a volume of The Illustrated London News, July-Dec. 1854. It had lasting impact, especially the obituary of controversial cavalry officer Louis Nolan, in whom I developed an enduring and benevolent interest, furthered by getting my hands on the biography by Moyse-Bartlett in the mid-'80s. I know I may be risking unpopularity saying this, but I like to show that there's more of interest about Lou than his last day. (Anyone can have a bad morning...) He has a book coming out in 2003, anyway, which may shed light on a few things - his campaign journal.

I also 'adopted' Frances Isabella Duberly (née Locke), the delightfully courageous and lively wife of Capt. Henry Duberly, Paymaster of the 8th Hussars - traduced in the 1968 film The Charge of the Light Brigade. She wore a brave face, sometimes mistaken for hardness, in public, but her journals are compassionately and movingly written. (I only wish she wouldn't keep saying 'English' when she means 'British'! Lou does the same, too! Slapped wrists for both of you!) The glimpse of her friendship with Louis has a poignant charm. There was the inevitable gossip about them, but we know that the tragedy - which she witnessed - left her "sick at heart" for so many friends and comrades.

I'm afraid I neglected these dear old companions for a while, but they galloped back into my life again recently, in the wake of a C4 documentary based on Adkin's The Charge, and a Radio 4 broadcast of John Osborne's draft of the screenplay for the film. So here they are to share: one made it home and reached old age, after many further adventures, one is still there (minus a few ribs) in the ditch around the 5th Redoubt, but, one hopes, both now surely having interesting conversations while trotting around Elysium. (I'm sure they've forgiven each other by now, re: Fanny blaming Lou's "folly"!)

I am hoping to add more of their writings and expand their listings in due course, so if some links are not yet live, please be patient and check back from time to time!

FANNY DUBERLY
1828-1903

JOURNAL
KEPT DURING
THE RUSSIAN WAR

from the Departure of the Army from England in April 1854, to the Fall of Sebastopol

Title Page, Dedication, Preface, Contents

1: The Voyage

2: Disembarkation and Encampment at Varna

3: The Expedition to the Crimea

4: Balaklava

5: The Camp

6: The Fall of Sebastopol
Fanny Duberly, by Fenton

Fanny & Bob
from photo by Roger Fenton, 1855

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Coming Soon

LOUIS EDWARD NOLAN
1818-54

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

based on my article for Dispatch (Journal of the Scottish Military Historical Society), Spring 1998
Extensively updated and rewritten in the light of new material!

Detail of Equestrian Portait of Louis Nolan

detail of anon. portrait, 1845

OBITUARY,

Illustrated London News,
25 November 1854

THE TRAINING OF CAVALRY REMOUNT HORSES

A New Edition, Revised by the Author

[1861 posth. ed.; book first publ. 1852]

Title Page, Dedication, Preface, Letters

Contents, List of Plates
[with links to plates by Henry Alken]

Introduction, Preparatory Remarks

On the Snaffle, The Bit, On the Bit

Horses Bitted:

Lesson 1

Lesson 4

Lesson 2

Lesson 5

Lesson 3

Lesson 6

Paces

Lesson 7

Cantering Lesson to Finish with: Double Ride

Catechism

Piaffer [transl. from Baucher]

CAVALRY:
ITS HISTORY & TACTICS

[1853]

Title Page, Dedication, Preface,

Contents, List of Plates

Preface

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIV

Appendix

Gallery:

PHOTOS & PORTRAITS

Charging on to your Screen:

SEX, LIES & THE WRONG TROUSERS

How the Duberlys and Louis have been (mis)treated on film and TV...

Fic:

The Phantom Staff Officer by David Kelsey
Can Holmes and Watson pères shed any light on events of 25 October?

Flashman & the Crimean War by Michael Hargreave Mawson
as published by The Royal Flashman Society of Upper Canada

More Links:

Crimean War Research Society

Crimean Texts

Suite 101: Crimean War

15th The King's Hussars

Yahoo! Groups: Crimean War

Flashman Society

Yahoo! Groups: Flashman

80 Queen Street, Edinburgh
A good place to raise a glass in memory,
under Louis' first UK home at no. 79!

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Brigade Border
Errichtet keinen Denkstein. Laßt die Rose
nur jedes Jahr zu seinen Gunsten blühn.

 Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus, I:5