Note 189 — Chapter XXX · WAR.

The responsibility for this fearful butchery has been cast on Lord Lucan. He certainly lacked moral courage in obeying an order which nobody but a maniac would, in the circumstances, have issued. But Nolan’s insinuation that Lucan was afraid to attack forced the general’s hand. Nolan was a brave man, with a crazy fad as to the capacity of English cavalry to go anywhere and do anything. He had written a book to show that they could—and he was bitterly disappointed because the campaign had not been conducted so as to illustrate by practical experiments the soundness of his views. He took it on himself to ride in advance of the Brigade, with which he had nothing to do, and excite the men by voice and gesture, as if their own officers, who were personally responsible for their lives, were not fit to lead them. This would indicate that he was one of those meddlesome aides-de-camp, whose interference with operations in the field renders them the pest of British armies.