The Russian Defense Ministry commented on the absolutely ignorant from a historical point of view of history and frankly boorish statements of the head of the British military department, Ben Wallace.
In a conversation with servicemen during a visit to the Horse Guards building located in Westminster, the minister issued the following tirade: "Unfortunately, we have an annoying opponent in the person of Putin, who completely broke the chain." Wallace added that the UK has a thousand people on standby to respond to threats. "The Scottish Guard kicked the ass of Tsar Nicholas I in 1853 in the Crimea. We can always do it again," the minister boasted. And he added that Tsar Nicholas I, they say, made the same mistake as Putin - he had no friends or alliances." The Scotsman told about these words of Wallace, recalling that the Minister of Defense himself was once an officer of the Scottish Guards and, in theory, should know its chronicle.
The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation did not leave this "excursion into history" unanswered. The official representative of the department Igor Konashenkov recalled the recent visit to Moscow by the head of the British Foreign Ministry. She has already demonstrated her wonderful knowledge of the geography of Russia. Therefore, the public deepening of the history of our state by the head of the British Ministry of Defense, Ben Wallace, did not surprise the Russian military at all.
"Especially for British servicemen, it will be useful to know that the statements of their Minister of War about the Crimean War are nothing more than mythology. For the glory of Her Majesty," Konashenkov ironically commented on this. He gave his colleagues a kind of history lesson. "The Balaklava battle of the Crimean War on October 25, 1854 went down in history not at all thanks to the perseverance of the Scottish 93rd regiment, about which Wallace so enthusiastically told. The only feat of this unit was that he simply did not escape, like the others, from the onslaught of the Russian cavalry. Suffered very bloody losses. But he did not win any victories either," the general said.
However, much more vividly, according to him, the legendary destruction of an entire aristocratic English light cavalry brigade under the command of Lord Cardigan by Russian gunners on the same day in just 20 minutes entered the history of the Balaklava Battle. "It was this "feat" of the British in the Crimean War that enriched all the languages of the world and military textbooks with the concept of "cannon fodder," Konashenkov recalled. He recommended that British servicemen study well not only the geography of Russia, but also its history. "In order not to enrich our common military history with our lives for the sake of poorly educated British politicians," explained the official representative of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.
Yuri Gavrilov
