War relics are being illegally dug up and sold 150 years after the Charge of the Light Brigade
ARMY veterans expressed outrage yesterday at the discovery by The Times of an increasingly lucrative trade in relics plundered from one of the most famous battlefields in British military history.
Just two weeks before the 150th anniversary of the Charge of the Light Brigade, the Royal British Legion expressed deep concern at the plunder of relics from that site which are then sold illegally to foreign tourists and collectors for up to $400 (?225) an item.
Other Crimean war battlefields, and sometimes even the graves of more than 20,000 British troops killed in that conflict, are also being pillaged, The Times has discovered.
“However old the graves may be, any soldier, whatever nationality, deserves to rest undisturbed on the battlefield where he has fallen,” said Jeremy Lillies, spokesman for the Royal British Legion.
“It’s a terrible thing if that is happening, and the fact that the 150th anniversary is coming up makes it especially poignant,” said Captain Gary Locker, regimental secretary of the Light Dragoons which incorporates the old 13th Light Dragoons who were at the forefront of the charge. “It’s like all battlefields. We expect them to be left in perpetuity.”
To the passing visitor, the Valley of Death could not look more peaceful. Vineyards and wild flowers cover the ground where the Light Brigade charged into the mouth of hell. A passenger train rattles gently between the hills from which the Russian cannons volleyed and thundered on the 600.
But 150 years after the slaughter immortalised by Alfred Lord Tennyson, this tranquil spot has become a new battleground between local authorities, historians, collectors and veterans over the treasure trove of relics lying beneath the sandy soil.
Thousands of regimental badges and buttons, belt buckles and bayonets were buried alongside the estimated 750,000 soldiers killed when British, French, Italian and Turkish troops fought the Russians for control of this Black Sea peninsula.
Excavating the relics is, in theory, restricted to a handful of licensed local collectors. Taking them out of the country is technically illegal. In reality unlicensed locals with metal detectors continue to dig for relics from the siege of Sebastopol and the battles of Alma, Balaklava and Inkerman.
“The British buy the most,” says Zina, who runs a stall outside the Panorama Museum in Sevastopol. “I don’t know how they take them out of the country, but I imagine they smuggle them in their luggage.”
Zina, who asked to be identified only by her first name, openly displays a selection of regimental buttons, coins, bullets and tobacco pipes that she says were sold to her by local children. The more expensive memorabilia — belt buckles, cap badges and rare buttons — are sold behind closed doors.
The problem is that Ukrainian Customs and police lack the resources and the inclination to crack down on the trade. And foreign buyers have no way to check whether a relic was unearthed by accident in the foundations of a new house, or looted from a grave.
“I’ve seen incidents of graves having been robbed,” said Patrick Mercer, the Tory MP for Newark and a Crimean War historian. “Most of the dead were not buried in cemeteries, but in shallow graves.”
Alan Rooney, the managing director of Midas Tours, which runs battlefield trips to the region, says that the Ukrainians are merely “catching up”.
“They’re new to the game of battlefield tourism because Sebastopol was a closed city ten years ago. I’ve heard of graves being plundered but maybe this is all more visible at the moment because they’re so aware of the 150th anniversary.”
Some foreign collectors argue that they are simply retrieving national property, but local historians say that the relics should be used to boost Crimea’s fledgeling tourist industry. Pavel Lyashuk, a curator of the Panorama Museum, has opened an exhibition of relics, including crockery, domino pieces, a Schweppes soda water bottle, a can of Fortnum and Mason boiled beef, and a French sardine tin.
“There is no war in this exhibition — only the lives of the people who lived on both sides,” Mr Lyashuk explains. “These relics illustrate the lives of the average people.”
He says that in Soviet times there was no market for the relics, and only children used to collect them. But soon after the Soviet Union’s collapse, the first foreign collectors arrived. A hat badge would go for about ?2.80, a gold sovereign for ?28.
Prices have soared as many of the rarer items have been dug up and taken overseas. Under the law, licensed excavators must offer finds to the museum. But it cannot compete with prices on the open market. A rare gilt button can fetch up to $50. A bayonet might sell for $100. And a Royal Marine cap badge — one of the rarest — could go for as much as $400.
“Picking up a musket ball off the ground is legitimate, I think,” said Mr Mercer. “But you have to draw a line at robbing the country blind.”
THE CONFLICT
- The Charge of the Light Brigade took place on October 15, 1854, during the Crimean War
- Britain, France and Turkey declared war on Russia after her 1854 invasion of Dubroja in Romania. The allies wanted to stop Russian encroachment into the Ottoman Empire
- The charge took place during the battle at Balaclava, which lies near Sebastopol
- Lord Lucan gave the order to Lord Cardigan to lead a British charge down from the nearby causeway heights, to where the Russians were taking British guns
- The result was a massacre. Nearly 400 of the 673 men who charged down the valley were killed or captured. 500 horses died
- British and Russians were moved by the heroism of the British soldiers. General Liprandi told his English PoWs: “You are noble fellows.” In England, Tennyson’s poem immortalised “the noble 600” |
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