They landed at Eupatoria on 14 September 1854, intending to make a 35-mile triumphal march to Sevastopol the capital of Crimea, with 50,000 men.

The culminating struggle for the strategic Russian port in 1854-5 was the final bloody episode in the costly Crimean War.

The Battle of Balaklava was made famous by Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade" and Robert Gibb's painting, Thin Red Line.

The Nova Scotia memorial also commemorates two Haligonians, Major Augustus Frederick Welsford of the 97th Regiment and Captain William Buck Carthew Augustus Parker of the 77 Regiment, who both died in the Battle of the Great Redan in 1855 during the Siege of Sevastopol (1854–1855), in present-day Crimea which was annexed by Russia in 2014.

[3] During March and April 1855, Nova Scotian Joseph Howe worked tiredlessly to recruit troops for the war effort.

They landed at Eupatoria on 14 September 1854, intending to make a 35-mile triumphal march to Sevastopol the capital of the Crimea, with 50,000 men.

On leaving college he purchased a commission and was gazetted as ensign to the Ninety-fifth Regiment in February, 1832, became lieutenant in 1834, obtained his company in 1838, and was promoted to a majority in 1850.

Colonel Lockyer having been suddenly promoted to the rank of brigadier-general, the command of the regiment devolved on Major Welsford for some time during the trying winter before Sevastopol.

The troops rushed toward the Redan, and reaching the deep ditch, placed their ladders and scaled the parapets in the face of a murderous fire.

"[6] Captain William Parker was born in Lawrencetown, Halifax County, Nova Scotia, was educated at the Horton Academy, and obtained a commission in October 1839.

As he sent this man to report the circumstance, a number of Russians rushed out from the ranks to make him a prisoner, whereupon he ably defended himself, shooting two of them with his revolver, and eventually succeeding in bringing into the camp the body of his friend.

For his conduct on this occasion he is said to have received the thanks of General Raglan commanding the Light Division, and was recommended for the Victoria Cross.

"This brave soldier fell in the final attack on the Redan on September 8, in the thirty-fifth year of his age, leaving a widow and three infant children to lament his death.

The larger than life twelve ton lion stands atop the Roman triumphal arch created from Albert County, New Brunswick sandstone.

[13] When describing the lion in 1914, the Provincial archivist Harry Piers wrote that Lang had "chiselled a little too much at it, and got it a trifle too small,"[14] though few are likely to notice today.

Major General Charles Trollope and Rear Admiral Sir Alexander Milne, 1st Baronet also made a few remarks.