In July 1853 Russia occupied territories in the Crimea that had previously been controlled by Turkey.

Britain and France was concerned about Russian expansion and attempted to achieve a negotiation withdrawal. Turkey, unwilling to grant concessions declared war on Russia.

After the Russians destroyed the Turkish fleet at Sinope in the Black Sea in November 1853, Britain and France joined the war against Russia. On the 20th September 1854 the Allied army defeated the Russian army at the battle of Alma River (September 1854) but the battle of Balaklava (October 1854) was inconclusive.

John Thadeus Delane, the editor of The Times, sent William Howard Russell to cover the Crimean War. He left London on 23rd February 1854. After spending time with the army in Gallipoli and Varna, he reported the battles and the Siege of Sevastopol. He found Lord Raglan uncooperative and wrote to Delane alleging unfairly that "Lord Raglan is utterly incompetent to lead an army".

Roger T. Stearn has argued: "Unwelcomed and obstructed by Lord Raglan, senior officers (except de Lacy Evans), and staff, yet neither banned, controlled, nor censored, Russell made friends with junior officers, and from them and other ranks, and by observation, gained his information. He wore quasimilitary clothes and was armed, but did not fight. He was not a great writer but his reports were vivid, dramatic, interesting, and convincing.... His reports identified with the British forces and praised British heroism. He exposed logistic and medical bungling and failure, and the suffering of the troops."

His reports revealled the sufferings of the British Army during the winter of 1854-1855. These accounts upset Queen Victoria who described them as these "infamous attacks against the army which have disgraced our newspapers". Prince Albert, who took a keen interest in military matters, commented that "the pen and ink of one miserable scribbler is despoiling the country." Lord Raglan complained that Russell had revealed military information potentially useful to the enemy.

William Howard Russell reported that British soldiers began going down with cholera and malaria. Within a few weeks an estimated 8,000 men were suffering from these two diseases. When Mary Seacole heard about the cholera epidemic she travelled to London to offer her services to the British Army. There was considerable prejudice against women's involvement in medicine and her offer was rejected. When Russell publicised the fact that a large number of soldiers were dying of cholera there was a public outcry, and the government was forced to change its mind. Florence Nightingale volunteered her services and was eventually given permission to take a group of thirty-eight nurses to Turkey.

Russell's reports led to attacks on the government by the the Liberal M.P. John Roebuck. He claimed that the British contingent had 23,000 men unfit for duty due to ill health and only 9,000 fit for duty. When Roebuck proposal for an inquiry into the condition of the British Army, the government was passed by 305 to 148. As a result the Earl of Aberdeen, resigned in January 1855. The Duke of Newcastle told Russell " It was you who turned out the government".

Florence Nightingale found the conditions in the army hospital in Scutari appalling. The men were kept in rooms without blankets or decent food. Unwashed, they were still wearing their army uniforms that were "stiff with dirt and gore". In these conditions, it was not surprising that in army hospitals, war wounds only accounted for one death in six. Diseases such as typhus, cholera and dysentery were the main reasons why the death-rate was so high amongst wounded soldiers.

Military officers and doctors objected to Nightingale's views on reforming military hospitals. They interpreted her comments as an attack on their professionalism and she was made to feel unwelcome. Nightingale received very little help from the military until she used her contacts at The Times to report details of the way that the British Army treated its wounded soldiers. John Delane, the editor of newspaper took up her cause, and after a great deal of publicity, Nightingale was given the task of organizing the barracks hospital after the battle of Inkerman and by improving the quality of the sanitation she was able to dramatically reduce the death-rate of her patients.

Although Mary Seacole was an expert at dealing with cholera, her application to join Florence Nightingale's team was rejected. Mary, who had become a successful business woman in Jamaica, decided to travel to the Crimea at her own expense. She visited Nightingale at her hospital at Scutari but once again Mary's offer of help was refused.

Unwilling to accept defeat, Mary Seacole started up a business called the British Hotel, a few miles from the battlefront. Here she sold food and drink to the British soldiers. With the money she earned from her business Mary was able to finance the medical treatment she gave to the soldiers.

Whereas Florence Nightingale and her nurses were based in a hospital several miles from the front, Mary Seacole treated her patients on the battlefield. On several occasions she was found treating wounded soldiers from both sides while the battle was still going on.

Sevastopol fell to the Allied troops on 8th September 1855 and the new Russian Emperor, Alexander II, agreed to sign a peace treaty at the Congress of Paris in 1856. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/WARcrimean.htm

Crimean War, 1853-1856

War sparked by what on first glance appears to be a trivial disagreement over the Christian shrines of Jerusalem, but that was actually the result of long term European tensions. Russia had long been expanding south at the expense of various Muslim states, and the Ottoman Turks, slowly gaining ground, while the ever weaking Ottoman empire still controlled large areas of the Balkans. The Russians were the guardians of the Christian shrines within the Ottoman Empire, and when a dispute broke out between Orthodox and Catholic Christians in Jerusalem, France decided to intervene as protector of the Catholics, gaining special status from the Turks in 1852. Tsar Nicholas I of Russia decided to use the tension in an attempt to gain control of Constantinople and with it direct access to the Mediterranean. This alarmed France, long term allies of Turkey, and enemies of Russia, and Britain, who objected to any change in the balance of power, and also had rivalries with Russia further east. Russia issued demands in May 1853, which were soon refused, and Russian troops began to occupy Turkish Moldavia and parts of Rumania in July. The Turks declared war on Russia in October, and a Turkish army crossed the Danube, defeating the Russians at the battle of Oltenitza (4 November 1853), in southern Rumania. On 30 November the Russians defeated a Turkish fleet at Sinope, in an encounter most significant for the introduction of shell guns by the Russians, although their control of the Black Sea was short lived, and a Franco-British fleet entered the Black Sea in January 1854. On 28 March 1854, Britain and France declared war on Russia, and moved to help the Turks.

Despite the name of the war, fighting was not limited to the Crimea. Oltenitza did not end fighting in the Balkans, and on 20 March 1854 the Russians crossed the Danube, invading Turkish Bulgaria. However, Austria moved quickly to oppose the Russian expansion, gaining Turkish permission to enter their Balkan provinces, and by the start of August the Russians withdrew back across their own border. Fighting also happened in the Caucasus, where the Russians besieged the fortress of Kars, which despite a brave defence was forced to surrender on 26 November 1855, only months before peace negotiations ended the war. However, the most important fighting was on the Crimean peninsular. Austria's intervention had in effect achieved the British and French aims, removing the Russian presence in the Balkans, but it was decided to reduce Russian naval power in the Black sea by the occupation and destruction of the main Russian naval base at Sevastopol.

The campaign in the Crimea is most notable for the poor quality of the leadership of both sides. This was amply demonstrated at the start of the campaign. The allied expedition sailed before the leaders - Lord Raglan for the British, the seriously ill Marshal Armand de Saint-Arnaud for the French - had even decided where to land, only picked their point once they had reached the Crimea, choosing to land at Old Fort, an open beach 30 miles north of Sevastopol. The landing took five days (13-18 September 1854), and this time the Russian commander, Prince Alexander Menshikov, showed his lack of ability, failing to take the opportunity to attack the vulnerable allies. The allies now started to move towards the port, and only now, with the allies outnumbering him, did Prince Menshikov attempt to stop them (battle of the Alma, 20 September 1854). An attempt to hold the

line of the River Alma cost Menshikov 5,700 of his 36,400 men, and the allies 3,000 of their 52,000, although Russian reinforcements were already starting to reach the area. Menshikov pulled back to Sevastopol, which the allies approached on 25 September. Now the idiocy of their landing point became apparent, as with no easy port in their hands, the allies were forced to march around Sevastopol to Balaklava and Kamiesch, south of the city before they could begin a siege. At the same time Menshikov was moving the bulk of his army away from the city to join with Russian reinforcements, and it was only by chance that the two armies failed to collide.

The allies regained contact with their fleets, and established themselves in their new bases, the British at Balaklava, the French at Kemiesch, where the death of Marshal St. Arnaud raised General Francois Canrobert to command. The allies were now free to concentrate on the siege of Sevastopol (17 October 1854-8 September 1855), but to the amazement of the Russian garrison of Sevastopol, missed their chance to simply walk into the city before it's defences had been completed. Instead, while the bulk of the allies army protected their flank against the Russian field army, the siege was slowly put into place (8-16 October), before the bombardment began (17 October). However, over the previous weeks, Colonel Frants Todleben, the Russian chief engineer, had built up new fortifications which almost totally negated the allied bombardment. The Russians made repeated efforts to disrupt the siege, attacking the vulnerable supply lines between the besieging troops and their ports.

The first attempt, the battle of Balaklava (25 October 1854), is most famous for the Charge of the Light Brigade, in which 247 of the 673 Light Cavalry Brigade were killed attacking a battery of Russian guns by charging them along a valley lined by yet more Russian guns. However, the main result of the battle was to leave Menshikov's army dominating the only proper road between Balaklava and Sevastopol. A second Russian attempt led to the battle of Inkerman (5 November 1854), which degenerated into a formless melee after both the British and Russians lost effective control of their armies. The battle was won by the late arrival of a French division, which drove off the Russians, who suffered by far the heavier casualties. The fighting then ended for the winter, but the misery of the allied troops only got worse. Neither the French or British were fully prepared for a winter siege, while the Russians still commanded the road between Balaklava and Sevastopol. A storm sank thirty transport ships containing most of the British supplies, and Cholera raged through the camp, reducing the British army to only 12,000 effective soldiers.

For the first time, improved technology allowed news to reach home very quickly, and the telegraph reports sent by William Russell, war correspondent of the Times of London enraged British public opinion to the extend that the government of Lord Aberdeen fell, the first time the condition of the fighting men had aroused such emotions. Conditions slowly improved early in 1855. Florence Nightingale's famous nursing innovations improved the military hospitals, while a newly constructed road and railway improved the supply route between Balaklava and Sevastopol. Another Russian attempt to intervene, under Prince Michael Gorchakov (battle of Eupatoria, 17 February 1855), was repulsed by the Turks. An Easter bombardment (8-18 April 1855) destroyed a great deal of the

Russian defences, while the resignation of Conrobert led to the appointment of General Pelissier, a more able commander. Finally, the capture of Kerch on 24 May, which secured allied command of the Sea of Azov, severed the Russian overland supply lines. Over the remains of the summer, the allies slowly nibbled at the Russian defences, while the battle of the Traktir (16 August 1855), saw the final Russian attempt to relieve the city defeated by French and Sardinian troops. Finally, on 8 September 1855, the French launched one of the few well planned attacks of the war, aimed at the Malakoff, one of the two key strongpoints of the defence. A heavy bombardment was followed by a well timed assault by an entire French corp. Surprise was achieved by the first use of synchronised watches to time an assault, and after intensive fighting the Malakoff was captured. This put the remaining strongpoint under an intolerable strain, and so that night Prince Gorchakov evacuated the city.

The capture of Sevastopol was the last significant fighting of the war. Peace terms were agreed on 1 February 1856 at Vienna, and the final peace agreed at the Congress of Paris (28 February-30 March 1856), resulting in the Treaty of Paris. Russian lost her dominance in the Balkans, and agreed to respect the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. In some ways Austria was the biggest loser. Having chosen to defy the Russians in the Balkans, she lost her main ally, and over the next few years found that Britain and France were not interesting in propping her up. Indeed, within three years the War of Austria with France and Piedmont (1859), lost her much of her Italian possessions, while the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 ended any Austrian influence in Germany. Tsar Alexander II, who came to the Russian throne in March 1855, realised that the war demonstrated the urgent need for modernisation in Russia. http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/wars_crimean.html

The Charge of the Light Brigade The Crimean War took place between 1853-1856. Russia was expanding its territories southwards and had invaded Turkey. Turkeys allies, Britain and France, entered into a war against Russia to protect their interests in the Mediterranean region. The Russians destroyed the Turkish fleet at Sinope in the Black Sea in November 1853, Britain and France joined the war against Russia. On the 20th September 1854 the Allied army defeated the Russian army at the battle of Alma River (September 1854) but the battle of Balaklava (October 1854) was inconclusive. Russian troops began to occupy Turkish Moldavia and parts of Rumania in July of 1853. The Turks declared war on Russia in October. The first battle between the Turks and Russians resulted in victory for Turkey (Battle of Oltenitza 4 November 1853), however on 30 November the Russians defeated a Turkish fleet at Sinope. A French/British fleet entered the Black Sea in January 1854. On 28 March 1854, Britain and France declared war on Russia, and moved to help Turkey. During the Crimean War error in judgements had been made by both sides, for example after the fleet had decided where to land, it took five days to complete the landing.