Author pic : Orlando Figes
The fighting between Russia and Britain took 2 years beginning in 1854 and ended with both countries occupying the same positions and the map of Europe unchanged.
The spark that turned into a flame was when in 1850 the Turkish Sultan gave France the keys to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Since orthodox monks transferring control to another faith was an insult to the Russian Emperor Nicholas I, as his role as protector of the orthodoxy. The Turk’s shift in allegiances but rather France’s aggressive diplomacy meant Russia was unable to retaliate directly, but tried to browbeat the Turks by moving troops into present-day Romania.
Land skirmishes amounted to little until the Russians decimated the Turkish fleet at Sinope on the Black Sea. Using, a new explosive shell they pulverised the Turks’ wooden hulled ships. This defeat worried the British who feared the Russians might proceed unimpeded to Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire and gateway between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.
Sevastopol was the Black Sea port home to the Russian fleet.. the allies lay siege to the city…. new weaponry in the form of rife fire backed by a 1000 cannons. It was not a war that stemmed from dynastic conflicts. Instead it resorted to Homeric and rhetoric paenas and romantic imagery of valiant death in its most raw, unadorned state.
Even though fighting differed from the Napoleonic Wars, the battlefield tactics were predictable and tragic. Two correspondents, Howard Russell and Russian noble, Lev Tolstoy, introduced written images that clashed with centuries-old tradition that made the battlefield an exalted place with the ultimate goal of glory and courage and worthy sacrifice. This reportage made it difficult for the military and government to sweep the horrors under the carpet, to obfuscate and lie to their own people.
New weaponry and its supporting systems revolutionised warfare since the inception of gunpowder. Correspondence from the Front to the public at home shook the reader’s about the destructive impacts of weapons, mud trenches, unceasing bombardments which drove men to suicide while others wasted away from gangrenous rot. They covered graphically the appalling slaughter centered around the Siege of Sevastopol. The rise of literacy rates particularly amongst the British recruits meant their voices, fears and anxieties, via letters , diaries and memoirs recorded for the first time in history what war meant on an everyday basis outside the purview of generals, commanders and politicians.
Trains, steamships and the telegraph accelerated this transmission of information from the front lines back home in a matter of days, with the public, over 1500 miles away, learned how the war was progressing. Russell and Tolstoy helped craft the two greatest myths….The Charge of the Light Brigade and that Sevastopol never surrendered. England was the bastion of free speech and free labor while Russia was hired in desperation and servitude. Railroads had transformed England into a close-knit land traversed in hours allowing war goods to reach the front rapidly, while Russia was 80% Serfs, the property of landowners or the State. It was slavery through a cast system. Education was viewed with fear and suspicion. Russia’s railroads had a single connection between St Petersburg and the Tsar’s Summer Palace, 25 miles away. Russia feared that a network would allow discontents and trouble makers to spread subversion. It was easier to rule where a veiled of secrecy and suspicion ruled.
Logistics supplies was run by the Treasury not by the military. Boots often came in sizes too small. Coffee beans came in green but without equipment to roast them. Archaic rules governed disbursment. Red-tape screwed everything up. Scurvy quickly ensued. Climate conditions, guns, cannons and bayonets took their toll. The Russians did not have the new generation rifles like the British.
Russians were armed with smooth-bore muskets which fired a solid lead ball, whereas the British rifles fired a .577 calibre bullet that when fired at 400 yards could penetrate through 3-4 Russians. It created wounds that were inoperable. Artillery range reached 5000 yards, more than double that of the Napoleonic Wars. Grapeshot, a cluster of fist-sized projectiles and contact- explosive shell devastated confined entrenchment.
Latrines were not undertaken due to the hard rocky ground, which resulted in the entire area covered in human waste.
Nikolai Pirogov, a Russian surgeon founded the Triage Method, separating hopeless cases from those who could survive surgery. He was first in using anaesthetics. This is where Florence Nightingale became a legend. She and her nurses waged war against the iniquities and revolting conditions, without pillows, blankets, bedpans and latrines that overflowed. 32% of those admitted died.
Over one million people died at Crimea, 20,000 Brits, 50,000 French and 100,000 Turks, while Russia lost 450,000.
The twin legends of The Charge of the Light Brigade and Sevastopol’s defenders became bedrock chapters in their national mythologies, showcasing the pageantry of battle, demonstrating the soldiers valour, redeeming lives lost, to endow death with a higher meaning, to endure death was not in vain. War was elevated war to legendary status, turning carnage into something noble…. The Good Death was an attractive glory to God.
Clearly a “must read”. Crimea laid the foundation for much that is the modern day Middle East.
The excellent review of this book should come with a warning. Once you start to explore the many dimensions of this campaign, as the reviewer points out, you realize that you are at a turning point of history. So much will flow from this campaign from the Victoria Cross to the Balfour Declaration to my personal favorite the Polar Diagram popularized by Florence Nightingale in her statistical analysis of death in the Crimea, and then in London tenements.
Thank you Eli for bringing this fascinating book to our attention. Orlando Figes’ other works on the regions history could be well worth the follow up.