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    The Crimean War
    The Crimean War
    The Crimean War
    Ebook175 pages2 hours

    The Crimean War

    By Bob Carruthers

    2.5/5

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    About this ebook

    This remarkable work features the Crimean War as depicted by the late Victorian military writer James Grant. The materialhere was first published in 1894, only 40 years after the end of the Crimean War, at a time when many of the participants werestill in their sixties. Grant therefore had access to the primary source interviews which are now lost forever.Originally published as part of the Cassell's series British Battles on Land and Sea, it presents the reader with an intriguing insight into how contemporary writers addressed their subject. They say the past is another country and that is certainly true in this instance.The contrast between the contemporary Victorian view and the modern view reveals the huge gulf in attitudes. Mr. Grant's work is clearly 'of its time' and reflects the attitudes of the day which were unashamedly xenophobic, jingoistic and militaristic. It nonetheless repays the reader as it provides us with a unique window on the past and brings the long lost world of Victorian Imperialism into focus.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateAug 5, 2013
    ISBN9781473846760
    The Crimean War
    Author

    Bob Carruthers

    Bob Carruthers is an Emmy Award winning author and historian, who has written extensively on the Great War. A graduate of Edinburgh University, Bob is the author of a number of military history titles including the Amazon best seller The Wehrmacht in Russia.

    Read more from Bob Carruthers

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    • 3/5
      Billed as "a straight-forward" account of the war, this actually comes over as a very dry military history, with a lot of numeration of battalions and regiments, and very little about the key personalities - and after all, the Crimean War is the story of the personalitiies and their conflicts with others supposedly on the same side as them. Chapter 9, on the Battle of Inkerman, is particularly difficult to follow; the author has set out the events of the battle as a table, supposedly to make the events clearer. In fact, this seems to me to make it impossible to read without re-enacting the battle as a wargame at the same time.There is a good annotated bibliography, and anoraky lists of regiments and the Orders of Battle of the three main combatant armies.Having said that, there are occasional flashes of insight that make this book nonetheless worthwhile. It details, for instance, the campaigns of the Crimean War that took place outside the Crimea - for instance, in the lower Danube basin (where the war started), in the Caucasus, and the naval blockade of Russia in the Baltic. And Chapter 10, "Administrative difficulties", is actually a very good exposition of the concept of military support services and the problems inherent in keeping an increasingly modern army supplied. Our current-day politicians, who regard it as a scandal that it takes two people behind the lines to supply one soldier in the line, would do well to read this and learn something about real life.The Crimean War, especially from Britain's point of view, was a prime example of incompetance at many levels, unprofessionalism at the highest level, and generally it reflects on typical British arrogance when dealing with foreigners that blinds us to all else and makes us look foolish to everyone except ourselves.The 1971 paperback edition has lost the maps inside the front and rear endpapers that would give a useful overview of the whole campaign, though they are referenced in the contents list.

    Book preview

    The Crimean War - Bob Carruthers

    This edition published in 2013 by

    Pen & Sword Military

    An imprint of

    Pen & Sword Books Ltd

    47 Church Street

    Barnsley

    South Yorkshire

    S70 2AS

    First published in Great Britain in 2012 in digital format by

    Coda Books Ltd.

    Copyright © Coda Books Ltd, 2012

    Published under licence by Pen & Sword Books Ltd.

    ISBN 978 1 78159 235 9

    eISBN 9781473846760

    This book contains an extract from ‘British Battles on Land and Sea’ by James Grant. Published by Cassell and Company Limited, 1894.

    A CIP catalogue record for this book is

    available from the British Library

    All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

    Printed and bound in India

    By Replika Press Pvt. Ltd.

    Pen & Sword Books Ltd incorporates the Imprints of Pen & Sword Aviation, Pen & Sword Family History, Pen & Sword Maritime, Pen & Sword Military, Pen & Sword Discovery, Pen & Sword Politics, Pen & Sword Atlas, Pen & Sword Archaeology, Wharncliffe Local History, Wharncliffe True Crime, Wharncliffe Transport, Pen & Sword Select, Pen & Sword Military Classics, Leo Cooper, The Praetorian Press, Claymore Press, Remember When, Seaforth Publishing and Frontline Publishing

    For a complete list of Pen & Sword titles please contact

    PEN & SWORD BOOKS LIMITED

    47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England

    E-mail: enquiries@pen-and-sword.co.uk

    Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

    CONTENTS

    INTRODUCTION

    I. BOARDMENT OF ODESSA, 1854

    II. BOMBARDMENT OF BOMARSUND, 1854

    III. ALMA, 1854

    IV. BALACLAVA, 1854, CHARGE OF THE HEAVY BRIGADE

    V. BALACLAVA, 1854, CHARGE OF THE SIX HUNDRED

    VI. INKERMAN, 1854

    VII. FINAL BOMBARDMENT OF SEBASTOPOL, 1855

    VIII. THE REDAN, 1855

    IX. BOMBARDMENT OF SWEABORG, 1855

    X. KINBURN, 1855

    XI. CLOSE OF THE CAMPAIGN; OUR GRAVES IN THE CRIMEA.

    XII. BOMBARDMENT OF MOHAMMERAH, 1856

    INTRODUCTION

    James Grant was a prolific author who produced a huge volume of books on military and historical subjects in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The material here was first published in 1894, only 40 years after the end of the Crimean War, at a time when many of the participants were still in their sixties. Grant therefore had access to the primary source interviews which are now lost forever.

    Originally published as part of the Cassell’s series "British Battles on Land and Sea", it presents the reader with an intriguing insight into how contemporary writers addressed their subject. They say the past is another country and that is certainly true in this instance. Mr. Grant’s work is clearly ‘of its time’ and reflects the attitudes of the day which were unashamedly xenophobic, jingoistic and militaristic. It nonetheless repays the reader with a unique window on the past, bringing the long lost world of Victorian Imperialism into focus.

    The engravings and illustrations are late nineteenth century and are reproduced as close as possible to how they originally appeared. Not all the engravings were produced by eye witnesses, but they certainly were scrutinised by survivors of the campaign. The works of imagination depicting the brave Red Coats in the thick of the action are fairly obviously embroidered and romanticised, but the portraits, landscapes and depictions of everyday soldiering all have a period flavour which reflects that the events were still within living memory. These wonderful engravings provide a direct link with the past and together with Mr. Grant’s period text produce an absorbing account of the Crimean War through Victorian eyes.

    Bob Carruthers

    - CHAPTER I -

    BOARDMENT OF ODESSA, 1854

    Since the battle of Waterloo, peace had reigned in Europe; but the 28th of March, 1854, saw Britain once more at war. The battles in Cabul and Central India were too remote in their influences and scene operation to kindle great national enthusiasm, and since the day of carnage around Mont St. Jean, ours had been a land of peace; but at the very time when Wellington, the hero of so many past glories, was being borne to his last home, by the side of Nelson, the nation could little foresee that the seeds of another conflict were germinating, and on Russian soil.

    A petty dispute about what was called the custody of the Holy Places: the guardianship of the various churches and shrines in Jerusalem and Bethlehem, of which France became protector by a treaty in 1740, swelled by the degrees into a great aggression on the part of Russia, when, on the 5th of May, 1853, Prince Menschikoff presented an ultimatum, demanding the acknowledgement of a Russian protectorate over all Greek subjects of the Turkish Empire; an assertion of sovereignty over nearly four-fifths of its people. The obscure squabble between the priests of the rival churches in the Holy City thus suddenly became a vast European difficulty. Britain, Austria, France and Prussia, felt themselves bound to interference of the balance of power.

    On the 26th June, the Emperor Nicholas announced his intention of occupying the Danubian principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, as material guarantees, and an army corps, under general Dannenberg, entered the latter state. Several attempts were made by the Western powers to arrange the growing quarrel; but the Sultan remained firm, after giving the Russian invaders fifteen days to evacuate the Principalities, Omar Pasha, a Croatian peasant, who had risen to be generalissimo of the Ottoman army, with a force of 120,00 strong, established his head-quarters at Shumla, awaiting the expiration of the guaranteed time, to oppose the large army that now occupied the two principalities.

    On the 27th of March 1854. Queen Victoria, in a message to both Houses of parliament, stated that she felt bound to afford active assistance to her ally, the Sultan, against unprovoked aggression; and on the following day war was declared in the usual form, by the heralds of London and at Edinburgh. The Emperor napoleon also declared war. In anticipation of these declarations, which had long been deemed inevitable, our Mediterranean fleet had anchored outside the entrance of the Dardanelles, where it was soon joined by the French; and one of the most powerful squadrons that had ever left the British isles, led by old Sir Charles Napier, passed into the Baltic, there to threaten the great fortress of Russia, and await the tide of events.

    Meanwhile, each country prepared an expeditionary army for the Eats, and the British contingent, physically and morally one of the most splendid armies that ever marched under the British colours, departed, under the command of Lord Raglan, for the seat of war. He was accompanied, as generals of division, by men whose names stood high in our military annals, and by brigadiers who were second to none in skill and bravery. In Britain, public feeling was greatly heightened by the production of the famous Secret Correspondence, in which the ambitious Nicholas coolly proposed to us the partition of Turkey, and the division of that empire between himself and the Queen; and this honest indignation was in no way diminished, when it was discovered that exactly similar overtures had been made to France, and that in these Britain had been carefully kept out of the bargain. The entire mass of our people became unanimous for war; and for the first time since the Crusades, Britons and Frenchmen stood side by side as allies. Marshal St. Arnaud, resigning his post as Minister of War, led the French army; his second in command being General Canrobert, a native of Brittany, who had won the highest distinction during the wars in Algeria, at the head of the 3rd Light Infantry.

    On the 3rd of January, 1854, the combined British and French fleet, under the command of Vice-Admiral Dundas, entered the Black Sea, and on the 22nd of April, there ensued the first great act in the terrible drama of the new war - the bombardment of Odessa, a city with fully a hundred thousand inhabitants, who are wont to boast of it as the Russian Florence.

    It lies on the western shore of a small bay of the Black Sea, between the mouths of the Dnieper and Dniester, and is entirely of modern erection. In the bay there is good holding-ground, and anchorage for the largest vessels, close to the shore. The city presents an imposing appearance when viewed from the seaward. The line of cliffs on, which the town stands, has a slight curve inwards, giving the bay a radius of three miles. These cliffs lace the north-east, and towards the north they sink into low sandy mounds and flat endless steppes. These cliffs are crowned by white buildings, many of which are classical in aspect, and rise over each other like the seats of an amphitheatre. Odessa is fortified in the most modern style, and has on its eastern side a citadel that commands the port.

    A gigantic staircase, consisting of 200 steps, conducts from the very centre of the town downward to the beach. The aspect of its broad streets is white and glaring; clouds of dust are always whirling there, powdering alike the passengers and the rows of stumpy trees, till all are reduced to nearly the same colour as the houses; and off this place the combined fleet came to anchor, to resent an outrage.

    The British official declaration of war had reached Admiral Dundas on the 9th of April, when at anchor in Baltschik Bay, near Varna. Upon this, H.M. steamer Furious was sent to Odessa to bring away our consul. She hove to with a flag of truce flying at her mast-head, and sent in a boat also displaying a flag of truce, to demand that official as a British subject. There was some delay in returning an answer, and the lieutenant in command of the boat deemed it right to return to the ship; upon which, the Russians, with the same treacherous spirit manifested by them at Hango, opened fire upon the boat, and in the direction of the steamer. Seven cannon-shot were discharged, but without effect.

    On the 17th (the French official declaration of war, without which Admiral Hamelin was unwilling to act) both fleets sailed for Odessa, before which they came to anchor on the afternoon of the 20th.

    Of General Osten-Sacken, the military governor, an explanation was demanded of his reason for outraging a flag of truce, an object held sacred by all civilised nations. The answer he sent was unsatisfactory, and what was worse still, untrue. He declared that his guns did not fire upon the boat, but upon the Furious, which he alleged was steaming up the bay, heedless of customary signals, for the sole purpose of examining it; whereas, the fact was, that she had remained hove to and motionless.

    Upon this, they sent in a demand for the instant delivery of all the shipping in the port, adding that in the event of no answer arriving by sunset on the following day, they would terribly punish this outrage on the law of nations; and accordingly, on the morning of the 22nd, they commenced an attack -upon the Imperial Mole, which ended in its destruction, and that of most of the Russian ships within it.

    Stretching out from below the cliffs we have described, at the lower or southeast end of the town, runs a long fortified pier, at the end of which stood a lighthouse. This is called the Quarantine Mole, and it shelters a great fleet of ships belonging to all nations.

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