The Crimean War

In Britain, the Crimean War is principally remembered for three reasons: the Charge of the Light Brigade, maladministration in the British army, and Florence Nightingale. However, this war, fought by an alliance of Britain, France, Turkey and Sardinia against Russia, is far more complex.

During the years leading up to the Crimean War, France, Russia and Britain were all competing for influence in the Middle East, particularly with Turkey. Religious differences were certainly a catalyst in the Crimean War. Control of access to religious sites in the Holy Land had been a cause of tension between Catholic France and Orthodox Russia for a number of years and in 1853, the conflict came to a head with rioting in Bethlehem, which was then part of the Ottoman empire ruled by Turkey. A number of Orthodox monks were killed during fighting with French monks. Tsar Nicholas I blamed the Turks for these deaths.

Tsar Nicholas I demanded that the dispute would be resolved in favour of the Orthodox Church. These demands were not met however and Nicholas took the opportunity to mobilise the Russian army against Turkey. First he invaded Moldavia. In response Turkey declared war on Russia on 5 October 1853. The British and French, for their part, were concerned about Russian expansion in the region and the potential threat to their trade routes.

In March 1854, they declared war on Russia expecting, with their naval supremacy, a quick victory. So the war between Russian Empire on one side and French, British, Ottoman Empires and the kingdom of Sardinia on another started.

Several battles were fought. The most important and widely known is the Battle of Balaklava which is famous for the Thin Red Line and the Charge of the Light Brigade.

The first move by Russian forces towards Balaklava was repulsed by the stand of the 93rd Highlanders, led by Major-General Sir Colin Campbell. Campbell formed his men into a line (rather than into a square, which was the accepted way for infantry to face a cavalry charge) and the probing Russian advance was driven off with volleys of musket fire. This action became known as ‘The Thin Red Line’.

 

The Charge of the Light Brigade was the result of a miscommunication in such a way that the brigade attempted a much more difficult objective than intended by the overall commander Lord Raglan. Commander Earl of Cardigan led a charge of 673 soldiers up the length of the valley between two rows of Russian artillery on the heights. They were bombarded from all sides and suffered heavy casualties. It was a fiasco and only a charge by French cavalry saved the Light Brigade from total destruction. The battle ended with the Russians retaining their guns and their position, although they had failed to break through the British lines.

The Light Brigade charge at Balaklava gained a legendary status in the Victorian people imagination. It was primarily due to Tennyson’s poem which was learned by heart by english schoolchildren of the era. However, by 1891, 37 years after the charge, many of the surviving soldiers were living in poverty. A public appeal for funds to help them raised only twenty four pounds…As a response to this R. Kipling (the author of  The Jungle Book) wrote the poem in which he imagines 20 poor veterans of the charge visiting Tennyson to tell him of their present situation. R. Kipling effectively points out how the Victorian public which lauded the patriotism of Tennyson’s poem, but choose to ignore the plight of ordinary soldiers who actually took part in those events. Here for you are these two famous poems to compare:

The Charge of the Light Brigade

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
“Charge for the guns!” he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Someone had blunder’d:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder’d:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel’d from the sabre stroke
Shatter’d and sunder’d.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro’ the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!

All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made,
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred.

 

The Last of the Light Brigade

Rudyard Kipling

There were thirty million English who talked of England’s might,
There were twenty broken troopers who lacked a bed for the night.
They had neither food nor money, they had neither service nor trade;
They were only shiftless soldiers, the last of the Light Brigade.

They felt that life was fleeting; they knew not that art was long,
That though they were dying of famine, they lived in deathless song.
They asked for a little money to keep the wolf from the door;
And the thirty million English sent twenty pounds and four!

They laid their heads together that were scarred and lined and grey;
Keen were the Russian sabres, but want was keener than they;
And an old Troop-Sergeant muttered, “Let us go to the man who writes
The things on Balaclava the kiddies at school recites.”

They went without bands or colours, a regiment ten-file strong,
To look for the Master-singer who had crowned them all in his song;
And, waiting his servant’s order, by the garden gate they stayed,
A desolate little cluster, the last of the Light Brigade.

They strove to stand to attention, to straighten the toil-bowed back;
They drilled on an empty stomach, the loose-knit files fell slack;
With stooping of weary shoulders, in garments tattered and frayed,
They shambled into his presence, the last of the Light Brigade.

The old Troop-Sergeant was spokesman, and “Beggin’ your pardon,” he said,
“You wrote o’ the Light Brigade, sir. Here’s all that isn’t dead.
An’ it’s all come true what you wrote, sir, regardin’ the mouth of hell;
For we’re all of us nigh to the workhouse, an’ we thought we’d call an’ tell.

“No, thank you, we don’t want food, sir; but couldn’t you take an’ write
A sort of ‘to be continued’ and ‘see next page’ o’ the fight?
We think that someone has blundered, an’ couldn’t you tell ‘em how?
You wrote we were heroes once, sir. Please, write we are starving now.”

The poor little army departed, limping and lean and forlorn.
And the heart of the Master-singer grew hot with “the scorn of scorn.”
And he wrote for them wonderful verses that swept the land like flame,
Till the fatted souls of the English were scourged with the thing called Shame.

O thirty million English that babble of England’s might,
Behold there are twenty heroes who lack their food to-night;
Our children’s children are lisping to “honour the charge they made – ”
And we leave to the streets and the workhouse the charge of the Light Brigade!

Peace negotiations began in 1856 under Nicholas I’s son and successor, Alexander II, through the Congress of Paris. Furthermore, the Tsar and the Sultan agreed not to establish any naval or military arsenal on the Black Sea coast. The Black Sea clauses came at a tremendous disadvantage to Russia, for it greatly diminished the naval threat it posed to the Ottomans. Moreover, all the Great Powers pledged to respect the independence and territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire.

One of the significant features of the Crimean War was the dreadful conditions and neglect endured by the troops. Not only were living conditions very poor, but medical supplies for troops in the field were also inadequate. W.H. Russell’s reports for The Times newspaper revealed the true depth of suffering and maladministration, particularly during the winter of 1854. 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’. But a public outcry concerning the care of the soldiers eventually led to a number of nurses, including Florence Nightingale, being sent to the hospital at Scutari, across the Bosphorus from Constantinople. Another famous woman who cared for the sick and wounded was Mary Seacole, who came from Jamaica.

Other improvements in medical care were developed, including the first hospital train built by the firm of Peto, Brassey and Betts, and the first prefabricated hospital designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. This hospital with, initially, 22 wards was erected at Renkioi in Turkey. Although the care of sick and injured soldiers improved, disease had been the biggest killer in the Crimean War.

Following the war, a number of enquiries were made into the running of the British army, and the process of reforming its medical care, which was to take half a century, began.