This book is based on unpublished material, from single letters by barely literate private soldiers to the voluminous correspondence of commander-in-chief Lord Raglan. The whole experience of fighting in the Crimea is captured here: the thrill of combat, the men's impressions of their allies--French, Turkish and Sardinian--the horrors of their first winter in the Crimea, the scandalously inadequate medical arrangements and the impact made by Florence Nightingale. Written by a leading authority in this field, this is a colorful, fresh account of one of nineteenth century's most famous conflicts.

A history of the grueling Crimean War battle as told through personal accounts of those who fought there. The Crimean War, the most destructive and deadly war of the nineteenth century, has been the subject of countless books, yet historian Anthony Dawson has amassed an astonishing collection of previously unknown and unpublished material, including numerous letters and private journals. Many untapped French sources reveal aspects of the fighting in the Crimea that have never been portrayed before. The accounts demonstrate the suffering of the troops during the savage winter and the ravages of cholera and dysentery that resulted in the deaths of more than 16,000 British troops and 75,000 French. Whilst there is graphic first-hand testimony from those that fought up the slopes of the Alma, in the valley of death at Balaklava, and the fog of Inkerman, the book focusses upon the siege; the great artillery bombardments, the storming of the Redan and the Mamelon, and the largest man-made hole in history up to that time when the Russians blew up the defences they could not hold, with their own men inside. The Siege of Sevastopol also highlights, for the first time, the fourth major engagement in the Crimea, the Battle of the Tchernaya in August 1855, the Russians’ last great attempt to break the siege. This predominantly French-fought battle has never before examined in such in English language books. Praise for The Siege of Sevastopol, 1854–1855 “In this fascinating book, the voices of men involved in the war in the Crimea are heard for the first time. Compelling and intriguing stuff.” —Books Monthly “The author has collected a large amount of previously unpublished material for this new work. Entries from private letters and journal are mixed with French sources previously unused in the English-speaking world. The result is a work that effectively conveys the thoughts and experiences of the participants to the reader.” —Warfare History Network

The definitive history of the Crimean War from world-renowned historian Trevor Royle. The Crimean War is one of history's most compelling subjects. It encompassed human suffering, woeful leadership and maladministration on a grand scale. It created a heroic myth out of the disastrous Charge of the Light Brigade and, in Florence Nightingale, it produced one of history's great heroes. New weapons were introduced; trench combat became a fact of daily warfare outside Sebastopol; medical innovation saved countless soldiers' lives that would otherwise have been lost. The war paved the way for the greater conflagration which broke out in 1914 and greatly prefigured the current situation in Eastern Europe.

A major action of the Crimean War, the British victory in heavy fog at Inkerman proved to be a testament to the skill and initiative of the individual men and officers of the day. The Russians, although defeated, managed to successfully stall a crucial allied offensive.

Rescuing the Crimean War from the shadows, Lara Kriegel demonstrates the centrality of a Victorian war to the making of modern Britain.

Treasury of verse by the great Victorian poet, including the long narrative poem, Enoch Arden, plus "The Lady of Shalott," "The Charge of the Light Brigade," selections from The Princess, "Maud" and "The Brook," more.

Please note that the maps available in the print edition do not appear in the ebook. From "the great storyteller of modern Russian historians," (Financial Times) the definitive account of the forgotten war that shaped the modern age The Charge of the Light Brigade, Florence Nightingale—these are the enduring icons of the Crimean War. Less well-known is that this savage war (1853-1856) killed almost a million soldiers and countless civilians; that it enmeshed four great empires—the British, French, Turkish, and Russian—in a battle over religion as well as territory; that it fixed the fault lines between Russia and the West; that it set in motion the conflicts that would dominate the century to come. In this masterly history, Orlando Figes reconstructs the first full conflagration of modernity, a global industrialized struggle fought with unusual ferocity and incompetence. Drawing on untapped Russian and Ottoman as well as European sources, Figes vividly depicts the world at war, from the palaces of St. Petersburg to the holy sites of Jerusalem; from the young Tolstoy reporting in Sevastopol to Tsar Nicolas, haunted by dreams of religious salvation; from the ordinary soldiers and nurses on the battlefields to the women and children in towns under siege.. Original, magisterial, alive with voices of the time, The Crimean War is a historical tour de force whose depiction of ethnic cleansing and the West's relations with the Muslim world resonates with contemporary overtones. At once a rigorous, original study and a sweeping, panoramic narrative, The Crimean War is the definitive account of the war that mapped the terrain for today's world..