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Assassinations in History
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What was the
bloodiest battle, the battle with the least
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Crimean War 1853-1856
The Crimean War was one of the
Russo-Turkish Wars.
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Who Fought the Crimean
War?
Russia
vs.
Britain, France, Turkey, and Sardinia
Famous nurse of the war was
Florence
Nightingale. Semi famous nurse was Mary Seacole.
Why Was the Crimean
War Fought?
Russian Orthodox and French Catholic leaders had been bickering over
control of religious sites in the Holy Land since quite a while.
In 1853, monks of both camps clashed in
Bethlehem, then part of the Ottoman Empire, and some of them were
killed.
Russia, led by
Tsar Nicholas I,
sent her troops to show the Turks. Britain and France feared a
potential Russian dominance in the Middle East.
Turkey declared war on Russia on October
5, 1853. Britain and France declared war on Russia in March 1854.
Sardinia-Piedmont joint the belligerents on January 26, 1855.
The Crimean War ended in early 1856
and was concluded by the
Treaty of Paris 1856. |
The Battles of the
Crimean War
The
Battle of the Alma was fought September 20, 1854. The
British and the French won this battle.
The
Siege of Sevastopol lasted from October 17, 1854 - September 11, 1855. The English and
the French wanted to come in but the Russians refused to open the
gates. For almost a year. The allies eventually came in anyway.
Battle of Balaklava
- October 25,
1854
Truce. This battle saw the famous
Charge of the Light Brigade,
in which 673 British troops, thanks to a misinterpretation of the
order, dashed into a Russian gun sandwich with more Russians
waiting straight ahead at the end of the valley. It
was a mess.
When English poet
Alfred Lord Tennyson read a
report of this battle in the newspapers, he wrote a poem on the
spot. This is its 3rd verse:
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of hell
Rode the six hundred.
Here is
the entire poem, short but
poignant.
Battle
of Inkerman - November 5, 1854
Also called The Soldier's Battle because this one was messy.
Victory for the allies but a high number of casualties on both sides.
And here is the map for the Crimean War
CRIMEAN
WAR
Click map to enlarge
Also involved was British Commander
John Bythesea. He received the second ever awarded Victoria
Cross for gallantry in the face of the enemy (he ambushed Russian
couriers and stole their dispatches.)
His medal fetched £155,350 at an auction
on April 19, 2007.
VICTORIA CROSS
And here is a
Crimean War Timeline
More History
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