Crimea: The Great Crimean War 1854-1856

The definitive history of the Crimean War from world-renowned historian Trevor Royle.The Crimean War one of historys most compelling subjects encompassed human suffering woeful leadership and misadministration 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 historys great heroes. The war was a watershed in world history and pointed the way to what mass warfare would be like in the twentieth century. 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. Ultimately by failing to solve the Eastern Question the war paved the way for the greater conflagration which broke out in 1914 and greatly prefigured the current situation in Eastern Europe.