A War, a Charge, and a Nurse.

Crimean War

The Crimean War brought us glorious cultural icons such as The Charge of the Light Brigade and Florence Nightingale, but the war itself was brutal.  Fought on one side by Russia and on the other by Britain, France, Turkey, and Sardinia, the main causes were religious and economic.  Tensions over access to the Holy Land between Catholic France and Orthodox Russia boiled over into riots in Bethlehem resulting in the deaths of several Orthodox monks in 1853.  Tsar Nicholas I blamed the "sick man of the empire," Turkey, ruler of the Ottoman empire, for the deaths, and Turkey responded by declaring war on Russia.  Britain and France, concerned over Russian expansion and their seizing control of trade routes, sided with Turkey.  

Human toll (Deaths): 
Country ------ KIA ---------  Wounds ---- Disease
British             2,700            2,000         16,000   
French           10,000          20,000         60,000
Ottoman        10,000          10,000         24,000
Russian         80,000          40,000        100,000 


Roger Fenton, a pioneering photographer and war photographer, took many pictures of the Crimea war.

Dirt Road scattered with cannon balls

Cannon Horse-Drawn Field Train

Cannons were heavy and difficult to move from position to position.  Many horses were used in war to transport cannons and artillery.  A battle could be won or lost depending on placement.  If poorly placed it could take a long time, some times too long, to reposition cannon and artillery.

Cavalry camp near Balaklava

Balaklava is the scene of the Charge of the Light Brigade

Artillery Camp outside Balaclava

Artillery

Captain Bernard, 5th Dragoon Guards

Charge of the Light Brigade

The Charge demonstrates how the passions of war can warp a chaotic and foolhardy act into an act of valor.  The calvary men were valiant, charging into the face of certain death, but the decision to charge was an act of pure foolishness.   The charge, led by James Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan (Lord Cardigan), may have been the result of a miscommunication between Cardigan and command.  Cardigan was idolized until doubts arose over his role in the fatal Charge.

Lord Cardigan

We will probably never know the true reason for the charge, because success is the son of a thousand fathers, while failure is an orphan. What we do know is Cardigan led the charge into a well-positioned and well-armed Russian army near Balaklava surviving a barrage of cannon and gun fire that killed two-thirds of his command.  The aftermath of the disaster was an exercise in finger pointing -- who ordered who to do what when.  William Howard Russell, London Times reporter and eyewitness, describes the charge and the brigade's destruction in a dispatch from the front lines.  The entire dispatch can be read here.  

They swept proudly past, glittering in the morning sun in all the pride and splendor of war. We could hardly believe the evidence of our senses. Surely that handful of men were not going to charge an army in position? Alas! It was but too true -- their desperate valor knew no bounds, and far indeed was it removed from its so-called better part -- discretion. They advanced in two lines, quickening the pace as they closed towards the enemy. A more fearful spectacle was never witnessed than by those who, without the power to aid, beheld their heroic countrymen rushing to the arms of sudden death.

Map of the Charge (Russian army on right side)*

Alfred Lloyd Tennyson turned this disaster into a glorious charge in his famous poem Charge of the Light Brigade. 

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.

Florence Nightingale

Nightingale is considered the founder of modern nursing.  The British Secretary of War requested her assistance in Crimea, and in October of 1854, she and 38 other nurses embarked for the war.  Her official title was Superintendent of the Female Nurses in the East; her unofficial title became The Lady in Chief.  But she is best known as the The Lady with the Lamp for her nightly rounds she made treating wounded soldiers.  I don't know if there are any estimates of the number of lives she saved by improving hospital conditions, but they have to be substantial.

A Young Florence

Nightingale's headquarters were in the barrack hospital in Scutar, where conditions were horrible.  She describes them thus:

There were no vessels for water or utensils of any kind; no soap, towels, or clothes, no hospital clothes; the men lying in their uniforms, stiff with gore and covered with filth to a degree and of a kind no one could write about; their persons covered with vermin . . .  We have not seen a drop of milk, and the bread is extremely sour. The butter is most filthy; it is Irish butter in a state of decomposition; and the meat is more like moist leather than food. Potatoes we are waiting for, until they arrive from France . . .

Nightingale at hospital advising 

Part of the Crimean War Memorial located at the junction of Lower Regent Street and Pall Mall, London.

Nightingale's advice was sought by the U.S. government during the Civil War.  She was awarded the British Order of merit and Freedom of the City of London, the German Cross of Merit, and the French Gold Medal for her services and contributions. 

* "Charge of the light brigade -Our fighting services - Evelyn Wood pg 451".