Product Description

The Crimean War is one of the most compelling subjects in British history. Everyone knows about the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava, and men like Raglan and Cardigan became household names. The story of Florence Nightingale, 'the Lady with the Lamp', and the heroic reporting of William Russell, THE TIMES' intrepid correspondent, and the sonorous names of the battles, are ingrained deep within the British military consciousness - Sebastopol, Inkerman, Balaclava and the Alma. Trevor Royle demonstrates how the Crimean War was a watershed in world history: coming between the defeat of Napoleon in 1815 and the opening shots of the First World War in 1914 it pointed the way to what mass warfare would be like for soldiers in the twentieth century.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #407822 in Books
• Published on: 1999-11-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 575 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Trevor Royle's new history tells the whole story of the Crimean War and puts it in its context, drawing on a variety of new sources as well as representing classic accounts. Overall it is a powerful piece of narrative history. The Battle of the Alma, for instance, after which so many London streets and pubs have been named, is described in a vivid chapter, a "victory that owed everything to the resolve and courage of the British infantrymen." Advancing up a heavily defended hill, one young officer later reported "the fire was so hot that you could hardly conceive it possible for anything the size of a rabbit not to be killed." Royle then adds: "Minutes later he was shot in the cheek, losing 23 teeth and part of his tongue." This balance of excitement and terror is well captured throughout the work. (The Irish journalist William Russell reported a different perspective on the battle: "There was a sickening, sour, fetid smell everywhere and the grass was slippy with blood.")

Royle gives powerful accounts of the famous military engagements, the Charge of the Light Brigade and Thin Red Line at the Battle of Balaklava, the "ferocious hand-to-hand fighting" of the Battle of Inkerman. But he also places these flashes of military adventure in the larger context. This was a war fought in many places other than the Crimea--Royle's chapter on the fighting in Armenia, for instance, is entitled "the forgotten war", and there were also naval campaigns in the Baltic and Pacific. The British suffered casualties of 19,584 overall, but only one tenth of this number actually died on the battlefield; the rest died of disease. Royle's chapter on Florence Nightingale and her nurses recaptures the horror her contemporaries felt at hearing about the dreadful conditions of the Field Hospitals. Reading these accounts it is amazing that any wounded man survived at all: "Surgeons operated with unsterilised instruments, wounds were dressed with lint from discarded linen and operating tables were encrusted with the blood and detritus from previous patients." The whole book is a vivid and definitive read. --Adam Roberts

Review
'a tour de force, a splendidly written account of the diplomatic and military blunders that signalled the end of what promised to be a century of peace' - LITERARY REVIEW 'his book is gripping, with the momentum of the cavalry charges that he describes so well' - Norman Stone 'Trevor Royle's new history tells the whole story of the Crimean War and puts it in its context, drawing on a variety of new sources as well as representing classic accounts. Overall it is a powerful piece of narrative history. The Battle of the Alma, for instance, after which so many London streets and pubs have been named, is described in a vivid chapter, a "victory that owed everything to the resolve and courage of the British infantrymen." Advancing up a heavily defended hill, one young officer later reported "the fire was so hot that you could hardly conceive it possible for anything the size of a rabbit not to be killed." Royle then adds: "Minutes later he was shot in the cheek, losing 23 teeth and part of his tongue." This balance of excitement and terror is well captured throughout the work. (The Irish journalist William Russell reported a different perspective on the battle: "There was a sickening, sour, fetid smell everywhere and the grass was slippy with blood.") Royle gives powerful accounts of the famous military engagements, the Charge of the Light Brigade and Thin Red Line at the Battle of Balaklava, the "ferocious hand-to-hand fighting" of the Battle of Inkerman. But he also places these flashes of military adventure in the larger context. This was a war fought in many places other than the Crimea--Royle's chapter on the fighting in Armenia, for instance, is entitled "the forgotten war", and there were also naval campaigns in the Baltic and Pacific. The British suffered casualties of 19,584 overall, but only one tenth of this number actually died on the battlefield; the rest died of disease. Royle's chapter on Florence Nightingale and her nurses recaptures the horror her contemporaries felt at hearing about the dreadful conditions of the Field Hospitals. Reading these accounts it is amazing that any wounded man survived at all: "Surgeons operated with unsterilised instruments, wounds were dressed with lint from discarded linen and operating tables were encrusted with the blood and detritus from previous patients." The whole book is a vivid and definitive read.' - Adam Roberts, AMAZON.CO.UK REVIEW

NORMAN STONE
*'his book is gripping, with the momentum of the cavalry charges that he describes so well'

Customer Reviews

Thorough and Enjoyable
I'm not interested, in general, in war stories. But the Crimea is an epic, and I found myself owning a 4-clasp Crimea medal, so had to find out more. This book is throughly researched and is pretty good at bringing home the planning tragedies, the victories, and the misery of conditions at the Crimea.

I've now got a few books on the Crimea War, and this is probably the best overall.

Enjoyable History of the Crimean War
I found this new account on the Crimean War by Trevor Royle to be a very enjoyable and easy to read book. The story was well written and the narrative just seemed to flow along, taking the reader on an exciting trip through history. Although, as previously mentioned, the author does not spend a great amount of time on describing the battles of this conflict, he does manage to cover most aspects of this terrible war. I did find out a number of things that I had not previously read in other books and his descriptions of the battles were still well presented. Throughout the book the author utilised personal accounts from a number of the participants and these seemed to fit the narrative quite well.

Trevor Royle has taken the time to give the reader a detailed account of the events leading up to the Crimean War and for once this was as enjoyable to read as the actual details of the conflict. I was fascinated by the story and at no time did I find the book boring which sometimes happens when an author starts talking about politics. I thought that maybe more maps could have been supplied but those featured were detailed enough to follow the story. A number of black and white photographs were also utilised to assist the reader follow the story. However I feel that more photos of the conflict could have been used especially since this was one of the first wars to receive so much media attention, a point mentioned many times by the author.

The book is over 500 pages long and a number of the less known battles and conflicts, both on land and sea, are covered by the author. I found that his defence of Lord Raglan was well presented and deservedly so when consideration is taken of the period and state of society from which Raglan emerged. Overall this is a well-presented and enjoyable account of this terrible conflict and I found it to be as good as Christopher Hibbert's 'The Destruction of Lord Raglan' and Alan Palmer's 'The Banner of Battle'. I would recommend this book to any person who enjoys a decent history book or just a good read!

An excelelnt overview of all aspects of the conflict.
This is a comprehensive account of the Crimean War that is as complete on the diplomatic and political machinations and context as on the military operations. The latter are competently covered, not just in relation to the Crimea itself but as regards Turco-Russian operations prior to involvement of the Western powers and actions in Rumania, the Baltic, the Caucuses and even the Far East. In general the civilian players are covered in greater depth than the military ones - this is not a significant disadvantage since there is already a large and accessible literature available on the latter (readers new to the topic will enjoy Cecil Woodham-Smith's classic "The Reason Why" and Christopher Hibbert's "The Destruction of Lord Raglan.") Despite the complexity of the diplomatic manoeuvrings before and during the war Mr.Royle covers this aspect entertainingly, imposing considerable clarity on a convoluted story. The only criticism of the book is the dearth of good maps, which are essential for a work of this nature, A few inadequate ones are supplied but in these days of computer-assisted graphics the reader has a right to expect something better.