1854-1855: The True Horrors Of The Siege Of Sevastopol | Crimean War

Hi everybody, welcome to this Timeline documentary. My name is Dan Snow and here I am in a Lancaster bomber cockpit, one of the few remaining Lancasters from the Second World War, to tell you about my new history channel. It's called History Hit, it's like Netflix for history. Hundreds of history documentaries on there and interviews with many of the world's best historians. Follow the information below this film or just search online for History Hit and make sure you use the code Timeline to get a special introductory offer. Now enjoy this show. In May 1855, three armies, British, French and Turks, were encamped on the plains of the Crimea in southern Russia. They had left home thinking it was going to be a short war, but now, eight months after landing, they knew otherwise and they longed for home. Until I came to this country, I used to ridicule any person that would designate my native land as happy old England, but now I fully appreciate the value of my native land and have quite altered my mind as regards making it my resting place. Corporal Harry Blishen, Rifle Brigade. Harry Blishen had enlisted in the army to see the world. Like thousands of his compatriots, he was never to see happy old England again. He spoke for the unsung heroes of a war that most people remember simply for its legends. Florence Nightingale and her nurses, the battles of Alma, Inkerman and Balaclava, the Light Brigade and its cavalry charge into the Valley of Death. But the truth is more complicated than legend. This story of the Crimean War is told through the letters and diaries, photographs and paintings of those who the southern outpost of the Russian Empire in the Crimea. Eight months later, they were still there. Camped outside the Russian naval base of Sebastopol, they had laid siege to the city but had never cut off its main supply routes from the Russian heartland. They were weary and demoralized and no closer to taking what they had come for, the base of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. There is not a man who goes into the trenches who would not give his vote for an assault. But independently of the little value they place on their lives, our men are dead tired of the trench duty and the everlasting doing-nothing state of existence they live in. Captain Henry Clifford felt the frustration of the men. They were making no progress and their half-hearted bombardments were getting nowhere. While Sebastopol's supply routes remained open, the Russians had access to men and ammunition. And in fact, for one young officer, life under siege was... The most agreeable time that I've ever had. I go on duty at the Bastion for four days and then I'm free for 12 days. I have very elegant accommodation with a piano, looking out onto the boulevard where there are promenades and music every afternoon. I have a lot of good friends. The weather is superb. And I've begun to bathe in the sea. Count Leo Tolstoy found Sebastopol life perfect for exercising his literary talent. As the author of Sebastopol sketches, Leo Tolstoy brought stories of the war into the homes of the educated Russian classes. The constant charm of danger and my observations of the soldiers I'm living with, the sailors, and the very methods of war are so pleasant that I don't want to leave here, especially as I would like to be present at the assault, if there is one. There could be no question of an assault until Sebastopol's defenses had been weakened. But the Russians continued to receive supplies and reinforcements from the north because they still controlled the strategic route across the The Sea of Azov was critical to the Russian position in the Crimea. As the Crimea itself produces very little in the way of food, fodder, or ammunition, the Russians depended on the River Don Basin to get their supplies. And the point of contact was across the Sea of Azov in large open boats. Consequently, taking command of the Sea of Azov would have cut off the Russians from their main source of supply. It basically cut their jugular. In late May, a Russian officer, Shultz, was passing by the Sea of Azov on his way to Sebastopol. He found himself a bystander at a turning point in the war. As we approached the shore, our eyes were met by a terrifying sight. The entire enemy fleet was anchored on the opposite side in the Straits of Kerch and was pelting the coast with bombs. At the same time, troops were disembarking and forming into columns. They headed off in the direction of the Pavlov Battery. As the enemy approached, the entire battery suddenly flew into the air without a single shot being fired. The Russian garrison had blown up their own arsenal in a panic as the Allied forces made their way up from the shore. What Shultz had witnessed was an Allied naval expedition landing at Kerch. The beach was strewn with baggage of every description. Horses were splashing through the water to the shore. Men dressed in every kind of garment that was ever worn were walking about, scrambling, swearing, shouting, and laughing a vast deal of the latter. Roger Fenton, the celebrated Crimean war photographer, had joined the expedition in the spirit of a jaunt. From the other side of the Straits, the Russian officer saw what happened next. Another explosion shook the air to such a degree that even here the glass in the windows rattled and shattered. This was the powder cellars in Yenikale exploding, the sign that our troops were retreating and the Sea of Azov was in enemy hands. The Allies had tightened their grip on the Russians. As its main supply route was severed, it could only be a matter of time before Sebastopol would have to surrender. Back at the camp, news of the naval operation's success was joyfully received. Fanny Jubilee, the young wife of an officer with the 8th Hussars, wrote in her journal, we hear that the Kerch heroes have brought home lots of plunder and we are rather curious for their disembarkation. The success attendant on the expedition seems to have put everybody in good spirits and we must have a try for Sebastopol now, is the cry from the General to the newly arrived Ensign. The Allies now set about planning their next move. Sebastopol had two main strongholds, the Malakoff Tower and the Great Redan. The Russians had thrown up two works to protect these key positions and the Allies now divided their targets to capture them. At long last Lieutenant William Young of the 49th was to see action. Well yesterday about two o'clock we heard that 200 of our men were to take the pits in front of the Redan and so we ordered our dinners as we had to fall in at four o'clock. The pits in front of the Redan were known as the quarries. The British were to attack here. The French were to take the Mamelon there, the works which protected the Malakoff. The attack was set for the 7th of June. It was to be the prelude to the grand assault on Sebastopol itself. The Allied commanders at last felt confident enough to pose for posterity. Roger Fenton, safely back from Kirch, had been rewarded for his patience as he wrote to his sponsor. William Agnew, Monday June the 4th 1855. I am now at headquarters taking a few portraits I'm yet in want of. Lord Raglan gave me a sitting this morning and I've obtained a very good likeness of him. A General Pellissier with whom I breakfasted this morning is coming the day after tomorrow at five in the morning. It is impossible to work after nine or ten from the intense heat. I should be away if it were not for these great guns, each of whose portrait has to be fairly hunted down. On the morning of the attack the great guns posed together. Raglan for the British, Omar Pasha for the Turks and Pellissier for the French. Later that day Fenton was drinking claret with Captain Corbett. Corbett said when we were alone, now Roger my boy we could not breakfast with you today but if we come out all right Edmund and I will brush you up tomorrow at six and you shall take our likenesses. Corbett was shot through the head and killed outright in the assault. Lieutenant Young survived and finished his letter home two days later from his hospital bed. It was the first time I had ever been under fire without a trench in front of me. From one end of the quarries to the very mamelon was one sheet of fire and a continual racket of musketry. The French were beaten back at first but then up came their reserves. Drums and bugles playing a rub-a-dub-dub you could hear a mile off and they actually walked through the mamelon. It is a horrid sight when the fight is over. You would not believe unless you saw all the shapes a human being may be made into. I saw fingers and ears, legs, heads and arms all in one grace. This watercolour was painted by Captain Clifford. He sent it to the Illustrated London News. The above sketch of the interior of the Russian battery as it appeared on the day after the desperate battle in which it was taken by the French is from the pencil of an officer who visited the spot during the brief armistice which took place on that day. The British officer had turned war artist. Clifford's sketch and letter were published in England within a month. The public appetite for news of the war was voracious. The 7th of June had been a good day for the Allies. They had captured two important positions and the field was now open to take Sebastopol itself. Ragland and Pellissier saw an opportunity to seal their new alliance. They would mark the 40th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo by storming Sebastopol. If they could take the Malakoff and the Redan, Sebastopol would fall and the 18th of June would become a day of celebration on both sides of the Channel. But the significance of the date had not been lost on the Russians. They could not have been more prepared. We saw large enemy columns advancing on the first and second bastions but our men did not miss a trick and opened fire with bullets and a grape shot forcing their retreat. More than once we all burst into laughter when a column of French cheerfully advancing suddenly turned around like rabbits and made a run for the ravine. Lieutenant Captain Theodore Leslie. The two armies were meant to attack Sebastopol simultaneously but the French went in early at the Malakoff with disastrous results. When the proposed assault took place the result was that the French failed at the Malakoff and by some misunderstanding our stormers went on to the Redan under the most horrific fire of every description of missile. It was utterly impossible for them to get on as they were literally mowed down. Captain Fred Dallas, 46th foot. But it was no misunderstanding. Ragland knew that the British attack was doomed once the French had been beaten but it was a point of honor not to break his agreement with Pellissier and he sent more than a thousand men for certain death. Such a fire met us that the whole column seemed to melt away. Still we went on staggering beneath the terrible hail. Our colonel fell dead, our adjutant the same and almost every officer we had with us fell dead or wounded. Sergeant Timothy Gowing sent for all fusiliers. Our loss is not yet known but the proportion of officers was immense. Sir John Campbell who led the stormers fell one of the first. Poor Colonel Ye of the 7th was killed. Colonel Shadforth was killed and his regiment the 57th suffered awfully and hosts of others whose names I don't know and many whom I did and liked poor fellows. Captain Fred Dallas, 46th foot. Roger Fenton lost many friends that day. Such is our anniversary of the 18th of June. We reckoned too proudly and now the 18th of June will be a glorious day to the Russians. There was no armistice for burying the dead until four o'clock the next day. The Russians had waited a cruelly long time to answer the allies flag of truth. Captain Henry Clifford of the rifle brigade sketched the killing fields. By four o'clock so bad had been the wounds and so great the heat that the faces of the poor dead could hardly and many could not be recognized. Their faces were quite black and many of them had swollen up and burst. I was obliged to go about amongst the corpses to get the men to carry them away and I was sick and vomited many times and the greater number of men who carried the stretchers did the same. I saw as I thought a dead rifleman on the ground partly hit by the grass. I went to the spot. It was the backbone of one with part of his bowels and a lump or two of flesh with part of his jacket and head by it. All the rest had been blown away by a shell. Out of 160 of my comrades 70 were killed and wounded and I'm sorry to state a number of the sailors were killed. God bless them. They are England's bravest men. Corporal Harry Blishen, Rifle Brigade. The British army suffered losses of 1,400 men and nearly a hundred officers. Feelings ran high amongst those who were spared. I consider and we all consider the whole of the storming party out of whom scarcely two or three hundred got back were all massacred by the authorities. The Russians at the armistice for burial of the dead paid us the compliment of calling us lions commanded by asses. Lieutenant Colonel Strange Jocelyn, Scots Fusilier Guards. Even before this fatal blunder Lord Raglan had said that he would be stoned to death in the streets of London were he ever to return. He was haunted by this final tragic error. Within 10 days as cholera swept through the camp again he was dead. The heart had gone out of the campaign and apart from a few bombardments and sorties there was little decisive action. Morale was sinking. I'm quite out of sorts today as I've had three days of diarrhea and I'm somewhat pulled down in consequence. You can form no idea of the state our camp is in from dust. The wind has been blowing for three or four days and everything is smothered. It is impossible to draw. My paints and paper all get spoiled and then there are thousands and thousands of flies. We've all made up our minds for a second winter in the Crimea or at any rate all those who see far enough and are determined to see the end of it if not cut short by cholera or a rifle bullet. This must do for tonight for I have no news and my pen and eyes are full of Crimea dust. God bless you all. Adieu. Henry. Still stuck outside Sebastopol the Allied armies sweltered in the feet of the Crimea and dreamed of home. The stalemate would be broken far away not in trenches nor in cavalry charges but on the open sea. Arrival of spring the Allied Baltic fleet had once again set sail for Russia. The previous year they had successfully bombarded the Russian naval base at Volgograd. This year they had returned to take Svea Borg and Kronstadt the twin strongholds protecting the Russian capital at St. Petersburg. In the heady days after the Russian victory of June the 18th the Tsar wrote to his commander in the Crimea. In Kronstadt where I was a few days ago everything is ready for their reception. Both land and marine troops are burning with the desire to show themselves worthy of their comrades of Sebastopol and they had the guns to do it. Seeing that Kronstadt was impregnable the Allied fleet turned its attention to Svea Borg but the Russians were expecting them. They had a new weapon they had placed almost 1,000 exploding mines in the water. The Allies had to spend days and nights clearing their path in preparation for the bombardment. The reverend Mr Hughes, fellow of Magdalen College, Cambridge had taken his boat We Pet from the Thames Royal Yacht Club and once again sailed up the Gulf of Finland with the Allied fleet. It was excellent spectator sport for war tourists. About nine or ten we saw the gunboats going in and beginning that witch's dance which has been so much admired and soon after this as we watched the batteries a lurid pillar of flame and smoke leaped up into the air and burst abroad like a foul tawny fountain casting an unsightly bouquet of huge black fragments far and wide. Soon after dark a squadron of cutters and launches from the ships each fitted with a rocket tube went in and began letting off their fireworks. It was a splendid sight to see the curved flight of the rockets five or six sometimes underway together chasing and crossing each other as they flew. Svea Borg was a massive boost to Allied morale. It was a major victory at almost no cost. Furthermore it demonstrated to the Russians their sea fortresses were exposed to Allied attack. The Allies didn't have the resources to press on to St. Petersburg in 1855 but they did move their fleet up to Kronstadt. They sat at anchor under the Tsar's windows and warned the Russians that they would be back next year. St. Petersburg the imperial capital was threatened on the Baltic. With their victory at Svea Borg the Allies had struck at the The Tsar's commanders in the Crimea were growing despondent and their pessimism was infecting the men. Schultz who had seen the Allies land at Kerch was now in charge of the second line of defense. This entire wonderful army of ours watches quite calmly as the enemy before its very eyes digs itself deeper and deeper into our land cultivating their own vegetable gardens cutting hay chopping down forests and grazing cattle while we pay twice the normal price for forage we blow up our own batteries and powder stores destroy our reserves and sink our own ships The Allied troops were making themselves at home in the Crimea. By July provisions were plentiful and the soldiers wanted for little. Much of this good cheer was due to the efforts of one woman Mary Seacole. The artist William Simpson knew her from his Crimean days. Mrs. Seacole an elderly mulatto woman from Jamaica was a well-known character in the Crimea. All the soldiers and sailors knew her. At the age of 50 Mary Seacole had traveled from Jamaica to London in the hope of becoming one of Florence Nightingale's nurses. She was not even given an interview so she paid her own way from London to the Crimea where she set up in business selling food and homemade remedies to the troops. Had you been doing your best to batter Sebastopol about the heirs of the Russians in the spring and summer of 1855 the firm of Seacole and Day would have been happy to have served you and had you been fortunate enough to have visited the British hotel upon rice pulling day I warrant you would have ridden back to your hut with kind thoughts of Mother Seacole's endeavors to give you a taste of home. Mary Seacole provided comfort I think it's the only word one can use which the men really didn't get anywhere else she could jolt the sailors and the soldiers to help her build this British hotel as she called it where she served food and she provided her own medicines and really gave them a taste of something civilized even if it wasn't luxurious where they felt they were humans again. Unlike Miss Nightingale and her nurses who were three days journey away at Scutari Mrs. Seacole was close at hand. William H. Russell the most famous journalist of the Crimean War championed her courage on the battlefield. I have seen her go down under fire with her little store of creature comforts for our wounded men and a more tender or skillful hand about a wound or a broken limb could not be found among our best surgeons. I saw her at the assault at the Redan laden not with plunder good old soul but with wine bandages and food for the wounded or the prisoners. As the summer war on the allied batteries continued to shell Sebastopol. The success of their operation in the Sea of Azov was finally showing results. They were grinding the Russians down. Lieutenant Captain Fyodra Leslie wrote to his family on the 8th of August. The saddest thing of all is that to each of our bullets they reply with thin. Our factories cannot produce the quantity of shells that we need in order to do at least some harm to the enemy. From St. Petersburg the Tsar looked his command in the Crimea to hit back. Gorchakov doesn't really want a mountain assault. He's convinced that the war is lost in Crimea actually. He has to attack because he feels that the Tsar insists on it and because Russia cannot admit defeat in the Crimea without one more major effort. Prince Gorchakov already sensed defeat but still he went ahead with planning the battle of the Chennai. The Chennai river marked the boundary between the Russian army and its enemy and that enemy had been swelled by a contingent of 15,000 Sardinian troops who had arrived in May. The French and Sardinians had taken up a position in the field occupying the height beyond the Chennai. The Russian plan was to cross the river and recapture those heights. They would move at first light on August the 16th. Prince Sviatopolk Mirsky had only just arrived in Sebastopol. He went out to join his regiment on I was amazed by the gloomy disposition of my commander and my new comrades. It was evident that they were prepared to die and had doomed themselves to sacrifice with no hope of success. As night fell the battalions set off down the road into the valley of the Chennai. At nine o'clock there was an order to stop and rest. Each one lay down where he was. Over in the French camp the soldiers were celebrating. It was their emperor's birthday. As dawn broke the sound of gunfire rang out. Andre of the Third Zouaves jumped to his feet. It rattled not far from us and echoed resoundingly on our extreme right in the direction of the Sardinian camp. That night had been very black. Not a star had shone in the sky and it seemed as if day didn't want to break at all. So thick was the mist over the plain. Our commanders didn't quite know what to do with us since the enemy was invisible. The Sardinians had been caught off guard. A burst of shooting surprised us about an hour before dawn. It was the Russians who, having manoeuvred for a good part of the night, were starting battle with a furious attack. The combat was short but very lively. We fought with bayonets, with the stocks of our guns, finally even with stones. This was enough to alert those in the camps behind us and they got into a defensive position in good time. Sub-Lieutenant Ritchie, Piedmont advance guard. The early morning mist had cleared and the Zouaves had time to prepare. We saw a whole army on the plain. Its right flank was made up of two or three regiments of Houlans and Cossacks, waving their forest of lances. Behind this curtain a whole infantry division was swarming, a big black mass littered by the glistening of eight to ten thousand bayonets. Behind those bayonets was Prince Fiatopol Khmersky, leading his battalion of Russian infantry. We drew closer and closer. Suddenly the French halted. The order was heard. They turned and fanned out in a line which immediately opened fire. The French forced the Russians to retreat but as soon as the reserves arrived, Gorchakov ordered them to advance back over the bridge. We bore down on them at an athletic pace and by God, from that moment on I couldn't quite say what happened. Just like at Inkerman and at the Mamelon Vert, we had to dig in, advancing and retreating in turns, climbing over wounded and dead bodies, closing our eyes sometimes so as not to see what we were striking. How anyone got out of there safe and sound is impossible to explain. We can only thank God. We managed to push the Russian columns back down to the river where many unfortunates, tangled up in their long cloaks, drowned. Henry Clifford, now Brevet Major, went down to the river with his sketchbook. The loss of the Russians was even greater than I'd expected. About 1,000 dead bodies lay on and about the bridge and I do not think General Clare of the Zouaves exaggerated when he said he estimated the enemy's loss of 7,000 killed and wounded. Mary Seiko went amongst the corpses with her basket of bandages. On the battlefield, death is fearful indeed. It had come peacefully enough to some. Others it had arrested in the heat of passion and frozen on their pallid faces. A glare of hatred and defiance that made your warm blood run cold. In the cool light of day, on the 17th of August, Andre looked down on the battlefield. Oh, I once praised the grace of this valley. Now it is covered with corpses which the nurses are fighting the vultures for, with the birds of prey more active in their voraciousness than the men in their pious work. And in some of the large ones you might drive a coach and four with ease. The other day we were firing some rockets into the town and we set a house on fire. So the old bloke inside set about removing his furniture and when he had his two carts nicely packed, some of our guns fired a slap into them and knocked furniture, carts and all to dust. For its defenders, Sebastopol was now a trap. With every hour that passes, it gets harder and harder. Everything has become so loathsome that there's no strength left and I would be ready to go to Siberia at once, to do hard labor even for a lifetime, if only it meant I could get out of Sebastopol. Lieutenant-Captain Theodore Leslie. Prince Gorchakov had thought of a way out. A pontoon bridge had been constructed across the bay from the south to the north side of Sebastopol. Major Clifford was intrigued. The Russians have finished the bridge and we are on the tiptoe of expectation to know what is the object of building it. This morning was its first of completion and thousands have passed from side to side over it. I've even observed through my glass today some of the fair sex honoring it with their little feet. All women I believe have small ones. But their presence does not stop the gun from being fired or the shell from bursting, or no doubt the whole of the Russian army would put on petticoats. The Allies had never blocked off the route north out of Sebastopol. The bridge was to become the Russians' lifeline. They were now ready for the final act. It began with a heavy Allied bombardment. Count Leo Tolstoy wrote in his diary on September the 6th. I've just been looking at the sky. A wonderful night. Oh God, have mercy upon me. I am a bad man. The stars are in the sky. A bombardment in Sebastopol. Music in the camp. I've done no good. On the contrary, I won some money gambling. Others were not so cool under fire. Company commander Yanuari Kobilinsky was on the front line of the Russian defense. Bombs, shots, shells, various kinds of grapeshot and bullets poured as though through a sieve. Before noon and in the evening, the firing stopped for 15 or 20 minutes. Everyone was clearing away the rocks, bits of wood and gun carriage strewn all over the place by enemy shells. When suddenly, a terrible thunderous boom, and the whole mass of iron was flying our way again. For the first time in the 349 days of the siege, the Allied bombardment had left the Russians unable to repair the damage. Time had run out. Excited by newspaper reports of the impending fall of Sebastopol, boatloads of tourists had arrived in the Crimea. William Hard Russell, the Times correspondent, described the scene. All the amateurs and traveling gentlemen who rather abound here just now were in a state of great excitement and dotted the plain in eccentric attire which revived olden memories of cows and yachting and sea bathing. On the morning of the 8th of September, Fanny Jubilee rode up to join the throng of spectators on the heights above Sebastopol. We found the cavalry at their usual ungracious work of special constables to prevent amateurs from getting within shot. Now in the first place, amateurs have no business within range, and in the next place, their heads are their own, and if they like to get them shot off, it is clearly nobody's business but theirs. Positions were being taken up. Sergeant Timothy Gowing was in the British lines. As the hour of 12 drew near, all hands were on the alert. We knew well it was death for many of us. Several who had gone through the whole campaign shook hands, saying, this is hot. Goodbye, old boy. Write to the old folks at home if I do not return was the request made by many. The Zouaves would be first in at the Malakoff. For Andre, the wait seemed an eternity. Midday finally arrived, and we heard on our right an immense cry of, Vive l'Empereur! The bugles and drums struck up their own racket. Away they went, racing like hares, the first Zouaves. All that could be seen of them were their huge red pantaloons, which grazed the ground like balls of fire. One by one, ten by ten, they disappeared behind the overhang of the bastion, which flanked the tower. Within minutes, the French tricolor was flying from the Malakoff Tower. The French were in, and the signal for the British to attack hollowed. Brigadier General Wyndham led the troops to assault. I went straight at the ditch and did all that man could do to get them into the center of the battery, but it was no go. I ran out into the middle of the battery with my sword over my head, but it was useless. They would stick to their gabions and to firing and not come to the bayonet. The men could not be induced to follow their officers. Many were very young and new to the Crimea. Timothy Gowing, all of 21, was already an old hand. He advanced towards the Redemps with one of the new recruits. It was his first time under fire. He was as pale as death and shaking from head to foot, yet he bravely faced the foe. The poor boy, for he was not much more, requested me not to leave him. He fell dead by my side just outside the Redemps. The moss of that field grew red with British blood. The British beat a humiliating retreat, but to save face, General Simpson ordered a fresh assault for the following morning. He did not know that inside Sebastopol, the Russians had other plans. Prince Gorchakov had decided to evacuate the town. At six o'clock that evening, General Semyakin received the order. I had been instructed to begin the retreat at 6.30 and to finish at 10. When all the troops had left, at a given signal to blow up the Bastion's batteries and all the power cellars. There was no time to think. One had to act. There was mayhem on the bridge. Officer Nikolai Baird stood and watched from the other side. A wave of horses, guards, people flooded over it for six or seven hours at a stretch. Sometimes it seemed to those crossing that the bridge had collapsed and was sinking to the bottom. Crowds shouting and screaming ran back. The crossing was held up. The sky flared with shots and bomb after bomb burst over those retreating. Then the town burst into flames. Count Leo Tolstoy was overcome. I wept when I saw the town in flames and the French flags on our bastions. It was a very sad day. In the early hours of the 9th of September, the Allied troops were startled by the terrible explosions. Major Clifford jumped onto his horse and rode on and on and into the Redan. I looked towards the Malakoff and there was the French flag, the tricolor, planted on its parapet. Yes, the French had taken the Malakoff, but the English had not taken the Redan. No flag floated on the parapet on which I stood and if it had, I could have seized it and dashed it into the ditch which we could not pass or hid it in the bosom of the young officer dead at my feet inside the Redan. I could not stand it long. One of those lost at the Redan was the young rifleman Harry Blisham. His naked body was found inside Sebastopol, covered in burnt wounds. His last letters home had been full of foreboding. It is for you, dear parents, that I live and it is a consolation to you, dear parents, that your prayers for me have not been in vain. The Lord's will be done. I know not how soon I may be taken from you. Annie Jubilee rode up to the height overlooking the town. I could see distinctly the south side in flames. I counted ten separate fires. It was a magnificent sight and one which afforded me, in common I fancy with many more, greater satisfaction than pain. I could not think at such a moment of the destruction and desolation of war. I could only remember that the long coveted prize was ours at last and I felt no more compunction for town or for Russian than the hound whose lips are red with blood does for the fox which he has chased through a hard run. It was a lawful prize purchased, God knows, dearly enough and I felt glad that we had got it. These photographs were taken straight after Sebastopol had fallen in September 1855. Allied engineers immediately set about destroying the Russian naval dockyards to make sure that the base could never again threaten their supremacy on the sea. Sebastopol had fallen but the Russians had not surrendered. France had won her victory at the Malakoff and the French were happy to go home with their hard-earned glory. But the British were still smarting from defeat at the Redan. They wanted nothing less than the elimination of the Russian fleet. But another winter was upon them. Their ships were trapped in the frozen sea. Like the war itself, unable to move in any direction. A defiant Tsar Alexander told his people not to lose heart. Sebastopol is not Moscow, he said. The Crimea is not Russia. But the Allied politicians were moving in for the kill. The British talked up plans for another expedition which would take Kronstadt and threaten St. Petersburg itself. Then Austria, the one neutral empire left, threatened to enter the war on another front unless the Russians surrendered. The game was up. In March 1856 this terrible war came to an end. The message that it was all over was sent by telegraph to the regiments in the Crimea. Sergeant Timothy Garry, who'd been with them from first to last, prepared for home. I thought of the Alma and my Christian comrade who lay buried beside the river. I thought of the wild charge of our handful of cavalry at Balaclava, of our desperate fight at Inkerman, of our terrible work in the trenches. And after all I'd gone through, death staring me in the face in a thousand shapes, both in the field and camp for upwards of 12 long months. Truly I had much for meditation. The returning troops were given a hero's welcome. Queen Victoria decreed that all men who'd shown great valour should be awarded a new medal, her personal medal, the Victoria Cross made from the melted guns which had once guarded Sebastopol. It had been the bloodiest conflict since Waterloo but the British with the smallest army had come off lightest. Only 22,000 had died to destroy Sebastopol. Britain had won a stunning victory. The power of the Russian state was destroyed for at least a generation. In the interval Britain had unrivaled access to the resources and lands of the rest of the world. The British set up a global empire. They policed it with Pax Britannica. It was an empire in which the sun never set. At least until 1918 Britain remained unrivaled as a unique global power. France with a hundred thousand dead had invested much more in the war and in the short term they seemed to have gained most out of it. The victory of the Crimea truly put France back in the first league of European nations. The peace was signed in Paris in March 1856 by the Congress of Paris at the same time as the Universal Exhibition was being held in Paris. Almost all the sovereigns came and on this occasion Napoleon III really did appear to be the new arbiter of Europe. The gains were enormous at the time but they were squandered within a few years. The Ottoman Empire in whose defense the whole war had started had also lost a hundred thousand men, probably more, but they had died to save nothing. The empire disintegrated giving birth to a number of combustible Balkan nation-states whose petty rivalries were to ignite the First World War. The other big loser was the Tsar. Russia had lost half a million men and much of its power and influence but it had learned from defeat. The main lesson that the Russian government gains from the war is that a backward pre-industrial state cannot compete even in military terms against more modern industrializing states like Britain and France. Therefore if Russia is going to survive it has to have railways, it has to have industry, it has to have an enterprising and educated citizenry and all of these conceptions really underlie the program of great reforms which is introduced by the Emperor Alexander II after the war and whose most famous element is the abolition of serfdom. 50 years later Russian survivors of the Crimean War posed in front of one of the first newsreel cameras. Some of them lived to see the Russian revolution sweep away the Tsars. The world they had fought for disappeared forever. By 1910 when these French soldiers appeared before the camera they were a last defiant memory of France's only victorious war in the 19th century. Some of these British Crimean veterans would live to see the far greater slaughter of the First World War. They too would see their empire go. Winners and losers they had all fought in a war which had changed the map of Europe forever.