Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #325254 in Books
• Published on: 2004-02-21
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 1.86 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 592 pages

From Amazon.com
The mid-19th-century Crimean War, pitting England, France, and less powerful allies against Russia, was one of the first major international wars in history. In the execution, it was none too inspiring. As Trevor Royle writes in his sweeping study of the conflict, "it encompassed maladministration on a grand scale and human suffering, if not without parallel then at least minutely recorded by the watching war correspondents"--the war being the first as well to have been widely reported. It was, a contemporary British journal put it, a war of "lions led by donkeys," young men commanded by doddering veterans of the Napoleonic campaigns who served in an unlikely alliance. The English officers, Royle writes, could never shake the habit of calling their French comrades "the enemy," and never quite trusted them, either.

The result was carnage: not only the loss of a good portion of the Light Brigade in the most famous--but not the most inept--incident of the war, but also the destruction of whole regiments left to blunder about in the fog and smoke, thanks to their commanders' inadequate intelligence-gathering efforts. Not much changed at war's end. In the eventual peace treaty, France and England and Russia kept their territories more or less intact, and the struggle for power between Russia and the neighboring Ottoman Empire, in whose defense France and England had ostensibly gone to war, stretched out for another generation. It ended with a Russian victory that allowed Russia to assume control of Turkish holdings in the Balkans, which, Royle notes, lay the seeds for still another international conflict, World War I.

Royle does a fine job of negotiating through the many complexities, diplomatic and military, of the Crimean War. His descriptions of battlefield tactics (or the lack thereof) are among the best in the literature. More comprehensive than Robert B. Edgerton's Death or Glory: The Legacy of the Crimean War, Royle's Crimea is likely to stand as an enduring work on this strange, wasteful conflict. --Gregory McNamee

From Publishers Weekly
In the century between Napoleon and WWI, only one major international war was fought among the European powers. Faintly understood, the Crimean War--which pitted Britain and France with the Ottoman Empire against Russia--was the war that made Florence Nightingale famous. But although it was arguably the hinge upon which much subsequent history turned, little is known about it, or remembered--except for the charge of the Light Brigade. (Indeed, two of the British commanders who served there--Lords Raglan and Cardigan--are known more for their contributions to fashion than for their military deeds.) In Crimea, Royle (Winds of Change: The End of Empire in Africa) remedies this situation. A writer and journalist specializing in military history, he covers not just the Crimea, but also the entire Black Sea region in his beautifully written study. He describes the diplomatic maneuverings that passed between the belligerents and their potential allies (like the United States), and he thoughtfully considers the causes, conduct and consequences of the war. And although he provides a massive amount of detail, it is a testament to his skill that the details never overwhelm the narrative. Thorough and informative, this scholarly book will interest readers of history and military history alike; for the present, it also stands as the definitive treatment of the Crimean War. Illus. (May)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Mighty wars spring from unusual sources. Four major powers (Britain, France, and Turkey vs. Russia) went to war in 1854 over who should hold the front-door keys to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Scottish historian Royle (Last Days of the Raj) shows how this spark ignited smoldering European political tensions. Huge armies battled for two years over a single Russian city, Sevastopol, on the Black Sea. Once it fell to the allies, a peace was quickly engineered that failed to resolve the underlying tensions. The war's chief significance was its innovations: it introduced trench warfare, mined harbors, battlefield nursing, and up-to-the-minute press coverage. Royle's narrative is clear and readable, balancing battle descriptions and political maneuvering. The only flaw is the lack of a large-scale map, though smaller maps appear. Recommended for academic and large public libraries.DBob Persing, Univ. of Pennsylvania Lib., Philadelphia
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.