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
Book Description
The Crimean War, one of history's 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 history's 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.
Customer Reviews:
The hearlding of World War 2.......2006-12-20
The Crimean war shattered the peace of Europe that had been established since Napoleon and set the course for World War 1. The disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and the advances of Russia are prominent in the war. The famed charge of the light brigade occurred during this war and the trench warfare of World War 1 can be seen. This was really fought over a very small amount of land and in hellish terrain. The book is very well written and does an excellent job of discussing how the war progressed. Overall an excellent book and one that I would recommend.
Surprisingly good history..........2006-11-07
Were it not for Tennyson's The Charge of the Light Brigade, it is arguable whether the Crimean War would have much notoriety. It wasn't overly long, there were very few set-piece battles and no individual heroes of note. It was, among european wars of history, a middling confrontation. How much better, then, is Trevor Royle's treatment with the excitement he brings to it.
Sensing Ottoman dissolution, tsarist Russia makes a play to position itself for benefit. Alarmingly, this could include access to the Mediterranean through the Dardanelles. Having none of it, Britain and France combine to contest Russia's territorial ambitions. Negotiations rapidly break down and Sevastapol is invested. What follows is a story of British incompetence, French duplicity, and Russia's teetering access to military means.
Royle weaves throughout the event the high intrigue behind the scenes where unilateral diplomacy, oneupmanship, and the perfidious maneuvering of supposed allies rules the day. On the war front, he portrays the sad lot of the British soldier. In stark contrast to the French, the British military was grossly underfunded, medical care was appallingly poor, conditions were squalid, and soldiers died of disease in droves. The comparatively healthy ones simply starved.
With Sevastapol fallen, Russia was compelled to consider armistice while conniving diplomats in Paris, St. Petersburg, Vienna and London brokered an inadequate peace. Accordingly, the relatively minor Crimean conflict set the table for future hostilities and presaged the disintegration of the Ottoman empire. Indeed, it was in a corner of the splintered Ottoman empire that a single shot rang out to begin a world war. Trevor Royle does an exemplary job in bringing Crimea to us and, in so doing, prepares the inquisitive reader for the explosive century to come. 4+ stars.
Fascinating Read - Not enough about the combat.......2006-02-05
This is a very interesting book about an incredibly influential war. Despite the fact that the Crimean War was quite short and almost no great swaths of territory changed hands, this short, bloody little conflict had a huge impact on the formation of modern Europe. Trevor Royle's account of the war is a wonderful read. He covers the causes of the war (interesting enough, despite all the real politik, it was about a set of keys and a silver star in a church), the war itself and the aftermath. The details are wonderful and don't override the flow of the story. The only shortcoming comes during the presentation of the battles. Since there are so few, you'd think we'd get more details, but unfortunately the battles are somewhat glossed over. This doesn't so much detract from the book as, instead, it leaves you hungry for more. I found the natural links drawn by the author of Crimea as a progression from the Napoleonic style of war to the more modern American Civil War, which lead right into the mechanistic nightmare of World War I to ring true in more ways than simply because of the dates involved. Time to dig back through old issues of Military History Quarterly to find some articles on the battles so I can enjoy a much more thorough context for the war, thanks to this book.
Good but not Enough.......2004-06-27
As a reader already observed, this book is, to begin with, very anglo centered as it happens with boring regularity with almost every anglosaxon historian, no matter the issue. French partner in this war appears, of course, how it could be otherwise, but always as if from a side, as a distant guy that by chance was there. I think the subjet is the Crimean war or should be so, not England in-war-in-Crimea.
From a sheer military point of view the book lacks too much. Battles are more or less described, but maps are a joke and the equipment of both sides scarcely mentioned and poorly defined. A reader of this kind of books want to know more: want to know details about personal weapons, artillery, technical innovations, uniforms, etc. It is the more so as the author himself recognizes this was the first modern war, an intermediate step between Waterloo and the slaughters of I World War. There is some of all of it, but prone to be poor and cursorily explained. Even more, the autor makes a serious mistake confusing the innnovation of the Minie bullet -to be used with muskets already in use- with a supposedly new "Minie rifle" that never existed.
Nevertheless, the political side of the war -french again appearing as a guest and often under a disdainful light- is well developped and informative. Same with many personalities, including, this time, french officers.
Last but not least, the quality of the paper in this paperback edition is the worst I have ever seen in this kind of binding. I doubt it will resist more than 10 years in a shell. For the same reason the discrete number of photos available -not acceptable in a book about the first photographed war in history- are a miserable account of bad quality and neglect.
Anglo-centric but otherwise excellent.......2003-09-14
I imagine it is hard not to see the Crimean War from a non-British perspective, because the other belligerents did not write their chronicles in English OR see the war as such a big deal. But what this book manages is to put the war into a wider Eropean context of great power rivalries and almost fanatical imperialism. So Russia wanted to join the imperialist club? France and Britain, hardly the best of friends, were horrified at the prospect. And as for Russia developing a strong Mediterranean presence, well, the Ottomans as well as the British and French couldn't allow that. GREAT READ.
Book Description
'We must all fight for Holy Russia!' declared the Russian officers at the outbreak of the Crimean War. Despite the immensity of the Russian forces that fought in this conflict, however, their dispersion over vast distances, along with poor roads and contrary weather, contributed to their defeat. Still, many regiments won much-deserved battle honours; from the navy emerged a number of heroes, including Admirals Kornilov, Nakhimov and Istomin. This book details the forces that served the Tsar in the defence of the Crimea, with chapters on Army organization, the Army of the Caucasus, the Imperial Navy, army life, tactics and Russian heroes.
Average customer rating:
|
Mrs Duberly's War: Journal and Letters from the Crimea, 1854-6
Frances Isabella Duberly
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 Irish
| Ethnic & National
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
General
| British
| Historical
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
Women
| Specific Groups
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Europe
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| France
| Europe
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| England
| Europe
| History
| Subjects
| Books
19th Century
| England
| Europe
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Ireland
| Europe
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Military
| History
| Subjects
| Books
18th Century
| World
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| World
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Women's Studies
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
All Titles
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
ASIN: 0199208611 |
Book Description
Mrs Duberly's journal is one of the most vivid eye-witness accounts we have of the Crimean War. Fanny Duberly, then aged 25, accompanied her husband to the Crimea in 1854, and remained there until the end of the fighting, the only officer's wife to remain throughout the entire campaign. She survived the severe winter of 1854-55, witnessed the battle of Balaklava and the charge of the Light Brigade, and rode through the ruins of Sebastopol. Spirited and courageous, she was known by sight to British and French soldiers across the battlefields, regarded often with enthusiasm and sometimes with disapproval. Witty and beautiful, she enjoyed flirtatious friendships with many of the most important men of the campaign. Her Journal kept during the Russian War was published in 1855 and caused a sensation. Although widely praised as the 'new heroine for the Crimea', Fanny was also censured, ridiculed, and even parodied in Punch. She had stepped into a man's world, and written about it in a way that seemed to some at the front an invasion of privacy and to others at home an abandonment of gentility. A best-seller at the time, the Journal was not reprinted after its second edition of 1856, and this is the first edition since that time.
Book Description
Unfairly forced out of the army for insubordination, Alexander Sheridan leaves Britain and his former life behind to command a unit of the East India Company. Despised by the aristocratic generals of the regular army, Sheridan and his corps of volunteers must face both the rigors of combat and the treachery of men who should be allies in the heat of the deadly battles of the Crimean War.
Customer Reviews:
not a very good series.......2005-12-29
I agree with Tim Cole - the Sheridan series is pretty weak. V.A. Stuart is no Bernard Cornwell. The author knows her history well enough, but the main character isn't very interesting, nor does he really do anything interesting, despite being involved in the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny. On the whole, I was glad I got these from the library rather than buying them.
Free of Charge.......2002-06-08
Probably the worst historical novel I have ever read. One half of the book consists of a syrupy faux-Victorian love story between cardboard characters, the other sounds as if it was lifted verbatim from one of the duller pre-World War I military textbooks. It would seem hard to make the Charge of the Light Brigade sound as exciting as the daily Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace, but that is exactly what Ms. Stuart's does. Obviously the publisher is trying to cash in on the current vogue in 18th and 19th century soldier and sailor yarns by republishing this dud, but you'd do better to save your money and re-read the Sharpe series instead.
Accurate but sardonic title.......2002-04-16
This book has strong elements of a Victorian romance novel mixed with military elements. There is as much attention to the officer's women as to soldiers. The story takes place during the amateurish British campaign (after 40 years of peace) west around the Black Sea to the Crimea in support of the Ottoman Turks against the Russians. Alexander Sheridan is a disdained but competent English officer. It's hard to like him much, for he's a bit wooden. He's been a bit of a fool in love and gotten himself cashiered from the regular army and fled to India. He's in love with one or the other of the two beautiful Mowbray sisters who suddenly appear in his battle zone. The sentimentality and reticence seen in the relations between the genders may be true to the period (1854), and overlays a still hard world. The main thread is the forlorn lost love between Capt. Sheridan and Charlotte, rather than the fierce personal and battle emotions when he joins the Light Brigade (yes, THAT infamous brigade, so yu know what must happen...). Alex and the girls' eight years together in India are entirely skipped, so tight is the focus on the romantic triangle of the moment. Dialogue is restricted to proper Victorian discreetness. We are spared battlefield carnage, as military affairs are kept in the distance. The author, a WW II British lieutenant herself, foregrounded the suffering of women surrounded by men at war, trying to survive and nurse cholera victims in appalling filth and disorder, and striving to keep or get an officer husband while crazed with fear or jealousy.
The Crimean battles are mostly described in offialese from the generals' and units' perspectives, with no overview of the strategy. There's nothing of the personal fear and shock of raw troops, or the novelistic here. At least until the inadvertant Charge of the Light Cavalry Brigade, when we get to see through Sheridan's eyes the confusion and horror of that affair, when "cannon volleyed and thundered...someone had blundered" (Tennyson). Amid the filth it lift's one's heart to see Emmy Mobray open the way for Florence Nighingale to begin the army nursing profession. The presentation is good and includes two vintage maps.
Average customer rating:
- An engrossing novel about love and war
- ugh...I think I'll skip dinner.
- Historical fiction
- Dark, Subtle and Sophisticated
- ODE TO THE CRIMEA
|
Master Georgie
Beryl Bainbridge
Manufacturer: Chivers Audio Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Cassette
General
| Literature & Fiction
| Books on Cassette
| Audiobooks
| Formats
| Books
Unabridged
| Literature & Fiction
| Books on Cassette
| Audiobooks
| Formats
| Books
General
| Books on Cassette
| Audiobooks
| Formats
| Books
Contemporary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Historical
| Genre Fiction
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Similar Items:
-
Every Man for Himself (Bainbridge, Beryl)
-
An Awfully Big Adventure (Bainbridge, Beryl)
-
The Birthday Boys
ASIN: 0754002241 |
Amazon.com
Beryl Bainbridge seems drawn to disaster. First she tackled the unfortunate Scott expedition to the South Pole in The Birthday Boys; later (but emphatically pre-DiCaprio) came the sinking of the Titanic, in Every Man for Himself. Now, in her 3rd historical novel (and her 16th overall), she takes on the Crimean War, and the result is a slim, gripping volume with all of the doomed intensity of the Light Brigade's charge--but, thankfully, without the Tennysonian bombast. "Some pictures," a character confides, "would only cause alarm to ordinary folk." There's a warning concealed here, and one that easily disturbed readers would do well to heed: Master Georgie is intense, disturbing, revelatory--and not always pretty to look at.
Bainbridge's narrative circles round the enigmatic figure of George Hardy, a surgeon, amateur photographer, alcoholic, and repressed homosexual who counters the dissipation of his prosperous Liverpool life by heading for the Crimean Peninsula in 1854. His journey and subsequent tour of duty are told in three very different voices: Myrtle, an orphan whose lifelong loyalty to her "Master Georgie" becomes an overriding obsession; Pompey Jones, street urchin, fire-eater, photographer, and George's sometime lover; and Dr. Potter, George's scholarly brother-in-law, whose retreat from the war's carnage and into books takes on a tinge of madness.
United by a sudden death in a Liverpool brothel in 1846, these characters plumb the curious workings of love, war, class, and fate. In between, Bainbridge frames an unforgettable series of tableaux morts: a dying soldier, one lens of his glasses "fractured into a spider's web"; a decapitated leg, toes "poking through the shreds of a cavalry boot"; two dead men "on their knees, facing one another, propped up by the pat-a-cake thrust of their hands." Glimpsed as if sidewise and then passed over in language that is as understated as it is lovely, these are images that sear into the brain. Master Georgie is full of such moments, horrors painted with an exquisite brush. --Mary Park
Book Description
The highly acclaimed New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 1998 and Booker Prize Nominee that reinvents the historical novel from Beryl Bainbridge, the distinguished author of The Birthday Boys and Every Man For Himself.
A misadventure in a brothel links the destiny of the enigmatic George Hardy, a surgeon and amateur photographer, to a foundling who becomes his obsessively devoted maid, a wily street boy who takes advantage of his sexual ambiguity, and his alternately philosophical and libidinous brother-in-law in this terse, searing novel that takes them from the comfortable parlors of Victorian Liverpool to the horrific battlefields of the Crimean War.
"An exquisite dissector of human folly" - Time
"Striking . . . in its companionable alliance between wry, deadpan humor and nightmarish horror" - New York Times Book Review
"Master Georgie can be read in an hour or two, yet it may reverberate in the reader's consciousness long after its poignant final page." - Boston Globe
"Easily the most impressive novel I've read this year, and my admiration for it is unqualified." - Mordecai Richler, National Post (Canada)
"Remarkable . . . A tour de force of compressed plotting . . . by turns funny and appalling" - New York Times
"A memorable novel" - Atlantic Monthly
"Stunning" - The New Yorker
"A virtually flawless blend of elegant prose, ironic observation, and impeccably controlled narrative momentum" - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Customer Reviews:
An engrossing novel about love and war.......2003-11-30
Geroge Hardy, a surgeon and amateur photographer, discovers his father dead in the bed of another woman and hastens to bring the body home before his mother learns of it. Three people help with this task, and their lives are irrevocaly changed because of it.
The story is told through the eyes of those three people close to Master Georige. The first is Myrtle, a young orphan who is accepted and raised by the Hardy family. She immediately falls in love with Georgie, a love that will carry her from the streets of Liverpool to the battlefields of the Crimean War. Next is Pompey Jones, a young street boy who helps move the body of George's father and then discovers George's passion for young men. The last is Dr. Potter, a family friend who follows George all the way to the Battle of Inkermann, never understanding George's aversion to women or why he wants to attach himself to a unit during the awful war. Through their eyes, we watch George change from a young doctor in England dealing with his father's troublesome death to the hardened field doctor trying to save lives during a time of war.
This is a fantastic historical novel, with some of the most descriptive war scenes I've read in quite some time. Bainbridge makes you feel the confusion, fear and dread that the soldiers faced both due to battle and due to disease. At the same time, she shows how one life can effect others, either for better or for worse. A highly engrossing novel.
ugh...I think I'll skip dinner........2002-11-20
I found this a very disturbing book of the type that you like against your own best instincts. I'm not saying it's bad, no. I'm just saying that if you want a nice, friendly, romantic (within reason) war book, look somewhere else. Children shouldn't read this, but it's good. Forgive me if I'm making no sense, but this is a very tricky book to review.
Historical fiction.......2002-03-15
Master Georgie is a novel set in the time of the Crimean War. Through the eyes of three people close to Master Georgie, Myrtle, a girl believed to be Georgie's sister, Dr. Potter, a geologist and Pompey Jones, the photography assistant, we follow him from Liverpool to the battlefield of the Crimean War.
This way to write about a person and his happenings is well known through Ian Pears An Instance of the Fingerpost. And can be a perfect way to keep the readers interest and also the readers capability to live with the story. But Beryl Bainbridge do not master this art in this book. The language is too flat, without feelings, and the plots are sometimes too cryptical to be understood. I had to read several parts more than once to be able to understand what it all really was about, and to understand which lenses where used.
Still the book has some good parts, among them are the battlefield scenes. And I also like the way Bainbridge use the meaning of the photography, to let us see snapshots of Master Georgie's life, using other people as lenses, as cameras.
The book is a short one, less than 200 pages, and the surprising ending helps to give meaning to the story.
Britt Arnhild Lindland
Dark, Subtle and Sophisticated.......2002-01-10
Beryl Bainbridge has to be one of the greatest of all English authors. All of her books are superb and Master Georgie, her third book of historical fiction, is different, but no less superb, than the two preceeding. I think Master Georgie has not been praised quite highly enough because its subject matter may be less familiar to Americans than Bainbridge's two previous historicals. As a European, however, Master Georgie is definitely my favorite. It is quieter and more subtle, but I think it has much more emotional depth.
Bainbridge is always a little cryptic with her subject matter and Master Georgie is no exception. Don't let this put you off the book, though--the undercurrents of energy and intrigue make this short book riveting and well worth anyone's time.
The protagonist, Master Georgie, is actually George Hardy, a Victorian English dissolute and surgeon who, one day, decides to pack up his family and head for Turkey. Although his intentions are to provide medical care to the wounded during the Crimean war, we all know things rarely go as planned. Suffice it to say that Murphy's Law holds just as true for Master Georgie as it does for us.
The battlefield scenes are some of the best I have ever read, not surprising with Bainbridge. Although the scenes are brutal and sometimes even gruesome, this marvelous author has managed to infuse them with a sardonic wit that rivals anything I have ever read. Bainbridge is true to her subject matter in these scenes. Bainbridge chooses to forgo romanticism in favor of the reality of confusion and futility that surely must have existed on the battlefields of the Crimea. Lest you think she's making fun of her subjects, let me tell you she most assuredly is not. She is compassionate, but she wisely keeps that compassion from coloring the facts. I think she is simply interpreting events with her own brand of intelligence and irony.
Master Georgie can meander at times, but Bainbridge has even this meandering under complete control. She also tempers it with vivid details. We really feel as if we are reading an actual eyewitness account to the war.
Master Georgie is a short book, really more of a novella than a novel, and you can easily read it in one sitting if you so desire. Don't let its length fool you, though. Master Georgie is a dark book and one that really packs a punch. It is stylish, sophisticated and sardonic. In short, it is a book that is worthy of all the praise it has garnered.
ODE TO THE CRIMEA.......2002-01-09
The back cover of this book praises Beryl Bainbridge for her "deadpan prose" and her "emotionless sentences". It's ironic how attibutes like these can possibly be descriptions of a good writer. It is these very faults that bring about the ruin of MASTER GEORGIE.
The novel spans the years 1846-1854. Master Georgie, or George Hardy, is the young son of a rich Liverpool merchant. He is a shadow figure in the sense that he never takes over the narration of the story. That is left up to three other characters. One of these is Myrtle, an orphan who was taken in by the Hardys as a child and is deeply in love with George. She follows him in his restless wanderings of Liverpool. One night, in a sordid episode they find George's father dead in the bed of a prostitute. Along with another character who does narration, Pompey Jones (a street hustler), they are able to cover up the scandal that would have hurt and tarnished his family. The three characters are bonded by this secret for the rest of their lives, and as the novel progresses this deepens into love, both sexual and spiritually. It becomes a love triangle which causes a lot of pain and little satisfaction. The last voice that enters into the picture is the eccentric Dr. Potter who has a hankering for George's sister. Nobody likes the guy because instead of confronting life, he dwells instead in books, mainly the classical writers of Rome and Greece. When you start a conversation with him, he begins quoting from an author instead of communicating sense to you. Towards the latter part of the book, all the characters become involved in the Crimean War. Or actually George becomes involved in the war and wherever he is it sucks the others with him. Just like all wars, this one changes the future of not just the combatants but also of the bystanders.
The parts of the book set in Liverpool are quite good and interesting. They seem to be written with more passion and personal knowledge than the war scenes. The books problem lies in the deadpan writing. It's like watching the stand up comedy of Steven Wright, where a monotone voice is supposed to make you laugh by its very absence of emotion. It's the same thing here. We are supposed to feel horror and love through understatement when neither of these emotions are capable of understatement. The closer I got to the end, the more bored I got. I skipped over some pages to get to the end. I didn't care about the character's fates. I just wanted to say i finished it.
Book Description
As the Russian cavalry prepares to launch a full-scale attack to seize Balaclava, the British find themselves in desperate straits. Dangerously outnumbered, they are hoping for reinforcements, but in the meantime they must hold their ground, calling for heroism that will test the courage of even the bravest man. Dodging bursting shells and Russian Cossacks, Hazard proves that the bluejackets fight as well on land as they do at sea.
Book Description
This bitter war between Russia and Turkey, aided by Britain and France, was the setting for the stuff of legends. This book details the gallant yet suicidal Charge of the Light Brigade, now immortalised in film: in the words of Tennyson, 'Into the Valley of Death rode the Six Hundred'. It relates the reports made by the first real war correspondant, William Russell of the London Times - reports which served only to highlight the army's problems - and memorialises the heroic deeds of Florence Nightingale, who struggled to save young men from the most formidable enemy in the Crimean War: not the Russians, but cholera.
Customer Reviews:
A Pretty Good Summary of a Forgotten War.......2006-12-02
John Sweetman does a nice job of condensing this war down to its essential elements. This is no easy feat and he should be commended for a job well done. As with all books in the "Essential Histories" series, this one is no different. It is ninety-two pages long and contains numerous drawings of significant battlefield events. Regarding the various commanders, the author provides sufficient detail so that the reader clearly understands their specific level of participation in the war. The section on the fighting is done in a chronological order. Thus, the chapters flow in a logical progression.
The main weakness of this book can be found in the maps. This weakness, however, is minimal at best. Several of the battle maps are improperly located within the book. For example, the map of the Battle of Balaclava is located a few pages ahead of that specific narrative. The map of the Battle of Inkerman is placed amidst the text of the Battle of Balaclava. The result is that the reader must go back several pages to locate the map that pertains to the applicable battle. Also, the book would have benefited from a mid level map of the area around Sevastopol. The battles of Balaclava, Inkerman, and Chernaya all occur in the same general area. Each of the battle maps have one of two geographic features that are also located in the other battle maps. Unfortunately, there is no mid level map that displays all three battles in relation to the city of Sevastopol.
The book provides information on two interesting people. First, the author made an excellent selection of Captain Nolan as the focus of the chapter on "Portrait of a Soldier." Captain Nolan participated in the charge of the Light Brigade; the most famous action of the entire war. His focus on Captain Nolan provides another viewpoint of this part of the Battle of Balaclava. The second person is Florence Nightingale. Although she is discussed, the author does not spend much time on her activities. Historically speaking, she was probably the most famous person to come out of this conflict.
The author's end of war analysis appears to be very insightful. He discusses how this war illuminated the deteriorating state of the Ottoman Empire. Many of the newly independent states could not peacefully co-exist. In some small way, this conflict may have laid the groundwork for World War I. The biggest winner of the war was the British Army. This conflict pointed out the shortcomings of the British medical and logistical services. Sorely needed reforms were implemented because of the suffering endured by the British servicemen. Bottom line: this is a well-written book that covers all the important aspects of the war. The reader should not be disappointed.
Good, but too Anglo-Centric.......2006-11-30
Sandhurst historian John Sweetman provides a useful summarized history of the Crimean War in Osprey's Essential Histories #2. Although the author provides a primarily British perspective on the war, this volume is well-written and is useful for readers who desire a quick summary of the war's key moments, with some added insight and analysis. This is a good, if conventional, effort.
Opening sections in the volume describe the theater of war, the opposing forces and how the war began. While short, these introductory sections include the key facts needed to set the stage. The description of the actual war covers about 47 pages. The two sections, `portrait of a soldier' and `portrait of a civilian', although well-written and interesting are marred by a flaw that has afflicted much of the Essential History series, namely overt British chauvinism (of the three volumes on WW1, all focus on British individuals). The authors picks Captain Nolan of `charge of the Light Brigade' fame as his model soldier, which is unfortunate since this is a very controversial individual who has been picked apart by generations of historians. The two civilians portrayed are both British wives. After reading this volume, the reader may have a difficult time remembering that British forces comprised only about 15% of the Allied troops in the Crimea or that there were Russians in the war, too. The author missed a great chance to include a Russian viewpoint from none other than Leo Tolstoy, who was serving with the garrison in Sebastopol. The denouement of the war is covered rather hastily in a few pages and the reader will come away with the impression that the Allies gained nothing from their `victory,' but in fact, the Russian Black Sea Fleet was all but disbanded for a generation and the Russians were forced to raze all the fortifications in the Crimea. By demilitarizing the Crimea for a 20-year period, Russian pressure on Turkey was eased, thus avoiding a wider war at that time.
This volume also includes seven maps (Turkey and the Crimea; area of operations; the Battle of the Alma; the Battle of Balaklava; the Battle of Inkerman; Battle of Chernaya; Sevastopol, June 1855). The bibliography is very weak, with only seven references provided (including one by the author). Despite the fact that the French carried the brunt of the war effort, not one French source is listed in the bibliography. The photographs and illustrations are a bit bland and almost totally represent the Allied viewpoint.
Overall, the main problem with this volume is its Anglo-centrism, with too much focus on the small British forces at the expense of the other participants. While the author details British problems with medical and transport services, he fails to note that the Russian army had considerable logistic problems of its own. Aside from noting the poor command abilities of several of the Russian senior generals, the Russian army is virtually overlooked. Nor do the French get much better treatment, despite the fact that their army performed fairly well (for once) in the Crimea. I wanted to like this volume, since it is always intriguing to read about controversial battles such as Balaklava, but I couldn't escape the fact that the author was leading the reader down the well-worn grooves of Crimean War historiography that British historians have imposed upon us for over a century. It's time to get out of that groove and look at more than just the `thin red line' and look at the experiences of all the participating sides.
Crimean War by Sweetman.......2005-10-06
While this book contained some good information, it was an overall dissappointment. To start, Sweetman begins by saying that the Crimean War was fought in other places besides the Crimean peninsula; however, not once does he mention any other battle, skirmish, or action between the allies and Russia.
I don't know if is the nature of this series to hit only the highlights of a conflict but, this book did exactly that. Sweetman wastes 4 pages writing about Captain Nolan but only 3 paragraphs about the historic 'Charge of the Light Brigade' and then he left out how that charge ended. I assume the British left the field but, that is never made clear by Sweetman. He also spends 5 pages talking about the women in the war (mostly the lives of 2 army wives).
There were also plenty of pictures in the book. These were good eye candy but, I would have rather had more text.
The last item I found distainful was the maps of major engagements (at least the ones Sweetman decided to write about). The maps were placed, on average, 4 pages before the related text rather than in the chapter/section that they related to. Also, all of the maps were mistitled and misdated. It took me about 15 minutes of confused page flipping to figure out that the battle depicted in the map did not match up with the text that described the battle.
After reading this book, I would advise anyone looking for an overview of the ENTIRE war to look elseware.
Book Description
Sailing beneath the ominous cloud of war between Turkey and Russia, the frigate Trojan is on her way to the Black Sea, carrying on board a mysterious passenger, a young woman whose identity must be concealed by orders of the Admiralty. Although First Lieutenant Phillip Hazard is captivated by the charming young woman, he has a far more pressing concern: the Trojan's captain is a sadistic despot—and quite possibly insane.
Customer Reviews:
An entertaining naval series.......2004-02-03
This is the first book in the "Hazard" series by V.A. Stuart. It takes place during the Crimean War between Russia and the allied nations of Britain, Turkey, and France. Phillip Hazard is the 1st Lieutenant on the steam frigate _Trojan_, serving under an incompetent captain who has been on half pay too long, but who is called to active duty because of the war. A mysterious passenger is taken on board for the voyage, who happens to be young and beautiful. There is a mild love story along with the action in the Black Sea and the battle of Sevastapol. Much of the story deals with the Hazard's frustrations in dealing with his captain.
Although this narrative does not have the power or elegance of Patrick O'Brian or even C.S. Forester, it is an interesting period and the story holds one's interest. It is also well written. The quality of the McBooks Press edition is very good, with beautiful paper and typeset.
Customer Reviews:
A Vital Prologue to War and Peace.......2007-05-29
For readers who enjoy War and Peace, The Sebastopol Sketches provides interesting insight not only in the military career of the author, Count Leo Tolstoy, but gives ample evidence of where he found the human experience to make such a classic novel. The book is set during the Crimean War in 1854-55, when Tolstoy was a 25-year-old artillery officer. A 31-page introduction by David McDuff lays out the background of Count Leo Toltsoy's life, his entrance into the Russian Army and the beginning of the Crimean War. This introduction is well-written and informative. The sketches are divided into three chapters.
December 1854
This opening section is the shortest, at only 16 pages, and covers a brief visit that Tolstoy made to Sebastopol in search of supplies for his battery on 5 December 1854. Tolstoy was a very keen observer of detail and although brief, this section acts as a "you-are-there" sort of tour of the city, from the harbor quays out to one of the bastions. Here, Tolstoy makes several interesting observations, such as noting the conversations of several gunners and remarking that, "a feeling...of savage hatred for the enemy, and a wish to have revenge on him, a feeling that lurks in the soul of every human being." Tolstoy was also impressed with the Russian character, claiming that, "the strength of the Russian people cannot possibly ever falter, no matter in what part of the world it may be put to the test." This is the kind of tough talk of a chauvinistic young officer in love with his country, but one wonders what Tolstoy thought of his earlier writing when he lived long enough to see Russian arms humiliated in Manchuria in 1905.
May 1855
In Tolstoy's second visit to Sebastopol, he initially focuses on a card game between several Russian officers (Tolstoy was an inveterate gambler, himself). This provides a useful literary device for sketching several "types" of Russian officers of the period. For example, one snobbish noble officer exclaims, "I really don't see how men in dirty underwear, suffering from lice and not even able to wash their hands, can possibly be capable of bravery." This is interesting commentary on how Russian upper-crust officers viewed the enlisted men who doing most of the fighting and dying (this theme appears again in War and Peace). Then, Tolstoi shifts as the card game ends and several officers make their way by a casualty dressing station, with them witnessing the suffering of these "dirty" enlisted soldiers. Later, Tolstoy notes the removal of dead Russian soldiers, and one of the characters says, "What a God-awful stink! That was all that remained of this man in the land of the living." Tolstoy makes interesting comment along the way, noting that "once fear has found its way into the soul, it does not readily give way to any other emotion." Indeed, there are no heroes in this account (Tolstoy says, my hero is truth), and Tolstoy describes junior Russian lieutenants as, "each is a little Napoleon, a little monster ready to start a conflict and kill a hundred or so men simply in order to obtain another star or an increase of a third in his pay." The second section is 50 pages long and begins a shift towards a more critical view of warfare.
August 1855
This 73-page section is told through the eyes a Lieutenant Kozeltsov, a seasoned officer who returns to Sebastopol after being wounded. Kozeltsov is a common-sense fellow, not high-born and is the kind of protagonist Tolstoy enjoys using as his narrative vehicle and to demonstrate the true Russian warrior (similar to the artillery captain in War and Peace). Sebastopol has changed greatly in the past eight months, with heavy damage from artillery fire and "all the pubs are closed ...its as cheerful as a morgue." This suggests a change from the carefree, adventurous view of war in the opening sections to a sober, war-is-hell-and-carnage' view. Kozeltsov is eventually sent out with his unit to one of the bastions under fire and we see that his relationship with his troops is quite good. He is up front with them in a bunker, not back in the rear playing cards and bad-mouthing them. Not all the officers up front are of the same caliber and Tolstoy notes those who display fake bravery, or stupid conceited bravery and those who are apathetic - sort of the bell curve of warfare. This section ends with a major French attack on the bastion, with dire consequences for the inhabitants (similar to the defense of the Raevsky Redoubt in War and Peace).
Penguin provides two maps in this edition, one of the Crimea and one of Sebastopol itself. Overall, the Sebastopol sketches is an excellent literary and historical effort and clearly written by someone who has experienced both the giddy exuberance and horror of war firsthand.
Everyone is spelling the name of the city wrong!.......2005-01-15
It is great that so many people are interested in the history of this city, but you are all spelling it wrong! The correct spelling is "Sevastopol", and "Sebastopol" is just a crazy American adaptation of it. The actual word is pronounced with a soft "L".
P.S. This is an AMAZING city to visit! I went there the summer before last, and had a wonderful time.
[...]
Tolstoy's War.......2003-04-27
"The Sebastopol Sketches" comprises three pieces describing the experiences of Russian soldiers during the siege of Sebastopol in the Crimean War. Tolstoy served in the army at Sebastopol, and I got a feeling of authenticity in his writing.
Tolstoy's view of the war undergoes a change during the three sketches. In the first (and shortest) sketch, Tolstoy is patriotic, describing the soldiers, their cause and Russia as a whole in grand, heroic terms. By the end of the third sketch, the reader has been taken through the horrors of war, and Tolstoy is much more despairing, even disgusted at the whole sorry affair.
There are some constants, however: Tolstoy's descriptive writing is fine throughout - convincingly setting the scene against which the characters play out their parts. As the second and third sketches develop, Tolstoy becomes more interested in the human side of the war - that is to say, its impact upon the emotions and behaviour of individuals. These range through humour, excitement, stupidity, cupidity, heroism, cowardice and so on. When the reader gets to the story of Volodya Kozeltsov, the loss of innocence and idealism which war brings is exposed in full.
Fine, gripping stuff.
G Rodgers
Tolstoy at War.......2001-06-21
The young Tolstoy took part in the defence of Sebastopol (1854-55) during the Crimean War, and these sketches (parts of which were written under fire) record his impressions of the drama and tumult of war. The first sketch, "Sebastopol in December" was published anonymously and attracted the attention of Tsar Alexander II and Turgenev. It is a short, emotionally patriotic piece recording the author's empathetic reaction to the bravery of the ordinary soldiers and sailors during the siege. "Sebastopol in May" is more ambitious and more ambiguous, recording the experiences of a group of Russian officers during an attack by the Allies on the 4th bastion of the defences, a position dreaded by everyone on the Russian side. There are no heroes in this piece, says Tolstoy, except "truth," as he depicts flawed human beings struggle to reconcile their petty vanities with the "higher" duties that have brought them to that terrible place. The final sketch, "Sebastopol in August," records the fall of Sebastopol through the eyes of the doomed Kozeltsov brothers and features some of the finest battle descriptions I have ever read. Tolstoy published it openly under his own name, and it seems to have helped him finally to choose literature rather than the army for his future career. "The Sebastopol Sketches" is a marvellous book not only for its own merits but also for the insight it gives us into a literary master trying out his wings for the first time.
a witness to many atrocities........2000-11-01
In 1855, Tolstoy was a soldier in the Crimean War and a witness to many atrocities. One that would stay with him was the image of two children killed in a shelling. His experiences during the war made up the contents of his work The Sebastopol Sketches, many of which he drafted on the battlefield.
The book is divide in three short stories stem from Tolstoy's military experience during the Crimean War: "Sebastopol in December," "Sebastopol in May," and "Sebastopol in August 1855."
During this time, the young Tolstoy gave himself over to the decadent life that was common for men of his class, catching a venereal disease as well as drinking heavily and sustaining enormous gambling debts which included the loss of some of his prized property at Yasnaya.
I really enjoy reading this book,Tolstoy's reactions to the fighting at Sebastopol are really crude, if you are interesting in The Crimean War but from the Russian side you may find what you are looking for in this great book
Books:
- Data Center Fundamentals
- Dear Mom Thank You For Everything
- Defiant Gardens: Making Gardens in Wartime
- Flags of Our Fathers
- Green Roofs: Ecological Design And Construction
- Gregor and the Code of Claw (Underland Chronicles, Book 5)
- Heyday: A Novel
- His Majesty's Dragon (Temeraire, Book 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Their Eyes Were Watching God
- Malicious Intent : A Writer's Guide to How Murderers, Robbers, Rapists and Other Criminals Think
- Chateaux of the Loire Valley
- CRC Handbook of Processing and Utilization in Agriculture, Part 1: Plant Products
- For Women Only: What You Need to Know about the Inner Lives of Men
- Microsoft .NET Distributed Applications: Integrating XML Web Services and .NET Remoting
- Lead a Horse to Murder: A Reigning Cats & Dogs Mystery
- Cottages by the Sea, The Handmade Homes of Carmel, America's First Artist Community
- Classic Interior Design: Using Period Features in Today's Home
- Sexuality and the Genetics of Bacteria
The Reason Why: The Story of the Fatal Charge of the Light Brigade
The Franco-Prussian War: The German Conquest of France in 1870-1871
The Sebastopol Sketches (Penguin Classics)
The Crimean War: 1854-1856 (Essential Histories)
Death or Glory: The Legacy of the Crimean War
