Why the Crimean War Matters

The New York Times ^ | 08 July 2011 | GARY J. BASS

[Palter]

The Crimean War was the first major war to be covered by professional foreign correspondents, who reported on the disastrous blundering of commanders and the horrors of medical treatment at the battlefront. Today, we remember fragmentary stories: the charge of the Light Brigade, symbolizing the blundering; Florence Nightingale, for the medical treatment. But the real war has faded away, eclipsed by the two vastly worse world wars that were to come.

Still, the Crimean War — in which three-quarters of a million soldiers and untold multitudes of civilians perished — shattered almost four decades of European peace. It inflamed Russia’s rivalry with the Ottoman Empire over the Balkans, providing the tinder for World War I. And by thwarting Russian’s ambitions in Europe, it made possible the fatal rise of Germany.

In “The Crimean War: A History,” Orlando Figes restores the conflict — which predated the American Civil War by eight years — as “a major turning point” in European and Middle Eastern history. He argues forcefully that it was “the earliest example of a truly modern war — fought with new industrial technologies, modern rifles, steamships and railways, novel forms of logistics and communication like the telegraph, important innovations in military medicine and war reporters and photographers directly on the scene.” The ferocious yearlong siege of Sevastopol “was a precursor of the industrialized trench warfare” of World War I.

The war itself was initiated when religious squabbles over holy places in the Ottoman towns of Jerusalem and Bethlehem prompted Russia to march troops into present-day Romania, threatening the partition of Ottoman lands. In response, the Ottoman Empire declared war, and Britain and France rallied to its defense. The devastating combat around the Black Sea proved unbearable for Russia: two-thirds of the soldiers killed in the war were Russian.

[Palter]

And the book traces the roots of many modern crises: Britain, trying to create buffer zones against Russia, occupies Afghanistan and considers seizing Baghdad, where a British diplomat blithely proclaims that Sunnis and Shiites “could always be played off against each other.”

[x]

That is one way to sell a book.

But if the Crimean War matters, where's the fun in being a "Crimean War buff"?

[Seizethecarp]

Fascinating parallels...but some differences.

“The Last Crusade” by Russia against the Ottomans...with the Brits defending Muslim control of Jerusalem by the Ottomans against the Orthodox Christian Russians!

[Elendur]

this article is breathtaking, even for the NY Times!

“The war itself was initiated when religious squabbles over holy places in the Ottoman towns of Jerusalem and Bethlehem prompted Russia to march troops into...”

“It inflamed Russia’s rivalry with the Ottoman Empire over the Balkans, “

...totally ignoring the hundreds of years of invasions by the “Ottoman Empire” (MUSLIM CALIPHATE).
Jerusalem is merely an “Ottoman town”, because they conquered it fair and square?

and what about the 70,000 brave Serbs who died defending Kosovo? or the Valiant Polish King who saved Vienna,
from becoming another “Ottoman town”?

if not for them (and the courage of Russian Orthodox soldiers too), Europe could well have become “Eurabia”, long ago. And American would never have been founded as a Christian Nation.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2741122/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2741171/posts?page=15#15

[tanuki]

Just ordered the book on kindle. Thanks for the heads-up!

[ADemocratNoMore]

bttt

[SunkenCiv]

· GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach · · join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic · subscribe ·
	Antiquity Journal  & archive  Archaeologica  Archaeology  Archaeology Channel  BAR  Bronze Age Forum  Discovery  Dogpile  Eurekalert  Google  LiveScience  Mirabilis.ca  Nat Geographic  PhysOrg  Science Daily  Science News  Texas AM  Yahoo  Excerpt, or Link only?	Thanks Palter. Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.
· History topic · history keyword · archaeology keyword · paleontology keyword · · Science topic · science keyword · Books/Literature topic · pages keyword ·