However whilst on a short break to make a nice cup of coffee I realised something that had been vexing me. Whilst I admit that the Civil War was in many respects a landmark in the ways war was waged, but many will argue it was still fought with Napoleonic tactics, it seems that the writers choose to overlook a conflict that preceded the US Civil War by a decade. The Crimean War appears to have become an unfashionable war and it seems overlooked unjustly. Considering why this was I noted several pre-conceptions I held about the war that I wanted to examine:
The Crimean War was short.
I don't know where this came from, the war lasted from 1853 to 56, only a year and some change shorter than the US Civil War. Admittedly compared the the Napoleonic Wars that came before it this was a brief clash, but in comparison it lasted almost as long as the First World War.
The Crimean War was not as bloody as the surrounding conflicts of the Nineteenth Century.
Hardly, with around 400,000 killed between the warring nations and a far more daunting figure recorded as wounded or otherwise incapacitated it was a costly clash. The US Civil War tragically resulted in an estimated 600,000 dead, whereas the casualties from two decades of Napoleonic wars are unlikely to ever be more accurately totalled beyond a rough estimate at over 2 million. However despite being overshadowed by these more bloody wars, for three years of conflict the figure is certainly harrowing.
The Crimean War was localised.
Six different Nations took part in the war, although that does include the more minor Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia (a much forgotten power prior to Italian unification) and Bulgaria which was very much a client state of the Tsar. There were also foreign legions from half a dozen other nations serving under the flags of the combatants. The war was fought predominantly on the Crimean Peninsular but conflicts also occurred on Asia-Minor and the British Fleet sailed up the Baltic and besieged Russian ports and defences the other side of the European continent. Whilst it could not be called a world war, it was fought in several diverse locations with many nations troops coming in contact.
The War was fought with Napoleonic methods.
Certainly the battle tactics employed would not have looked strange to the Napoleonic general. However many of the technological advancements that are hailed as revolutionary in the US Civil War are on display in this conflict. The rifled musket was becoming the standard weapon for the French and British, and the other nations were adopting advances in musketry (such as the Nessler bullets that improved smooth-bore muskets), in fact many of the weapons sold to the Confederate forces in the Civil War by France may in fact have been surplus from their Crimean armies. Explosive shells for artillery and naval guns became common in all but the Turkish fleets, these were a shocking development that produced a public outcry when the Russians first used them on the outclassed Turkish navy. This terrible new weapon helped sway public opinion in Britain towards the war. The British and French both used “Floating Batteries”, essentially slow moving Ironclads that were designed for sieges but which cannot help but be seen as the precursor to the Merrimac and Monitor. There were also frequent instances of the form of entrenched and defensive warfare that would dominate the early 20th century, used in the field rather than just in sieges.
So in conclusion I am struck by two thoughts: The first being how wrong my preconceptions were about the Crimean war (a period I genuinely believed I knew a reasonable amount about) and secondly the extent that the Crimean War stood as much on the cusp between two ways of waging war as the US Civil War, was this the moment where our method of waging war transitioned? And if so why has it been banished into obscurity?
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