Elizabeth Fee and Mary E. Garofalo selected the image and wrote the text together. In , under the authorization of Sidney Herbert, the Secretary of War, Florence Nightingale brought a team of 38 volunteer nurses to care for the British soldiers fighting in the Crimean War, which was intended to limit Russian expansion into Europe.
Nightingale and her nurses arrived at the military hospital in Scutari and found soldiers wounded and dying amid horrifying sanitary conditions.
Ten times more soldiers were dying of diseases such as typhus, typhoid, cholera, and dysentery than from battle wounds. Florence Nightingale at the hospital in Scutari, by Robert Riggs. The soldiers were poorly cared for, medicines and other essentials were in short supply, hygiene was neglected, and infections were rampant. Nightingale found there was no clean linen; the clothes of the soldiers were swarming with bugs, lice, and fleas; the floors, walls, and ceilings were filthy; and rats were hiding under the beds.
The death count was the highest of all hospitals in the region. One of Nightingale's first purchases was of Turkish towels; she later provided an enormous supply of clean shirts, plenty of soap, and such necessities as plates, knives, and forks, cups and glasses. Nightingale believed the main problems were diet, dirt, and drains—she brought food from England, cleaned up the kitchens, and set her nurses to cleaning up the hospital wards.
Thanks to new technologies such as the steamship and the electric telegraph, the Crimean War was the first major conflict where civilian journalists sent dispatches from the battlefield.
The image shows a ravine covered with cannon balls, an indication of the horror of the Crimean War. The war was also brought to life by photographers such as Roger Fenton and James Robertson, who produced hundreds of wet-plate images of battlefields and soldiers in uniform. Along with dashing their hopes of victory in Crimea, the Siege of Sevastopol also introduced the Russians to one of their most legendary authors. Leo Tolstoy spent several months serving in defense of the city as an artillery officer, and was one of the last people to evacuate during its fall on September 9, —which also happened to be his 27th birthday.
A decade later, the great author would once again draw on his Crimean War experiences while writing one of his most famous works—the epic novel War and Peace.
Allied soldiers also received aid from Mary Seacole, a Jamaican-born woman who traveled to Crimea and divided her time between selling supplies, food and medicine and treating the wounded on the front lines. Jamaican-born Mary Jane Seacole, of Scottish and Creole descent, traveled to Crimea to sell supplies, food and medicine and treat the wounded on the front lines. The British suffered 2, killed and the French 1, Russians losses amounted to 12, The winter of became a nightmare for the British.
On 14 November, a great storm swept the Crimea. The tents at the Allied camp outside Sevastopol were destroyed. Altogether, 30 vessels with their precious cargoes of medical supplies, food and clothing were damaged. To make matters worse, the onset of winter had turned the earthen track between Balaklava and Sevastopol into a quagmire.
Without adequate transport, the Commissariat was unable to move supplies to the men who needed them desperately. In the worst of the winter, with wheeled transport unable to negotiate the boggy road and most of the horses dead, soldiers were forced to walk the 19km 12 miles round journey to Balaklava in order to collect supplies.
The troops in the trenches outside Sevastopol soon ran short of rations, winter clothes, tents, medical supplies and fuel for cooking. Poorly clothed, lacking shelter and succumbing to disease, by February the British force had been reduced to 12, effective men.
There was nothing particularly new about these problems. Almost every British overseas expedition in history had suffered similar issues. But the Crimean War was the first campaign to be reported on by a war correspondent. Clearing British casualties from the battlefield of the Alma took two days due to the lack of ambulances, Short of shipping space, the British had brought only a few ambulances with them to the Crimea.
With the transport animals dying of hunger in ever growing numbers, even these were not available to take the sick and wounded to Balaklava, where they could embark for Scutari, a suburb of Constantinople. Things got so bad that the British were forced to borrow French mules or use their cavalry horses to carry patients. Those who managed to get back to Balaklava, and then survive the voyage to Constantinople now Istanbul , found the hospitals at Scutari ill-equipped and the medical staff overwhelmed.
Men sometimes lay untreated for weeks. While recognising that the lack of a metalled road between Balaklava and Sevastopol had been a factor in the supply breakdown, the reports also criticised the government for not supplying adequate equipment and materials.
The inquiry also blamed senior Army officers for delays in distributing stores. In response to the findings, the government reorganised military administration, implemented plans for a Land Transport Corps and started building a railway at Balaklava. With these measures and the coming of Spring, the supply situation gradually improved. The revelations from the Crimea also prompted the nursing work of Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole.
Florence and her nurses improved the medical and sanitary arrangements at Scutari by setting up food kitchens, treating the wounded, cleaning the soldiers and washing their linen and clothes.
Their work in the Crimea set the standards for modern professional nursing. Born in Jamaica to a Creole mother and a Scottish Army officer, Mary Seacole had travelled to London late in to volunteer her services as an Army nurse. Rejected by the War Office and Florence Nightingale, she paid her own passage to the war. Famous for her homemade cures, she frequently rode out to dispense medicine and food to those in need. She was often on the front line and frequently under fire.
Although some of the Army doctors regarded her as a 'quack', others were more supportive and believed in her cures. Most of these were based on the use of traditional herbs, poultices and therapeutic rubs. If the soldiers could not afford to pay her, Mary subsidised them from her own pocket. In the spring of , preparations were resumed for the capture of Sevastopol.
After a lengthy bombardment and the capture of some outworks, an assault was ordered for 18 June. The British, many of whom were recently-arrived and inexperienced reinforcements, attacked a strongpoint known as the Redan. Forced to advance under heavy fire over yards of open ground, they suffered over 1, casualties before falling back.
On 8 September , the Allies attacked again. For a second time, the British failed to take the Redan. The plan is to push back Allied forces and end the siege of the city. The result is an Allied victory forcing a Russian retreat. The Russians evacuate the city and blow up forts as well as sink their ships.
They are unsuccessful. October The Ottomans are in desperate need of reserves in Kars as they are running out of supplies. Due to treacherous weather conditions, reinforcements are unable to reach the garrison. The Russians are shocked by the conditions. Treaty of Paris. Issues of Russian expansionism and the importance of the Ottoman Empire would however continue to be a feature in geopolitical events. Jessica Brain is a freelance writer specialising in history. Based in Kent and a lover of all things historical.
On 12th May , Florence Nightingale was born.
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