Crimean War

The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E... longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and the Little Belt. The Kattegat continues through Skagerrak into the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. The Baltic Sea is connected by man-made waterways to the White Sea via the White Sea Canal, and to the North Sea via the Kiel Canal. The Baltic Sea might be considered to be bordered on its northern edge by the Gulf of Bothnia, on its northeastern edge by the Gulf of Finland, and on its eastern edge by the Gulf of Riga. These various gulfs can also be considered part of the Baltic Sea. The Baltic Sea is a brackish inland sea, perhaps the largest body of brackish water in the world . The Baltic Sea occupies a basin formed by glacial erosion during the last few Ice Ages. The Baltic Sea is about 1,600 km long, an average of 193 km wide, and an average of 55 m deep.
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The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean... seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean Sea region of the Mediterranean. These waters separate eastern Europe and western Asia. The Black Sea is also connected to the Sea of Azov by the Strait of Kerch. The Black Sea has an area of 436,400 km , a maximum depth of 2,212 m , and a volume of 547,000 km . The Black Sea forms in an east-west trending elliptical depression which lies between Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine. It is constrained by the Pontic Mountains to the south, the Caucasus Mountains to the east and features a wide shelf to the northwest. The longest east-west extent is about 1,175 km. Important cities along the coast include Batumi, Burgas, Constanța, Giresun, Hopa, Istanbul, Kerch, Kherson, Mangalia, Năvodari, Novorossiysk, Odessa, Ordu, Poti, Rize, Samsun, Sevastopol, Sochi, Sukhumi, Trabzon, Varna, Yalta and Zonguldak.
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The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains in Bulgaria and... Serbia, while the name "Balkan" in Turkish means "a chain of wooded mountains", for which there is one of the theories for the name's origin. The region was established in Antiquity when the peninsula became widely accepted with the Thracian name "Peninsula of Haemus", which name also derives from the Balkan Mountains, with the name "Haemus Mountains" in the period.
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The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian... sea. It is home to the Caucasus Mountains, including Europe's highest mountain . Politically, the Caucasus region is separated between northern and southern parts. The northern portion of the Caucasus is known as the Ciscaucasus and the southern portion as the Transcaucasus. The Ciscaucasus contains the larger majority of the Greater Caucasus Mountain range, also known as the Major Caucasus mountains. It includes Southwestern Russia and northern parts of Georgia and Azerbaijan. The Transcaucasus is bordered on the north by Russia, on the west by the Black Sea and Turkey, on the east by the Caspian Sea, and on the south by Iran. It includes the Caucasus Mountains and surrounding lowlands. All of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia are in South Caucasus. The main Greater Caucasus range is generally perceived to be the dividing line between Asia and Europe.
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The wars of the Ottoman Empire in Europe are also sometimes referred to as the Ottoman Wars or as the Turkish Wars, particularly in older European... texts. After striking a blow to the weakened Byzantine Empire in 1356 , which provided it a basis for operations in Europe, the Ottoman Empire started its westward expansion into the European continent in the middle of the 14th century. Its first significant opponent was the young Serbian Empire, which was worn down by a series of campaigns, notably in the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, in which the leaders of both armies were killed, and which gained a central role in Serbian folklore as an epic battle and beginning of bad luck for Serbia.
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The Battle of Inkerman was fought during the Crimean War on November 5, 1854 between the allied armies of Britain and France against the Imperial... Russian Army. The battle broke the will of the Russian Army to defeat the allies in the field, and was followed by the Siege of Sevastopol. The role of troops fighting mostly on their own initiative due to the foggy conditions during the battle has earned the engagement the name "The Soldier's Battle". The allied armies of Britain, France, Sardinia, and the Ottoman Empire had landed in the Crimea on September 14, 1854, intending to capture the Russian naval base at Sevastopol. The allied armies fought off and defeated the Russian Army at the Battle of Alma, forcing them to retreat in some confusion toward the city. While the allies could have taken this opportunity to attack Sevastopol before it could be put into a proper state of defence, the allied commanders, British general Lord Raglan and the French commander Canrobert could not agree on a plan of attack. Instead, they resolved to march around the city, and put it under siege.
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The Battle of the Alma , which is usually considered the first battle of the Crimean War , took place just south of the River Alma in the Crimea. An... Anglo-French force under General St. Arnaud and Lord Raglan defeated General Menshikov's Russian army, which lost around 6,000 troops. The Anglo-French forces landed on the western coast of the Crimean peninsula some 35 miles north of Sevastopol, on the 13 September 1854, at Calamita Bay . Although disorganised and weakened by disease , the lack of opposition these landings met allowed a beachhead of four miles inland to be made. Six days later the two armies headed south. The march involved crossing three rivers. It was at the second of these, the River Alma, that the Russians decided to stand. Although the Russian Army was numerically inferior to the combined Anglo-French army, they occupied a natural defensive position. The British and French bivouacked on the northern bank, where the ground sloped gently down to the river.
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The Battle of Malakoff, during the Crimean War, was fought between the Allied and Russian armies on 7 September 1855 as a part of the Siege of... Sevastopol and resulted in the French army under General MacMahon successfully storming the Malakoff redoubt, though a simultaneous British attack on the Redan to the south of the Malakoff was repulsed. In one of the war's defining moments, the French zouave Eugène Libaut installed the French flag on the top of the Russian redoubt. Malakoff brought about the capture of Sevastopol after one of the most memorable sieges of the 19th century. The harbour of Sevastopol, formed by the estuary of the Chernaya, was protected against attack by sea not only by the Russian war-vessels, afloat and sunken, but also by heavy granite forts on the south side and by the defensive works. For the town itself and the Karabelnaya suburb the trace of the works had been laid down for years. The Malakoff, a great tower of stone, covered the suburb, flanked on either side by the Redan and the Little Redan. The town was covered by a line of works marked by the Flagstaff and central bastions, and separated from the Redan by the inner harbour. Lieut.-Col.
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The Thin Red Line was a military action by the Sutherland Highlanders red-coated 93rd Regiment at the Battle of Balaclava on 25 October 1854, during... the Crimean War. In this incident the 93rd aided by a small force of Royal Marines and some Turkish infantrymen, led by Sir Colin Campbell, routed a Russian cavalry charge. Previously Campbell’s Highland Brigade had taken part in actions at the Battle of Alma and the Siege of Sevastopol. There were more Victoria Crosses presented to the Highland soldiers at that time than at any other. In reality, the 93rd's survival was due to the caution of the Russian commander, who believed that such a small infantry force could not hope to hold out a full cavalry charge and thus must be a diversion and ordered his men to disengage. The event nonetheless was galvanized in the British press and became an icon of the qualities of the red coat in a war that was poorly managed and increasingly unpopular. The Russian cavalry force of 2,500 rode down the road to Balaklava.
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