Crimea: The Last Crusade

Beschrijving van de uitgever

The Crimean War dominated the mid nineteenth century, killed at least 800,000 men and pitted Russia against a formidable coalition of Britain, France and the Ottoman Empire. It was a war for territory, provoked by fear that if the Ottoman Empire were to collapse then Russia could control a huge swathe of land from the Balkans to the Persian Gulf. But it was also a war of religion, driven by a fervent, populist and ever more ferocious belief held by the Tsar Nicholas I that this was a crusade, the fulfilment of Russia's destiny to rule all Orthodox Christians and control the Holy Land. And it was a war based on hatreds and hypocrisy, specifically the overwhelming Russophobia that swept much of Europe.

Crimea: The Last Crusade reimagines this extraordinary war, in matys the stakes could not have been higher. It was both a recognizable modern conflict - the first to be extensively photographed, the first to employ the telegraph, the first 'newspaper war' - and a traditional one, with illiterate soldiers, amateur officers and huge casualties caused by disease.