Storming Sevastopol - The Crimean War #5 - Extra History

outside sevastopol January 1854 each day begins and ends with artillery with Allied ships firing on the fortresses protecting sevastopol ashore more guns entrenched in Earthworks pound the rigid forts protecting the city the most feared of which known as the Malikov has a stone tower giving its battery of guns a panoramic view from there the Russian guns answer this is a war of artillery and mud of Sharpshooters and trench rates one where bodies lie unburied in no man's land but the real killers are not the Cannons or the rifles it's the disease the lack of food the poor tents that let the rain in the lack of resupply that sees troops still wearing summer coats in Winter wearing blankets as their uniforms rot off their bodies there's no wood or charcoal for fires men sleep in huddles so they don't freeze overnight forget the Russians the Allies have a new term for their greatest enemies General January and general February [Music] would you like to see a full episode dedicated to the military machinations that caused The Charge of the Light Brigade once you finish this one well with nebula first you can see it right now a full week early but more on that later by January of 1855 the British public was up in arms they'd read reports of troops dying of exposure outside sevastopol of rations that rotted on the docks of balaclava partially due to bureaucratic red tape and partially because the roads were bad and there were no horses while the French had issued their troops sheepskin coats British soldiers by contrast froze to death then this process of public opinion turning against the war accelerated during the siege of sevastopol because the nature of the war at this point meant that there were fewer bigger battles to report on and journalists instead turned toward reporting on Army scandals British leaders were so worried about these press reports especially the reports written by William Russell who Lord Raglan claimed was a traitor aiding the Russians they decided to combat the printed word with the power of the image they dispatched the photographer Roger Fenton to take patriotic photos of the conflict traveling in a special coach that served as his wheeled dark room Fenton photographed subjects that included famous battlefields prom and personalities and a haunting still life the Valley of Death showing a collection of cannonballs lying along a sunken Road he also engaged in outright propaganda photographing soldiers in warm jackets and hats that the Army did not actually manage to issue until spring yet the spin was too late people had enough in late January 1500 londoners protested the war by barraging pedestrians buses upper class coach goers and police with snowballs public criticism led to the conservative party losing a vote of no confidence and being swept out of government replaced by the highly anti-russian Lord Palmerston and then an unbelievable thing started to happen civilians became so sick of hearing about military failures that in perhaps the most Victorian move imaginable they decided to just step in themselves and fix the problems newspapers collected money to buy the Army Food and medicine and women across Britain knit balaclava hats for the soldiers meanwhile a group of Railway Engineers solved the commissariats logistics Problem by by building the grand Crimean Central Railway a rail line that could Ferry supplies from the port of balaclava up the 600-foot plateau to the siegeworks around sevastopol similarly Telegraph companies laid lines all the way to Crimea so by 1855 generals could communicate directly with political leaders and War news arrived in Paris and London within hours responding to the lack of Medical Care London hospital administrator Florence Nightingale who I'm sure will get her own episode of our show in the future trained and deployed nurses to treat men evacuated to Constantinople but she wasn't the only one Mary sequel who you can see our series about here did much of the same closer to the lines in fact the Russians had a similar nursing program run by Nikolai pirigov a medical Professor with links to the royal family an innovator pierogov changed Battlefield medicine forever he invented a triage system that ensured doctors worked on men that could be saved insisted that all operations be carried out under anesthetic pioneered less dramatic amputations and instituted the use of blaster castes yet while Russia's Supply and medical situation was Bleak the war didn't have the same impact on their public's opinion at home or in France for that matter see both were essentially dictatorships at this point that censored their press with secret police forces that hauled citizens in for speaking negatively about the war even in private State newspapers claimed that Russian defeats were tactical withdrawals really The public's one view of combat in sevastopol came from a trio of short stories written by artillery officer Leo Tolstoy published after the siege's conclusion in them Tolstoy took the reader on a tour around the besieged city describing greedy details like the necessity of stepping over rotting horses the shriek of cannonballs or the horrors of the amputation Ward these sevastopol sketches established tolstoy's literary reputation across Europe and he would later return to several of the incidents when crafting his Epic Novel War and Peace yet despite the propaganda and silencing of descent it was still clear to average Russia that the war wasn't going well rumors swept the country that the Czar had declared that anyone serving in the Army would be freed from serfdom and as a result surfs flooded the cities forming mobs that demanded to be enlisted as soldiers ironically these hyper patriotic uprisings occasionally had to be put down by the very army they were trying to join as the war dragged on the Russian government increasingly began to worry about a general Uprising not only had prices spiked due to the Allies economic Warfare and shutting off the Baltic trade the wars drain on men and livestock especially horses damaged Russian agriculture rumors circulated that Russia was losing the war and that the Tsar had put them in a hopeless situation so on March 2nd 1855 when Citizens first saw the Black Flag over the palace signaling the czar's death it was popularly believed that Nicholas had killed himself in a way they were right in the last weeks of his life Nicholas had grown increasingly regretful about starting the war and despondent over Russia is Inevitable Defeat ailing from pneumonia brought on by the flu to his inner circle it appeared the Tsar simply stopped fighting the illness hopes of a quick post-mortem piece were dashed however when his son Alexander II continued the war though really things were slowly winding down with winter over Sardinia having joined the Allies Austria threatening to do likewise and an Allied Fleet once again threatening Saint Petersburg there was simply no hope for Russian Victory the final blow came on September 8th when a mass Allied attack smashed into the Ridge Top forts it was bloody and close the first waves were repelled but on the second wave ezwav planted the French flag on the ruined Tower of the malakov by February 1856 diplomats were hammering out a treaty to end hostilities the terms of which were surprisingly favorable to Russia they would return all territory taken as well as returning a piece of territory to maldavia Moldavia and wallachia were made functionally independent under the ottoman banner and the Ottoman Empire joined the concert of Europe as for the Black Sea it was demilitarized neither the Ottomans nor Russia could keep Naval forces or establish military posts there a provision that only held for a few decades but while it didn't change much on the map the war served as a wake-up call for the major Powers the Russians took it as a cue that to survive they had to modernize witnessing the effectiveness of British and French armies of free men Tsar Alexander II went on to reform the state and abolish serfdom and deciding Russia was not well placed to defend Pacific territory he sold Alaska to the United States the Ottoman Empire under Financial pressure from its allies granted more or less full equality to religious minorities and launched into technological reforms of its own although oddly enough the British push for reform failed conservative Aristocrats cast any criticism of the military as unpatriotic and soon the 1857 Uprising in India shifted public debate away from Crimea yet Perhaps the war's greatest Legacy is how it taught the world how to duct a modern war trenches Rail lines rifles and sea mines those were the future for those that would see it because military observers from across the globe witnessed the action first hand including American officer George B McClellan who would go on to try and fail to create his own version of The Siege of sevastopol during the American Civil War actually as an out of side regard for French units was so high in the U.S that both sides of the Civil War would form zuav regiments essentially going into battle cosplaying as French soldiers humans are weird so ironically a war that started over the custody of holy sites a concern that seemed almost medieval would end up showing us what modern military conflict looked like from military Rail lines to war correspondents filing their stories via Telegraph to Modern military hospitals and trench warfare the Crimean War truly foreshadowed the wars of the future even those sadly still raging today of course there's always more history to talk about in fact right now over on nebula we just released our Blow by blow deconstruction of exactly how The Charge of the Light Brigade happened a full week earlier than it's going to be available on YouTube in it we dissect how the most famous poem inspired actually doesn't tell you the whole story a vague order made due to military inexperience miscommunicated exacerbated by Battlefield terrain and filtered through a tangled mess of overweaning aristocratic privilege and personal feuds that is what put in motion what came next Russian guns Roar not only from ahead but from left and right sending men and horses tumbling the Light Brigade speeds up from a trot to a Cantor then more batteries join the barrage the horsemen break into a full Gallop Against All Odds and all reason and we're not the only folks releasing stuff way early over there because with the help of a bunch of our crater friends we came up with an awesome feature called nebula first where you get access to a ton of great content from creators like Jacob Geller Becky Stern legal eagle and just tons more all of whom post their videos earlier than you'd ever see them on YouTube and of course we release all of our extra history series episodes at least a full week early in ad free with nebula first but that's really just the beginning because nebula is also home to a ton of exclusive original content that you just can't find anywhere else I've made some myself Jeff and I both made nebula classes in our areas of expertise and more originals from a ton of your favorite creators are getting released all the time heck even one of my absolute favorite video essayists Lindsay Ellis is now releasing all of her content exclusively on nebula I watched them the instant they drop they are great I I cannot wait for more now if you sign up for nebula using our link below you actually get our discounted price which works out to around two dollars and fifty cents a month for an annual plan which not only is like 40 off the regular price but it's also less than a cup of coffee and any reasonable establishment and using that link really does help support myself and the rest of the EC crew continue to make the content that you love watching and that we love making and I know I've said it before and I hope it doesn't come off as pedantic but thank you so much for that it's a huge help and yeah I really hope to see you over there on nebula real soon because I truly believe you're really gonna love watching it what if I told you that Ahmed Ziad Turk Angela valenciana arcolyte games Casey Musta Dominic valenciana Joseph blame kuyakoi and Skyler Holmes were all legendary patrons I'm not kidding [Music]

Channel: Extra History

Views: 100,204

Keywords: extra history, history lesson, learn history, world history, history channel, documentry, history lectures, history documentary, history explained, educational videos, civilization, history, lecture, documentary history ancient, weird history, explained, animated history, animated, animated stories, edutainment, lesson, study, educational, home learning, ancient history, study history, russian history, french history, british history, turkish history, france, russia, turkey, Britain, war

Id: -tHq9S0rT9s

Length: 11min 52sec (712 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 08 2023