It is one of the ironies of the Crimean War that Sidney Herbert, the British Secretary at War in 1852 – 5, was the nephew of this senior Russian general and Anglophile. Mikhail was the son of Count Semyon Vorontsov, who lived for forty-seven years in London, most of them after his retirement as Russia’s ambassador. Semyon’s daughter Catherine married George Herbert, the Earl of Pembroke. A general in the war against Napoleon, Mikhail was appointed governor-general of New Russia in 1823. He did a great deal to establish Odessa, where he built a magnificent palace, promoted the development of steamships on the Black Sea and fought in the war against the Turks in 1828 – 9. Following the Anglophile traditions of his family, Vorontsov built a fabulous Anglo-Moorish palace at Alupka on the Crimea’s southern coast, where the British delegation to the Yalta Conference stayed in 1945.
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There was no Russian Bible – only a Psalter and a Book of Hours – until the 1870s.
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One of them now stands in front of the City Duma building on the Primorsky Boulevard.
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Their determination was given more religious force when Musa Pasha was later killed by a shell that landed directly on him while he was conducting evening prayers for divine intervention to save Silistria.
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After it was amputated (without anaesthetic) Raglan had asked to have the arm so that he could retrieve a ring given to him by his wife. The incident had sealed his reputation for personal bravery.
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The first Zouave battalions were recruited from a Berber mountain tribe called the Zouaoua. Later Zouave battalions of Frenchmen adopted their Moorish costumes and green turbans.
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A tall shako, named after Prince Albert, who supposedly designed it.
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Events would prove them right. On 8 August Napier launched an allied attack against the Russian fortress at Bomarsund in the Aaland Islands, between Sweden and Finland, mainly with the aim of involving Sweden in the war. The support of Swedish troops was necessary for any move on the Russian capital. After a heavy bombardment that reduced the fortress to rubble, the Russian commander and his 2,000 men surrendered to the allies. But Bomarsund was a minor victory – it was not Kronstadt or St Petersburg – and the Swedes were not impressed, despite strong approaches from the British. Until the allies committed more serious resources to the campaign in the Baltic, there was no real prospect of involving Sweden in the war, let alone threatening St Petersburg. But the allies were divided on the significance of the Baltic. The French were far less keen on it than the British – Palmerston in particular, who dreamed of taking Finland as part of his broader plans to dismantle the Russian Empire – and they were reluctant to commit more troops to a war aim which they saw as serving mainly British interests. For Napoleon, the campaign in the Baltic could be no more than a minor diversion to prevent the Tsar from deploying an even bigger army in the Crimea, the main focus of their war campaign.
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The British army had allowed four wives per company to go with their men to Gallipoli. Provided for by the army (‘on the strength’) the women performed cooking and laundry services.
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The first British casualty of the fighting was Sergeant Priestley of the 13th Light Dragoons, who lost a leg. Evacuated to England, he was later presented with a cork leg by the Queen (A. Mitchell,
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Having given the order to advance, Raglan had taken the incredible decision to ride up ahead and get a better view of the attack. With his staff, Raglan crossed the Alma and occupied a position on an exposed spur of Telegraph Hill, well ahead of the British troops and practically adjacent to the Russian skirmishers. ‘It seems marvellous how one escaped,’ wrote Captain Gage, a member of Raglan’s staff, from the Alma the next day. ‘Shells burst close to me, round shot passed to the right, left & over me. Minié and musket whistled by my ears, horses & riders of Ld R’s staff (where I was) fell dead & wounded by my side, & yet I am quite safe & can hardly realize what I have gone thro” (NAM 1968 – 07-484 – 1, ‘Alma Heights Battle Field, Sept. 21st 1854’).
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