A lone Russian woman, Daria Mikhailova, cared for the wounded with a cart and supplies purchased at her own expense. Daria was the 18-year-old daughter of a Sevastopol sailor killed at the battle of Sinope. At the time of the invasion, she was working as a laundress in the Sevastopol naval garrison. According to popular legend, she sold everything she had inherited from her father, bought a horse and cart from a Jewish trader, cut her hair and dressed up as a sailor, and went with the army to the Alma, where she distributed water, food and wine to the wounded soldiers, even tearing her own clothes to make dressings for their wounds, which she cleaned with vinegar. The soldiers saw through Daria’s disguise, but she was allowed to carry on with her heroic work in the dressing station at Kacha and then as a nurse in the hospitals of Sevastopol during the siege. Legends spread about the ‘heroine of Sevastopol’. She came to symbolize the patriotic spirit of the common people as well as the Russian female ‘spirit of sacrifice’ that poets such as Alexander Pushkin had romanticized. Not knowing her family name, the soldiers in the hospitals of Sevastopol called her Dasha Sevastopolskaia, and that is how she has gone down in history. In December 1854 she was awarded the Gold Medal for Zeal by the Tsar, becoming the only Russian woman of non-noble origin ever to receive that honour; the Empress gave her a silver cross with the inscription ‘Sevastopol’. In 1855 Daria married a retired wounded soldier and opened a tavern in Sevastopol, where she lived until her death in 1892 (H. Rappaport,
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The engineering department of the War Ministry had failed to implement a plan of 1834 to reinforce the city’s defensive works, claiming lack of finance, though at the same time millions were spent on the fortification of Kiev, several hundred kilometres from the border. Afraid of an Austrian attack through south-west Russia, Nicholas I had kept a large reserve of troops in the Kiev area, but saw no need to do so in Sevastopol since he dismissed the danger of an attack by the Turks or the Western powers in the Black Sea. He had overlooked the huge significance of steamships, which made it possible to carry large armies by sea.
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According to a Russian source, the Tatar spies were shot on the orders of the British when the truth was discovered (S. Gershel’man,
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A pejorative Turkish term for a Balkan Christian.
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After the Russian annexation of the Crimea, the Giray clan had fled to the Ottoman Empire. In the early nineteenth century the Girays had served as administrators for the Ottomans in the Balkans and had entered into military service. The Ottoman Empire had various military units made up of Crimean émigrés. They had fought against the Russians in 1828 – 9, and were part of the Turkish forces on the Danubian front in 1853 – 4. Mussad Giray was stationed in Varna. It was there that he persuaded the allied commanders to take him with them to the Crimea to rally Tatar support for their invasion. On 20 September the allies sent Mussad Giray back to the Balkans, praising him for his efforts and considering that his job was done. After the Crimean War, the French awarded him with a Légion d’honneur medal.
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Balaklava (originally Bella Clava: ‘beautiful port’) was named by the Genoese, who built much of the port and saw it thrive until their expulsion by the Turks in the fifteenth century. Plundered by the Turks, the town remained a virtual ruin until the nineteenth century, although there was a monastery in the hills above the town and some Greek soldiers stationed there, who were expelled by the allies.
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A hot drink made with honey and spices.
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Defensive tall wicker baskets filled with earth.
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A Turkish term for a woman who is dressed improperly. In the Ottoman period it was used to describe non-Muslim women and had sexual connotations, implying that the woman ran a brothel or was herself a prostitute.
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It is something of a mystery as to why the Russians, faced by such a tiny defence force, did not make a quicker and more powerful attack against Balaklava. Various Russian commanders later claimed that they lacked sufficient troops to capture Balaklava, that the operation had been a reconnaissance, or that it was an attempt to divert the allied forces from Sevastopol rather than capture the port. But these were excuses for their failure, which perhaps could be explained by their lack of confidence against the allied armies on an open battlefield after the defeat of the Russian forces at the Alma.
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