A messy book about a messy war. Edgerton (Anthropology and
Psychiatry/UCLA School of Medicine) has written histories of the
Zulu, the Ashanti, and the Japanese - perhaps not the best
background for a social history of the Crimean War (1853-56). The
author correctly points out that this conflict between Russia and
the Allies (Britain, France, Turkey, and Sardinia) was the most
widespread armed engagement in Europe during the century 1815-1914.
He also accurately notes that the Crimean War intensified warfare
with the introduction of new technologies, including the railroad,
the telegraph, newspaper coverage, innovative rifles, exploding
shells, battle steamships, trench warfare, and better techniques in
hospital care. Certainly no one would argue with his contention
that the majority of deaths were due to sickness and disease.
However, that's about all Edgerton gets right. He commits frequent
errors of historical fact on the order of claiming "over 1 million"
deaths in a war whose casualties are usually estimated from 500,000
to 800,000. More thematic problems include his attempt to claim
Crimea as the most horrific conflict in modern history (despite two
subsequent and bloody world wars) by excessively focusing on
soldiers' battlefield cruelty and drunken debauchery - behavior
hardly unique to Crimea - as well as such other wartime perennials
as vermin, disease, and prostitution. The text is repetitive and
poorly organized. And as for Edgerton's summation of a conflict
that caused the breakdown of the Concert of Europe, ended a
European peace that had lasted almost 40 years, led to four wars
altering the balance of power, and prolonged a decaying Ottoman
Empire, all with dire future results: the ostensibly
anthropological insight that "everyone involved in it responded in
much the same ways" because they were "all equally human" just
doesn't cut it. This account has little of worth to contribute to
Crimean War studies. (Kirkus Reviews)
In 1853, the Crimean War began as an intensely romantic affair,
with officers and soldiers alike taking to the fray with phrases
like "death or glory" on their tongues and in their hearts. Nothing
stands out more starkly than the toughness of the soldiers who
fought so savagely, seldom complained, and only rarely collapsed
under war's terrible and relentless stresses. Acts of astonishing
bravery, many of them by doctors, women, and children, were
commonplace. But so was callousness and brutality. The war soon
became an impersonal, long-range killing match that resembled, far
in advance, the trench warfare of World War I. It became a showcase
for bad generalship and bureaucratic bungling. Men, women, and
children died of hunger, cold, and disease many times more often
than they were killed by rifles or the most massive artillery
barrages the world have ever seen."Death or Glory" is not a mere
battle chronology; rather, it is a narrative immersion into
conditions during what became arguably the most tragically botched
military campaign, from all sides, in modern European history--and
the most immediate precedent to the American Civil War. Edgerton
paints a vivid picture of the war, from the Charge of the Light
Brigade and the heroics of Florence Nightingale to the British
soldiers who, simply unable to take the misery, starvation, and
cholera any longer, took their own lives. He describes how leaders
failed their men again and again; how women and children became
unseen heroes; how the universally despised Turks fought their own
war; and, finally and perhaps most importantly, why so many fought
so bravely in what seemed a futile cause. By comparing these
experiences with those of Northernand Southern soldiers during the
more well-documented American Civil War, Edgerton contributes a new
perspective on how soldiers in the mid-19th century experienced
war, death, and glory.
General
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