Description

The Crimean War, fought by the unusual alliance of Great Britain, France, and the tiny Italian Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia alongside Turkey against Tsarist Russia was the first 'modern' war, not only for its vast scale (France mobilised a million men), but also the technologies involved; from iron-clad battleships to rifled artillery, the electric telegraph and steam.In Britain, the Crimea War is best-remembered for the blunder of the Charge of the Light Brigade, the fearful conditions in the trench at the front, and the ministry of Florence Nightingale. The Grand Crimean Central Railway was the brainchild of two Victorian Railway Magnates, Samuel Morton Peto and Thomas Brassey: in order to alleviate the suffering at the front they volunteered to build at cost a steam railway linking the Allied camps at Sevastopol to their supply base at Balaclava. In the face of much official opposition, the railway was built and operational in a matter of months, supplying hundreds of tons of food, clothing and material to the starving and freezing men in their trenches. It was a railway that won a war and saved countless thousands of lives.