Essential Guide to Edexcel GCE History: The Experience of Warfare in Britain 1854-1929

Crimea 1853-1855

Numbers of men:

• British Field Army had 28,000 men at the first battle, reinforcements did arrive.
• Combined, the allies outnumbered Russia (63,000 vs 33,000).
• 664 men in the Light Brigade.

Terms of service:

• Soldiers signed up for 21 years.
• Pension of 1 shilling a day.
• Half of the army were from Scotland and Ireland to escape poverty.

Discipline:

• Flogging up to 50 strokes (1200 in the 1820’s).
• 3000 soldiers in military prison at one time.
• 1 out of 8 soldiers arrested every month for being drunk.
• 2000 men per year deserted.

Purchase of commission:

• Landed or titled families.
• Lieutenant - £1000.
• Lieutenant Colonel - £7000.
• Half of officers bought promotions.

Lord Raglan:

• Hadn’t been at war since 1815.
• Stayed in the Crimea for the whole of the war.

Duke of Wellington:

• War hero.
• Blocked reform of the army.
• No one would go against his word.
• He died in 1852.

Weather:

• Froze tracks.
• Gave animal nowhere to graze.
• Supplies couldn’t get to the front line.
• Severe cold caused the deaths of: 9000 fit men and 23000 unfit men.

Medical Issues in the Crimea

The initial medical support:

• 1853 – 8 doctors in the Crimea.
• 80% of men died of disease.
• 1854-1855 winter, 1/3 of the British Army died of disease.

Nurses:

• The doctors still did all the operations and stitching etc, the nurses were basically a support basis.

• Florence Knightingale (middle class) went to Scutari Hospital, 4^th November1854.
• Florence Knightingale controlled 39 nurses out of 230.
• Mary Stanley (protestant) controlled 47 nurses, more than Knightingale.
• Mary Seacole (muletto, funded herself) set up the British Hotel.
• Mary Seacole was the only one on the front lines out of the 3.
• Only Mary Seacole had any form of medical expertise.

Sanitary Commission:

• March 1855.

• Scutari Death rates: 42% in March 1855, 2% in June 1855.
• Basic sanitary improvements.
• Floors replaced.
• Double rows of mattresses replaced with single ones.

Media

William Howard Russell

• First true war correspondent.
• Critical of influential figures.
• Worked for the Times, very critical of Raglan.
• There was appropriate form of government censorship in place.
• The Times was read by the middle classes, who could influence politics and the war.

Boer War 1899-1902

Why the Boer War started

History of the tension:

• Britain took the Cape Colony in 1814-1815 after the Napoleonic Wars. Gradually moved up and took the whole of South Africa.
• Slavery abolished in British Empire in 1833, angered Boers.
• Boers want independence.
• Britain wanted trade routes across Africa and to keep empire.
• Britain wanted to protect India.

Zulu Wars 1970s:

• Britain fought with Boers to overturn the last of the Zulus.
• Britain confirmed occupation of the northern states.
• Boers give Britain sovereignty (ownership) over their area.

First Boer War 1880-1881:

• Boers demanded independence after the Zulu Wars.

Battle of Majuba Hill during the First Boer War:

• Boers defeated 400 Brits and pushed them out.
• Gladstone conceded to demands for the Boers to occupy Transvaal and Orange Free State, although Britain still…