Crimean War 1853-1856

Crimean War 1853-1856
The Crimean War was fought between October 1853 and March 1856. Imperial Russia was keen to expand into the ailing Ottoman Empire, and this aggression drew in Britain and France, intent on maintaining the balance of power in Europe, and restoring their national prestige, respectively.

The Kingdom of Sardinia, keen to gain recognition in the eyes of Britain and France, joined the alliance, while Greece attempted unsuccessfully to make gains from the Ottoman Empire.
The war saw the great powers of the age funnel men and materiel into a barely ordered organisational nightmare, punctuated by slaughters that presaged those of the American Civil War less than a decade later.

It also saw ancient foes in Britain and France fighting alongside each other less than half a century after the Napoleonic Wars tore across the Continent. Officers who had faced each other in the first half of the century now found themselves comrades in arms.