"Books about the Crimean War" Topic

Hello everyone,
I have a few books on certain episodes and especially on the uniforms of the Crimean War, but I realize that I have nothing on the whole conflict, I would like a book with stories and maps, orders of battle and especially the numbers of men in each unit in each battle for all belligerents, these kinds of books with this kind of information that we find for many other conflicts.

Which one is the most precise, the most in-depth?

Thanks

I have tried to find what you ask for and never even come close. Lots of info on British, some on French, Sardinian & Russian but little for Turks.

Expecting numbers in units for each battle is unrealistic in this war. Even if you restrict your studies to the battles in the Crimea itself and ignore the wider conflict areas you have to accept that this data was not collected or recorded for most armies of the period. You may get lucky and find unit histories for some of it (British mostly but French should be available too) but what Russian records there were were likely destroyed when Sebastopol was abandoned, the few that have surfaced seem to have been taken from individual officers notes and diaries.

Most contemporary studies of the war simply ignore the Turks, treating them with undeserved contempt, but even those more sympathetic authors paint a picture of an organisation in chaos and riddled with self-interest & corruption. You need to bear in mind though that what westerners considered corruption was the norm in Ottoman society and had sustained a large empire for centuries.

A good deal is available on the Internet in terms of the OOBs and many books with personal histories of the war. I'm like you in preferring facts over opinions and get rather bored with many of the British 'recollections' of the war because they rarely give any real oversight into the whole campaign.

I'd hope that someone will come up with more helpful (or hopeful) info for you and I would be very pleased if they did.

Tony of TTT

You will not find all that in one book. Having said that…for a terrific global history of the conflict you can do no better than this:

link

Dave Jackson +1

@Tony from TTT,
Yet in Campaign No. 6 and 51 they give the numbers of Russian units and not those of the Allied units???

@Dave Jackson
When I was a child, I remember that in municipal libraries we found books written at the end of the 19th or beginning of the 20th century on the conflicts of the reign of Napoleon III and that they were great contrary to what was written Since.

@bobspruster
bobspruster -10

Try "Unit Organizations and Orders of Battle of the Great Armies of Europe, 1853- 1870" by J.W. Brown. Orders of Battle and TO&E info for Russian, French, British, and Sardinian armies-- not a lot of numbers info for individual units outside of the ideal organizations.

I agree that the Figes book gives the best modern account. Also try Trevor Royle's "Crimea" and anything written after 1990 – when the Soviet archives were opened for academic research. I strongly recommend Mark Adkin's "The Charge" for the most balanced account of Balaclava. For a detailed view from the Ottoman side, try Candan Badem's "The Ottoman Crimean War 1853-56". There are plenty of references out there on battles and orders of battle

@khanscom
I have it and it only gives theoretical numbers, it's not that kind of information I'm looking for.

@Mark Strachan
It's strange that we can't find this kind of informations.

Some of what you want can be found in the Nafziger Collection here link

@Mark Strachan
Thank you you understood everything!

@Mark Strachan

I own Hell Riders: The Truth About the Charge of the Light Brigade Hardcover – October 7, 2004 and The Charge: Why the Light Brigade Was Lost Hardcover – March 14, 1996 English edition by Mark Adkin (Author) there is also The Charge: The Real Reason why the Light Brigade was Lost Paperback – 23 September 2004 English edition by Mark Adkin (Author) is it the same as mine?

Osprey has a good one on the whole war but the best one I had was a magazine I got a while back at Barnes and Noble Called "Redcoats" British Infantry in the Crimea War … the causes, the conflicts, and the consequences. Published by Key Publishing Ltd

@michaelw989
And are there actual numbers for each infantry battalion or cavalry regiment given in it?