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 Northern and 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.
Industry Reviews
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)
