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The Crimean War spelt the end of hymns to heroism and glory

Writing from opposite sides, Leo Tolstoy and William Howard Russell exposed the horror of conditions in a quagmire war which seemed to have no meaning

28 September 2024

9:00 AM

28 September 2024

9:00 AM

Crimean Quagmire: Tolstoy, Russell and the Birth of Modern Warfare Gregory Carleton

Hurst, pp.264, 27.50

Leo Tolstoy served as a young artillery officer in the defence of the great Russian naval base of Sevastopol against British and French invaders in the middle of the 19th century. The first of his three short stories, collected as Sevastopol Sketches, came out as the siege was still in progress.

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