On this day in 1854 France and the UK entered the Crimean War (1853-1856). They joined the Ottoman Empire in their fight against the Russian Empire. The official cause for war was the rights of Christian minorities in the Holy Land, but France and the UK mostly joined to stop Russian expansion.

For me the Crimean War is interesting for a couple of reasons.

1) It was the first large conflict that was documented extensively by war correspondents. Stories and photographs about the war made its way to national newspapers keeping the public up to date. Documentation on this scale was possible due to new technologies such as the telegraph and photography. It also led to demands for reform as the journalists exposed large logistical, tactical and medical problems at the front.

2) It led to the professionalisation of healthcare both in and outside the war. The story of Florence Nightingale is well known and exemplary. She worked as a nurse during the war and noticed how ineffective the treatment of soldiers was. Nightingale reorganized wards and trained nurses how to better treat the wounded. She publicised about her modern nursing methods and founded training schools for nurses after the war, where things like washing hands before surgery weren't common practice yet.

3) Russia's loss in the war forced them to start modernizing. Russia at that time was still largely a rural country with small cities, few factories and inferior technology.

Wars itself are terrible, but it often kick-starts large changes that fundamentally change society, such as the phone you are holding right now. 

Originally posted on Instagram on March 21, 2021