
Too often historical writing on the Russian War of 1854-56 focuses narrowly on the land campaign fought in the Crimean peninsula in the Black Sea. The wider war waged at sea by the British & French navies against the Russians is ignored. The allied navies aimed to strike at Russian interests anywhere in the world where naval force could be brought to bear & as a result campaigns were waged in the Baltic the Black Sea the White Sea on the Russian Pacific coast & in the Sea of Azoff. Yet it is the land campaign in the Crimea that shapes our understanding of events. In this graphic & original study Peter Duckers seeks to set the record straight. He shows how these neglected naval campaigns were remarkably successful in contrast to the wretched failures that beset the British army on l&. Allied warships ranged across Russian waters sinking shipping disrupting trade raiding ports bombarding fortresses destroying vast quantities of stores & shelling coastal towns. The scale & intensity of the naval operations embarked upon during the war are astonishing & little appreciated & this new book offers the first overall survey of them.