The reporter who broke the war's romantic lie

“The duty of the journalist is the same as the historian – to seek out truth, above all things, and to present to his readers not such things as statecraft would wish them to know but the truth as near as he can attain it.”

JOHN DELANE, EDITOR OF 'THE TIMES' — 1854

John Delane was the editor of 'The Times'. He asked journalist William Howard Russell to accompany the Brigade of Guards when it embarked for Crimea in February 1854, with the guarantee that the war would be over soon and that he would be home by Easter. Russell agreed and travelled first to Varna in Bulgaria and then to the Crimean peninsula itself. Ultimately, he did not return for almost two years. How could he? Wars do not have a fixed timeline; they are just a persistent drive for glory with victory overshadowing the countless lives lost.

Russell was not the first war correspondent, but he became the exemplar for the profession. He lived and worked on the battlefield to provide a commentary on the conflict's progress, but what he witnessed throughout the Crimean War was sheer distress.

The Brigade of Guards consisted of elite British Guards regiments, including the Grenadier Guards, Coldstream Guards and Scots Guards, who fought in major Crimean War battles such as Alma and Inkerman. Half of all Scots Guardsmen who served in the Crimea, whether having gone out at the start or arriving in reinforcements, were killed, wounded or invalided. The other regiments met no better fate.

A terrier of nondescript origin called Bob, acquired by the Battalion in 1853, went to and survived the Crimea, only to die under the wheels of a butcher’s cart when accompanying Queen’s Guard in 1860. Many soldiers were not so fortunate to meet a simple accidental end. As William Howard Russell reported, thousands of people were not just inflicted with weapons but struck with diseases such as cold, hunger and inadequate medical care. Hence, the fact that a regimental dog outlived many of the soldiers who fought with it shows the brutality of a war meant to ‘protect’ some while causing many others to die. He wrote that during the first weeks in Crimea, the army lost as many men to cholera as had died in the Battle of Alma. The Battle of Alma had about 9000 casualties. He described soldiers waiting in overcrowded hospitals as hundreds of them ended up dying there and in camps. The healthcare facilities for the soldiers were deadlier than artillery.

One of Russell’s most controversial points was that a lot of the suffering faced by the soldiers was preventable. He criticised the army’s supply system, incompetent leadership and bureaucracy. Rather than blaming only the Russians or the ghastly weather, he showed how British mismanagement contributed to the untimely demise of many soldiers. His reports opposed the official image of the army being close to a pleasant victory with its well-supplied and organised regiments.

Britain’s Crimean army commander, Fitzroy Somerset, Lord Raglan, naturally resented slurs on his military record by a civilian journalist. He did not ban correspondents from camp (as did the French), but by ignoring them he encouraged his staff to treat reporters with malign neglect, while he also complained to his government’s cabinet that press reports were aiding the enemy. This move aimed to tarnish the reputation of genuine journalists without directly prohibiting the press from publishing freely. It allowed the British to maintain press freedom, which was quite ironic given the actual situation.

London editors and Crimean reporters were asked to be self-censors, and Russell even offered to submit his dispatches to army review, but in November and December of 1854 both the army situation and the news reports steadily worsened. The winter of 1854–55 became the most infamous part of the Crimean War and was exactly the kind of suffering that Russell wanted to expose. As the weather closed in for the winter, it began to be very clear that, unlike the French, the British Army was very ill equipped and very ill supplied for it. The condition deteriorated when a major storm battered the British fleet and supply ships in the port of Balaclava, those carrying the Army’s winter clothing all being sunk. Thick mud clogged the roads and camps, there was insufficient food, let alone clothing, and disease, notably cholera and dysentery, was rife.

The romanticised lie, the bubble in which people lived that this war would lead to the fulfilment of a greater purpose, was broken by the catastrophic conditions that the soldiers were forced to survive in. Russell mentioned all of these critical details in his dispatches; he ventured to tell the truth — entirely, freely and fearlessly.

So he told, sending back horrifying reports to The Times. His dispatch in September 1854 asked: ‘Are there no devoted women…able and willing to minister to the sick and suffering soldiers…in the hospitals of Scutari…?’

Florence Nightingale was a pioneering 19th-century nurse. She read the dispatch and immediately offered her nursing expertise. She was appointed Superintendent of the Female Nurses in the Hospitals of the East. Her old contact and friend, Sidney Herbert, now Secretary for War, promised her full assistance from medical staff in Scutari and authority over all the nurses. Florence gathered together a team of 38 experienced nurses. They reached the British Army camp at Scutari on 4 November 1854.

Florence and her team of nurses faced initial hostility and prejudice from the male hospital doctors and the military. But within a few months – having bombarded Sidney Herbert with requests for supplies and as a result of a relief fund organised by The Times – she brought order, hygiene, proper food and comfort to the wounded. They called her ‘the lady with the lamp’.

William Howard Russell not only brought back elaborate accounts of the unhealthy circumstances but also an abundance of truth. He inspired many, not just journalists afraid of the consequences of writing with accuracy, but also social workers willing to bring about revolutionary reforms.

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