1855: The Crimean War is the first military conflict ever photographed
One of the causes of the Crimean War in the 1850s was a dispute over the rights of Christian minorities in the Holy Land, which was controlled by the Ottoman Empire.
Eventually tensions escalated into a war between the Russian Empire on one side and a coalition of the British, French, Ottoman and Sardinian empires on the other, centered on the most important warm-water ports of the Crimean peninsula and the Balkans.
The fighting in Crimea, which included the famous "Attack of the Light Brigade", eventually led to a prolonged stalemate, with British-French-Turkish alliance forces besieging the Russian-held port of Sevastopol.
Supply interruptions, strategic mistakes and harsh winter conditions posed a danger to the allies who surrounded the city.
To create the necessary mood of the public, which began to express doubts about the correctness of the conduct of the war, the British government hired photographer Roger Fenton to go to the Crimea and take the first war photographs in history. He arrived near Sevastopol in March 1855 and stayed there for 3.5 months.
(Total 29 photos)
The photographer's employers wanted him to convey a sense of perseverance and success in a military campaign. Therefore, Fenton did not take any photographs of soldiers who died from winter cold or cholera, or those who were maimed by artillery fire.
With the help of large and heavy cameras that required long exposures, Fenton photographed soldiers, workers and generals, as well as photographed the orderly rows of tents and carts going against the backdrop of the landscape from the port of Balaklava to the front.
1. Captain Thomas Longworth of the British Royal Artillery.
2. Pier for cattle in Balaklava harbor.
3. Maritime supplier riding a camel in the port of Balaklava.
4. Balaclava.
5. View of Balaklava and the harbor from the camp of the guards on the hill.
6. Allied tent camp on the plateau in front of Sevastopol.
7. Photographer Roger Fenton, dressed as a Zuave infantryman, shot by Marcus Sparling.
8. British Lieutenant General Sir George de Lacey Evans.
9. "Valley of the shadow of death" - the road to Sevastopol. The cannonballs were moved onto the road from the side of the road, most likely by a photographer.
Fenton's most famous and controversial photograph was taken on April 23, 1855, showing the road to Sevastopol strewn with cannonballs. Because of the frequency with which it was shelled by Russian troops, the soldiers nicknamed it "Valley of the Shadow of Death". The famous image shows cannonballs piled up in ditches and on the road itself.
But Fenton also took another, lesser-known shot of the same scene, without any cannonballs on top of the road.
Historians have offered many competing theories about which of the photographs was taken first, or why and by whom the cannonballs were carried. An exhaustive investigation by director Errol Morris, based on changing the view of several small patches of rock between two shots, concluded that the image of the cannonballs on the side of the road was taken first, and then they were transferred to the road.
This serves as another reminder of the dangers of staged shots for using photographs as objective evidence, even 133 years before Photoshop was invented.
10. Mobile darkroom of Roger Fenton and his assistant Marcus Sparling. Sparling requested that this photo be taken as the last shot before they set off into the danger zone.
11. Officers of the 17th regiment.
12. Prince Napoleon Bonaparte, cousin of Emperor Napoleon III, participated in the Crimean War with the rank of general.
13. Major General Sir George Buller
14. Officers of the 71st Mountain Regiment pose with a dog in a British camp.
15. Railway officials in Balaklava.
16. Soldiers of the 4th Guards Dragoon Regiment and a woman are resting near the house.
17. Lieutenant John Sherwood Gaynor of the 47th Regiment.
18. Captain Charles August Drake Halford of the 5th Dragoon Guards.
19. View of Balaklava from the hill.
20. Two Zouaves - light infantrymen of the French army - share a flask.
21. Two sergeants of the 4th Dragoon Regiment share a drink.
22. French Marshal Pelissier.
23. Two Croats.
24. Chief of the military police of the division, General Bosque.
25. Hungarian general György Kmet, who served in the Ottoman army under the name of Ismail Pasha, passes the phone to a servant.
26. British Lieutenant General Sir Colin Campbell.
27. William Simpson, martial artist
28. Lieutenant Walter Aston Fox Strangeways.
29. British commander Henry Berkeley Fitzharding Max.
Keywords: Photographer