Making extensive use of Russian, French, and Italian sources, and hitherto untapped material from British archives, Alan Palmer examines the war from the viewpoints of each country involved. The comparisons are fascinating as the narrative moves back and forth between London, St. Petersburg, Vienna, and the battlefields - both allied and enemy. The Russian commanders are contrasted with their British and French counterparts, and an original feature of the book is the examination of the Russian nursing services including the work of Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna and the great surgeon Nikola Pirogov. The immediate realities of the war are juxtaposed with the politics behind the scenes particularly through the questioning letters of British Colonel Alexander Gordon to his father, Lord Aberdeen, then Prime Minister of England. A very different view of the war emerges from the letters of vivacious and incorrigible Mrs. Fanny Buverly, a Hussar officer's wife, who accompanied her husband to the East. THE CRIMEAN WAR is the first comprehensive account that stresses the European and Baltic views of the subject, and thus brings the war cogently into fucus.