Nan Dingell first established the modern system of frontline medical ambulance service during the Crimean War, which lasted from 1853 to 1856. It transformed military medicine and ambulance from the vague and uncertain existence of the Middle Ages to a clear and modern military medical system to a considerable extent. This significance is actually very significant.
Because before that there was no field hospital and no systematic system of post-war help and ambulance for disabled soldiers. And after the Crimean War, Britain for the first time thoroughly institutionalized battlefield ambulance and disability pensions after the war. This process was considered to be very much ahead of its time globally. After all, most countries really have a systematic military medical assistance system, has been after 1900 or even later to take shape. After the field hospitals and war relief systems were basically established, it was only after the military powers noticed that they had to stockpile enough military medical equipment, critical rescue medicines and relief gear before the war.
Organizing the military medical corps and stockpiling life-saving biological products, such as X-plasma, before the war was elevated to the same level of importance as having military rations and ammunition ready in advance. And until then, no country had ever been known to prepare enough X-plasma in advance before waging war. And the significance of the Crimean War was not yet manifested purely in terms of field ambulance.
The war saw the emergence of modern military logistics, modern guns and mines, and the beginnings of almost the entirety of modern battlefield command communications. Therefore, the Crimean War was almost epochal in the history of human warfare. It can be regarded as a milestone in the transformation of mankind from medieval-model warfare to modernized and industrialized warfare.
The Crimean War, which was originally the so-called "9th Russo-Turkish War", was essentially a continuation of a series of wars that had been fought repeatedly over the centuries for hegemony around the Black Sea. So how did the Russo-Turkish War bring in the strongest industrial powers of the time, such as Britain and France? It was, in part, the result of the European military powers, who were beginning to look the other way at the continued expansion of Tsarist Russia.
Originally in the early nineteenth century, the European powers of the overall core objective is to suppress the rise of Napoleonic France, when 1815 at Waterloo finally defeated the French army and thereafter exiled Napoleon, the European countries finally put down their hearts temporarily. And in the process of suppressing Napoleon France, Tsarist Russia in the east of the effort is not small.
The root cause of Napoleon's defeat was largely related to the blind invasion of Russia. In the "concerted efforts" finally defeated Napoleon, the Russian Cossack cavalry also once became the guests of honor at the banquet of the British aristocracy. But this "honeymoon" did not last long. In the first half of the nineteenth century, the continued expansion of the Tsarist Russia finally triggered the discontent of the European powers.
The strategic goal of the Tsarist Russians was always to control the entire Black Sea, preferably with direct access to the Mediterranean. This strategic goal then directly collided head-on with the Ottoman Empire. The two were at war for almost 200 years. By the time of the Napoleonic Wars, Tsarist Russia seemed to be gaining the upper hand, while the Ottoman Empire was clearly showing signs of old age. At the time, the area from the Balkans all the way to Greece had been ruled by the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years.
This had actually been a sore point with the Europeans. After all, they considered Greece and other countries to be the cradle of European civilization, and it was naturally upsetting to be under Ottoman rule for so long in a non-European system. Tsarist Russia, on the other hand, considered Greece, etc. to be Orthodox J-system territory. So by 1850 onwards, the Ottoman Empire was forced to recognize these places as Tsarist Russia's sphere of influence. If the Ottoman side was forced to agree, then for the first time Tsarist power would have direct access to the Mediterranean. Britain, which had always held global maritime hegemony, was certainly not happy about this.
And Britain and France also have **** the same interests in Egypt, it is these two cooperation funded the opening of the Suez Canal. At this time the plan to open the canal is in the pipeline. There is also a country also do not want the Tsarist Russia direct access to the Mediterranean Sea, which is not yet formed Italy. At this time it was the Kingdom of Sardinia, the strongest on the Italian side, that stepped in. Thus the 9th Russo-Turkish War ended up being a clusterfuck between the 4 British, French, Sardinian and Turkish sides against Tsarist Russia. In this way the Turkish side guided the European fleet directly into the Black Sea, and the war became fought mainly in the Crimean Peninsula. Britain, France, Saudi Arabia, etc. had an overall technological advantage both in the naval fleet and in the marines.
In terms of logistics it was even further ahead. Britain and France had already sent out battleships with a mixture of steam and sail, while the Russians actually remained predominantly sail battleships. Britain and France used the telegraph for the first time on the battlefield, while the Russians still used medieval means to convey the battle situation. Although at this time both sides of the gun firing charge is still all black powder-based, projectiles are also mainly solid bullets, there is no explosive shells, but the British and French infantry have been equipped for the first time with a line gun, which can be close to the maximum range of 500 meters, and can be well within 300 meters of precision shooting.
And most of the Russian rifles were still relatively primitive smoothbore rifles, with maximum ranges hardly reaching 200 meters, and this generational difference was of strategic importance.
The British and French navies and armies were basically modernized; the Russian army was actually composed of serfs, and the establishment and command system were seriously backward. 700,000 Russians participated in the war and suffered 520,000 casualties, a casualty rate twice that of the other side, and eventually had to accept the defeat. This was the biggest strategic defeat of Tsarist Russia in its 300-year history of expansion. For more than 50 years after the collapse of the ambush.