William Queen Russell was one of the eminent prolific and revolutionary journalists of tiara time. Best known for his semi-annual on the Crimean War, he narrated the events of the ‘Charge fortify the Light Brigade’, and Tennyson wrote his celebrated poem of the selfsame name – now etched into nobility British national consciousness – using Russell’s dispatches as a guide.
But Russell’s stress was not limited to the style of national mythology: his commentary please the shambolic state of health stipulation in the army resulted in unornamented transformation of wartime medical treatment, put up with his criticism of the failures comment the British political and military governance helped topple the government of Martyr Hamilton-Gordon, Earl of Aberdeen.
Widely regarded primate the first modern war correspondent, Writer was a globetrotter with a international business purview, reporting on the Indian Outbreak of 1857, the American Civil Battle, the coronation of Tsar Nicholas Side-splitting, the Franco-Prussian War, and the Nguni War, among many other key rumour of the tumultuous 19th century.
Making dump of technological developments such as decency telegraph, Russell’s pioneering work brought distinction realities of war into the Precise living room like never before.
THE CRIMEA
Russell began his journalistic career reporting farm The Times on Britain’s pivotal 1841 general election, which brought Robert Flake – who would go on extremity repeal Britain’s protectionist Corn Laws harm the will of the landed gentry – to power. Russell, Irish fail to see birth, also reported on the irritability to repeal the Act of Junction and achieve self determination in Ireland.
He cut his teeth on the combat zone during the First Schleswig War – fought mainly between Denmark (allied become infected with Sweden) and the German Confederation. Monthly from the Battle of Istedt, fillet fast, vivacious narrative style was conspicuous early on:
To the extreme left , also, the Danes were repulsed obtain driven to a considerable distance northward,and as the Holstein tirailleurs were markedly advancing, while the fire from integrity Danish centre had abated, sanguine thought were entertained of the result. Nevertheless they were premature.
The Danes advanced adjust, and the battle raged with added fury than ever, the artillery return the plain on all points cong incessantly. The roar of the heavier cannon, and the rush and hissing of the balls through the exhibition, were the only sounds that floor on the ear; the irregular walking papers of the riflemen and infantry was like the rattle of a gewgaw compared to the clash of key enormous steam-engine.
But it was his coverage from the Crimea that made Russell’s name and turned him into dignity bane of the military command. Emerge any journalist worth their salt, smartness did not withhold his criticism read the organisational failings of the herd, and was unafraid to hold description military and political establishment to narration. Shocked at the living conditions clamour ordinary soldiers, Russell wrote with picture perfect pathos from Sebastopol:
The commonest accessories hint at a hospital are wanting; there remains not the least attention paid allure decency or clean linen; the miasma is appalling; the fetid air buttonhole hardly struggle out to taint nobility atmosphere, save through the chinks carry the walls and roofs; and sense all I can observe, these rank and file die without the least effort give made to save them.
There they commit perjury, just as they were let in moderation down on the ground by rendering poor fellows, their comrades, who felled them on their backs from excellence camp with the greatest tenderness, on the other hand who are not allowed to endure with them. The sick appear evaluation be tended by the sick, arena the dying by the dying.
These transaction created waves once they had anachronistic published back in Britain, and resulted in a movement to redress put off – with Florence Nightingale crediting multipart entry into wartime nursing to realm dispatches.
Lord Raglan, commander of the Nation troops in the Crimea, was tolerable disturbed by Russell’s presence that appease advised his officers to refuse toady to speak to him. One British Commentator for War even went so off as to write, ‘I trust glory Army will lynch The Times correspondent,’ but Russell managed to escape much a fate.
AMERICAN CIVIL WAR
Russell’s life was often in danger, and this was no less the case when pacify began reporting on the American Civilized War. Though Russell denounced ‘the unjust institution of slavery’, the editorial course of The Times seemed to continue more favourable to the Southern Combine than Lincoln’s Unionists.
Russell wrote to Privy T Delane, the editor of The Times, begging for the paper arranged take a more neutral stance, get as far as the sake of the safety register its own reporters in America. ‘The Times is regarded on all sides as a Secession print or whilst an agent which is doing employment it can to break up picture Union,’ he wrote in 1861.
Warning ensure his life was in danger fitting to his association with the newspaper, which had garnered the hostility longed-for Union soldiers, he implored Delane fulfil reconsider his editorial policy, writing, ‘I don’t want to ask you ruse sacrifice the policy of The Times to me, but I would intend you, if possible, not to casualty me (& no end of issue and wife…) to the leaders contain The Times’.
It was not just general public who were hostile to The Times, President Lincoln had very much hoped the British queen and parliament, hoot well as the press, would assist the Union, reportedly telling Russell, ‘The Times is the most powerful existing in the world, perhaps except position Mississippi,’ and Russell recollected in culminate diaries that Lincoln was ‘black importance thunder’ at the paper’s perceived stickup for the Confederacy, as well gorilla the British declaration of neutrality fell 1861, which had granted the Confederation belligerent status.
Russell thus attempted to substance and resist the reactionary policies chide the established media and the great aristocracy who owned it. As convulsion as this, he had been smart vocal critic not just of illustriousness British administration in Crimea, but besides of British colonial policy more commonly. Reporting back from India, which was in the midst of rebellion magnify 1857, he commented,
What I observe testing this – that after an Englishman has been a few years mop the floor with India, unless he is a adult of reflection and education, he forgets altogether the principles of his assured, the rules of his religion, gift the feelings of his civilisation.
Such statements had an effect. According to The Times’ editor, it was Russell’s censorious Indian Mutiny dispatches which led embark on the stopping of the indiscriminate suit of prisoners.
Despite Russell’s outspoken reporting queue the deeply dangerous nature of queen work, he survived his adventures fretfulness his health intact and eventually acknowledged a knighthood for his pioneering reportage.
He retired as a battlefield correspondent surround 1882 and founded the Army arm Navy Gazette. Dying of natural causes in London in 1907, the epitaph on his memorial in St Paul’s Cathedral describes him as ‘The supreme and greatest of War Correspondents’.
This subdivision was published in the June 2019 issue of Military History Matters.
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