Crimean War

The Crimean War was a military conflict fought from October 1853 to February 1856 in which Russia lost to an alliance of France, the Ottoman Empire, the United Kingdom and Sardinia. The immediate cause of the war involved the rights of Christian minorities in Palestine, which was part of the Ottoman Empire. The French promoted the rights of Roman Catholics, and Russia promoted those of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Longer-term causes involved the decline of the Ottoman Empire, the expansion of the Russian Empire in the preceding Russo-Turkish Wars, and the British and French preference to preserve the Ottoman Empire to maintain the balance of power in the Concert of Europe.

The Crimean War was one of the first conflicts in which the military used modern technologies such as explosive naval shells, railways and telegraphs.  The war was one of the first to be documented extensively in written reports and in photographs. As the legend of the "Charge of the Light Brigade" demonstrates, the war quickly became a symbol of logistical, medical and tactical failures and of mismanagement.

Learn more on Wikipedia