Combining oral and visual history, this description of the Crimean War is compiled with the use of extracts from a considerable number of eye-witness accounts in the form of letters and diaries of soldiers, sailors, doctors, nurses, artists and reporters. They include views from all sides of the conflict - not only British, but French, Russian and Turkish. The war was the first to be photographed (by Roger Fenton and his colleagues), and the first to which professional war artists were assigned, and the book is extensively illustrated with images created by those photographers and artists.