The journalist William Howard Russell (1820 1907) is sometimes regarded as being the first war correspondent, and his reports from the conflict in the Crimea are also credited with being a cause of reforms made to the British military system. This 1865 book began as a review in The Times of the five-volume work of General Eduard Todleben (or Totleben), the military engineer and Russian Army General, whose work in creating and continually adapting the land defences of Sevastopol in 1854 5 made him a hero and enabled the fortress to hold out against British bombardment for a whole year. Russell...

The journalist William Howard Russell (1820 1907) is sometimes regarded as being the first war correspondent, and his reports from the conflict in the Crimea are also credited with being a cause of reforms made to the British military system. Published in 1855, during the late stages of the conflict, this is a collection of eye-witness reports originally printed in The Times newspaper, including the famous account, from 25 October 1854, of the Charge of the Light Brigade during the Battle of Balaclava, and the other engagement on the same day which gave rise to the phrase 'the thin red line'....

William Howard Russell (1820 1907) is today credited with having shaped the image and role of the modern war correspondent. His dispatches for The Times during the Crimean War were so influential that they led to military reforms and the fall of the Aberdeen Government. Moreover, his unflinching accounts of the appalling and insanitary conditions endured by ill-provisioned troops helped inspire the work of Florence Nightingale. He was not afraid to highlight poor leadership and planning, and was quick to praise the heroism of the 'common' soldier. Wearing military-style clothes, he obtained...