The World´s First Modern War Correspondents
Written war correspondents have existed as long as journalism. Before modern journalism it was more common for longer histories to be written at the end of a conflict. The first known of these is Herodotus's account of the Persian Wars, however he did not himself participate in the events. Thucydides, who some years later wrote a history of the Peloponnesian Wars was an observer to the events he described.
It was not until the development of newspapers and magazines that the modern form of coverage began. One of the earliest war correspondents was Henry Crabb Robinson, who covered Napoleon's campaigns in Spain and Germany for The Times of London. William Howard Russell who covered the Crimean War, also for The Times, is often described as the first modern war correspondent.
Russell was born in County Dublin in 1820 and educated at Trinity College Dublin. His aim was to become a barrister, though at one stage he contemplated army enlistment, having been fascinated from childhood by the activities of soldiers in the nearby barracks.
The Times Takes Notice
Russell did his first work for The Times, where he operated as a supplementary reporter during the parliamentary elections. Here his flair immediately became apparent, when he chose to make the local hospital his base. In this way he could meet the casualties coming in from various political meetings. Impressed, The Times offered him a position on its House of Commons staff in 1842.
By 1854 Russell had built himself a reputation at The Times as an elegant writer who was able to paint in vigorous words time and place and person. He reported on the Irish potato famine, the Crystal Palace Exhibition, the Duke of Wellington's funeral, the coronation of Czar Alexander II in Moscow, the wedding of the Prince of Wales, an attempt to lay the Atlantic Cable, a visit to Egypt and Palestine he took on the invitation of the Prince of Wales, a visit to India, also with the Prince of Wales, and the later stages of the Zulu War (this time for the Daily Telegraph).
When the Crimean conflict broke out the editor John Delane selected him as the newspaper's representative. It was his reporting of this war that made Russell's a household name among the reading public in England, a popularity he never lost for the remaining fifty years of his life.
As the war got underway in the Crimea, William Howard Russell sent home dispatches about the glorious victory at the Battle of the Alma (Sept. 20, 1854). However, the combined allied forces, comprised mainly of French, British, and Turkish troops, were unable to completely subdue a strategically positioned, albeit archaic, Russian army. To the dismay of some, the invading armies failed to immediately pursue the retreating Russian forces. It quickly became evident that the failure to achieve the anticipated swift conclusion to the fighting in the Crimea was not for lack of bravery. Rather, mismanagement and disease, chiefly among the British forces, and to some extent the French, prevented the swift prosecution of the war.
Casualties in the aftermath of Alma were due more to disease and the treatment of wounds than to mortal wounds suffered during combat. And soon Russell's reports were tempered with criticism. As the landscape of war shifted from engagements on open battlefields to the entrenchment of the siege of Sevastopol (Oct. 1854-Sept. 1855), war correspondent William Howard Russell began a relentless attack on the official conduct of the war.
Comment Of the Caricature To The Right:
Sir Garnet Wolseley: «Pardon me, my dear doctor, if I say that you have been hoaxed by gross exaggerations and transparent untruths.» Dr. Russell: «Forgive me, my dazzling young general, for mentioning that you are a pig-headed ignoramus, and don't know what you are talking about.»
Inadequate Conditions For Correspondents
But this early fame came at a price. Before the Second World War the conditions under which newspaper reporters attached to armies had to operate were quite inadequate, to say the least. They had to look after themselves as best they could, to get as close to the action as possible by their own efforts, to compose their news bulletins wherever they could and as rapidly as possible, and then make their own arrangements for despatching them. Thus in the Crimea Russell endured all sorts of hardships: he had to supply his own horse and his own tent, and for a while his own rations.
There can be little doubt that it was Russell's comments on the plight of the sick and wounded in the Crimea that convinced Florence Nightingale to travel out to Turkey and establish efficient and sanitary nursing facilities first at Üsküdar (now part of Istanbul) and later at Balaklava in the Crimea. And who knows? Perhaps Russell's graphic portrayal of the heroic though futile Charge of the Light Brigade in October 1854 directly inspired Tennyson's celebrated poem.
Certainly, Russell's eyewitness reports (assisted by Delane's thundering editorials) helped bring down a prime minister – the Earl of Aberdeen – in 1855. The Times drew attention to military and administrative incompetence in the conduct of the war, and other papers took up the cry. As a result, public confidence in the whole system was undermined, first in the higher command, then in the dubious methods of military promotion, and finally in the aristocracy itself. In vain did alarmed conservatives fulminate against the vulgar power of the press.
Reaction At Home
His accounts of the difficulties of the soldier's life in Balaklava struck a responsive chord with readers on the home front. Thomas Agnew, of the publishing house Thomas Agnew & Sons, sensed a commercial opportunity. He proposed sending a photographer to the Crimea to provide evidence that would mitigate the negative reports appearing in the newspapers. Thomas Agnew's proposal was strictly a private, commercial venture that needed only the sanction of the government to allow it to proceed.
The British government made several official attempts to document the progress of the war through the relatively new medium of photography. In March of 1854 an amateur photographer, Gilbert Elliott, photographed views of the fortresses guarding Wingo Sound in the Baltic Sea from aboard the Hecla, the same ship that was to carry Fenton to the Crimea eleven months later. Elliott's photographs, though praised for their clarity in contemporary accounts, apparently have not survived. A more substantial effort to photograph the war, lasting from June to November 1854, came to a tragic end. Richard Nicklin, a civilian photographer, was lost at sea, along with his assistants, photographs, and equipment, when their ship sank during the hurricane that stuck the harbour at Balaklava on Nov. 14, 1854. In the spring of 1855, contemporary to Fenton's time in the Crimea, another government-sponsored attempt was made. Two military officers, ensigns Brandon and Dawson, were hastily trained by London photographer J.E. Mayall, after which they were sent to the Crimea.
Their photographs, retained for a number of years in official military files, without distinction or notice, have subsequently disappeared without a trace.
Roger Fenton's Background
Roger Fenton was born in 1819 into a family of comfortable means. Large landholdings, a banking enterprise, and other commercial ventures allowed Fenton the freedom to pursue his own personal interests.
There is much conjecture about how and where Fenton spent his time in the early 1840s. Around 1840 he began to study painting in the studio of Charles Lucy, a member of the Royal Academy in London. It is generally accepted that from 1841 to 1843 or 1844 he was in Paris and may have studied painting at the studio of Paul Delaroche. He apparently made frequent trips between London and Paris between 1843 and 1847, during which time he married Grace Maynard (1843). Perhaps in response to the additional responsibilities of beginning a family, or possibly realizing that he lacked the necessary skills to become a successful painter, Fenton completed his studies for a career in law and began practice as a solicitor (ca. 1851).
One reason frequently given for the likelihood that Fenton studied at the studio of Delaroche is that three of France's foremost early photographers may have emerged from that studio. It has been suggested that Fenton was introduced to photography either as an art form itself, or as an aid to art, by Delaroche. Possibly as early as 1847, though more likely around 1851, Fenton appears to have begun experimenting with photography while continuing to paint. Between 1849 and 1851 he had three "genre" paintings accepted by the Royal Academy, without any particular distinction. This may have led him to make the final break with painting in 1851.
Fenton In Russia
In 1852 Fenton journeyed to Russia to take photographs for civil engineer Charles Vignoles, documenting the construction of a suspension bridge over the Dnieper River in Kiev in Ukraine. While in Russia, Fenton photographed buildings and views in Kiev, St. Petersburg and Moscow. He used the waxed-paper negative process of Gustave Le Gray.
Early in 1854 Fenton began to photograph the British Royal family, making frequent visits to various Royal residences, taking portraits as well as tableaux vivants (living pictures staged by Royal family members of works of art). Later that year he entered into an agreement with the British Museum to photograph art and artifacts from its collections.
Fenton's Crimean War Photography
William Agnew, of the publishing firm Thomas Agnew & Sons, must have proposed Fenton as the photographer for a commercial publishing venture to the Crimea sometime before a hurricane claimed the life of the official government photographer in the Crimea in November 1854, for during the fall of that year Fenton purchased a former wine merchant's van and converted it to a mobile darkroom. He hired an assistant, and travelled the English countryside testing the suitability of the van. In February 1855 Fenton set sail for the Crimea aboard the Hecla, travelling under royal patronage and with the assistance of the British government.
While Fenton was in the Crimea he had ample opportunity to photograph the horrors of war. He had several friends and acquaintances, including his brother-in-law, Edmund Maynard, who were casualties of combat. But Fenton shied away from views that would have portrayed the war in a negative (or realistic) light for several reasons, among them, the limitations of photographic techniques available at the time (Fenton was actually using state-of-the-art processes, but lengthy exposure time prohibited scenes of action); inhospitable environmental conditions (extreme heat during the spring and summer months Fenton was in the Crimea); and political and commercial concerns (he had the support of the Royal family and the British government, and the financial backing of a publisher who hoped to issue sets of photos for sale).
Whether there was an explicit directive from the British government to refrain from photographing views that could be deemed detrimental to the government's management of the war effort, perhaps in exchange for permission to travel and photograph in the war zone, or whether there was merely an implicit understanding between the government, the publisher, and the photographer is not known. Fenton photographed the leading figures of the allied armies, documented the care and quality of camp life of the British soldiers, as well as scenes in and around Balaklava, and on the plateau before Sevastopol, but refrained from images of combat or its aftermath. This tactic may have given him access to information and views that were otherwise off-limits to artists and war correspondents, like William Howard Russell, who were critical of the British government's leadership and military officers' handling of the war. In any case, while personally witnessing the horror of war, Fenton chose not to portray it.
Fenton made plans to photograph Sevastopol following the June 18th assault on the Malakoff and the Redan, the Russian's primary defence works before the city. When the assault failed, he decided it was time to return to England. He sold the van, packed up his equipment, and by June 26th, ill with cholera, sailed out of the harbour at Balaklava. Fenton was, therefore, not present for the fall of Sevastopol (Sept. 9th) nor its subsequent destruction, which was recorded photographically by James Robertson.1 While Russia retained control of the Crimea, the Allied armies achieved their primary objective, the destruction of Russian naval power in the Black Sea.
Fenton's Crimean War photographs offer a wonderful record of a moment in time. They are documentary in the sense that they constitute a reality in a way only intimated by painting or wood engraving. They might also be considered the first instance of the use of photography for the purposes of propaganda, although they do not seem to have been exploited to this end. Clearly they were intended to present a particular view of the British government's conduct of the war. However, by the time they were exhibited Sevastopol had fallen and the tide of war had turned.
After the Crimean War--Fenton and His Photographs
The commercial venture that precipitated Fenton's photographic assignment did not prove as lucrative as hoped. Sets of photographs went on sale in November of 1855, two months after the fall of Sevastopol. By December of 1856, the publisher, Thomas Agnew & Sons, disposed of their entire holdings of unsold sets, prints, and negatives at auction. The vivid, though understated, reality of war presented in the photographs may have led to a negative reaction by the viewing public, which ignored the aesthetic and technical qualities inherent in the photographs. When the Crimean War ended, so did the interest in its photographic documentation.
In 1862 Roger Fenton gave up photography for good, auctioning off all of his equipment. Roger Fenton died in 1869 after a brief illness. The family fortune was all but depleted, his artistic endeavours lost, and himself nearly forgotten as a leader in the development of photography in England.
