Russell And Fenton's Portrayal Of The Crimean War

I would mostly agree with the view that Russell and Fenton presented the British public with a realistic portrayal of the Crimean War. Both of the men formed the bulk (if not the entirety) the reportage of events in the Crimean War for the British public, it would be important that whatever they produced for publication was somewhat realistic. However, the two photographers had a few conflicts of interests - not between themselves, but between the government as well as the organisation that they represented; this is where the lack of realism would have mainly originated from.

Fenton's portrayal of the Crimean War was realistic in one main way. Source 4 tells us that the British audience were often given pictures of 'smoke-filled battle scenes'

Firstly, Source 5 attests to this in telling us that what he writes about 'occurred under [his] own eyes'; he could personally verify it as he could see it happening in front of him. This eyewitness account is much more reliable to a historian as opposed to someone who, for instance, heard about an event and had not actually observed it. Also, Russell's interest in the war presented much less bias than Fenton's interest did; Russell was a professional journalist working on behalf of The Times (a rather respectable, highbrow newspaper). Unlike Fenton, he had not attained the permission of the government or the army, preventing them from introducing bias to Russell's work. His frank, candid reports shocked Victorian England and did much to swing public opinion against the war and in favour of reform. The Victorian public had been living contently, their rose-tinted glasses not allowing them to see any wrong with the British Army. However, Russell's reports exposed their appalling conditions and administrative incompetence and broke the illusion that was believed by the average Victorian individual. If anything, considering Russell's work in this way would suggest things were made less biased as a result of his reportage of the

Source 6 tells us that his reporting had acquired a 'mythical status'. This damning labelling suggests to us that he had merely replaced the illusion created by the Victorian government with one of his own. In order to make his reportage relevant, his 'historical significance has to be disentangled from the myth'; this speaks volumes for any historian interested in drawing conclusions about his work - his words have to be taken with a "pinch of salt". The reasons for this are clearly identified throughout the source: 'he obtained most of his information from friendly conversations with officers' (who themselves were inherently biased); 'the ordinary soldier would not have shared Russell's condemnatory views of Lord Raglan nor his curious blind spots about conditions in the British Army' (which tells us that Russell had somewhat grandiose, hyperbolic views of the war whereas the typical soldier did not feel as though they were being so hard done by). Russell himself identifies his own bias in Source 5 - he writes, 'God forbid that I should cast a shade on the brightness of Nolan's honour'; this shows us that he was very supportive of Nolan - and even if this comment was facetious, it would also be biased but swaying towards the other extreme. Finally, Russell was actually absent from the Crimea during the majority of the terrible Winter of 1854-1855 - a time period that was very significant in