ABSTRACT
Amongst the features which made the Crimean War a markedly modern phenomenon few were more striking than the emergence of a close interrelationship between the battle-front and a full-fledged “home-front,” i.e. a second line of purely political combat which was as critical for the ultimate success or failure of the war as the military action itself. Throughout the campaign the domestic front continuously inscribed itself on the military front, and vice versa; nothing could happen in one sphere without immediate repercussions in the other. It was, of course, the steamship, the telegraph and the news-press with its swift coverage of the events which, in the framework of differentiated democratic mechanisms, created the interdependence of the two arenas. Without the dramatic improvement of communication technologies during the first half of the 19th century, the Crimean events, evolving at a distance of 3000 miles from London, could never have become an object of constant, close and emotional public scrutiny at home; whereas at the domestic front the kind of private initiative could never have developed which eventually assured the success of the field campaign.
