Dear Roberto

Your link has a superfluous full stop at the end should be:

http://www.robertocasti.com/crimea/index.html

Now a direct link

Useful pics thanks for going to the trouble to scan them etc - much appreciated.

David

Sorry David and all for the troubles,
my intention was to close the sentence with the full stop.

But I forgot to put the html code to make the link active. Bad thing for a designer. ;)

Glad that you find the pics useful.

Cheers
Roberto

Thanks for posting this. Very helpful.

You are welcome, Hussar.

Sardinian (late) presence in Crimea was a mere publicity stunt. Only major action was a limited clearance operation/action east of Balaclava which teh turks did most of teh fighting. (Similar to french doing most of fighting in whole campaign instead of small brittish divisions that were in the shadow of the more aggrssive French Army).

Surprised another small band of soldiers are represented here instead of the bigger formation regiments.

Mini sets just cannot get teh atmosphere the number of period drill poses for the few amount of figures.
Give them up get back to 44+sets strelets.

Dear Hank
The Sardinians-Piedmontese* (Italians) played an important part at the battle of Chernaya. It was a Franco-Sardinian victory over the the Russians. About 15,000 Sardinian Piedmontese as a contingent from their fairly large conscript army, I believe, served in the Crimea. This was the major action they were involved in and it did involve the Bersaglieri.

"Il 16 gennaio 1855, il Piemonte entrava a far parte dell’alleanza antirussa, e Cavour, nonostante l’opposizione di gran parte dell’opinione pubblica, decise l’invio in Crimea, dove si erano concentrate le operazioni militari, di 15.000 soldati al comando del generale Alfonso La Marmora. Fra i tanti soldati inviati, ci sono 5 battaglioni di bersaglieri, che dovettero subire la falcidia del colera. "

January 1855 is not that late but they were in place in May of the same year.

Publicity stunt
Part of Cavour's strategy to gain allies for his aim of Italian unification. The size of the contingent was limited by the strength of public opposition in Piedmont Sardinia to the involvement in the Crimean War.

The French suffered catastrophic losses in the winter of 1855/6 through disease mainly Typhus. 40,000 dead and many more sick and invalided so the allies - the British, Turkish and Sardinians helped plug the gap.

The heading is needlessly insulting to the Italians who fought in the Crimean War and their descendants. Because the contingent was small, in comparison to the French, it does not follow that they are not worthy of mention.


David

* ie The kingdom of Piedmont and Sardinia. The line regiments were associated with the provinces eg Cuneo, Torino, Novara and these were incorporated in the names.