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Russell William Howard
(1820—1907)

William Howard Russell was an Irish reporter with The Times, and is considered to have been one of the first modern war correspondents, after he spent 22 months covering the Crimean War including the Charge of the Light Brigade.

As a young reporter, Russell reported on a brief military conflict between Prussian and Danish troops in Denmark in 1850.

Initially sent by editor John Delane to Malta to cover English support for Russia in 1854, Russell despised the term "war correspondent" - though his coverage of the conflict brought him international renown, and Florence Nightingale later credited her entry into wartime nursing to his reports (and although she was not as famous, the international renown of Mary Seacole was mainly down to Russell). He was described by one of the soldiers on the frontlines thus, "a vulgar low Irishman, [who] sings a good song, drinks anyone's brandy and water and smokes as many cigas as a Jolly Good Fellow. He is just the sort of chap to get information, particularly out of youngsters." This reputation however, led to Russell being blacklisted from some circles, including British commander Lord Raglan who advised his officers to refuse to speak with the reporter.

His dispatches were hugely significant: for the first time the public could read about the reality of warfare. Shocked and outraged, the public's backlash from his reports led the Government to re-evaluate the treatment of troops and led to Florence Nightingale's involvement in revolutionising battlefield treatment.

On September 20, 1854, Russell covered the battle above the Alma River - writing his missive the following day in an account book seized from a Russian corpse. The story, written in the form of a letter to Delane, was supportive of the British troops though paid particular attention to the battlefield surgeons' "humane barbarity", and the lack of ambulance care for wounded troops. He later covered the Siege of Sevastopol where he coined the contemporary phrase "thin red line" in referring to British troops, writing that "[The Russians] dash on towards that thin red streak topped with a line of steel..." Following Russell's reports of the appalling conditions suffered by the Allied troops conducting the siege, including an outbreak of cholera, Samuel Morton Peto and his partners built the Grand Crimean Central Railway, which was a major factor leading to the success of the siege.

He spent the month of December 1854 in Constantinople, on holiday, returning in early 1855. He was close to Field Marshal Raglan, who he would avoid criticising, but was disliked by Codrington, who became commander in 1855. Russell left Crimea in December 1855, to be replaced by the Constantinople correspondent of The Times.

In 1856 Russell was sent to Moscow to describe the coronation of Tsar Alexander II, and in the following year was sent to India where he witnessed the siege of Lucknow (1858). In 1861 Russell went to Washington. He later published diaries of his time in India, the American Civil War, and the Franco-Prussian War, where he describes the warm welcome given him by English-speaking Prussian generals such as Leonhard Graf von Blumenthal. Russell returned to England in 1863. In July 1865 Russell sailed on the Great Eastern to document the laying of the Atlantic Cable, and wrote a book about the voyage with color illustrations by Robert Dudley.

He was awarded the title of Commander of the Royal Victorian Order by King Edward VII, who reportedly told Russell "Don't kneel Billy, just stoop"^[1] during the ceremony. Russell later accused fellow war correspondent Nicholas Woods of the Morning Herald of lying in his articles about the war, trying to improve his stories.

In the 1869 General Election Russell ran unsuccessfully as a Conservative candidate for the borough of Chelsea.

He retired as a battlefield correspondent in 1882 and founded the Army and Navy Gazette.

Russell was knighted in May 1895. Russell died in 1907 and is buried in Brompton Cemetery, London.

Great Britain, 1985, William Howard Russell, Kertch