There were two theatres of the ‘Crimean’ War, 1853–1856, that are of interest to readers of Polar Record. The first was the White Sea in which the British and French navies maintained a blockade of Russian ports, notably Archangelsk, interdicting trade and tying up military resources that would have been more useful in the area of the main hostilities. The other was the sub-Arctic northwest Pacific where the strategic situation facing the allies was much more complex as there was imperfectly understood geography, difficulties concerning sea ice, with which the allied commanders were largely unfamiliar, problems, actual and potential, with neutrals, notably China, Japan, which entered into treaties with the USA, Russia, and Britain in the period, and the USA itself which was adopting an expansive posture in the Pacific. Moreover, the allies were confronted by probably the most outstanding Russian commanders in the whole conflict.

The recent literature in English concerning the war in the second area, the subject of this book, is scanty. The seminal paper was John Stephan's ‘The Crimean War in the far east’ (Stephan Reference Stefan1969), and this was followed by sections in his important books entitled Sakhalin and The Kuril Islands (Stephan Reference Srefan1971, Reference Stefan1974), an analysis by Barry Gough of the only battle, that at Petropavlovsk/Kamchatsky in 1854 (Gough Reference Gough1971: 108–122) together with a very few other papers (for example Stone and Crampton Reference Stone and Crampton1985; Stone Reference Stone1992).

The present volume is the first attempt to present a coherent account of the whole episode and is thus to be warmly welcomed. The topic is dealt with chronologically with equal stress on the events of 1854 and on those of 1855 together with comment on the plans for 1856, which had they ever been implemented, might have had profound effects on the geopolitics of the area right up to the present. The main outlines of the story are simply stated. The book starts by explaining the wide ranging responsibilities of the Royal Navy's Pacific squadron, normally based at Valparaiso in Chile, and of its China squadron based at Hong Kong. It was the former that had the primary duty of removing any Russian maritime presence in the Pacific. This was done by a ‘pursuit’ of the frigate Aurora by the squadron across the ocean to Petropavlovsk. However this ‘pursuit’ was not pursued with any great vigour and in the end the allied squadron arrived at the port after the Russians, under the able leadership of Rear Admiral Vasily Zavoiko, had had ample time to place it in an efficient state of defence. The ensuing battle was delayed by the death of the British commander, Rear Admiral David Price. This was by his own hand. The author subscribes wholeheartedly to the opinion that it was suicide. However, it certainly could have been an accident. Be that as it may, command devolved on the French Rear Admiral Auguste Febvrier-Despointes. Price's original plan was put into effect on 31 August 1854. This involved a bombardment and destruction of the batteries constructed by the Russians to defend the harbour after which the aim was to destroy the Russian vessels within it. The initial bombardment succeeded but then there was a gap until 4 September 1854 during which the new allied command revised its plan and, when the revised version was put into effect, there was a debacle. The allies landed in force but due to bad leadership and superior Russian competence were driven off with proportionally high casualties.

This defeat had unfortunate consequences since it had to be ‘avenged’ the following year by which time the strategic situation had changed because the Russians had consolidated an advance down the Amur River and were establishing themselves close to its mouth, legally Chinese territory at the time. Instead of tackling this new development the Allies were distracted into a further attack on Petropavlovsk but by the time they arrived the place had been effectively abandoned. The Russian vessels carrying the garrison etc sailed along the chain of the Kurils and into the Gulf of Tartary between the mainland and Sakhalin. Here they were followed and found in De Castries Bay by a detachment of the China squadron under Commodore Charles Elliot. The Russians knew, but the British did not, although they ought to have suspected it, that Sakhalin was an island and not a peninsula and that there was a channel, difficult, true, but still a channel leading into the mouth of the Amur River. The Russians were delayed only because of the need to wait for the winter sea ice to clear. Elliot decided not to attack the Russians because they were in an easily defensible position and he was outgunned. He retired southwards and waited for them to emerge but, culpably, did not maintain a watch on their position. The Russians escaped north through the channel and into the Amur estuary to the fury of the British press when the news reached London.

The Russians proceeded to strengthen their positions near the mouth of the river and there they would certainly have been blockaded and attacked in 1856 had the war not ended. The main loser of the whole ‘Crimean’ war was China which was unable, due to extensive rebellions in the south of the country, to prevent Russian occupation of the Amur valley to its mouth, positions they occupy to this day.

A definitive account of these events would be a major feat of scholarship since long periods of work would be necessary in the archives of the United Kingdom, France, Russia, as main participants, and also in those of China, Japan and the USA. The linguistic skills required would be formidable for one author and a team would probably be necessary. But in the case of this book the only primary sources referred to are British but there is no doubt that these have been studied carefully. The main deficiency is the complete absence of any primary sources from any of the other nations involved. Indeed with regard to the Russians fewer than 10 sources are listed in total and the major Russian secondary source for the war, Tarle's Krymskaya voyna, is absent (Tarle Reference Tarle1950). This inevitably means that the account can be relied upon as a statement of events from the British side but not at all with regard to their opponents and also not from that of their ally. Only one French source is cited.

An idea of the limitations of the book is provided by the frequent references to the Russian navy in a derogatory fashion; they were unwilling ‘to stand and fight’ in the open sea (page 38); ‘there was in fact absolutely no evidence that the Russians intended to use their ships for any intelligible naval purpose’ (page 163); ‘the Russians had foiled the search by reacting in a landlubberly fashion, by withdrawing the ships from all possible contact’ (page 185), as if the only possible use of naval power is in pitched battles fought on the high seas. The author completely overlooks the fact that the Russian strategy perfectly encapsulated the ‘fleet in being’ concept that became so important in later conflicts. Moreover, he does not mention that it was the Russians, and not the allies, that won the only decisive naval victory of the entire war when in an efficiently conducted operation they destroyed the Turkish fleet at Sinope in the Black Sea in 1853. The author's judgements might have been amended if he had studied the Russian sources with the same diligence that he devoted to the British ones.

Moreover the book is littered with tiresome errors. Space does not permit a full listing but, for example, Richard Collinson was not captain of Plover in 1853, the transliteration of the surname of the Governor-General of eastern Siberia should be Muraviev and not Muravev, ‘gavan’ in Imperatorskaia Gavan should be translated ‘harbour’ and not ‘bay’, and while there is note of the ‘neutrality’ agreement between Britain and Russia concerning Alaska there is no mention that there had been a long standing contract of cooperation between the Hudson's Bay Company and the Russian American Company which made the agreement more logical. The contention that the activities of the allies in the Pacific had ‘no visible effects on the wider war’ (page 70) is incorrect. Morale in St Petersburg was sustained by Russia's undoubted victory at Petropavlovsk and this went some considerable way to redress depression at the defeats of the Alma, Balaclava and Inkermann, news of which reached the capital at approximately the same time. We are informed that the administration of Lord Palmerston had not been firmly based but after the bombardment of Bomarsund (in the Åland Islands) support for it accrued. (page 170). This is curious. Bomarsund fell to the allies in August 1854 while Palmerston's administration was not formed until February 1855. The author clearly means the fortress of Suomenlinna (Sveaborg) outside Helsinki that was indeed bombarded in the summer of 1855. Even the bibliography offers examples of carelessness. The book by Greenhill and Giffard (Reference Greenhill and Giffard1988) includes the years 1854–1855 in the title and not the years 1855–1856 as is claimed. Moreover the second author is referenced as Gilford. And so on.

Sufficient has been written in this review to make it clear that this book merits attention precisely because it is the only modern one that covers all the events in the Pacific during the Crimean War. The situation with regard to the activities of the Royal Navy is thoroughly set out but that with regard to all of the other powers involved is simply based on a cursory reading of an incomplete, and in the case of China non existent, set of secondary sources. It would have been much better for the book to have appeared as one of the volumes of the Navy Records Society, the main bulk being extracts from the relevant British papers, which the author has studied in great detail, with an interlinking text outlining the activities of the other participants.

The presentation of the book is adequate but the illustrations are very poor. There are 5 maps of which 4 are of the simplest sort. The most interesting is one of the mouth of the Amur which amply demonstrates the confusing geography of the area.

To sum up, a useful book but a full account of events in the north Pacific theatre of the ‘Crimean’ is still awaited.