The Crimean War: A Hisory

by Orlando Figes

‘Our soldiers knew how to make ovens that won the admiration and the envy of our English allies,’ recalled Noir. The body of these ovens was sometimes made of clay, and sometimes from large bomb fragments cemented in a way to form a vault. The chimneys were constructed out of metal boxes or scrap metal pieced together on top of each other. Thanks to these ovens, our troops could warm themselves when they returned from the trenches or from sentry work half frozen to death; they could dry their clothes and sleep well without being woken by the terrible night fever that tormented the poor English. Our soldiers burnt so much wood that the great forest of Inkerman entirely disappeared in a few months; not a tree, not a bush was left. Seeing our ovens, the English complained about our cutting down the trees … . But they themselves made no use of these resources. None of the English soldiers wanted to build ovens for themselves; they were even less inclined to cut their own firewood. They expected everything to be given to them by their administration, without which they were destitute.8