paid a huge indemnity to Austria.” Ironically, Radetzky’s
victory at Novara gave birth to an even larger Italian in-
dependence movement, and in 1866 another war broke
out that finally expelled Austrian forces from Italy.
From 1849 to 1857, Radetzky was governor-general
of the kingdom of Lombardy and Venetia, controlled by
Austria. He died on 5 January 1858 in Milan, Italy, at
the age of 91. To his troops, he was known as “Vater
Radetzky.” In 1848, Johann Strauss, the famed Austrian
composer, had penned the famed Radetzkymarsch, or
Radetzky March, in his honor. Today the march is better
known than Radetzky himself.
References: Flagg, Edmund, Venice: The City of the Sea,
From the Invasion by Napoleon in 1797 to the Capitula-
tion to Radetzky in 1849; With a Contemporaneous View
of the Peninsula, 2 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner,
1853); Sked, Alan, The Survival of the Hapsburg Empire:
Radetzky, the Imperial Army, and the Class War, 1848
(London: Longman, 1979); Bruce, George, “Novara II,”
in Collins Dictionary of Wars (Glasgow, Scotland: Harper-
Collins Publishers, 1995), 181.
Raglan, FitzRoy James Henry Somerset, first
baron (1788–1855) British general
Lord FitzRoy Somerset was born at Badminton, En-
gland, on 30 September 1788, the eighth son of Henry,
the fifth duke of Beaufort, and his wife Elizabeth, the
daughter of Admiral Edward boscaWen. His older
brother, Lord Robert Edward Henry Somerset (1776–
1842), served in the British military and saw action at
Waterloo. FitzRoy Somerset received his education at the
prestigious Westminster School, and in 1804 he entered
the British army. He did not see action in his early years
but was given a post with Sir Arthur Paget in the British
Mission in Turkey. In 1807, he was posted to serve with
Sir Arthur Wellesley, duke of Wellington, during his
military expedition to Copenhagen, Denmark. Somer-
set served with Wellington during the Peninsular War in
Spain (1808–14), first as his aide-de-camp and then as
his military secretary. He was wounded at the battle of
Busaco (27 September 1810), and following the battle
of Fuentes de Onoro (3–5 May 1811), he was promoted
to the rank of brevet major. He saw additional action at
Badajoz (5 April 1812), earning praise for his heroism.
In 1814, he married Wellington’s niece and served in the
British Embassy in Paris as a secretary. With the resump-
tion of the war against Napoleon, Somerset returned to
military duty. At Waterloo (18 June 1815), he fought
under Wellington but received a horrible wound in his
right arm, forcing amputation of the limb. Unable to
fight, Somerset became secretary to the British Embassy
in Paris. In 1818, he was elected a member of Parliament
from Truro, serving until 1820 and again from 1826 to- He served as military secretary from 1827 until
Wellington’s death in 1852, following which Somerset
was created Baron Raglan and named as master general
of the ordnance. Two years later, he was promoted to
general.
Raglan is best known for his service during the
Crimean War (1854–56). The Crimea peninsula on
the northern shores of the Black Sea became the focal
point of world attention when Russia annexed it in
1783, giving rise to the suspicion that Russia would use
it to attack the Ottoman Empire and capture the capi-
tal, Constantinople (now Istanbul). Russia pressed for
Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire, and
war broke out in 1828, leading to the Treaty of Adri-
anople, allowing for Russian access to the strait of the
Dardanelles. Greek independence followed in 1832, but
tensions only increased when Russia established a mas-
sive naval base at Sebastopol (now Sevastopol) on the
Crimean peninsula on the Black Sea, threatening the
Ottoman Empire. In 1852, a dispute broke out between
Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic monks over the
custody of certain Christian shrines in Jerusalem. In
1853, feelings had grown so strong that the Russian Czar
Nicholas I claimed authority over all Orthodox believ-
ers in the Ottoman Empire. His claim was rejected, and
therefore Russian troops crossed the border into what is
now eastern Turkey in June 1853, rapidly taking control
of several large pieces of territory. Under pressure from
the British, the government in Constantinople did not
declare war, instead relying on diplomatic pressure to
get the Russians to withdraw. When this failed, the Ot-
tomans declared war on Russia (4 October 1853); En-
gland and France also declared war on Russia in March - Raglan was named as commander in chief of Brit-
ish forces sent to the Crimea.
On 14 September 1854, some 25,000 British troops
under Lord Raglan landed and occupied the port of Bal-
aklava along with some 50,000 French forces under the
command of Marshal Armand J. de Saint-Arnaud. The
allied troops advanced toward Sebastopol, home of the
czar’s Black Sea naval fleet. The immediacy of the threat
0 RAglAn, FitzRoy JAmeS henRy SomeRSet, FiRSt bARon