Art can change history by confronting the public with reality. One example is the work of William Simpson. Together with the Times correspondent William Howard Russel and Thomas Chenery, William Simpson's lithographs from the Crimean War (1853- 56) contributed to a re-evaluation of the modern war in the European public. As allies of the decaying Ottoman Empire, the British Empire and France tried to stop Russia's continental expansion and became embroiled in one of the bloodiest colonial wars of the 19th century. Since the victory over Napoleon, British troops were no longer involved in such a war and considerable weaknesses were evident in the organisation of supplies and the provision of troops with the help of modern logistical instruments. During the first battles the British expeditionary corps won victories against the tsarist army, but proved unable to treat the wounded in the material battles adequately. Many soldiers died during the transport to the central military hospital, sometimes lasting weeks.
William Simpson accompanied and documented the failure and mismanagement of the British military leadership and caused a turn in public opinion with the comments of the Times journalists. But Simpson's career was anything but predetermined. Born in Glasgow, he did not start school until the age of 11. With discipline and a sense of mission, he continued to work through evening studies and became an apprentice in a lithography company. The rise of this art form was closely linked to the development of the mass media. Newspapers, magazines and journals demanded images to illustrate the written word. In 1854 Simpson was commissioned to make lithographs of the Crimean War according to reports. He convinced his clients that only local reporting would have a mass impact. When he arrived in Crimea, he was overwhelmed by the scenes and the suffering of the ordinary soldiers, who were victims of violence, but above all of the failure and incompetence of their own commanders. The face of the war and the violence had not changed, but what made the difference were the technical possibilities of telegraphy and the mass press, which allowed the public to have a new experience of the war. The images of wounded left alone, of emergency transports, dirt, illness and death, complemented the reports of people like Florence Nightingale, who became an icon of humanity in the Crimean War.
With the reputation he earned as an illustrator of the Crimean War, Simpson received commissions from magazines to report on similar events and to create a portfolio after his return. The next target was again a colonial conflict in the British Empire. In India, British colonial troops crushed the so-called Sepoy uprising with the most brutal force. In 1868 he was part of the Ethiopia expedition, a punitive mission against African tribal chiefs who had killed English missionaries. After further work as a war correspondent in the Franco-Prussian War of 1866 and the second Afghan War, Simpson retired from public life.
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.jpg "The Emperor of Austria Ascending the Great Pyramid, Egypt by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "The Golden Temple, Benares by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "A Doorway in Cairo, 1884 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Charge of the Heavy Brigade at the Battle of Balaklava, 1854 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "The Valley of the Shadow of Death, caves in the Woronzoff Road behind the 21 Gun Battery by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Battle of the Tchernaya, August 16th 1855, plate from")
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.jpg "Ditch of the Bastion du Mat, plate from")
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.jpg "North Side of the Harbour of Sebastopol, plate from")
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.jpg "One of the Wards of the Hospital at Scutari, from")
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.jpg "Head of the Harbour, Sebastopol, plate from")
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.jpg "The Sacred Rock, Jerusalem by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Funeral Cortege of Lord Raglan Leaving Head Quarters, plate from")
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.jpg "A Hot Day in the Batteries, plate from")
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.jpg "Second Charge of the Guards when they retook the Two Gun Battery at the Battle of Inkerman, engraved by Edmond Morin from The Seat of War in the East - First Series, published by Colnaghi by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Scindia")
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.jpg "The Railway at Balaklava by William Crimea Simpson")
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 - (MeisterDrucke-202921).jpg "Rock-Cut Tunnel, Pools of Solomon, Near Bethlehem, 1872 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Indian Woman Floating Lamps on the Ganges, from")
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.jpg "Fortress of Yenikale, plate from")
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.jpg "Native Shop in a Calcutta Bazaar, from")
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.jpg "The Plague in India, a Hindu Burning-Ground for Victims by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Kertch from the North, plate from")
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.jpg "Buddhist Praying-Wheels, driven by Water, Tibet by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "The cavalry affair of the heights of Bulganak - the first gun, 19 September 1854 by William Crimea Simpson")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-310561).jpg "Gallery under Golden Gateway, Jerusalem, 1871 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "The Graves on Cathcart")
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.jpg "Built up doorway in East Wall of Haram, near Golden Gate by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "The Cavalry Affair of the Heights of Bulganak: the First Gun, plate from")
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.jpg "The Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava, 25 October 1854 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Tientsin, at the Mouth of the Peiho River, on the Way to Pekin by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "The New Works at the Siege of Sebastopol on the Right Attack by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Ditch of the Malakoff, Battery Gervais, and rear of Redan by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "The Rock-Cut Statues of Bamian, Central Asia by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Sentinel of the Zouaves, Plate from")
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.jpg "Hospital and Cemetery, Scutari, plate from")
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.jpg "The Afghan Boundary, the Nialsheni Pass, on the Heri-Rud by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "An Afghan Mill at Gundamuck by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Second Charge of the Guards at Inkerman, 5th November 1854, Plate from")
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.jpg "Peshawar Market Scene, from")
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.jpg "A Quiet Night in the Batteries, plate from")
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.jpg "Graves of the Officers in the Fort on Cathcart Hill, 1854 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "The Embarkation of the Sick at Balaklava, Plate from")
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.jpg "The Petroleum Oil Wells at Baku, the Tcherny Gorod, or Black Town by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "The fall of Sevastopol and the retreat of the Russians, 8 September 1855 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Interior of the Mamelon Vert (plate from")
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.jpg "Quarantine Cemetery and Church, Plate from")
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.jpg "Second charge of the Guards, when they retook the two gun batteries at the Battle of Inkerman by William Crimea Simpson")
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 - (MeisterDrucke-146759).jpg "Well of the Steps, Jerusalem, 1871 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "The Fire Temple at Baku, on the Caspian by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "The Indian Frontier Trouble by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "The Railway at Balaklava looking South by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Salt Lake - Thibet, from")
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.jpg "The Embarkation of the Sick at Balaklava, Plate from")
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.jpg "The Admiralty, Sebastopol, plate from")
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.jpg "The Bastion du Mat, Sevastopol by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Highland Brigade Camp, plate from")
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.jpg "The Railway at Balaklava, plate from")
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.jpg "The Emperor and Empress of Germany at Divine Service in the Chapel of the Charlottenburg Palace, Berlin by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Charge of the Light Brigade under Major General the Earl of Cardigan, 1855 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Ditch of the Malakoff, plate from")
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.jpg "A Christmas dinner on the heights before Sebastopol by William Crimea Simpson")
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 - (MeisterDrucke-99442).jpg "Charge of the Light Cavalry Brigade, 25th October 1854, engraved by E. Walker, pub. by Colnaghi und Co, 1855 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "The Lighthouse at Cape Chersonese, plate from")
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.jpg "Queen Victoria as an artist: Her Majesty sketching the Falls of Garrawalt, Braemar by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Sikh Priest Reading the Grunth, Umritsar, from")
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.jpg "The Rock-Cut Statues of Bamian, Central Asia, the Largest Statue by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Camp of the naval brigade before Sebastopol by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Sebastopol from the Sea, Engraved by T. Picken, from")
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.jpg "The Afghan Boundary Commission, March in the Early Morning, in Persia by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Exhibition of the Queen")
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.jpg "The Attack on the Malakoff, 8th September 1855 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Govan, on the Clyde, with the Mouth of the Kelvin, as it was in 1842 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Tunnel under the Via Dolorosa, Jerusalem, 1869 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Unveiling the Bombay Statue of the Prince of Wales Presented by Sir Albert Sassoon by William Crimea Simpson")
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 - (MeisterDrucke-43591).jpg "Elephant Battery, 1864 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Russian Military Positions in Asia, Krasnovodsk, on the Caspian Sea by William Crimea Simpson")
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_from_The_Seat_of_War_i_-_(MeisterDrucke-323134).jpg "Attack on the Malakoff, Engraved by Edmond Morin from")
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.jpg "The Village Well, from")
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.jpg "Lintel of Barclay")
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.jpg "Charge of the Light Cavalry Brigade, October 25th 1854, detail of artillery, from The Seat of War in the East, pub. by Paul & Dominic Colnaghi & Co. (detail) by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Town Batteries, or Interior Fortifications of Sebastopol, Plate from")
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.jpg "The Monastery of St George and Cape Fiolente, Looking West by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Lord Raglan")
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.jpg "The New Works on the Right Attack, plate from")
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 - (MeisterDrucke-249281).jpg "Passage Under the Aksa, 1871 by William Crimea Simpson")
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 - (MeisterDrucke-177022).jpg "Crypt of the Church of St. Anne, Jerusalem, 1872 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Sebastopol from the Rear of Fort Nicholas by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "A Christmas Dinner on the Heights before Sevastopol, 1855 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Consecration of the Restored Schlosskirche at Wittenberg, by the German Emperor by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "The Admiralty, Sebastopol, 1856 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "A Christmas Dinner on the Heights Before Sebastopol by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Interior of the Redan, Plate from")
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.jpg "A Christmas Dinner on the Heights before Sebastopol, engraved by J.A. Vinter, from The Seat of War in the East - First Series, published by Colnaghi and Co., 1855 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Redan and Advanced Trenches of British Right Attack, 1856 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Second charge of the Guards, when they retook the two gun battery at the battle of Inkermann by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Sentinel of the Zouaves before Sevastopol by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Camp of the Naval Brigade Before Sebastopol, 1855 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "The Afghan War, Sketches at a Review at Gundamuck by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Charge of the Heavy Cavalry Brigade, 25 October 1854 by William Crimea Simpson")
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.jpg "Akalis at the Holy Tank, Umritsar, from")
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