Bersaglieri halt the Russians during the Battle of the Chernaya.

The Kingdom of Sardinia sided with France, Britain and the Ottoman Empire against Russia during the Crimean War (October 1853 – February 1856) and sent an expeditionary force to the Crimea in 1855.

King Victor Emmanuel II and his prime minister, Count Camillo di Cavour, decided to side with Britain and France in order to gain favour in the eyes of those powers at the expense of Austria, which had refused to join the war against Russia.[1] Sardinia committed a total of 18,000 troops under Lieutenant General Alfonso Ferrero La Marmora to the Crimean Campaign.[2]: 111–12  Cavour aimed to gain the favour of the French regarding the issue of uniting Italy in a war against the Austrian Empire. The deployment of Italian troops to the Crimea, and the gallantry shown by them in the Battle of the Chernaya (16 August 1855) and in the siege of Sevastopol (1854–1855), allowed the Kingdom of Sardinia to attend the peace negotiatiatons for ending the war at the Congress of Paris (1856), where Cavour could raise the issue of the Risorgimento with the European great powers.

Order of Battle of the Expeditionary Corps

A total of 18,061 men and 3,963 horses and mules embarked in April 1855 on British and Sardinian ships in the harbor of Genoa. While the infantry of the line and cavalry units were drawn from soldiers, who had volunteered for the expedition, the Bersaglieri, artillery and sapper troops were dispatched from their regular units. I.e. each of the army's 10 regular Bersaglieri battalions dispatched its first two companies for the expedition, while i.e. the 1st Battalion of the 2nd Provisional Regiment consisted of volunteers from the army's 3rd Line Infantry Regiment. The corps disembarked at Balaklava between 9 May and 14 May 1855.

Staff

Staff Units

Combat Forces

Reserve Forces

Naval Division

The naval division consisted of 11 warships and 7 transport ships, with 2,574 men and 126 naval guns.[5]

Staff

Combat ships

Combat ships:

Transport ships

Transport ships:

References

  1. ^ Arnold, Guy (2002). Historical Dictionary of the Crimean War. Scarecrow Press. p. 42. ISBN 9780810866133. Although initially opposed to intervention in the Crimean War on the side of the Allies, Cavour changed his mind when Victor Emmanuel II insisted on war so as to prevent his own dismissal and then used the occasion of the war to further Piedmont's claims to Italy.
  2. ^ Arnold, Guy (2002). Historical Dictionary of the Crimean War. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 9780810866133.
  3. ^ http://www.cgsc.edu/CARL/nafziger/854XAF.pdf [bare URL PDF]
  4. ^ "la spedizione di Crimea: gli organici - le perdite, le immagini di Bossoli". libero.it. Retrieved 29 January 2017.
  5. ^ http://www.sardegnadigitallibrary.it/mmt/fullsize/2009042212370900050.pdf Archived 2015-09-24 at the Wayback Machine Page 38
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