The New Barrack-Hospital A Scutari

Description

The engraving shows the famous Selimiye Barracks, which was used as the main hospital of the British army during the Crimean War and where Florence Nightingale also served, and the cemetery next to it. In the foreground are graves, burials and soldiers, which emphasize the cosmopolitan nature of the war and the magnitude of the losses. The towers and grandeur of the Selimiye Barracks are depicted in detail in the engraving. William Simpson, who painted this engraving, was a painter and engraver sent to the war zones for The Illustrated London News during the Crimean War. Selimiye Barracks is a wooden barracks built by Selim III for the soldiers of the Nizam-ı Cedid in the Üsküdar district of Istanbul between 1800 and 1806. It was rebuilt with reinforced concrete in 1827 after it burned down. British troops who arrived in Istanbul on April 15, 1854 during the Crimean War were stationed in Selimiye Barracks. The British Ministry of Defense established a volunteer team of 14 nurses and twenty-four nuns to care for the wounded and sick in the Crimean War and sent them to Istanbul on November 4, 1854. The head of this team was Florence Nightingale, who would later be known as the founder of modern nursing, and who was named “Director of the Hospital for Women’s Nursing at the British General Hospitals in Turkey.” Florence Nightingale and her team resided in the tower at the northwest corner of the barracks, and this section currently serves as a museum.