SIEGE OF SEVASTAPOL, 1855, an attractive Crimean War rush-seated mahogany chair, the brass back splat engraved, ‘Taken from Sevastapol September 9th 1855 by a private of the 63rd regiment’ 91cm high The siege of Sevastopol lasted from October 1854 until September 1855, during the Crimean War. The allies (French, Sardinia, Ottoman, and British) landed at Eupatoria on 14 September 1854, intending to make a triumphal march to Sevastopol, the capital of the Crimea, with 50,000 men. The 56-kilometre (35 mil) traverse took a year of fighting against the Russians. Sevastopol is one of the classic sieges of all time. The city of Sevastopol was the home of the Tsar's Black Sea Fleet, which threatened the Mediterranean. The Russian field army withdrew before the allies could encircle it. The siege was the culminating struggle for the strategic Russian port in 1854–55 and was the final episode in the Crimean War. During the Victorian Era, these battles were repeatedly memorialised. The siege of Sevastopol was the subject of Crimean soldier Leo Tolstoy's 'Sebastopol Sketches' and the subject of the first Russian feature film, 'Defence of Sevastopol'. The Battle of Balaklava was made famous by Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' and Robert Gibb's painting 'The Thin Red Line'. A panorama of the siege itself was painted by Franz Roubaud. The nurses who treated the allied wounded during these battles were much celebrated, most famously Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole.