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Battle of the Alma, 1854: the first clash of the Crimean War

Crimean War · 20 September 1854 · Britain and France vs Russia · ~7 min read · Updated September 2026

By Echoes of Battle

British Guards storming the heights above the Alma river, 1854

At a glance

Britain and France (with Ottoman allies)Lord Raglan; Marshal Saint-Arnaud
vs
Russian EmpirePrince Menshikov
Date
20 September 1854
Location
the Alma river, Crimea
Period
Crimean War
Outcome
Allied victory; the road to Sevastopol opened
By the numbers
SideStrengthLosses
Britain and France (with Ottoman allies)~60,000~3,300 killed or wounded
Russian Empire~35,000~5,700 killed, wounded or missing

Rounded historical estimates; figures vary between sources.

Quick answer

On 20 September 1854 the allied army of Britain and France1, with an Ottoman contingent alongside, won the first great battle of the Crimean War1 at the Alma river, storming the heights where Prince Menshikov's Russians had dug in to bar the road to the great naval fortress of Sevastopol. It was a hard frontal victory that opened the way south, though the allies failed to follow it up at once.

The Crimean War is best remembered for a doomed cavalry charge, but that came later. The first real battle was fought on the slopes above a small river called the Alma, where a British and French army had to climb straight into the guns of a Russian position to open the road to Sevastopol.

Wide painting of mounted allied officers and wounded men in the foreground, with smoke rising over the Alma heights
The Battle of the Alma, 20 September 1854, painted by Eugène Lami in 1855: the allied staff watch the assault on the heights beyond the river. It belongs to the Louvre. Public domain

The road to Sevastopol

In September 1854 a British, French and Ottoman expeditionary force landed in the Crimea with a single objective: to take2 Sevastopol, the home of Russia's Black Sea Fleet. Marching south, the allies found the Russian army of Prince Menshikov waiting on the high south bank of the Alma river, in a strong natural position that blocked the coast road to the fortress.

The Russian position

Menshikov had chosen his ground well. His guns looked down from the heights over open slopes that any attacker would have to cross under fire, and he was so confident the position could not be stormed that he had reportedly invited spectators to watch. The allied plan was blunt: the French would turn the Russian left near the sea1, while the British climbed the slopes head on.

Black and white 19th century battle plan of the Alma river between the Black Sea coast and the Russian-held heights
Plan of the Battle of the Alma from George Dodd's Pictorial History of the Russian War (1856), with the French near the sea, the British upstream and the Russian works on the heights. Public domain

Up the heights

Under fire, the British infantry waded the Alma and pushed up the hill toward the earthwork the soldiers called the Great Redoubt.3 The fighting surged back and forth across it, and it was the Guards and the Highlanders, advancing in line up the open slope, who finally broke the Russian centre3 and drove the defenders off the heights.

They had been told the hill could not be taken. They took it.

The road opens, and a chance is lost

By evening the Russians were in retreat and the way to Sevastopol lay open. But the allied commanders, shaken by their losses and short of cavalry, did not pursue.1 The Russians fell back into the fortress and dug in, and the quick victory the allies had hoped for turned instead into the long, grinding siege of Sevastopol4 that would define the rest of the war.

Panoramic painting of smoking earthworks and soldiers in the foreground with the city of Sevastopol and its harbour beyond
Detail of Franz Roubaud's 1904 panorama of the Siege of Sevastopol, the long siege of 1854 to 1855 that followed the Alma, with the besieged city and its harbour behind the Russian works. George Chernilevsky, CC BY 4.0

Frequently asked questions

When and where was the Battle of the Alma?

It was fought on 20 September 1854 on the heights above the Alma river in the Crimea, the first major battle of the Crimean campaign.

Who fought at the Alma?

An allied army of Britain and France, with an Ottoman contingent that took little part in the fighting, under Lord Raglan and Marshal Saint-Arnaud, against the Russian army of Prince Menshikov.

Who won the Battle of the Alma?

The allies. The British and French stormed the Russian heights and drove Menshikov's army from the field, opening the road to Sevastopol.

Why was the Alma important?

It was the first battle of the Crimean War and cleared the way to Sevastopol, though the allies' failure to pursue let the Russians fortify the city for a long siege.

How many men were lost at the Alma?

Allied losses were around 3,300 killed and wounded, most of them British; Russian losses were heavier, roughly 5,7001, though figures vary between sources.

Was the Charge of the Light Brigade at the Alma?

No. The famous charge, and the Thin Red Line, came a month later at the Battle of Balaclava on 25 October 18545, not at the Alma.

Sources and notes

Numbered notes in the text point to the works below.

  1. Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Battle of Alma” ↩ a b c d e
  2. National Army Museum, “The Crimean War” ↩
  3. Ian Fletcher and Natalia Ishchenko, The Battle of the Alma 1854 (Pen & Sword Military, 2008). ↩ a b
  4. Orlando Figes, Crimea: The Last Crusade (Allen Lane, 2010). ↩
  5. Trevor Royle, Crimea: The Great Crimean War 1854-1856 (Little, Brown, 1999). ↩
  6. Wikipedia, “Battle of the Alma”
  7. Wikipedia, “Bitwa nad Almą”

Storm the heights of the Alma

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