The Battle of the Alma took place during the Crimean War between an allied expeditionary force and Russian forces defending the Crimean Peninsula on 20 September 1854. The allies had made a surprise landing in Crimea on 14 September. The allied commanders, Maréchal Jacques Leroy de Saint-Arnaud and Lord Raglan, then marched toward the strategically important port city of Sevastopol, 45 km (28 mi) away. Russian commander Prince Alexander Sergeyevich Menshikov rushed his available forces to the last natural defensive position before the city, the Alma Heights, south of the Alma River.
Battle of the Alma by Eugene Lami
French troops at the Battle of the Alma
The Coldstream Guards at the Alma, by Richard Caton Woodville 1896
The Crimean War was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between the Russian Empire and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom, and Sardinia-Piedmont.
Attack on the Malakoff, by William Simpson
The naval Battle of Navarino (1827), as depicted by Ambroise Louis Garneray.
Russian siege of Varna in Ottoman-ruled Bulgaria, July–September 1828
Russian siege of Kars, Russo-Turkish War of 1828–1829