Circular silver medal on claw and foliated swivel suspender; the face with the young head of Queen Victoria, circumscribed ‘VICTORIA REGINA’, dated ‘1854’ and signed ‘WYON’ on the base of the neck, the reverse with a winged figure of Victory crowning a Roman soldier, inscribed ‘CRIMEA’ on the left, signed ‘B. WYON SC.’ (for the great British medallist Benjamin Wyon, 1802-1858); on replaced correct ribbon. The medal was sanctioned by Queen Victoria on 15 December 1854 and awarded to all military who disembarked in the Crimea prior to 8 September 1855 (that is, prior to fall of Sevastopol). The Crimean war of 1854-56 between Imperial Russia and a Franco-British-Sardinian-Ottoman alliance had the aim of drawing a limit to Russian advances towards the Mediterranean and also British India. The vacuum created in the Balkans by declining Ottoman power eventually led to Austro-Russian conflict and the genesis of World War I.
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