'Bashi Bazuaks', Crimean War, 1854

Watercolour by Lieutenant Francis Augustus Grant (1829-1854), 79th Regiment of Foot (Cameron Highlanders), 1854. Inscribed as title, 'sketched at Guricklov - from recollection - Aug 1854'.

Two mounted Bashi Bazouks, irregular Turkish cavalrymen, each equipped with a slung musket and a number of pistols tucked into their waist sashes.

The 79th Regiment of Foot (Cameron Highlanders), part of the Highland Brigade, arrivied at Constantinople in late May 1854. The British camp at Scutari, situated opposite Constantinople on the Bosphorus coast, was a key staging post for troops en route to the Crimea.

Francis Grant's letters to his family record the 79th moving from Scutari to 'Aladeen' and then 'Gevrekler', near Varna, in July 1854, prior to being shipped to the Crimea. Grant took part in the Battle of the Alma on the 20 September 1854. According to monthly returns Grant died on 1 October 1854, in the 'Camp Balaclava Heights'. Since he is not recorded as either killed in action or dying as a result of wounds, it is presumed that Lieutenant Grant succumbed to disease.

During the Crimean War (1854-1856) 4,000 Bashi Bazouks, Turkish irregulars, were placed under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel (later Major-General) William Fergusson Beatson (1804-1872). The Bashi Bazouks had earned an unsavoury reputation for pillage and indiscipline during fighting in Silistria. In spite of the subsequent attempt of Beatson to instil order into the irregulars brought into British pay, his efforts were undermined by the refusal of Lord Raglan to make use of them.