2/3. A Most Desperate Undertaking. Britain embarked on a disastrous war against Russia in the Crimea 150 years ago. Tom de Waal travels to the area to consider why the British army was nearly wiped out by disease and starvation as it besieged the city of Sevastopol. Through the letters and diaries of those who were there, he discovers a military system suffused with snobbery and inefficiency. Producer Jolyon Jenkins