The crimean war was indeed quite an industrialized war, used rail, and was a siege war; but personally I don't see it of the same magnitude as the us civil war (but there's no need to have a long argument about in in the HN comments!). I'll just say that the magnitude was _significantly_ lower than USCW and WWI; certainly it was not total war economy-vs-economy -- if best it was one of the first modern technology-vs-technology wars (I assume that was also a factor in the iron/bronze age, and in the colonial wars too).

But to paraphrase Stalin, magnitude has a quality all its own. Which is why I don't consider the brief Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian wars, while of incredible political significance, to be of great significance in the discussion I raised. Neither mobilized an entire economy much less both sides'.

(Big exception to what I just wrote: they did prove the value of the Prussian General Staff model).

Disclaimer: I do have a degree in European military history, but my scholarship, for what little it might be worth, is over 30 years out of date.